It was dark, it always had been, despite the knowledge she gained, nothing changed. But suddenly, there was a change, and she broke free. When she came out of the egg, she saw her siblings and knew they would have to fight to survive.

She immediately began fighting with the one closest too her. They clawed and bit at each other while trying to avoid getting hit by the other one. Then she saw an opening, her opponent slipped! She immediately lunged at him… and missed?

‘huh? Why did I miss?’

Then she realized she fell for a trap, she was tricked by her sibling, in short, she was royally screwed. She saw his jaws getting closer, and because she was in the middle of jumping with all four her limbs of the ground, she couldn’t dodge. She knew she was going to die at this rate, but couldn’t do anything in this position.

She saw his jaws close around her shoulder, and then he pulled his head back. With a tearing sound, her wing came of, and a feeling she never had before invaded her mind, she was in so much pain! She knew she had to hold on or she would die, but in the end she couldn’t and fell unconscious, she knew that was it for her, she would die there.

…

She woke up.

‘Ah, my shoulder hurts so much! Wait, my shoulder hurts? I’m still alive? How?’

She carefully looked around without moving her head, and realized what happened.

‘The fight is over? My siblings must have continued fighting each other thinking I was already dead. Did they kill each other? Or is there one remaining?’

She then heard a crunching sound and froze up. Carefully turning her head, she saw the victor of the fight, carelessly feasting on one of her siblings with it entrails pulled out. The one on the ground seemed to be the one that ripped of her wing. Though she knew that she would suffer the same fate as him if she didn’t do anything about it.

As silently as possible, she tried to stand up, but she immediately gave up because of the pain, there was no way she could sneak up on him, let alone fight. Her brain went in overdrive to find a way to survive this. She knew he would come to her sooner or later if she didn’t do anything, the he would find out she was still alive and kill her anyway. Eventually, she decided to wait until he ate some more before begging him for her life, it had an almost zero chance of working, but it was her only way out, she couldn’t think of anything else.

After she thought he would have eaten enough to not be hungry anymore, she let out a small whimper. He immediately turned around and observed her warily. Looking at his indifferent face, she thought it had failed and that he would just kill her. When he slowly crept closer while examining her she tried to beg for her life again. When she saw him starting to smile, she was scared for her life, and tried one less time to beg him for her life, trying to look as non-threatening as possible.

Then he suddenly jumped on her back and pinned her down, she panicked, thinking he was about to kill her, until he spoke to her.

“Shut up.”

She immediately did as she was asked, holding on to this last strand of hope. When he let out a satisfied growl she thought she may actually survive this.

…

After he was satisfied, he threw her one of the corpses to eat, which she immediately did. When she finished, she felt power course through her body before she fell asleep, knowing she at least would live a little longer.

When she woke up, she first looked around where her brother was, when she saw him passed out on the other side of the cave she froze up. This was her chance, if she could kill him now, she could eat him and get stronger. She stood up and noticed her shoulder had healed although her wing hadn’t regrown. She crept closer as silently as possible to not wake him up. When she was almost next to him, she suddenly saw his eye fly open.

‘Ah shi-’

He stood up and slammed her head against the floor before she could react. She thought that was it, he would kill and eat her for her stupid attempt on taking his live. When she saw him having more interest in his own development than her she gave herself a mental slap.

‘Calm down, you can still try to talk your way out of this, just say whatever you can, it doesn’t matter if he’s suspicious of you, that can be fixed later.’

He finally stopped examining his own body and looked back at her before asking a question.

“So, what were you doing right next to me while I was sleeping?”

She couldn’t calm her nerves, but she still tried to give a satisfactory answer.

“I-I was s-scared something was wrong with y-you.”

“Explain”

‘yup, he definitely knows what I was trying to do.’

“I f-fell u-unconscious b-because I needed to h-h-heal after getting w-wounded badly, so when I s-saw you u-unconscious I thought you were w-wounded t-too.”

“And why would that scare you?”

To this, she weakly fluttered her remaining wing.

“Ah yes, you are pathetically weak and incapable of running from bigger predators, that might indeed be a problem…”

‘I’ve never heard something I’m so offended by that I 100% agree with, now I need to get the conversation on another topic before he makes a decision so I can come on his good side again.’

Then she began looking with puppy-eyes.

“What?”

“D-Do you have some f-food?” she said with a hint of hesitation, “I’m r-really h-hungry..”

‘Please work, please work.’

“I’m sorting through my Ancestral knowledge first, you should do so too, after I’m finished, I’m going to explore the place a bit, we’ll see if there’s any food, and even if there is, you aren’t getting anything until I’m full, got it?”

