Six-month-old Glacia trailed behind her parents as they trekked the winding paths of the cavern. While they weren't moving particularly fast, it was hard for her to keep up with them given how much smaller she was, so when her dark turquoise father abruptly stopped to inspect the ground, Glacia was relieved by the chance to rest; she sat on her aching haunches and caught her breath.

“Careful… We might not be alone,” he rumbled. “These are definitely shadow dragon tracks.”

“You don't think they found the apex before us, do you?” his mate replied, her white figure moving to see them for herself.

“No; these toe impressions are recent, and there's only one set of them. Theoretically, there's a single shadow dragon who's new to this area,” he reported. “Come on. If we hurry, we may beat it to finding the gem.”

Without even a glance back at their daughter, the adults resumed walking, much more quickly than before. As Glacia stood to follow, her legs felt weak and strained; her brief rest had allowed exhaustion to catch up to her. “I'm tired,” she whimpered.

Her voice sounded louder than she'd meant for it to be, echoing faintly in the hollow depths. The white water dragoness stopped and looked back at the hatchling, but her orange eyes glared in warning. “Quiet down…!”

Glacia flinched. She took an unsteady step forward… then her trembling legs gave out and she collapsed.

“We don't have time to rest right now,” her father sighed heavily in response to his daughter after he turned to find out what the holdup was. He picked up the light blue dragoness and put her on his back before they continued.

Glacia appreciated the chance to recover, and peered down from her new perch in hopes of seeing the tracks her parents had been talking about. Unfortunately they had long moved past them in their rush, so she missed her chance. Maybe I'll see them on our way back to the ocean, she convinced herself to avoid dwelling on her disappointment.

The rocky ground began to steadily decline. The farther they descended, the darker it became, and the cooling air eventually dampened with humidity. Glacia’s scales, which had been drying out from the days they had spent exploring, felt rejuvenated by the moisture, and she carefully balanced upright on her father’s back to spread her purple-and-teal back fins to let her whole body rehydrate.

“Be still,” he commanded sternly, “or you'll fall off.”

The hatchling tensed, feeling the slightest bit indignant that he hadn't even checked to see why she was readjusting her position in the first place; if he had, he would've known she intended to hold still in her new pose, and his words had cut her movements short of reaching it. But she obediently settled more securely into the groove of his back and lowered her fins despite how much doing so physically bothered her.

Glacia listened as usual to her parents quietly remarking on the changes in the environment, and while she didn't understand half of the terms they were using, the hatchling had picked up on the very basics of gems and what sorts of things indicated their presence over the past few months her parents had spent obsessed with finding them.

Eventually they reached the source of the humidity: an underground river of sorts was flowing from a sloping hole in the cavern’s upper wall, which likely connected to the earth’s surface. “Can I go in the water?” she asked her parents excitedly.

“Huh? Oh. Sure,” the turquoise dragon permitted her, setting his daughter down from his back. “From what I can gather, the gem should be in this general area, so you can stay in the water while we search, if you want.”

Glacia happily raced into the shallows, where she lied down and seized the moment to fully relax and recover. After a few minutes, though, she did get bored, and let her eyes wander around the room. Her parents poked and prodded the ground, stopping only to discuss how long to keep looking in a single spot before moving on to the next one.

After recovering, the hatchling decided to join in the search, weaving between her parents’ legs to see what they were looking at.

“Glacia, please,” the white dragoness groaned with exasperation after nearly tripping over her, “go wait in the water. We won't be too much longer, okay?”

Her young daughter shrank, feeling crushed by her exclusion. She opened her mouth to convince her mother that she would behave if they included her, but ultimately she closed it and obeyed.

After what felt like forever to a bored and lonesome hatchling, Glacia picked up on a change in the water level. She shifted her focus to the source; the tunnel connecting the water to the surface seemed to be smaller than before. No–the flow of water is getting stronger, filling it out more, she realized. Just then the echo of thunder startled her. “Mom? Dad?” she called to them worriedly.

