I awoke before my siblings did. They seemed to be sleeping soundly, so I didn’t want to disturb them.

I yawned slightly, before looking up from the nest. What I saw, though, was enough to make my jaw drop.

Right in front of the nest were mom and dad. They looked bruised, but all right. They appeared to be sleeping.

I let out a tear of happiness as they were finally able to get over here. I thanked all that was holy before dropping my head back to the nest. They were probably way too tired to talk to me now, so I didn’t want to disturb them.

My movements seemed to have woken my brother who looked around the room drowsily. I tried to point toward our parents, but he quickly saw them by himself, and he looked at me with glee. “Meep!”

I smiled. “Meep.”

He looked ecstatic and before I knew it, he had run out of the nest toward the two sleeping giants. Well, so much for letting them sleep, I guess. I might as well go along with him and say hi.

My brother was already busy meeping in full force at the two. I decided to remain silent for the time being, I was curious as to whether this would even wake them up or not.

Mother eventually yawned. Her eye slowly opened, and she looked right down at my brother.

“Oh, look who’s out of their egg!”

She smiled, moving her head closer to my brother. “Welcome to the family, ember.”

Her gaze slowly moved toward me, and I smiled as she looked right at me. “Good morning. Your father told me how brave you were. I am proud of you, daughter.”

I smiled. “Meep!”

My mother let out a laugh. “Let's hope you all can learn to speak properly eventually.”

Behind mother, I could see Dad was starting to wake up. Mother moved her wing away from him slightly and gave him some space. “Stratus, look! Our children have hatched!”

Dad’s body suddenly jerked, and his head came into view above mother’s. “Well, hello young ones.”

He and mother suddenly began shrinking, eventually reaching the size of tall humans. They appeared to keep some of their dragon traits however, having both tails and horns.

“Come here and give your old man a hug.”

Dragons are quite large compared to humans, and me and my brother were standing at eye-level with the two. I moved closer to mother, rubbing my head against hers.

“Meep.”

Mother embraced my head with her arms, hugging me tightly. “I’m so sorry you had to see that Apocalypso. At your age, I didn’t even know what the word death meant, and you have already seen this much...”

She hugged me even tighter. “I am so proud of you, girl.”

A small teardrop formed on my face, and I hugged my mother even more intensely. “Meep.”

Mom let me go and raised an eyebrow. “Where is your sibling? The one in the white egg?”

I chuckled slightly and pointed behind mother mockingly. Sister caught the hint and pounced onto mother from behind.

“Eek!”

Mother started laughing and turned around to face our sister. “Well, hello there, Celestia.”

Celestia laughed at her successful sneak attack and let go of mother. “Meep!”

The day went by relatively peacefully. Mom eventually left to hunt for food for us, and dad was left to take care of us alone.

Dragon families work very differently from other species. Instead of abiding by strict gender roles, the parents will evenly split the responsibilities such that both contribute equally to care for the young and other things that need to be done to keep the family working smoothly.

Father eventually asked us to gather around him. He wanted to tell us about what happened the day we hatched from our eggs.

“An army of humans had cornered that snake creature outside our cave. The humans had no prior knowledge that we lived here and thought the cave was uninhabited. Eventually the snake caught the smell of you, and it tried to get into the cave. Me and your mother stopped it from doing so.”

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

I furrowed my brow worriedly. If mother and father had not been there, we would have been eaten alive...

“m-mee-”

I tried my best to vocalize dad. The motion was very taxing on my vocal cords, and the D sound proved to be perticularly difficult.

“D-Deep.”

Dad looked intrigued at my attempt at speech. “You can do it!”

“D-daaad. Daaaad. Dad.”

Father looked impressed that I said dad before mom, and he smiled with glee. “That’s my girl!”

I smiled with happiness and repeated the word over and over. “Dad. Dad.”

My sister and brother looked impressed at my ability to form the word, and meeped applaudingly.

Eventually Celestia and Ember learnt how to pronounce dad too, much to his delight. Mother would probably be annoyed that all her children said dad first, but that’s just what happens when you leave while dad tells a story.

Mom eventually returned to the cave with some deer in her mouth. They were all dead already but none of them had started to decompose.

