I release Skadi after a minute, the dark dragonel’s purple highlights glowing slightly, much like her cheeks. She’s a little flustered, and I bite my lip, my wings beating steadily, as we hang there in the air.

  “Sorry about that. It’s just… My mom’s not very accepting of me right now. My dad, and my three sisters, are just happy to see that I’m clearly better than I was as a boy, but… Mom blew her fuse about it. Lots of stuff about how I can’t be a girl, that I shouldn’t have these powers, the whole nine yards…”

  Skadi looks utterly stunned. “Wait… Your dam doesn’t approve?! Why?!?! Shouldn’t she care that her hatchling is in the right body?!”

  I shrug, sighing. “I don’t know why, she just… doesn’t. She’s been a real bitch the st few days, before Aurexiar came to get me.”

  Skadi starts to emit a disconcerting bck and purple smoke, an aura of menace manifesting around her.

  “That’s…. That’s….” She starts vibrating, before she crouches in mid-air. Then, she rockets upwards, trailing the aura behind her like a firework. As she ascends to a safe distance, I watch her explode. Not in the metaphorical sense, either, but LITERALLY, as she flips into full dragonform, her wings and body-mass growing exponentially, scales shimmering darkly.

  Her dragonform is sinewy and serpentine, long and thin, with an eerie-looking, raptor-like head, almost beaked rather than jawed. Skadi throws her head back and shrieks, a massive gout of bck fme spearing out into the clouds, her rage given vent. I stare in shock. I didn’t think she’d get so angry on my behalf…

  When she calms down, she shifts back to her human form, the grungy, punky aesthetic she wears reforming around her as her eyes fsh with now-restrained fury.

  “Sorry about that… hearing those things you shared with me made me so mad, I just… couldn’t hold it in…”

  I give her a hug. “Thanks for caring, Skadi. It means a lot that you feel so strongly about my situation. I appreciate it.”

  She coughs awkwardly, a purple blush crossing her face again. I grin. “So, let’s go swimming? The Deepwater cn’s isnd is… there, right?”

  I point at the isnd with the self-contained beach and ocean, and Skadi nods, her demeanour brightening slightly. “That’s right. You’ll be able to navigate on your own soon, Rika!”

  I giggle, flicking my tail proudly. “I mean, each cn’s home isnd is distinct and unique, so it’s kinda easy to guess! But thanks, Skadi. Let’s go!”

  I flex my wings, beating the great leathery vanes with growing skill and ease, my hair streaming out behind me, as Skadi calls, “You’re developing your own highlights, by the way!”

  I reach up, snagging a strand of my long hair and pulling it round to look. Sure enough, the blonde has faded at the end to be repced with a cold blue-white, like ice. I grin.

  “Awesome!”

  I pirouette in mid-air as Skadi overshoots me, her lifetime of practice easily letting her take the lead. I call, “Skadi, how old are you? I’m 21, but I don’t know what that is in dragon-years. I just learned that Khione is like, 9,000 years old!”

  Skadi whoops back, “I’m just over a hundred and twelve!”

  I blink several times. “So, is the hundred-year mark the age of maturity?”

  “Yeah! I’m officially an adult by our society’s standards! And for you humans, it’s the same?”

  I shake my head. “No! In some countries, it’s 21, in others it’s 18!”

  Skadi rolls over in the air to look back at me. “Ohhh, right. Human lifespans are really short in comparison to ours. I forgot. You seem so simir in many ways to us, but not in all things…”

  The Deepwater cn isnd looms below, and we descend, sand crunching under our footcws as we settle into the sun-warmed sand. The smell of salt fills the air, and there are even seabirds wheeling, their shrill cries a familiar sound, just like the gulls and cormorants on the beaches back home.

  There are dragons of every shade of blue, with those of seaweed-green and coral-pink among them. Their horns resemble driftwood branches, and their scale-ridges look like waving sea-bed pnts. Many are swimming, with others lounging on the sun and soaking up the rays, basking like oversized lizards.

  I turn to Skadi, and cover my eyes. “Whyareyounaked?!”

  She blinks, her amethyst eyes wide. “I can’t swim in clothes, Rika. Go on, you take them off too. I’ll show you how to make a scalesuit.”

  I blush and undress. Once I’m nude and feeling awkward, Skadi draws my attention to her body. She’s shorter than I am, and slim, with small breasts and a narrow waist. She smiles and her dark scales ripple out of her skin over her chest and crotch, around her butt. It looks like a patterned bikini, like one you’d find on Earth…

  “It’s easy. Just focus on WHERE you want your scales to come forth. Don’t think about just HAVING scales!”

  I swallow, and try. A scalesuit… a bikini made of white and ice-blue scales… covering my boobs and groin and ass….

  I can feel the now-familiar tickling as my scales push out through my skin, and Skadi cps. “See? You did it! First try!”

  I open my eyes and look down. Just like Skadi, I’m now ‘wearing’ a scale-patterned swimsuit that fits perfectly. I giggle at her, then, taking three steps towards the water, I leap, furling my wings and plunging into the cool blue sea, submerging, feeling the pping waves close over my head. Skadi follows a heartbeat ter, and I open my eyes. The salt doesn’t even sting, unlike back when I was still human, and I spot schools of luminous fish flickering through the water like crystal darts.

  I can hold my breath a lot better, too, and when I surface, I’m barely panting. Skadi grins, her tail coiling round my ankle and tugging me slightly as she shakes, sparkling beads of seawater winking like precious stones as they fly in all directions, briefly separated from the ocean.

