Alright mother, I get it, I should have stopped at attempt number 133. In my defense, spite is a powerful motivator. Of course, I am joking, because joking is the only thing that is keeping me level headed as I face the bear shaped abomination in front of me. It swings its paw and three trees simply fall over after most of their base was obliterated. I really hate mother sometimes, even if this is mostly the consequence of my hubris…

Let’s rewind a bit… I do have some time dilation on my side after all, nifty thing that it is, and I am going to abuse it as best I can.

Turns out that the mind fuckery she has protecting the rest of the tunnel doesn’t just try to send people to sleep. It did that for the first week of attempts, but then it changed track. It made me focus on other things. Really focus on them. This was an extremely effective method because it turned any of my errant thoughts into obsessions, thus most of my time was lost focusing on the next thing the spell threw in my face.

My siblings were all nice and cozy in the cave, hibernating away when winter came in full, and there I was running through the snow, figuring out how to handle the cold despite lacking fur, then using the chance to try out as much ice magic as my frozen lungs could hold. Fire mana spread throughout my body to keep me warm and ice mana in my lungs, now that was a feeling that I felt and I hope not to feel anytime soon. It was like chewing hot peppers and a whole mint patch at once. Ugh…

Regardless, once I managed to remember about the tunnel, I went back, only to be sent out thinking of a whole host of other things. For example, the second reason for my siblings’ slumber, meat, is hard to come by. Most animals are either hidden somewhere, or went into full on migration. And that is how I learned how to catch fish as a dragon, using my tails and sometimes water magic. Really, most of my meals, and by extension the meals that the humans got to eat, came from mother’s river, which is the only body of still liquid water around.

It is not warm, mind you. It is just liquid water. I tried jumping in it in my first attempt to catch some fish, but instead ended up almost going into thermal shock. It was just water way below the freezing point, which refused to freeze. The reason for it was somewhat simple: water mana. Even before the river reaches mother’s lake, it was filled to the brim with water mana that seems to have this passive effect of turning any snow or ice that gets close into water, while not changing the temperature. Apparently mana just does that if you have enough of it floating around aimlessly.

At first I thought mana would be inactive without someone to interact with it, but it seems its mere presence tends to shift the laws of reality a little bit. I should add that other rivers are frozen, so it’s not a matter of atmospheric pressure, it is really just that magic acts weird.

I am literally smacked back into the present, an outburst of color, though mostly red, pushes the monster back, giving me some breathing room. Sadly, it is not enough breathing room. I form a spell I’ve recently discovered, a gambit really, but I need something to distract it. Ice and fire mana weave together, forming their respective runes in roughly the same space. They start fighting, rebelling against each other, but I manage to calm them both as I introduce the movement rune between them. Yeah, it turns out that the rune father used to specialize his wind magic for flying can be used to modify the behavior of certain things.

Fire and ice are two sides of the same coin. One raises the temperature of stuff, the other lowers it. Of course they have their more traditional uses too, moving ice and flames around, but they share temperature as a target. The main reason I don’t use that part of them too much is its overall efficient use of energy. It takes a lot to warm things up with just fire, and while cooling is a bit easier, it tapers off just as easily if the outside is not already cold. Also, despite both doing the same thing, I failed to use fire to make stuff cold or vice versa. It’s like the water mana, it breaks reality and somewhat ignores laws of physics in inconsistent ways. They’re the same thing but not really so they don’t do the same thing.

However, if you mix them and use movement as the foundation? Suddenly it’s not about warming or cooling, but moving heat itself. That is why the beast’s left front paw freezes as the snow around it melts. Now that’s got to hurt you, you bast-

It roars in defiance and I can feel its mana pushing against the spell, forcing my rune to collapse by way of raw power. Well, it is a very efficient but kind of weak spell if I’m being honest. It’s gradual and can be messed with like that. Its paw is already being fixed by some innate application of blood and flesh mana, pretty smart for a raging animal.

Well, I am kind of screwed.

Before I can react I am sent flying again, this time taking the blow as I don’t want my mana to run too low. It turns out to be a stupid mistake because my head is swimming. I’m so dizzy I can’t focus on the fight, instead images of my past few weeks pile up together.

Right… there was more that happened… After all, each time I managed to focus back on the tunnel, it sent me away, a new idea being put at the very center of my thoughts. It made me refine my flight even more, learn how to properly sculpt using a mix of mana and carving with my claws, I even figured out how to play quite a few songs using my normal sound runes and how to have a few runes affect particular elements, the chemistry kind of elements not the magic ones.

I get up, panting, my body warming up to the point of forming steam around me, then roar while forming two separate ice runes, one that mixed with wind to blow all the snow around into the bear’s face, another to form icicles from nearby snow and ice, then direct them straight to its eyes. It doesn’t work, because ice is a weak ass material when you don’t have a person sized piece of densely packed ice.

I should have prepared better elements for this fight… I probably would have done that too if not for the mind magic.

