She gestured towards the walls of the shelter, and for the first time he noticed the howling that pressed against them from outside. Wind. Ice. A storm of proportions that even his fragmented memories recognized as dangerous. They were trapped together, this strange female and he. Bound by circumstance until the weather relented.
He should have felt threatened by the confinement, but some part of him relaxed instead. If they were trapped, she couldn’t leave or summon others of her kind. For now, at least, it was just the two of them.Manageable.He could manage this situation. He could assess the threat she represented—or didn’t represent—and determine his next course of action.
His eyes drifted across the shelter, studying the details with renewed focus. The space was small and cramped, clearly designed for function rather than comfort. The sleeping platform beneath him was the largest piece of furniture, and even it was barely adequate for his size. His tail hung over the edge, his wings pressed uncomfortably against the wall behind him.
She has been caring for me in this space.The realization brought another wave of that unfamiliar emotion.She gave up her own sleeping place.
The exhaustion he’d noticed before hadn’t disappeared. She probably hadn’t slept properly since she’d brought him here.
She is depleting herself to keep me alive.
Why? What did she gain from it? He was an unknown stranger, potentially dangerous. Any sensible creature would have left him to die or killed him outright. Instead, she had dragged him through a storm and spent her limited resources on his survival.
I do not understand you.
The thought was almost an accusation, but there was something else beneath it, something that felt like admiration.
She moved over to one of the equipment surfaces, her movements slow and careful. She kept her body angled towards him, never turning her back entirely, but her posture had shifted from defensive to something more… accommodating.
“Food,”she said, holding up a sealed packet and miming the act of eating.“You need to eat. Your body is fighting an infection and it needs fuel.”
Food.Another word that clicked into place, accompanied by a surge of hunger so intense it nearly doubled him over. When had he last eaten? He couldn’t remember. The memories were there, somewhere, but they slid away every time he tried to grasp them, leaving only fragments and shadows.
She opened the packet and poured its contents into a shallow container. The substance that emerged was thick and beige, completely unrecognizable, and the smell that wafted from it made his nose wrinkle involuntarily.
That is not food.
But she was bringing it to him anyway, her expression somewhere between hopeful and apologetic. She placed the container in his hand, just as she had with the water, and stepped back.
“It’s not great. I know. Emergency rations aren’t exactly gourmet cuisine.”Her lips curved into a small smile.“But it’s nutritious and it’ll help you heal. Assuming your metabolism is anything like human. Although…”She trailed off, her gazetraveling over his body with that scientific interest again.“I honestly have no idea what your metabolism is like.”
He brought the container closer so he could examine its contents. The substance was uniform in color and texture, with no variation to suggest different components. It smelled of nothing in particular—bland and processed, stripped of anything that might make it appealing.
But his body demanded fuel, and he was in no position to be selective.
He scooped up some of the substance with his finger and brought it to his mouth. The taste was as unremarkable as the smell—vaguely salty, vaguely sweet, utterly forgettable. But it went down easily enough, and his stomach accepted it without protest.
Survival food.Designed for efficiency rather than pleasure. He understood the concept, even if he couldn’t remember where he’d encountered it before. He ate methodically, consuming the bland substance with the same focus he applied to everything else. She watched him with a satisfied expression, and he found himself studying her in return.
Her face was interesting. Not beautiful by any standard he could remember, but compelling in a way that repeatedly drew his attention. Her small features were mobile and expressive, broadcasting her thoughts with a clarity that would be dangerous among his own kind. He could read her uncertainty, her curiosity, and her exhaustion, all written plainly for anyone to see.
You would not survive long among dragons.
The thought came a flash of memory—scales and wings and voices raised in challenge, the thunder of bodies colliding in mid-air. His people. His kin.
Gone.
The certainty of it washed over him in a tide of regret, and he nearly choked on the food in his mouth. All of them were gone. Gone for so long that even their memory had faded, leaving only this broken body, this fragmented mind, and this tiny shelter on a world that no longer remembered his name.
My name.
He grasped at the thought, desperate for something solid to hold onto. He had a name. He knew he had a name. It was there, buried beneath the pain and confusion, waiting to be remembered.
Ad… Adjar.
My name is Adjar.
The relief of remembering threatened to overwhelm him and he closed his eyes, letting the knowledge settle into him, anchoring him to himself in a way nothing else had since he’d awakened. He was Adjar. Keeper of Memory. One of the males entrusted with?—
