Chapter Text
Durin POV
It’s been a few days since Brother Albedo and Hat Guy helped me adapt to my human body, and while I still struggle with certain things, like avoiding breaking stuff with my tail and wings, I’d like to say I’ve gotten pretty good at being human.
Mostly.
Walking is still strange.
Not because my legs do not work. Brother Albedo said the body he made for me was stable, balanced, and surprisingly responsive considering how recently I had been placed inside it. He said that with the same calm voice he used when discussing alchemy, chalk, and complicated things about the Art of Khemia that I could only half understand.
But even if my legs worked, they still felt too small.
Too light.
Too close to the ground.
Once, I had flown.
Or maybe the other me had flown.
Sometimes it was hard to tell which memories belonged to me and which memories belonged to him.
I remembered wings large enough to cover the snow.
I remembered claws tearing into stone.
I remembered Dragonspine beneath me, cold and white and lonely, my blood sinking into the mountain until even the snow became dangerous.
I remembered a song too.
A beautiful song.
A sad song.
A song from a mother who had made something she called a miracle and sent it into the world without understanding how much pain that miracle would carry.
But then I would blink, and I would no longer be that dragon.
I would only be Durin.
Small Durin.
Human Durin.
Brother Albedo’s little brother, apparently, even though I was still getting used to what having a brother meant.
My tail twitched behind me, and something on the nearby table rattled.
I froze.
The cup did not fall.
I stared at it for a long moment before relaxing.
See?
Progress.
Hat Guy would probably still tell me that almost breaking something did not count as improvement, but I thought it did.
He complained a lot for someone who kept helping me.
Brother Albedo said Hat Guy understood better than most what it meant to carry memories and a name that hurt. I did not fully understand that yet, but I knew Hat Guy looked at me differently from other people.
Not softly.
Never softly.
But not with fear either.
He looked at me like he was waiting to see what I would choose to become.
Now, if only the other me would stop trying to take over my body, I could actually enjoy the nice book Miss Lisa gave me on Mondstadt’s history.
The book sat open in front of me, its pages filled with words about wind, freedom, old clans, rebellion, songs, and a city watched over by Barbatos.
Mondstadt.
The city the other me had almost destroyed five hundred years ago.
Or maybe not almost.
Brother Albedo had explained it carefully.
The dragon called Durin had descended during the cataclysm. He had carried Abyssal poison in his blood. He had fought Dvalin in the sky above Mondstadt and fallen upon the mountain that would later be called Dragonspine.
His heart had remained there.
His blood had changed the land.
His death had become a scar that never fully healed.
And now I carried that name.
Durin.
Sometimes I liked it.
Sometimes it felt heavy enough to crush my ribs.
My eyes narrowed as I tried to understand certain words, my fast learning apparently a boon, according to Brother Albedo, who had taught me many things since I had been reborn in this form.
He said my mind absorbed information quickly.
He also said that was not surprising.
I was not a normal human, after all.
I was created from stories, dragon memories, old power, and alchemy older than most nations. My body was human-shaped, but it was not human-made. Brother Albedo had used Khemia to give me this form, the same forbidden art tied to Khaenri’ah, to Rhinedottir, to life created by hands that should not have been able to create life at all.
Brother Albedo understood that better than anyone.
He was made too.
Maybe that was why I trusted him.
He never looked at me like I was wrong for existing.
Even when the other me whispered.
Even when my claws dug too deeply into wood.
Even when my wings twitched and the shadows around me seemed to move in ways shadows should not move.
Even when I woke up from dreams of snow, poison, and Dvalin’s claws tearing through the sky.
Brother Albedo would only sit beside me, calm and patient, and remind me that memory was not the same thing as choice.
I liked that.
I wanted it to be true.
I looked down at the book again and carefully traced one sentence with the tip of my claw.
Mondstadt is the City of Freedom.
Freedom.
I knew that word.
At least, I was learning it.
Freedom was not being trapped inside a story someone else wrote for me.
Freedom was not being forced to become the dragon who fell on Dragonspine.
Freedom was Brother Albedo giving me a body and Hat Guy letting me decide whether I wanted to come with him or stay.
