Pain. I woke up to pain. The unguents burned suddenly into my wounds and I felt the burning fever eating away at my mind. I was soaked in sweat, rivulets of it running down my forehead. I rolled fitfully, the memory I was living through having been so vivid that the disorientation of flying back through time to the present. The lifetimes flashing before my mind’s eye. One of my hands wiped ineffectively across my face. Sweat burning my eyes.

Head full of fog I sat. The room swam around me as I looked around for water to drink. My throat was so parched. A pitcher of water had been left for me to wash but I grabbed it and started to chug it down. It spilled through the sides of my mouth and ran down my neck. I struggled to bring my wits about me. There was something I could do. Something that would bring this to an end. I couldn’t think of it.

I stumbled to the door. I needed help, I tried to call out with a parched throat and nothing came out of it. Collapsing against it the door gave way to my weight as I spilled onto the floor of the hallway. Hoarsely I whispered for help. The pain from slamming into the ground echoed through my guy as I weakly pushed myself up with my hands. My hurt arm throbbing with every beat up my heart. I began to drag myself down the hallway.

My strength ebbed and flowed as I collapsed again and again. The trail of sweat I was shedding showing everywhere I moved. I couldn’t make it any further. The sounds of footsteps filled my ears as someone rushed to me. Blearily I looked up and saw someone plump and old. I knew them, but who were they? She began to yell.

I was sharpening a stone into a spear head. My supernatural strength had shattered dozens of other attempts. I had to learn to be gentle with every movement and struggled with it. The wet sandy top of the sharpening stone ground softly as I barely pressed the shaped stone I had struggled with and drug it into two circles endlessly. Boredom gripped my mind as I wondered what the hunting men were up to.

Hands moved under me and picked me up off the floor. You could see my outline in moisture on the ground below me. I was being carried, inexpertly somewhere. I tried to look around but my eyes were so tired. I tried to talk, to ask questions. That vague feeling that I could be doing something more burned in my mind. This mortal form was so fragile. So easy to kill, to get sick. What was it that I could do?

I was chewing now. The tendon in my mouth needed to be softer. The other women told me that it was best to grind it between my back teeth. So I did so while propping my chin in one hand staring off into the clouds. Birds flew in giant circles in great hot air updrafts. I sighed and hoped that these gifts would make one of the men look past the fact that I was a dragon and let me know what it was like to be in a relationship beyond friendship. I looked at my skin and let it become tinged with the symbols I used for storytelling.

I was being set down as an old man rushed to my side. He had a bag with him and he began to set things up on a side table next to me. I was on something hard as people stripped me of clothes and soon I was laying with only my under shorts on. The bandages were stripped and the women gasped at whatever they saw. I tried to gaze down and look at it but I didn’t have the strength to lift my own head.

I had shaped the staff of the spear over the day. The knife I had borrowed sheared through wood as I made sure that nothing would snag someone’s hand while they used it. The notch at the top of the spear was ready for the head that I had spend a day sharpening. The tendon in my mouth was soft and ready to wrap tightly around the notch. The mix of sap and dung to solidify and hold it in place was being mixed.

Thick wriggling black creatures were being pulled from a jar and being set upon me. My skin was too hot for my to feel anything but the fever radiating through my body. Creature after creature was set upon me. “What’re you doing? What are these?”

The old man talked to me, “They will pull the bad blood from your system. Now sit him up he has to drink this special concoction otherwise his mind will boil and fill with bad humors.” Hands sat me up and a foul concoction was poured into my mouth. I tried to spit it out but the old man clamped my mouth shut until I was forced to swallow it. I gagged at the taste.

The women had shown me how to secure the spear head. I slotted it in place with strength. I let my hands be coated in scales so they wouldn’t be cut on the razor sharp edge I had honed. I started to wrap the long tendon around the base of the head around it. Soon it was holding itself in place as I balanced between using enough strength to keep it tight and not too much to snap the tendon. One of the women used the hardening sap and coated the tendon now that it was ready. I had to keep the tension long enough for it to finish.

The heat was dying inside me. I could feel my mind becoming unclouded for a brief moment and I had the strength to look down along my body. The black leeches I recognized now were fat with my blood. The wounds on my skin were inflamed and swollen. Pus seeped from some of them. I doubted the strength of the unguents that had been smeared on them. I wish I knew what they were made out of. My strength vanished and my head thumped against the table. The medicine he gave me made my mind swim in ecstasy. The hardness of the world I knew wrapped in the bliss of a high.

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I held the spear above my head and showed it to the many women around me. They praised me as I celebrated. I took their arms and danced in joy. I had two gifts for the hunter of my choice. I would show him that I was a worthy choice not because of what I was but because of what I could do for the tribe. They told me to test the spear so I spotted a bird far above flying quickly by. With the reflexes I was born with I threw and skewered the large bird and it spun through the air to the ground. The women whooped and prepared the bird. This spear, the eighth one I had made, was worthy. The others were crooked, misshapen, short, and blunt.

The older man was back. He began pulling the leeches off my body as they were plump and thick. He put them back in their jar. He pressed one hand against my forehead and my eyes swam as I took him in. He placed a cold cloth against my forehead and sighed. “Better but you’re not there yet.” He checked my eyes as the room swirled around him. “Medicine is still working. I’ll check on you in two turns of the hourglass and see if you’re ready for more. Let’s hope I won’t have to bleed you as well. Mildred, wipe up his wounds would you. Don’t forget to roll him and get his back. I think the unguents must’ve imbalanced his humor.”