  Skadi and I frolic for ages, the water soothing the memory of the harsh heat and the bruises I’ve been subjected to today, and we y on the sand, drinking in the sun’s life-giving warmth, eyes closed as we chat idly about nothing in particur. Then, I have a thought.

  “Skadi?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “What’s dragon reproduction like? On Earth, we have live babies. The mother carries her child or children for nine months inside her, then gives birth to them. It’s not like that for dragons, is it?”

  Skadi goes silent for a long moment, then speaks.

  “No, actually. A dragonel ys unfertilized eggs twice a year, but if she wants a child, she and her partner go and petition the Council for space in the hatchery. Once they’ve gotten a pce, they wait until the approved time, gathering as much life energy as they can, and then share it. Once the energy’s been shared, it enters the egg of the dam, and she goes to y it. Then, depending on how much energy has been shared, the egg will mature and hatch after an indeterminate time into a dragonel or drake who bears the nature and cn affinity of one or, in rare cases, both, of their parents.”

  I absorb this new information. “So, does that mean that a lesbian couple can have their own baby???”

  “Lezbeen? What’s that?”

  I giggle. “Lesbian, Skadi. It’s a word from my homeworld. A lesbian is a female who is only attracted to other females. She has no interest in males. There are males who are only attracted to males, too. We call them gay.”

  Skadi goes silent again, and I let her process this, my eyes closed, enjoying the warmth of the sun pying over my skin and scales. Then, she hums in affirmative. “I guess so. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a couple being rejected for both being of the same gender, and there’s no real difference between female life energy and male life energy. Besides, it’s not mandatory for us to reproduce. Our popution has remained at a slow growth rate for centuries.”

  I sigh. “This pce probably isn’t perfect, but it’s so much more… peaceful, than my homeworld. Over there, people are always fighting over who gets what, or trying to take more than their fair share. Resources are limited, and the ones in power spend way too much time stomping on those weaker than them, or coming up with ws to keep the disadvantaged down…”

  Skadi growls softly, and I nudge her with my tail-tip. “Down, girl! No need to get too worked up.”

  I hear her giggle, and then crack open an eye as shadow falls over me. Skadi’s standing over me, a surprisingly cute smile on her pale face. She colours slightly, a purple tint washing over her cheeks. I sit up, grinning at her.

  “Want to swim some more, or shall we head back? It’s starting to get te, and I’m getting hungry. Plus, we have training tomorrow, right?”

  Skadi nods. “Yeah. Jekk wants us to train almost every day, to hone our cws and fangs. And yeah, I should probably head back to the Onyxblood isnd… I’ll see you at training tomorrow…”

  I nod as Skadi drops her scalesuit and dresses, before doing likewise. Spreading my wings, I take off, heading towards the Winterwing territory, my body surprisingly ache-free after the beating Jekk and Skadi put me through in training today.

  After a rge bowl of Gwenyth’s delicious soup, I head to bed, weariness overcoming me as I drift off almost the second my head touches the pillow.

  When I wake, I pull on my training togs, grab breakfast from the bakery, and make my way to the Arena, arriving just before Skadi and Jekk.

  The old Deathcw nods approvingly.

  “Good. On time it seems you are. Now. We begin again, yes?”

  I nod, and he starts needling me while I attack him, prowling around me as I rein my temper in, coating it in ice to prevent the fme of fury igniting. Jekk seems to be trying harder today, and I find myself gritting my teeth, my fingers curling as my cws start pushing through. Jekk’s vitriol spills forth in an endless flow, underscored by the rhythmic –‘thunk’-ing of Skadi’s tail-spikes smming home into targets and the gentle scuff of her footcws sending up small clouds of sand with each sprinting step she takes.

  She runs the course over and over, getting faster and faster, as Jekk’s taunting goes past the hour mark, then the two-hour. On and on, he criticizes my inexperience, my weakness, my age, my scale-colour, the shape of my tail, everything he can. I keep a lid on my temper this time, knowing he’s trying to rile me up and get me to sh out, but not willing to give him what he’s angling for.

  Four hours ter, Jekk stops. With a faint grin on his leathery face, he nods. “Good. See? Today you did better, like I said. And now, YOU will have the honour of starting the fight. Come at me. If you can make me use more than just my right hand, you will have improved.”

  He stalks out into the centre of the Arena, then pauses, looking up into the stands.

  “Ah. It appears we have audience, girls.”

  Following his gaze, I spot the huge bulk of Elio and Bryn, the Bzeheart and Earthcw patriarchs respectively, followed by Indra Stormscale and Maren Deepwater.

  Khione, Aurexiar, and, thankfully, Caliban, are absent. I wave at the quartet of Dragon Council members, receiving waves from Maren and Bryn, a welcoming smile and nod from Elio, and a thumbs-up from Indra. Then I turn my attention back to Jekk, as he stops in the exact centre of the Arena.

  I flex my cws, pushing my power forth and feeling my scales sprout through my skin, covering me in my natural armour. My wings billow as I unfurl them. My feet alter into digitigrade legs, and I bance with my tail, my mouth filling with sharp white fangs. Horns like jagged shards of ice jut from my temples, and I roar, a wave of cold air flowing over my opponent. My frozen cws and tail-bde form as I exhale my breath-weapon over my hands and the st foot of my tail.

  Then, I take off, unching myself towards the Deathcw, my talons outstretched, my whole body surging with the fierce exhiration of letting my draconic blood boil with the heat of battle!