Right, this fight… my most recent obsession… Honestly, halfway through my attempts at exploring the tunnel I started abusing this mind magic bullshit. It could, after all, do one thing I couldn’t do by myself. It forced me into a state of temporary hyperfocus, of productive obsession. In a way it made me harness the one half-useful thing my adhd riddled brain has going for it. Normally it would be problematic as I’d forget to eat or drink or overall take care of myself and my responsibilities, but guess what, I only partially need food and all other needs are straight up moot. Being a dragon is nice sometimes.

Anyways, problem with using RNG brainwashing to be productive: it sometimes decides to fuck you over. My newest obsession was the terror I felt when the bear thing appeared. That monster that almost flattened Spots. That thing that has been terrorizing my every moment in the past few days. I don’t have nightmares since I don’t dream, but I do still get flashbacks whenever I close my eyes, that is why I am here, in the middle of nowhere, fighting a monster I am not properly equipped to take down.

I should be able to. By all logical thought this thing is less magical and tricky than quite a few of the creatures I have hunted down with ease before. It just has blood, flesh and bone, with the only active use I can see being to fill out wounds of any sort, everything else being just a result of this thing being a meaty tank.

Flames lick its fur, frost threatens its exposed flesh, claws try their best to cleave through the thick skin, but I can’t do anything to this thing. It hits me once, my defenses protect me, but it’s not enough. I forcefully stopped all of my mana from being sent to the protection, because I knew I would become a free meal the moment I run out, so I end up having an open gash on my flank, while being pushed away and repelling the beast for a moment longer.

I am in pain.

I must run.

My wings spread open and I am out of the thing’s reach in a single beat. It roars in wild fury, even picking up a boulder from nearby to try and throw it, but nature didn’t make bears into range specialists, so it barely sends it a few meters up before having it fall next to him. This isn’t over. I will have a few more intrusive flashbacks until I recover…

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

I hate mind magic…

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I am back in the tunnel, the warmth of the strange place bringing me comfort. I look at my wound and it is pretty nasty. Worse than most of the harm I’ve received so far in this life, but I am handling it pretty well since I’m no longer tiny. I make my way to the human room and plop down. I hear a bit of panicking, a few orders being thrown about by the old lady, but ultimately I find my wound being washed and patched up. I don’t twitch or anything, despite the pain. Turns out dragons aren’t super reactive, at least compared to most animals I know. I am conscious of severe pain, but I do not shy away from it. I do not jump to retract myself from every negative stimuli… Well, I am a tough beast with passive magical armor, it makes quite a bit of sense that I would be more adept at handling harm without fearing deadly crippling.

I let my mind wander, simply laying there, listening to them talk, while the old woman does her incantation. It’s nice to understand people again.

“..Big…animal… mark/symbol/wound…Is/are…good?”

Yeah, I still need to practice a bit more. I only understand a fifth of the words they use and the sentence structure’s messing with my brain. Plus some words mean different things based on the context and I have to guess the context… Still, I did figure this language out surprisingly easy once I put my mind to it. Hell, I learned everyone else’s language better than Ayrah’s, despite her actually trying to teach me. That’s just the difference between training it and hearing it being spoken casually. It’s basically impossible not to pick up a language that’s spoken daily in your house, and despite how not house-shaped this place is, it is my home.

I feel a faint relief as the magic from the old woman spreads into the wound, starting to do… something? Her healing is worse than mothers, but drop for drop it might be more efficient than hers. The reason for that seems simple enough too, my body’s just regenerating naturally, but faster. about 90% of the energy comes from me, with the 10% she expends being used to force my cells into rapidly consuming my energy to grow and divide. My wound literally heats up and I can feel the itches of growing flesh and skin. It’s uncomfortable, but seeing and feeling it at work helps me get a little bit closer to figuring out my own brand of healing…

Damn that bear… I need to prepare and get rid of it. My mind keeps thinking back to that monster every few minutes and I can’t handle another night of not sleeping because I can’t close my eyes long enough to actually fall asleep. I need a surefire way to kill it next time. Bears are on the more intelligent side of animals, especially brown ones, which makes them even more dangerous. If this guy’s anything like the ones from back home, he will figure out a weakness in my fighting and slap me into an early grave. So far I’ve been winning fights and hunts just by being overwhelming, but that is not available against this guy.

Life magic? Might work, super volatile tho and I don’t want to use a hail mary that already got me turned into a pinata before. I could try to drop a big rock on it, but at the same time the bear is smart and strong, stronger than me at least. I could attempt to use a spear… yeah no, that’s even stupider. Sure, the tactic for a human would be to attempt and pierce a bear with a spear, using the bear’s weight against it to get it embedded deep.

But that is a human strategy used against a normal bear. I am doubtful about my current frame being fit for it. I am even more doubtful that any normal spear would do anything to a thing that literally erases trees if it gets mildly annoyed. There’s a reason you need an elephant riffle to kill an elephant, and that bear is more elephant than bear.

