Rosalyn woke up sleepily as she tried to focus her eyes on her surroundings. She blearily looked around her and noticed not only that she was alone, but that she was no longer in the cave she had … hatched... in. Taking a moment to process once more that she had recently hatched from an egg, Rosalyn found herself unsure of how she actually felt about the whole situation now that she had a moment to herself. In some respects she felt as she always had and in others, specifically deep down inside of herself, she felt much different… more of something that her human brain couldn’t quite place yet, like there was another her under the surface that wanted to go out and do things that a civilized person would never think to do.

Sighing at the strange circumstances that she had found herself in, she did know one thing for sure, she was incredibly comfy. Her tiny body was currently bundled in a soft wool blanket and was now lying in on a small child’s bed with slightly raised walls. Taking a moment to snuggle back down into the comfy warmth of her blanket it hit her that she was in a crib, she guessed because she was technically a baby again. Feeling slightly insulted, but guessing that it made sense, Rosalyn scanned what she could only guess was her nursery. It was brightly furnished with wooden walls covered in cheery paintings of happy clouds raining... were those gold coins painted on the wall? Sunlight was also streaming merrily through a large bay window right onto her bed. The warmth from the sun was especially inviting to that small voice in the back of her head and before she knew what she was doing she had shifted her pile of blankets over to get the full effect of the sunbeams and laid back down.

Basking in the warmth of the sun she almost fell back to sleep when her stomach let out a fierce growl. With a slight grumble she stood up and thought to herself “Oh man. I am starving, I better call and tell someone.” Reluctantly standing up and letting the blanket slide off of her she walked to the edge of the crib and made to call for whoever was listening. Once again the unexpected GRONK that came out of her mouth confused her for a moment.

“Oh right, I can’t talk.” Listening for movement, all she could hear was the noise of a mechanical fan in the distance. Deciding that her moment in the sun had been spoiled, she hopped out of the crib with a small condescending smile on her face. “Ha! No prison made by mortals can hold me! … Okay then, let’s take a look around I guess.” she thought feeling slightly foolish.

Standing up on her back legs Rosalyn took stock of herself again. Assuming the bed and room she was in were human sized, she guessed herself to be around the size of a large cat. Maybe 15 inches or so in length? Speaking of cats, her body really reminded her of one in how flexible it was. Of course cats don’t have a horn or scales. Or wings. Or stubby lizard tails.

“Let’s move around a bit.”

After 15 minutes of awkwardly pacing back and forth around her crib on both two and four legs Rosalyn was starting to get the hang of basic locomotion things. Looking down at her front...feet? Paws? Did dragons have paws? “I think I will just go with hands for my own sanity.” She had previously noticed that her hands were made of three claws, two larger ‘fingers’ and a shorter and stubbier ‘thumb’ on the side.

Standing up on her legs, Rosalyn started testing the limit of her manual dexterity by picking up some colored chalks that someone had been drawing on a large pad of paper with on the floor. Finding that she seemed to have the same, if not more actual dexterity in her hands than she remembered having pleased her, and she felt the voice in the back of her head purr in satisfaction and pride at the display as she around a piece of chalk in a skilled circular motion. Leafing through the papers on the floor she saw several child’s drawings of a silver haired woman and a much shorter red-haired figure holding a stick of some kind. There were even a few of her mixed into the pile. Fumbling the chalk when her attention wandered to the papers on the floor, she let out an unhappy sounding gronk before staring at her hand in fascination once more. “Well at least I have an opposable thumb. That should making a fist possible, although I am not sure how I'm going to throw a punch with these stubby little arms.”

Her eyes sparkling with the sudden desire for action, Rosalyn tried to do a series of moves that she had done many times in practice. She snapped out several short, but quick jabs before she spun into what was supposed to be a roundhouse. Overestimating both her center of gravity and the length of her legs, she lost her balance and fell forward into a graceless spin and landed with a dull thump. Letting out a very surprised GRONK she cursed as the momentum carried her across the floor on her stubby and, as she was just finding out, very sensitive little tail. “Holy crap. Ow. My butt.”

A bit chagrined at her failure, she gingerly climbed to her feet avoiding touching her tender tail region. Wanting to a moment to try and comfort her new appendage but unsure how to actually reach her tail with her small arms, her stomach let out another loud growl.

“AND I’M STILL STARVING! MAMA! SOMEONE FEED ME!” She screamed internally.

GROOOOOOONK...

That was the moment that Serena had chosen to walk through the door. She had a bright smile on her face and a large purse hanging from one hand. “Mama! Oh thank goodness! Feed me!” Rosalyn furiously gronked at Serena while jumping up and down excitedly. “Oh goodness dearest, of course! I was coming to fetch you and a bottle and then we can go visit Cham while you eat. I will also teach you how to feed yourself if I am away on business or otherwise occupied.”

Rosalyn excitedly watched Serena, still in the guise of the silver haired woman hum as she dug in a small wooden box at the side of a rocking chair in the corner of the room. She pulled out a large glass bottle with a rubber nipple on the end similar to what she had seen the farmers in the village use to feed newborn goats with and set it to the side. “Oh? Dragons drink milk?” Rosalyn thought out loud. “No dearest. We subside off of mana. At least you and I do. Different dragons eat different things. Of course, since there aren’t any other dragons as far as I can tell, I guess you could say that all dragons eat mana!” Continuing to hum a jaunty tune she loaded the bottle and a few stoppered vials into her bag before turning back to Rosalyn.