Freedom was Miss Lisa smiling at me like I was a strange little boy instead of a disaster waiting to happen.
Freedom was being able to read a history book about a city my name had once terrified and wondering, quietly, if maybe one day I could walk through its streets without people thinking of blood in the snow.
My fingers tightened.
The page crinkled.
I immediately loosened my grip.
“Sorry,” I whispered to the book.
Books could not answer, but Miss Lisa had trusted me with it, so I thought apologizing still mattered.
The other me stirred inside my chest.
Not loudly.
Not yet.
Just a low pressure beneath my heart, like something enormous turning in its sleep.
I tried to ignore it.
I tried to focus on the words.
On Mondstadt.
On freedom.
On being human.
But the other me was old, wounded, and angry.
And I was still so very new.
A few hours later, I was flying around the Whispering Woods, my eyes looking around as I tried to forget the incident that happened after I left the library.
The trees below me were thick and green, their leaves shifting softly in the wind as my wings carried me over the forest path. Mondstadt’s breeze should have felt nice. It usually did. The wind here was gentle compared to the cold air of Dragonspine, warmer and full of the smell of grass, flowers, and damp earth instead of snow and old blood.
But I could not enjoy it.
No matter how far I flew, I could still see it.
The library doors behind me.
The bright streets of Mondstadt.
The people walking around like everything was normal.
Then the sudden pain.
Someone had stepped on my tail.
Not hard enough to break anything.
Not even hard enough to hurt for long.
But it had startled me.
My body had reacted before my mind could catch up.
One moment, I had been holding Miss Lisa’s book close to my chest, trying not to bump into anyone with my wings. The next, my tail had jerked, my claws had flashed, and I had swung at the person behind me before I even realized what I was doing.
I still remembered the sound.
Not loud.
Not dramatic.
Just a sharp gasp, followed by the wet smell of blood.
My stomach twisted.
Brother Albedo’s assistant, Ms. Sucrose, had been nearby and intervened before things could get worse. Her voice had been soft but urgent as she stepped between me and the person I hurt, trying to calm everyone down while also checking the wound.
I could still hear her.
“Durin, wait—please don’t run!”
But I had already seen the way the person was bleeding.
I had already seen the way the townspeople looked at me.
Their eyes had gone wide.
Some stepped back.
Some froze.
Some reached for each other like I was about to attack again.
No one said monster.
No one needed to.
I saw it anyway.
I saw it in their faces.
The same fear Brother Albedo always told me I did not have to carry, the same fear Hat Guy would probably scoff at and call useless, the same fear Miss Lisa had been kind enough not to show me when she handed me the book.
And I hated it.
I hated that they had been right to be afraid.
Panicking, I bolted.
I ignored Ms. Sucrose calling my name.
I ignored the shocked whispers.
I ignored the ache in my chest and the way my claws trembled as I ran.
Then, once there were fewer people around, I spread my wings and flew.
I did not think about where I was going.
I just needed to get away.
Away from the blood.
Away from the staring.
Away from the city my other self had already hurt once before.
Now the Whispering Woods stretched beneath me, quiet except for the rustling leaves and distant birdsong. Usually, the name sounded pretty to me. Whispering Woods. Like the trees were telling secrets to the wind.
But today, every whisper sounded like the crowd.
Every branch looked like a pointing finger.
My wings beat harder.
The book Miss Lisa gave me was still tucked carefully against me. Somehow, even in my panic, I had not dropped it. My claws curled around the cover, gentle enough not to tear it this time.
That should have made me feel better.
It did not.
I flew lower, weaving between taller trees, my tail trailing behind me like a shadow I could not escape. My eyes burned, but I did not cry. Dragons did not cry.
Humans did, though.
I was supposed to be learning how to be human.
Maybe that meant crying was allowed.
My throat tightened.
“I didn’t mean to,” I whispered, though no one was there to hear me.
The wind carried the words away.
My claws flexed around the book.
“I didn’t mean to hurt them.”
But I had.
That was the problem.
I could say sorry.
I could mean it.
I could try as hard as I wanted to be careful.
But one surprised movement, one instinct, one second where the other me and my body moved faster than my thoughts, and someone had bled because of me.