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“It's just thunder,” her father answered, his eyes not leaving the ground in his search for the gem. “It can't hurt you.”

That isn't what I'm worried about, she wanted to say, but she was scared of getting on their nerves.

The current became ever stronger as stormwater added to the river she was in. “It's raining,” Glacia tried to tell them again.

“That's nice,” her mother dismissed her.

When the river started to overflow, the light blue hatchling feared losing her footing, so she stepped out of the water and made her way back toward her parents, not knowing where else to go.

“Glacia,” her mother snapped, finally facing her. “We told you to stay in the river until we're done here.”

“But it's getting too deep…” the young dragoness protested.

“Then just stand by it instead.”

“What if I fall in?”

“You know how to swim,” her father interjected impatiently. “Honestly, you're just getting in our way right now. So please, listen to your mother and wait for us over there.”

“But–”

“Now,” he snarled.

Glacia retreated a step, staring up at him even after he had turned away from her to resume his gem hunt. She sniffled, then walked back to the shore of the river, not daring to get too close to it. The water had flooded a lot within the short time she'd spoken with her parents; the current picked up speed as well. With nothing else to do, she escaped to the comforts of her mind, imagining she was back home in the ocean.

Just when she had gained some sense of peace, Glacia was startled back into reality by another clap of thunder. She jumped out of reflex, and the motion caused her to slip in the water that had elevated under her paws without her realizing during the time she'd been daydreaming. With a cry that echoed around the walls of the cavern, she lost her footing and fell in.

Immediately the current swallowed her, preventing her from calling out for help. Glacia tried to use her back fins to regain her bearings and swim, but by now she had been swept into total darkness. She was a tiny speck in void with no way out, too weak to fight the surging stormwater as the current pushed and pulled her at its own discretion.

She must have blacked out; the hatchling awoke washed up on a sandy piece of land within an air pocket, but her relief was short lived when she realized it was a dead end. Getting out of the cavern would mean facing the current again, and she wasn't prepared to go through that so soon. Who knows how far it carried me from my parents… How long have I been gone…? Are they even looking for me…?

Glacia backed away from the water, then winced and lifted her foot when it had stepped on something sharp: a red gemstone. At first she could only stare at it in shock. Then anger took a hold of her.

“This puny thing is what they cared so much about?!” she vented aloud. Months of building frustrations and insecurities regarding her own worth being put beneath that of the gemstone finally came to a head. The facultative bipedal hatchling stood on her hind legs to pick it up in her hands, preparing to throw it back into the depths.

That's when she felt the power from it emanating into her teal-padded palm. She paused, its aura distracting Glacia from her rage. She remembered what her parents had said about the types of gems and their effects on dragons.

Extenders increase your limits… Enhancers increase your strength… Apexes give you a one-time use of a power beyond your wildest dreams. But you can't tell which gem is what type just by how it looks. The only ways to find out for sure were by physical touch–if a dragon knew how to distinguish between each gem type's auras–or by embedding it into one’s body.

I can remove it anytime, Glacia reminded herself when curiosity drove her to place it on her forehead. There was a slight glow as it embedded itself there by her will.

Immediately she felt that aura course through her body. It only lasted for a heartbeat, but in that time, she instantly knew it was an apex.

She should have been ecstatic, given that it was the rarest and most powerful type. But instead she felt even worse, since she'd waste its single use if she wanted its power to help her escape the cavern. I should only use this in a life-or-death situation… Glacia decided.

The hatchling gazed at the water solemnly, realizing she was completely alone. Even in the off-chance that her parents were searching for her, the cavern was too vast for them to find her before she starved or suffocated in the air pocket on her own.

Then her red eyes narrowed. It isn't much different than before, though, is it...? They aren't here to take care of me... but they never took care of me when they were here.

She glared at the waves. I don't need them--I don't need anyone. Like my dad said: I can swim, and at this point, I don't care where the current takes me; I'll make it work.