CHAPTER 92: NEED MOTIVATION!

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Fenna chuckled. "That sounds like a terrible plan."

Zephyr flashed a grin. "It is. But it’s ours."

He looked over one last time at Star, whose sleeping bulk shimmered beneath layered patches of drifting mist and smoky warmth. His new frame, longer and denser than any fledgling had a right to be, pulsed with dormant power. The faintest emberlight glowed beneath his molten-colored scales—softly, like a sleeping forge dreaming of fire.

"You were born to burn brighter than the rest," Zephyr murmured under his breath. "We’ll keep feeding that fire. Carefully."

Behind him, the morning wind stirred embers from their small pit. Smoke curled upward toward the shining sun, and somewhere deeper in the Emberwood forest, a roar echoed faintly across the hills.

A warning. Or a promise. Nobody knew.

Their next meal was waiting for them. They just had to hunt it down.

They both looked to Star.

Fenna didn’t laugh, but a faint smile tugged the edge of her lips. "At least he didn’t try to eat you."

"Small miracles," Zephyr muttered.

Then Fenna straightened her back and clapped her palms against her thighs. "Alright. Enough sitting in the ash."

Zephyr looked up. "Orders already?"

She tilted her head. "Muse keeps staring at my belt pouch. I’m worried she’s considering it as a food."

Zephyr’s mouth twitched. "Might not be far off. She’s a survivor, that one."

"I’ll take survival over drama," Fenna said. "And right now, survival means meat. Something big, juicy, and preferably not poisonous."

Zephyr nodded, scanning the edges of the clearing. "Today, we will hunt. For real this time. Muse, no more nibbling on bark."

Muse mooed sullenly behind them, spitting a splinter from her mouth with almost theatrical offense.

Zephyr added, "We go big. Strong prey. Something with enough meat to fill a dragon belly."

"No offense," Fenna muttered, "but your foraging strategy so far has been: ’poke dangerous places with a stick and hope nothing bites us first.’"

Zephyr gave her a look. "You say that it’s not a valid method."

Muse mooed again—longer this time, as if to remind him her flank still bore a Fire Leopard’s claw mark from his last valid method.

Zephyr’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Still got half a spool of spider cord. That counts for something. I need some motivation."

Fenna arched her brow. "Motivation... what kind?"

He grinned. "Fenna, give me a kiss. That’ll give me immunity for at least a day." He prepared his lips to kiss Fenna, "Give me a kisssy!"

"You’re lucky you’re cute," she shot back, brushing ash from her leggings. "No kisses until the work is done."

Zephyr made a show of collapsing, grabbing his chest like he’d been mortally wounded. "Cruel! Denied in my moment of need!"

"Please die quieter," Fenna replied with a smirk, already pulling her bow from the gear pile and checking the tension. "I’m trying to make a game plan."

She rolled the half-burnt map open again, pinning the corners with a fire-blackened brick and a tin cup.

Zephyr leaned in beside her, pointing toward a cragged region drawn in smudged charcoal. "See this cut? Natural gully. South-facing. Wind carries spores downhill, and flame-touched beasts tend to graze upwind."

Fenna nodded. "Which means we set traps on this ridge—just enough to wound or delay, then hit them with ranged fire."

"Star’s fire," Zephyr added. "If he’s awake by then."

Fenna’s eyes drifted back toward the sleeping drake. "You think he’ll be the same?"

"I think..." Zephyr paused, watching the soft rise and fall of Star’s sides. "He’ll still be Star. But stronger. Hungrier. And more... aware."

Aurora flapped to Zephyr’s shoulder with an impatient chirp, puffing a little flame from her beak in protest.

"Oh? You too," Zephyr chuckled, holding out a finger for her to perch.

Aurora flared her wings and chirped proudly, trying and failing to look fierce.

Fenna reached over and scratched under her feathers. Aurora fluffed, clearly satisfied.

Muse, meanwhile, had wandered to the edge of the clearing, her nose buried in a patch of burnt grass. She snorted softly, pawed the ground once, and backed away—startled by something unseen.

Zephyr straightened, suddenly alert. "We need to move fast. If that roar from earlier came from what I think it did..."

Fenna slung her quiver over one shoulder. "Then we’re not just hunting. We’re competing."

They moved through a world slowly recovering from fire, saplings pushing through scorched dirt, insects buzzing over melted stones. Blackened trunks stood like silent sentinels, and wind hissed between broken branches.

Yet despite the ruin, life returned. Always.

They hunted.

And Star slept.

Back at the camp, the wind stirred fallen ash, lifting faint spark-motes into the morning air like ghost fireflies.

Star stirred. With a big twitch of the tail.

Then a slow flexing of one clawed foot, toes curling slightly against the warm ash bed. His wings shifted next—tighter, then loosen—until they flared once with a crisp snap.

Then he yawned. It was not a quiet yawn.

His jaw opened wide, revealing new teeth, sharper and bigger than yesterday. Flames flickered from the edges of his mouth as if licking the morning air in greeting. A pulse of heat throbbed outward from his core, warming the earth around him.

Star blinked groggily. His eyes had changed. They now glowed with a deeper hue—burnt gold rimmed in red, like lava through cracks in obsidian.

His head tilted slightly as he examined his own paws.

Bigger.

He stretched out his forelegs and stood. Two full meters of muscle, scales, and restrained fire rose into the air, no longer kitten-sized but something halfway to a storm.

He looked around the camp. It was quiet. Zephyr was gone. Fenna was gone. Aurora too.

Only their faint scent trails and Muse’s old hoofprints lingered in the earth.

Star stepped forward slowly, moving with a newborn grace. His wings dragged behind him like loose banners before he tucked them back. He moved toward the fire pit and sniffed.

Ash. Wood. Fruit peel. Nothing edible.