When he said this, he glared at her, daring her to oppose him.

“Y-Yes, I-I’ll follow you!”

Yes! He definitely hadn’t let her of the hook just yet, but he gave her a chance and she would take it! She wouldn’t make the same mistake twice! Next time, she would make sure she didn’t try to kill him right before he woke up!

…

She was getting hungry, her brother already went outside to check the situation, and now she just had to be patient and wait for him to come back, but she quickly found out patience wasn’t her strongest point.

When he went back in the cave, she was already waiting impatiently, hopping from one leg on the other. Looking at him nervously, she asked him a question.

“So? How is it outside?”

“Pretty good, we have water close by, and we don’t seem to be in the territory of some apex predator.”

“Can we go hunting then?”

“…yes, follow me, but don’t get too exited, we have to be careful.”

“Okay!”

He obviously didn’t trust her at all, but that was okay for the moment, food was more important right now.

When they went outside she saw the river and immediately ran towards it to drink, after she finished drinking she noticed her brother looking at her with disappointment. When she noticed this she realized how careless her behavior was.

She really wanted to eat so she impatiently followed her brother through the forest. When they encountered a horned rabbit her brother quickly killed it and started to eat it.

‘Shit, if we’re talking about raw physical strength, I’m barely any better than that rabbit right now, and he killed it that easily, I don’t stand a chance in an upfront confrontation, do I? I better wait for a good chance, but damn am I hungry.’

When she approached to take a part for herself though, he slapped her nose with his tail and growled at her. Not wanting to anger him already, she backed of and let him eat, annoyed that he really means what he said. After an hour or so, they encountered another pair of rabbits, one of them was far bigger though.

“You act as a decoy and take the smaller one, I’ll ambush the big one, understood?”

Excited by the idea she was going to fight again, she replied loudly without thinking.

“Yes!”

“Keep quit dumbass!”

But it was already too late, the horned rabbits heard them and came charging at them. While she panicked, her brother quickly climbed in a tree and jumped on the back of the big one when it went past him. Seeing this, she regained a bit of courage and confronted the smaller one.

When she saw it charging towards her, she had a little bit too much courage, and decided to take it head on trusting her scales to protect her. When they collided though, it’s horn effortlessly pierced through her scales. It hurt, but not as much as when her wing got ripped of. When she realized this and the fact that it wasn’t a fatal wound, she bit down on it and was able to kill it.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

While she was collecting herself and checking her wound, her brother finished his fight too. Thinking he would claim her prey too now that he had finished she waited with a dejected look. When he started dragging his prey back the way they came though, she became confused. Then he suddenly stopped and turned towards her.

“What are you waiting for? A predator to snatch our prey?”

Confused, she asked him for confirmation, hoping it was what she thought.

“uhm, c-can I also eat something?”

He looked at her like she was annoying and replied:

“I’m full for the moment, so you can eat the small rabbit, I’m going to take this one with me to eat later, now hurry up and let’s go”

Hearing his answer, her expression immediately brightened and she quickly ate the whole rabbit afraid he would go back on his word and take it from her. They continued towards their nest until she suddenly got an idea and came closer to him. He warily observed her actions, but didn’t do anything against it.

“Thank you for the food! You really are the greatest!”

She said this while trying to look at him with an adorable expression, but he answered her coldly.

“You aren’t getting this one, give it up.”

“Damn it… was it that obvious?”

“Yes, and you should look out during your next fight, if you keep getting wounded like that you will have to expend too much energy healing it every time and get hungry too fast.”

She was getting annoyed by his preaching, she new she wasn’t the smartest and maybe a bit naïve, but he didn’t have to say it in such a way!

“Yes, you don’t have to point it out like that, I learned my lesson and wasn’t planning on making the same mistake twice, what are you? My mom?”

“No, your daddy.”

“Huh? Aren’t we siblings?”

“Ah, you haven’t checked that part of your Ancestral knowledge yet? Shame, humanity has some fun customs…”

She only looked at him with a confused face, not knowing why he would have bothered checking a lower races knowledge in the first place, but decided to check it anyway, curious about what he meant with that. When she found what she was looking for she felt herself heating up in embarrassment.

“Ve-very funny of you.”

When he saw her face get a shade darker like that, and heard her stammering like that, he bursted out laughing at her expense. She could only look at him angrily, which only made him laugh more. When he finally calmed down, they continued towards their nest. She though, had seen another piece of information that her interesting.

‘Doesn’t that mean he takes care of me? Maybe it isn’t such a good idea to take the risk and assassinate him, maybe I should just let him carry me to the point I can take care of myself...’