Maybe that was due to mom’s element as a wind dragon? It was just a theory, but I hypothesized that she used airflow to keep bugs and other decomposers off the carcasses as she flew.

When she returned to the cave, dad fried the carcasses with his fire breath. They came out uncharred, practically cooked to perfection.

“Eat up, you must be starving!”

It didn’t take much convincing for us to start gnawing at the deer. In my previous life I never had the need to eat, so to now feel hunger and taste something like this was certainly interesting. The flesh was very tasty, I'd even go as far as to call it addictive.

I was not satisfied with only one carcass however, and immediately began tearing chunks of another corpse which was equally tasty. Dad must have been cooking food like this often since they turned out this well done.

After consuming the second deer, I felt full. I lied down on my back and let out a little burp.

“I’m glad you liked it.” Mother looked down at me, giggling slightly at how stuffed I must have been.

I smiled contentedly and licked my lips clean from the blood that was staining it.

Dad looked down at me, whispering something into my ear. “Apo, come with me. I want to show you something.”

I nodded, turning around to be able to stand upright again.

Dad nodded toward the cave exit, signaling that we were heading outside. I followed behind him, curious as to what he was going to show me.

The first thing I noticed was that the human bodies that had been lying on the ground were now gone. Dad didn’t seem to think that was important, however, and instead he looked down at me.

“Climb up on my back. We are going to fly.”

I looked up at my father with a smile on my face. “Ogay.”

Father looked impressed that I was able to say okay and smiled. “YOU’RE A GIFTED YOUNG GIRL, APOCALYPSO.”

I smiled before clambering up dad’s scaly wings. It wasn’t too hard, and I eventually sat calmly on his back.

“Okay. Hold on tight, we will not fly for very long.”

Dad had flown us up to the peak of the mountain that was above our cave. The peak was formed in such a way that access was only possible by flying, it was practically a sheer wall going straight up. Unless you had rock climbing equipment, you would not get up there very easily.

Once he landed on the peak, I slid down his wing and hit the soft grass that had somehow grown on top of the mountain peak.

The view was magnificent. I could see for miles, far above the forests that surrounded the mountain we lived in. There were even some cities I could see in the distance, a fair distance away from the forest’s borders.

“The humans are in agreement with us that they are not to enter or build inside our forest. But that was not why I brought you here, daughter.”

Dad looked down at me. He brought his huge scaly hand up to me, putting a finger under my chin.

“You’re very special Apocalypso. Ever since me and your mother saw your egg, we knew.”

I tilted my head slightly. “Meep?”

Dad sighed slightly. “Both your egg and your scales are a completely foreign color neither me or your mother have seen before. You might be the first ever purple dragon, and I am very curious to see what element you possess.”

I tilted my head in curiosity. I guess I never really thought about it, but usually when dragons mate their offspring are either a mix of their parents like Ember, or they are the same element as they are, like Celestia was.

“M-meep.”

Dad removed his hand from my cheek and pointed out into the air. “Try to use your breath. It should be the same element as the one you possess.”

I nodded, trying to find the same anger that built up in my chest when I was still in the care of that human. It took some time, but I was eventually able to find the innate power that was lingering in my body.

The feeling built up and gradually filled up my entire torso, creeping up my throat and finally ending right behind my tongue. I had come this far, so I might as well try to see what happens.

I let the feeling escape me, and it flowed out of my mouth like a dark shadow. From what I could see, it was a flame, but it was different than what dad would have produced. Instead of being red or orange, it was pitch-black like coal.

It didn’t last for very long. After maybe 2 seconds of releasing the feeling, I was completely spent. I tried to catch my breath, and nearly collapsed out of exhaustion.

“Apo... What is that?”

I looked up at my dad. His gaze seemed fixed on something, around where I had unleashed my breath attack. I looked down to see what he was looking at, and I spotted... a hole.

It was as if a piece of the sky was missing. It was about a meter in diameter, and it was filled with what looked like a star-filled night sky. The hole was almost in the shape of a wound, as if a knife had sliced through the very air itself. It looked like a rift... a rift in reality.

I looked up at dad with a worried look on my face, and meeped cautiously.

“I have never seen anything like this before.”

As soon as he finished his sentence, the rift closed.

I looked down at my hands with worry, knowing exactly what my element must be.

Void.