I looked at the basket and the spear, the women told me I needed one more gift. One more thing essential to the hunters. A fur tunic to keep him warm throughout the harsh nights without the warmth of the fire of the tribe. I didn’t know how I would make one correctly as I looked at the large hide. I didn’t know the size of who I was making this for. I knew that the largest of the hunters were claimed by another. One of the younger ones would be looking for mates soon. I would make it slightly larger than the body I had now. The women had chastised me for using my claws that I could shape with my hand. I had to use their tools.

Someone was wiping my wounds and pain seared through me at their every touch. But I couldn’t seem to get my mind to care about such a thing. I could feel as if I was wrapped in soft piles of cotton and the softest furs. My skin no longer burned with fever, or at least I couldn’t tell if it was. I looked at the plump woman that had found me. I could vaguely remember her now. Mildred, the kind woman who shared tea with me.

I was being chastised. The other women were berating me for wasting furs on my attempts. They thought I was doing this on purpose as I looked at the third failed tunic. It was so big even the largest of the men wouldn’t fit it. The leather strings were so tight that they thought they would have to be severed in order to free the furs from one another. I sighed, who knew making things was so hard. I could see why Crafter had gotten so much strength from it all. While no one was looking I shaped my fingers to help me undo the string without wasting it. They didn’t need to know I wasn’t following their rules.

“Water,” I begged. I was so thirsty and weak. I was reminded of walking through the deserts of the far south. When I had been traveling before becoming the songstress whose identity I had stolen when I found her dying. My mind wandered as Mildred pulled me up enough that I could drink the water she brought to my mouth. I wasn’t on the hard table anymore. I glimpsed my flesh far paler than the sun had brought it to. The water was like liquid relief down my throat as I tried to chug it with desperation. Mildred wouldn’t let me though.

I had the tunic ready. The spear, the basket, the tunic. I would be able to offer them to the man of my choice when they returned. I wondered who would catch my eye. Fear crept into my heart as I thought of being rejected by them. I fiddled with the fire using a long stick and tried to stir the embers. The end of it burned into ash as I was lost in thought. Then the sounds of the men returning filled the air. I looked up with excitement.

My mind began to clear and with it the pain. But I could think now, not beaten down by fever and drugs. I had magic, shapeshifting could strengthen my body. So many animals could survive such sicknesses with ease. So I began to change myself on the inside. Letting enough of me revert to the hardiest creature I knew, my dragon form. My organs shifted and were cramped inside my body. I struggled in keeping my skin from showing all of the symbols that adorned my naked wings.

The men were carrying a feast of meat. Baskets and poles full of food that would sustain the tribe for weeks to come. I did my best to stay out of the way as the other women went to prepare the fire pit for cooking the large carcasses. I looked as women embraced the many men that had come back. Long kisses and hungry stares were shared. One smaller man stayed off the side and no one rushed to him. I gathered my things and walked slowly towards him. I was so afraid, I had faced beasts, elementals, I had saved the world yet I was afraid of the opinion of one man.

The fever couldn’t beat my reinforced body but I didn’t have the strength to fight off the doctor and Mildred when they gave me medicine. It kept my mind swimming in a high that I couldn’t stay awake through. I was so thin on blood from the leeches. I was grateful the doctor didn’t bleed me or make me vomit. I had messed myself at one point and it seemed that someone had cleaned me up. The world swam, I wondered how long I was sick. It felt like moments but the tired look in Mildred’s eyes told me it must’ve been days.

He was small, barely bigger than me. I called to him and his eyes fell upon me. He went to kneel and my heart sank. I didn’t want reverence. I grabbed his shoulder to keep him from going all the way down and his eyes showed confusion and a hint of fear. I showed him the things I had made, I pushed them at him and he kept his hands from touching them. I wanted to command it but it would defeat the purpose. The man backed off from me and with it disappointment filled me. Should I leave this tribe and find another, if I wanted this to happen. As I turned someone grabbed the things in my arms and I stopped.

I was being sat up against the wall and hot broth was brought to me. Mildred’s eyes shined with hope that I was recovering. Hunger ate at my stomach and it grumbled that I was only getting bone broth when it craved more. I couldn’t demand anything more substantial. The doctor that had been seeing me demanded I eat only the most simple of things. Noodles and broth.

The man that had grabbed me was someone I hadn’t noticed at first. He walked with a stick, one leg twisted slightly from an injury but I could see him work and try to be part of the healthy men. His eyes were as hopeful as I felt with his hand on the tunic I had made. He was thin, his portion of food less because of his lack of ability to hunt. I let him take the tunic, why hadn’t he approached me when I was struggling. Was he watching me this whole time? I let him take it as I offered the spear. He let go of his walking stick and leaned on the spear. He took the basket and strapped it to his back. His voice was soft as he spoke to me, “If I come back successful, will you be mine?”

I could only nod.

Mildred braced me as I made use of the chamberpot. I didn’t burn with embarrassment. It wasn’t the first time in my long life I needed the assistance of another. The memories were filling my drugged mind everytime I drifted off into blissful, addictive sleep.