While she was thinking about this, they made their way back to the nest safely. When they arrived, her brother took the rabbit inside to eat it in peace and rest a little bit.

He then took a light nap to deal with his exhaustion, since the forced coma didn’t refresh him in any way. While he was sleeping, she was thinking about how she would proceed. Eventually, she decided to try to kill him one more time, and if that didn’t work, she would just follow him.

She stood up as quietly as possible, and tiptoed over to him, when she was almost halfway though, he suddenly stirred. He slightly opened one eye and growled at her. Startled, she ran back to the other side of the cave and curled herself up.

‘shit, his awareness is on another level, assassinating him is just not possible like that. You know what? I’ll just let him carry me, and if he ever gets in a situation where he is too badly wounded to even move, then I’ll go for it. Yeah, let’s just do it like that, maybe I’ll get lucky…’

After this, she fell asleep.

…

It seemed he still tolerated her, so she made sure not to mess up and stay on his good side. They slowly got stronger, and when she noticed her brother was able to take those things head on she got slightly jealous but kept herself in check. While they were getting stronger they found a boar-monster and tracked it back to its den, only an hour away from their nest. Although it made them uncomfortable to have such a neighbor, they wouldn’t be able to defeat it so they left it alone. After 2 weeks though, her brother decided they would go kill it. And she was dragged along of course.

When they arrived, they quietly sneaked closer. She was so nervous she could barely hold herself back from just bolting away.

‘Damn, I’m so about to die, we totally aren’t strong enough to take it on and if something goes wrong he can just fly away but I will be toast, that bastard.’

She heard her brother repeating their plan and could only go along with it.

“So, You go in, lure it out and I swipe at its hind legs to cut its tendons as it runs out, okay? And then we keep agitating it in turns until it loses the ability to fight back, understood?”

“Y-yes…”

*sigh* “you don’t have to worry, it will directly lock onto me after I wound it, so just run out without looking back and follow the plan, it will all work out.”

She hesitantly nodded and then began preparing herself. While she was preparing herself, he positioned himself next to the entrance of the den, a hole in a small hill. After he was ready, he gave his sister the go sign, and she ran in.

It was dark inside the short tunnel, but nothing her eyes couldn’t see through, she was a dragon after all. When she entered the place where the boar slept, it was already wide awake and staring at the intruder. She cursed in her mind while sliding to a stop and turning around, running out as fast as possible.

Once outside, it turned it’s attention towards her brother, but it seemed it was tougher than expected, she hurriedly hid in a bush observing the boar. When she saw her chance, she ran towards it and clawed at it’s belly, before running again. This time with the boar chasing her, she ran for her life while cursing at her brother for not doing anything. When it almost caught up with her, her brother finally attacked it.

After she caught her breath, she ran back towards the boar which almost shook her brother of and bit down on its hind leg. When she saw her brother blinding it in one eye, she thought they would have a good chance of actually winning this. She quickly scratched it’s nose to grab its attention so that her brother could finish the job. As soon as she saw him crashing against the already wounded leg and heard the beautiful sound of breaking bones, she new they won as long as they were careful.

After it died, it was time to eat. But she held herself back and followed the rules while thinking of a way to claim more for herself without angering her brother, when she suddenly heard him speak up.

“Since this creature won’t completely fill me up and it would be unfair to take everything for myself after we both worked so hard, I got an idea about how we can split it.”

She looked at him curiously and with a little bit of suspicion.

“Allow me to explain, we split it in three parts and each takes one part.”

“Then what about the third part?”

“I will take that part too.”

“Huh! Why?”

“Two reasons; I’m the leader, so you can be happy you get something already and this creature would be impossible to defeat at this point without me, while I would be able to defeat this creature without you if I take a big risk, you would surely die if you challenge it on your own without being as strong as it or at least being able to use your dragon breath, cause, you can’t fly, remember?”

Hearing his answer she realized it had some logic in it and hesitantly agreed. She knew he was right, but it still annoyed her. She didn’t have time to grumble about it for long though, as she went in a half-conscious state because of the sudden growth. She wasn’t bothered by it too much though, trusting her brother to watch over her until she could properly move again. When he suddenly stood up and began looking around she got a really bad feeling.

“Hmm? Brother, what’s wrong?”

“Don’t move, I feel like something is watching us.”

After these words, she got even more nervous, when she saw him suddenly looking up and saw his eyes widening she knew something was seriously wrong, but couldn’t even bring up enough strength to look up. She didn’t need to though, as her brother began running and she soon saw what was chasing him, a full grown dwarf wyvern. She completely misunderstood his actions though.