The other me shifted somewhere deep inside my chest.
Quiet.
Watching.
Waiting.
I clenched my teeth.
“No,” I muttered. “This wasn’t you. It was me.”
That somehow made it worse.
Third POV
Unaware of the spying eyes watching Durin fly above the Whispering Woods, two figures lingered in the shadows below.
They did not belong in Mondstadt’s peaceful woods.
One was an Abyss Herald, its warped form half-hidden between the trees as dark energy curled around its limbs like living smoke. Beside it stood an Abyss Lector, tall and ominous, its presence making the very air feel wrong, heavy with the taint of the Abyss. Both had been tracking the young dragon ever since he fled Mondstadt’s city walls, watching in silence as he flew above the forest with hurried, uneven wingbeats.
Their orders had been clear.
Capture Durin.
Bring the newly turned human dragon to the Abyss on the command of their Princess.
To them, he was not some frightened child wandering the skies in distress.
He was a valuable being tied to ancient corruption, to Durin of old, to power the Abyss had no intention of letting remain in the hands of Albedo or Mondstadt.
The Herald tilted its head upward, its gaze following Durin’s small figure as he flew restlessly between the treetops.
“He is distracted,” the Lector observed, its voice low and distorted, echoing strangely through the woods. “Now is the best time.”
The Herald gave a slow nod.
Dark power began to gather between them.
Abyssal energy twisted into existence at their feet, leaking out in jagged tendrils that made the grass blacken and the nearby air tremble. A circle of violet-black light spread outward over the forest floor, unstable from the moment it was formed. The spell they were casting was not a gentle one. It was violent, invasive, a tear meant to force open a path straight into the Abyss itself.
Above them, Durin remained unaware, too lost in his own spiraling thoughts to notice the danger rising below.
The portal began to take shape.
At first it was only a shimmering fracture in the air.
Then it widened, space itself warping as if something unseen were clawing it open from the other side. Dark light bled from the forming rift, and the surrounding trees groaned as the pressure of the Abyss pushed against the natural world.
Just as the two creatures prepared to finish the spell—
Crack.
A single broken branch snapped nearby.
The sharp sound split through the woods and shattered their concentration.
Both Abyss monsters turned sharply toward the noise.
A Geo Slime bounced innocently from the bushes, round and golden, having apparently wandered far from wherever it had originally been. It gave a soft chirping sound as it landed near the disturbed brush, utterly unaware of the chaos it had interrupted.
That one moment of distraction was enough.
The unstable abyssal energy immediately grew erratic.
The half-formed portal convulsed violently, the edges flickering and distorting as the power sustaining it slipped out of control. The ground trembled. The trees bent inward. Loose stones, branches, dirt, and leaves were suddenly ripped toward the rift as its pull intensified far beyond what either Abyss creature had intended.
The Lector recoiled. “It’s destabilizing—!”
The Herald moved back at once, both creatures abandoning the spell as survival overtook obedience. The rift howled open wider, swallowing everything around it in a vicious spiral of corrupted force. Roots tore free from the earth. Bushes were ripped apart. Broken branches spun into the darkness and vanished.
Above the woods, Durin finally noticed something was wrong.
A violent force yanked at him mid-flight.
His eyes widened as his body lurched sharply backward, the sudden pull tearing him from the air with no warning. His wings beat frantically, but the abyssal suction was too strong. He let out a startled cry as he was dragged downward, claws outstretched uselessly as if trying to grasp at the sky itself.
Below, the two Abyss Order monsters fled without hesitation, retreating from the unstable portal before it could devour them too.
Neither realized that the dragon they had been trying to capture had already been caught in the chaos.
Durin was pulled straight into the twisting abyssal rift, his small body swallowed by the darkness before he could even understand what was happening.
Then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, the portal collapsed in on itself.
The woods fell silent.
The violent pull vanished.
The abyssal light blinked out, leaving behind only a wide crater carved into the forest floor, the surrounding trees splintered and half-uprooted from the force of the failed spell.
Leaves drifted slowly back down through the silence.
The Geo Slime bounced away after a moment, unconcerned.
And in the middle of the ruined clearing, there was no sign left of the little dragon at all.