The world was growing cramped. It was still warm, of course, but it had slowly and steadily contracted inwards until there it became necessary to brace against the walls and squirm and twist to move. And food was running out. Hunger was a new sensation, an unpleasant sensation that gnawed and ached in his belly. He twisted and slithered and squirmed, seeking comfort in a changing world that no longer had any comfort to offer.
His snout scraped along the boundary of the world, pushing hard against the tough, yielding surface. Teeth hooked and tire, and blazing white light flooded into the dim blood-colored world. He squirmed away, thrashing and pushing as he struggled to escape the uncanny light, but his efforts merely tore more holes in the world. A strange feeling seized him, dragging him downwards as the warmth drained away. He kicked and thrashed, struggling against the force that held him, and before he could stop himself he sprawled forward into the alien light.
After a moment, he opened his eyes.
He was half sprawled across the wreckage of his world - his egg, he realized, although he couldn’t say where that word came from - and half across a warm, gritty, yielding surface that cling to his slime-slick black scales. Sand, he decided, struggling to rise. It’s sand.
Slime exploded from his nostrils as he sneezed, and more as he retched and coughed. The sticky fluid gummed the sand, then sizzled and burned as he coughed and spat. Shaky, testing himself on short hind legs and long forelegs that served as wings, he gripped his shell in his teeth and tugged. It took several tries, and he slipped more than once, but a long strip tore free. Snapping and tossing, he managed to get it down his throat. The gnawing ache in his stomach began to subside.
“Hey, look,” something said, interrupting his meal. “It hatched.”
“Really?” The other new voice sounded bored. “I thought for sure it was dead.”
He raised his head and looked. Two shapes approached, one clambering over a large stone, the other crawling through the burning sand. Both were superficially alike, with long sinuous bodies and snouts filled with razor teeth, and both were larger than he was. Significantly larger.
“Look at it, Ubijtsa,” sneered the figure on the stone it’s head swaying at the end of a long, flexible neck as it examined the hatchling. “It’s... tiny.”
He backed up, claws scrabbling in the sand as the other figure drew closer. “Big enough, Yavost’cherev,” It chuckled. “Big enough.”
Wheeling and leaping, he beat his wings frantically as Ubjitsa exploded forward. There was an instant of terror as he flailed before he caught the air and pushed, throwing himself away from the larger creature’s claws. The flight didn’t last long, and he only managed a dozen feet before crashing heavily into the sand, but it was far enough.
“Come back here, runt!” Ubjitsa roared, six sets of claws tearing at the sand as he darted forward. “I’m hungry, damnit!”
The hatchling didn’t bother to reply, choosing instead to dart forward. His long forelimbs took up most of the work, reaching and pulling as his rear legs kicked and steered him towards the far wall and the opening that led away. “So am I!” Yavost’cherev laughed, seizing the air with his talons and hurling himself upwards. “And I don’t plan to share!”
Twisting sideways, the hatchling barely avoided Yavost’cherev’s fangs as the larger dragon swooped towards him. Then he twisted again, dodging a gobbet something sticky that hissed and crumbled the stone it struck. He glanced behind him, saw Yavost’cherev and Ubjitsa gaining, and redoubled his efforts. His body flowed and transformed, becoming sleeker and better suited for running as his heart pounded and thundered in his chest. So close now. He was almost there.
He hurled himself through the gap, screaming in panic as the ground dropping far away. Tumbling bag and spring naming, he allowed his body to reshape itself once more as he frantically beat the air with his bat-like wings. Above him the others - his siblings, he realized - lept from the mountaintop as well. Yavost’cherev clawed at the air, snaking and twisting and running, while Ubjitsa soared on membranes stretched taught between his multiple legs.
Air filled his wing membranes, transforming his uncontrolled fall into flight. He angled his body, leveling out of his dive and skimming along the Ricky ground until gusting thermals lifted him skywards. It was progress, but his siblings were still in pursuit. He needed a place to hide, quickly.
Scanning the distant ground, reshaping his eyes to improve his vision, he found a likely candidate. Below and in the middle distance was a herd of thousands of grazing beasts. That would do, he decided as he beat his wings harder. No time to look back. No need to look back. He could hear the mocking taunts of Ubjitsa and Yavost’cherev behind him, distant but still pursuing, and he threw himself into a dive. The beasts brayed at his sudden presence, confusion turning to panic at his unfamiliar chemical stink. They ran and he ran with them, his body reshaping itself once more into an approximation of their form. For a moment, he allowed himself to hope.
A torrent of caustic filth lashed through the herd, reducing a handful of grazers to skeletons and maiming and crippling a dozen more. Ubjitsa roared with laughter as he tore the air above, then spat poison lightning into the stampede. Fragments of bodies and clots of earth erupted into the air and thunder drowned out the mocking roar for an instant.
This, clearly, was no escape. He looked around desperately, considering his options. There! A burrow of some sort! Changing direction as filth and lightning tore into the herd once more, he deliberately forced his body to change its shape. Smaller. Sinuous. Able to enter the hole and dig deeper.
He flowed through the entrance as death rained down, wriggling on his belly, dragging himself with elongated forelimbs and clicking with clawed feet. Deeper and deeper he went, scent and sound replacing sight. Warmth was ahead of him, and pumping blood, and a fear-stink. Multiple bodies, a mother and her young.
“Come out!” Yavost’cherev bellowed. “We know you weren’t killed - none of these things smell like you! Come out!”
He considered his options as the mother burrower chattered hysterically and clawed and bit ineffectually at his claws. They could smell him? Very well, let them.
His fangs flashed in the darkness, tearing his own armored flesh. Pinning the burrowed to the wall with one forearm, he forced her mouth open and let his blood drip into her mouth. She screamed in agony, wildly tearing at his firearms and armored skull and at her own bubbling flesh. He hissed and snarled, buffeting the maddened creature until it fled whining up the burrow. He knew she had reached the surface when claws raked the earth and the agonized chattering ended abruptly.
He held his breath. Nothing moved. Nothing except the blind, mewling pups that nuzzled against his belly plates. “It... worked?” he whispered. Then, when talons didn’t rip open the burrow, his voice became more confident. “It worked!”
Another pup nuzzled against him. Absently he darted his head around on his serpentine neck, snapping it up and swallowing it. The wriggling sensation as it slid down his throat made him giggle. “It worked,” he said again, eating another of the burrowers. “Smaller, yes. Weaker, yes. But, also cleverer.”
He ate the last of them. “That will be my name,” he decided, settling down to rest and digest. “Verrier. The Clever.”
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