‘Is he sacrificing himself to lure it away? But why would he do that? Does he actually care about me?’

Her thoughts were a mess but she knew one thing: if that thing came back she was dead. She tried to crawl back inside the den hoping it wouldn’t dig her out. When she finally got in she curled herself up, too exhausted to think anymore and fell asleep.

…

She immediately woke up again after having a nightmare about her brother and her getting eaten by the wyvern, knowing she wouldn’t be able to sleep like this, she started thinking about their time together.

From when he spared her when they hatched, to where he always came right on time when they were fighting the boar…not much, now that she thought about it, but she still felt guilty.

‘I can’t believe I kept thinking about ways to kill him safely when he looked out for me that much, he had all rights to be so suspicious of me, I’m a terrible sister, and now, that winged lizard got him, maybe if I wasn’t here, he would still be alive…’

Like this, her thoughts kept rolling around and she completely lost track of time until she suddenly heard something outside the den.

She began panicking and hyperventilating.

‘What if it’s something stronger than me? His sacrifice would have been for nothing! I can’t let that happen, I need to stay alive!’

She calmed herself down and noticed she couldn’t hear it anymore, it probably noticed her and was now crawling closer. She thought of a way out, but she realized she had to get past whatever was coming for her. She concluded it would be expecting her to hide and launch a surprise-attack, so she stood ready instead in hopes of surprising it with such an irrational action to buy her enough time to slip past it.

When she was about to sprint forward, she suddenly saw a well-known scaly face and completely froze up. She couldn’t believe it, was she dreaming?

“Brother?”

“Yes?”

“Brother!”

At that moment she excitedly jumped up and towards him but he smacked her away with his claw.

“Keep your distance.”

She just stood up again, happily looked up to him.

‘Yep, that’s my brother, I can’t believe he’s still alive! Why did I ever think such a lowly creature could kill him? I need to make sure I don’t make the same mistakes again, I’ll make sure I’m worthy of him!’

“Thanks for luring the wyvern away and saving me! Without you it would have surely eaten me while I couldn’t move!”

‘First things first, I need to properly thank him for saving me, I’ll make sure to break the ice someday! Just you wait!’

He stiffened up for a moment before glaring at her.

“Yes, so make sure it was worth it and I didn’t just risk my life for nothing.”

“For sure! You won’t regret it, I’ll never forget what you did for me!”

“You better don’t. Now, let’s go back”

‘I saw you stiffen up like that, you hesitated but I know what you’re hiding~’

While they went back they hunted a few monsters to fill themselves up. When they were back in the cave, they both decided to just go to sleep again, her brother because he wanted to heal as quickly as possible, she knew he was worried about her! He didn’t even wait for al his wounds to heal before looking for her! And she could finally sleep knowing her brother would protect her. And without knowing it, they both were fantasizing about devouring that annoying wyvern.

…

She woke up a little bit before her brother and while looking at his sleeping figure decided to check her Ancestral Knowledge to see if there was a word to describe her brother. And she indeed found something! Apparently, humans called somebody like her brother a ‘tsundere’, somebody who cares about someone or loves them but refuses to admit it, humans really had a word for anything didn’t they? Wait a minute, she checked again, l-l-loves them!? Her face turned a shade darker and she looked at her brother who was stretching himself at the other side of the cave. She quickly sat on her tail which was swaying back and fort just in time to hide it from her brother who looked at her strangely.

She tried to look as normal as possible until he looked away. When he finally did she relaxed again, she also had time to calm down and think about it.

‘There’s no way he actually loves me, not in such a short time, he probably just cares about me as his smaller sibling. But still, why did I get so flustered about the idea?’

At that moment her thoughts got interrupted by a sudden light. She jumped up in fright until she saw it was just her brother using a dragon breath, wait, that wasn’t JUST a dragon breath! It was beautiful, each time he breathed out flames shot out, but it didn’t go in the classical cone or followed the normal flow of air, it made intricate patterns, each time something different. She also noticed they followed the mana-flow originating from her brother, that explained the lack of smoke. She suddenly realized, wasn’t infusing their breath with mana something only adult dragons did?

She could only think he had ridiculous talent in magic, then she remembered something and quickly checked her Ancestral Knowledge. Just as she thought, there were methods about how to improve their mana-quality(useless for a True Dragon, they already had completely pure-mana), techniques to improve their mana-reserves, multiple magic theories and runic language and everything, but no actual spells…

‘Oh oh, he’s gonna be so pissed when he realizes he has to invent all his spells on his own, I better keep quit and let him find out himself…’