I am suddenly self conscious. I am sitting here, on my side, looking annoyed into empty space, while there’s people looking worried about me, and I think Ayrah’s doing her best attempt at dragon baby bonding by carefully scratching the ridges between my scales, getting rid of some grime that stuck to me from rolling in half frozen mud. My human self would be horrified, embarrassed and probably strangle me for this, but I give her a light lick on the cheek in thanks. It just… feels right… I guess…

I swear I will end up strangling whomever invented mind altering magic. Since I realized it exists I’ve been triple guessing everything I do… Even more than normal, I mean.

Darkness.

Oh, I collapsed. Forgot I tend to do that whenever I am exhausted… It has been a while since the last time I did it, after all. Oh well, a nap would probably help.

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I fly through the heavy snow, my third eyelid acting like an aviator’s goggles, letting me still get a good view despite everything. The wind is harsh and swift, I can’t catch the smell of anything, but when your prey is a huge mutant, it is not too hard to figure out where it went. I follow the trail of broken trees, mangled remains and just overall destruction. The bear doesn’t go in the area around the chaos pillar, but it does visit its outermost parts every so often. That is where I find it, actually. I watch as it runs after a pack of armored wolves.

Mutant animals don’t behave like animals. That much is clear. The bear is in a state of constant bloodlust, hunting far more than it should, battling in spite of pain and malformations. I see it break its leg from pushing itself against the ground too hard, but the limb just sets itself and keeps functioning the next second. Well, guess I might as well draw its attention.

I don’t care to save the wolves, I might have at some point in the past, but my current self killed too many of them to even see them as anything but food. Still, I need it to be focused on me if I am to kill the damn thing, and I won’t be able to do that if it keeps running after the canines.

I get my chance right after it kills another of the bone-plated wolves, splattering its upper half. My wings press against my body and I dive, swiftly grabbing the meat with my hands and feet, then fly circles around the bear. It stops and turns to me, roaring loudly enough that it makes me deviate in my path a bit, but I don’t fall. Good, it hates me. I fly away, and i can hear it thundering behind me. I don’t rise above the trees, which forces me to dodge tree trunks and branches, though I do still have to fly through a few, having them break from my size and speed.

The bear looks like it might stop chasing, but it doesn’t matter, we got where we needed to. I crash down, rolling through the snow as I lose the piece of meat I was carrying. I get up, but I limp, just barely dragging myself away. The beast sees me. Despite the distance I can just feel the savage delight it feels as it rushes mindlessly at me. With the sheer momentum it has, it could probably run through me if I let it. It gets close, oh so close, I almost jump away as fear creeps in, but before it can crash into me, it simply crashes down. The snow it steps on falls, a massive hole in the ground making itself known. The beast? It has some fifty thick spears made of living wood jutting through it. Most of them simply got crushed, but something so fast can only have so many armor plates hidden through, or it would become a turtle.

I look down and I see it, struggling, but slowly fixing itself, taking in the wood as part of itself, uncaring of the pain it likely causes. It tries to climb up, but the beast is wet and its footing is unsteady from all the gold coins sprinkled through. I look into those monstrous eyes, and beyond the bloodthirsty beast I see myself. My calm, dismissive, bored expression as I look down at this vile thing that sought to eat me.

Killing has become easy. Oh so easy it is that I maintain my calm as I form lightning, most of my mana being spent to put down the monster. A huge hole, mana saturated water, gold, some fifty open wounds and a lungful of lightning. That is what is necessary to put down this beast, yet it nonetheless died.

It feels hollow. This wasn’t a victory, this was just a menial hunt.

I spend most of the day ferrying back to the nest the gold coins I took and then I drag the body of the beast. At least the humans seem happy for some ungodly reason. Bear meat stinks… Then again, they may know how to handle it. Also, the fur seems like it would help them with warmth. The cave’s nice but it can be chilly in the mornings.

“Great hunt! Great hunter!” whispers Ayrah to me, almost in passing. Well, guess I am a good hunter. I am still a bit miffed that something so terrifying was so easy to kill with a boring trap, but that just makes me wonder if I became an adrenaline junky. I manage to shake off the thought and I decide not to mess with mind magic anymore, but before all that I want to eat the beast’s core. It was basic and had less mana than many other creatures, but it was still a tough foe and there’s no reason to miss out on something useful. I do hear something strange as I dig into its chest, while the others prepare to butcher it.

“Heart eater! Heart eater!” I hear Alek giggle innocently, his tone being halfway to screaming in excitement. I turn and see Edith laughing with him, speaking in a calmer tone.

“Heart eater… good name!” That gives me pause. That reminds me that I don’t actually have a name in this world. Man, it’ll be weird to be addressed as something different suddenly. I wonder if I could find a way to make them use my old name…

My eyes dull.

My blood freezes.

My body drops.

I look. I read. I check every “book”, every memory, every little moment of my life. I check everything twice over and I am forced to go back to reality as Ayrah shakes me awake. She looks worried.

Of course she is, I suddenly dropped and started crying.

But then again, how could I not cry when my entire being is asking a simple, horrifying question?

What was my name?