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"Do you think the sky remembers us when we close our eyes?"
It was a strange question for a seven-year-old to ask, especially one who had never known a horizon that didn't end at the granite-stone walls of a secluded cavern. The little dragonet, a shimmering mosaic of scales that didn't quite fit any single tribe's genetic blueprint, sat perched atop a smoothed-out river stone, her tail twitching with a rhythmic, nervous energy.
Icicle watched her from the shadows of the stalactites, her own pale scales blending into the damp grey of the cave. She didn't answer. She rarely did when the questions turned toward the Outside.
The scrolls in the Great Library of the Ice Kingdom had spoken of motherhood in clinical, detached terms, the incubation of the egg, the temperature of the sand or ice, the dietary requirements of a hatchling. But the scrolls were silent on the crushing weight of the silence that follows a lie. They didn't tell you that no matter how many lessons you taught a dragonet, or how many polished gems you piled at her feet, there was a hollow space in a dragonet’s chest that could only be filled by the dragon who had laid the egg.
Icicle was doing it all alone. Every aspect of the girl's existence was curated by her. The meticulous scrubbing of scales during bath time in the geothermal pools; the nightly humming of melodies Icicle had invented to drown out the oppressive quiet; the rigorous homeschooling in history, mathematics, and the art of hiding. It was a grueling cycle that carved deep lines of exhaustion into Icicle’s spirit. There were moments, usually in the dead of the night when the child breathed softly in her sleep, where Icicle felt a surge of fierce, possessive pride. She had built this world. She had sculpted this little soul from nothing but longing and desperation.
But as the dragonet grew, the gaps in the foundation began to crack.
Navigation became a minefield of emotional landmines. There were things a child needed, an intuitive understanding of their own lineage, the scent of a mother’s breath, the confirmation that they belonged to a place and a tribe. Icicle tried to substitute these things with material tributes. She spent weeks scouring the black markets of the outskirts, bringing home exquisite carved wooden dolls, plush stuffed creatures made of rare silks, and delicate tea sets crafted from sea-stone.
The child would take them. She would play with them for an hour, her eyes vacant, before setting them aside with a clinical precision that chilled Icicle to the bone.
"When is she coming back?" the girl would ask, her voice a small, fragile thing that echoed too loudly in the cavern.
"Who, darling?" Icicle would respond, her voice smooth as polished ice.
"The one who smells like rain and wild-grass. The one who sang the song about the stars."
Icicle would feel a prickle of irritation. It was illogical. The child had been barely a few months old when Icicle had found her, a tiny, shivering thing left unattended for a heartbeat too long in a bustling market square. There was no biological possibility that she could remember a scent or a song from a time before her consciousness had even fully formed. And yet, the girl persisted. She asked why she wasn't allowed to fly with the other dragonets in the distance. She asked why the cave walls were the only boundaries of her world.
The truth was a jagged stone in Icicle's throat: the child hadn't been a gift; she had been a theft.
The impulse had been a sudden, violent surge of need. Icicle had spent her adult life drifting, unable to forge a meaningful connection with any dragon who could offer her the possibility of an egg. The loneliness had grown into a monstrous thing, a void that screamed for a purpose. When she had seen that small, unattended bundle of scales in the park, the world had narrowed down to a single point. Her body had moved before her mind could formulate a moral objection. She had scooped the hatchling up, veiled her in a cloak, and vanished into the mist.
She had convinced herself it was an act of mercy. She would provide a life of luxury, of safety, of absolute devotion.
But now, as the girl approached her eighth year, the facade was crumbling. The distance between them wasn't just physical; it was an atmospheric pressure. The child didn't look at Icicle with love anymore; she looked at her with a cautious, wide-eyed curiosity, as if she were observing a predator from behind a pane of glass. She was terrified, and the terror was a silent, suffocating fog that filled the cavern.
A part of Icicle, the part that still remembered the cold honesty of the ice, wanted to take her back. She imagined the journey: the terrifying trek across the open plains, the risk of being hunted for kidnapping, the agony of seeing the original mother's face when she realized her child had been stolen.
But the thought of the void returning was worse than the guilt.
She looked at the girl, who was now staring up at the ceiling of the cave, imagining a sky she had never seen. The child had grown; her scales had shifted in hue, becoming a color that no tribe recognized, a beautiful, haunting anomaly. Her real mother wouldn't even recognize the dragon she had become.
Or perhaps she would. Perhaps the shape of the snout, the curve of the talons, or the way she tilted her head when she was confused was a map that led straight back to a heartbroken home.
Icicle stepped forward, her claws clicking softly on the stone, and placed a wing over the girl's shivering shoulders. The child didn't lean in; she stayed rigid, a statue of uncertainty.
Just a few more years, Icicle told herself, the lie tasting like copper in her mouth. I still have so much to teach her. She isn't ready for the world. She isn't ready to leave me.