‘Something’s wrong.’ He thought for the hundredth time. His Aether refused to do anything more than circulate throughout his body, but he knew that this was not its purpose.

Even worse, his Ether refused to budge from within its core no matter how much he willed it.

An entire day had passed- he decided that the lights turning off meant it was night and when they were on it was day-, and the humans had not bothered him since.

And yet, even with so much time to concentrate and think and meditate, he came no closer to understanding how to manipulate his Aether and Ether properly.

He threw himself to the ground with a sigh, staring up at the ceiling, wishing that he had more information to work with.

And then, his wishes came true.

The corner of his mind- the exact same that had been repulsed by his tears and where the words had originated, seemed to double with activity. Thoughts, so distinct from his own, willful, arrogant and evil, were projected into his mind.

‘You yearn for knowledge, hatchling? Find a tear in reality, and I, Apophis, Gaia’s Nemes-.’

The projected words cut off suddenly, and that corner of his mind snapped closed. He only realized a full second later that his whole body was trembling and sweating.

‘What was that… evil thing?’ He wondered, only realizing with this thought that the steady flow of words emerging from that corner of his mind, always fitting precisely what he wanted, had been cut off as well.

It wasn’t too bad, but it was a bit annoying. He still retained the words he already knew; he just didn’t have one for something evil, for example.

Definitely preferable to having ‘Apophis, Gaia’s Nemes-‘ Inside of his head, however.

‘Speaking of… What did it mean by ‘find a tear in reality’?’ He wondered. He probably shouldn’t listen to a being with so many red flags, but at the same time, he had no clue what or where a ‘tear in reality’ was in order to avoid it.

‘Should’ve thought of that before trying to tempt me, evil thing,’ He thought, trying to ‘vocalize’ his thoughts like Apophis had done, but it was unlikely that the evil thing had gotten it.

‘Speaking of Apophis… I need a name.’

Names were something all dragons needed. The moment he had heard of a name and been reminded of them, his instincts demanded that he obtain one.

‘I’ll just be… Nemes,’ He thought, finding it amusing to steal the evil thing’s last name; and, considering how boring his life had been for the most part, this amusement was hysterical to him.

Immediately upon deciding this, he could feel a slight change.

Unfortunately, dragons couldn’t grin, nor could they let out a hearty chuckle, but Nemes did snort at the thought.

Nemes regretted the decision quickly, remembering how the thing’s presence in his mind had paralyzed him. He wanted to take it back, but it was too late. The name was engraved into his Aether and Ether cores, and it could not be taken back without significant effort.

…And then, only a few minutes after he had settled down and reluctantly decided to return to trying to figure out Ether and Aether, the humans barged in again.

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This time, mostly because Nemes didn’t fight back and was already shackled, his capture was significantly gentler.

Soon, he was back within the same room as before. The dog was there again, and this time, the dog weaved nimbly between rows of poles protruding from the ground. He copied it without needing to be told this time, but he was not nearly flexible enough to weave through them.

Not only did it take longer for him to finish the course than the dog, but he even almost knocked himself out on the very last one.

They had him do it several more times, until the poles disappeared underneath the ground. He expected the humans to come and gather him, but after almost twenty seconds of staring at the dog and being stared at by the dog, he realized that they must want him to do something else.

…But what? The dog wasn’t doing anything; it was just sitting there, staring at him. It looked a bit afraid; is that what they wanted? Did they want him to act scared? He was already sitting, and he was already staring back at the dog.

His broken pride and burning hatred for the humans both rebelled against this idea, but the image of electricity was clear within his mind. He could almost clearly remember the pain it had caused him.

…He decided to wait a while. It was possible the humans wanted something else form him; maybe they were testing him, to see if he was going to attack the dog like he had the bugs.

Nemes was pretty certain that humans liked dogs, knowing that dogs were ‘domesticated’ wolves and ‘pets’, and so he would leave the dog alone.

‘Unless they want the opposite?’ Nemes wondered. He knew that humans trained their pets to act as weapons; was that what they wanted from him?

‘Wouldn’t the humans have been happy and not angry at the death of their bug, then? No, no; they’d want their pets to only kill the things that they want them to kill.’ Nemes thought, unconsciously gritting his teeth. It was difficult to guess what the humans wanted from him… why couldn’t they just speak a language he already knew?

‘If that’s the case, then they would want me not to kill it. They haven’t given me any sign of wanting its death. It’s probably still a test, but of a different sort. What do they want? What don’t they want?’

He hadn’t even noticed it, but it was as though the world had turned into a void where only he existed. This concentration was broken easily, however, when he heard the dog stand.

Nemes’ eyes refocused, locking onto the dog and staring at it with an apparently fear-inspiring level of intensity. It lowered its head submissively, stepping backwards, but he did not miss that its posture subtly got a bit more prepared, as though it was ready to fight but did not want to.

Nemes tensed up. ‘The dog is afraid. Are the humans angry?’ He looked to his left, where humans were visible behind the pane of glass, but they didn’t seem angry.

He was- probably- safe, for now; but the fearful dog still remained, and Nemes needed to figure out what to do.

***

Hours had passed, and neither Nemes nor the dog had moved much. They remained on opposite ends of the room, the dog cautiously watching him.

The legion of humans behind the glass had steadily decreased in number until, finally, there were only three left; one a guard and the others researchers, or whatever the unarmored humans were.

Nemes had decided to do nothing, and so far, there was nothing wrong with that. After so long had passed without any changes, however, he had lost interest in the dog and instead paid attention to the strange portion of his mind that wasn’t really his mind, which had recently opened up again.

Words came through it, just as they had before ‘Apophis, Gaia’s Nemes-‘ appeared. He couldn’t help but worry that he would show up again, though, and tried his best to monitor it while he thought about other things.

…Unfortunately, his life was startlingly simple. There was only so much he could wonder about what a ‘tear in reality’ was, or who Apophis was, or what the humans wanted with him, were capable of or would do to him. He was far too frustrated with Aether and Ether to bother working on them right now; he was, quite frankly, on the verge of giving up on them.

Only occasionally would he think of something even mildly important, such as realizing that the chunk of metal he had taken as a trophy from the bug had been lost to the humans.

***

He was never moved to another room. The researchers and guards switched out a few times before the lights shut off, and Nemes had a hard time sleeping in the open.

When he woke up, the dog was still fast asleep. The moment he started moving, however, its eyes snapped open, watching him as he moved around and stretched a bit but never moving from its spot, curled up in the corner of the room.