“You are lucky dearest, when I was a whelp my mother was a normal ice drake and I had to process the mana from living things. It is very hard to extract enough mana from dead flesh let me tell you what! My mother thought I was a runt for my entire infancy. She was so surprised when I disappeared and came back twice as large as she was! Of course, that was a long time ago and progress ever marches onward!” She cheerily declared with a sparkle in her eye as she put the purse over one shoulder and scooped the tiny whelp up in one hand. “Let’s go see Cham. Your other mother has really been impatiently waiting to see that you were all right. Watching you sleep earlier didn’t really assuage her fears that you did not come through whole, despite my assurances. Not that I blame her mind you, she considers you her daughter and I have developed a great respect for her after what she did to keep you safe.”

Rosalyn soaked in her surroundings as they walked through the large cottage that was now her home, and make no mistake this place was a home despite the relative new construction of the place. Kobolds ran around doing various tasks with happy looks on their faces, some noticing that she was in Serena’s arms stopped to enthusiastically wave at her. She couldn’t help but smile at them and wave back with her tiny little arms. The trip was short and pleasant and soon they were standing on a wide wooden porch that had a covering that was still partially under construction, but something was still bothering her. “Ahh, Mama. Where is Birdie? I remember he was struck by the lich and hit the wall…”

Serena stopped and looked thoughtful for a moment and Rosalyn held her breath expecting bad news, “Ahh do not fret child. I actually do not know exactly where he is off the top of my head, but he is alive. He is a trapsmith and alchemist for the tribe and he has duties to attend. I will never understand how you managed to befriend quite literally the most dangerous member of this tribe with some soup. I think he has been gathering plants and other such items from the forest, maybe he is there again today?” Serena said as she scanned the yard area before showing an ‘aha’ look on her face, “ I will pass along word for him to come see you at his earliest convenience.”

Striding along once more they approached a freestanding gazeebo with a rectangular roof had been erected between a small shed and a large tree with a rope swing gently blowing in the wind. At one end, leaning on a cane, was Mother Cham. It was odd to see her out of her habit, but Rosalyn had seen her fiery red hair many times over the years, although there was a new skunk stripe of iron grey down the center of her head that she had not noticed during the battle in the cave chamber along with the horrendous scars from the lich’s initial attack on their home. Despite the odd circumstances they had found themselves in Mother Cham was doing something that was very familiar to Rosalyn. She was teaching numbers. She was teaching numbers to a large group of young kobolds to be precise, and the spectacle of it made Rosalyn bark out a chuffing gronk of a laugh that very quickly turning into heaving sobs as the emotion she had been ignoring since she had fled at Mother Cham’s behest broke loose. She wriggled free of Serena’s arms and jumped to the floor letting out an incredibly pitiable noise as she ran.

Cham was only startled for a second before tears appeared in her own eyes as she caught the little dragon as Rosalyn leapt into her arms. They both hugged each other while they both sobbed and cried until Rosalyn’s stomach let out another audible growl. “Haha. Rose, I take it you are a bit peckish? Here, let me give you back to Serena. She has your bottle. You eat while I finish this lesson, if I let them slack at all then they are impossible for the next week!” Cham reached out and handed the squirming whelp back to Serena, who then sat down in a rocking chair in the corner of the gazebo. She gently set Rosalyn down on the ground while she dug through her very large purse.

Serena pulled out the bottle from before, now full of a light blue liquid. “We are going to start off with this weak potion and then work you up to the stronger stuff. While you should have been exactly like me, you are a little different… Well, I just want to make sure that this won’t hurt you is all. Unfortunately, I can’t give you the REALLY good potions I bought because they are more than a little alcoholic!”

“Maybe in a couple of decades!” Serena winked at her daughter.

“Well come on then!” she declared, holding out her arms while making an inviting gesture with her hands. Rosalyn jumped into them and snuggled close before Serena positioned her just so and put the bottle to her mouth. “So dearest,do you feel it flowing into you?” Rosalyn did, it was warm and cold at the same time, like she was tasting the very essence of the world. “This feeling, it is mana, the building block of everything magical in the universe. It sustains us and makes us strong. Mana is everywhere and in everything. It floats freely in the air and resides in everything from the lowest rock to the most regal beast, and if you can recognize it you can extract it and eat it. Remember this feeling and you will never go hungry.” Serena said, going into full lecture mode. Rosalyn nodded her head in understanding. Now that she had a baseline, she could sort of feel it floating in the air. A similar flavor just out of reach, almost like it is on the peripheral of her senses and if she turned her head fast enough she could catch it.

“Of course, be warned that extracting the mana from a living thing is not only difficult, but fatal. It is not something you should do to anything you want to live. Of course, the easiest way to extract mana from a living thing is to eat it, but I tend to not do that. People tend to get upset if you eat their livestock and they get REALLY upset if you start eating people. Torch and pitchfor upset if you catch my meaning. Mana potions are much cleaner and I specifically chose this location for it’s high ambient mana. Again you are going to have a bit easier of a time than I did since a hundred years ago mana potions were the stuff of legends and cost a king’s ransom. Oh what advances the blood of dragons have bought...” Serena continued while rocking Rosalyn.

“Oh, this isn’t fair. Critical hit to my baby self! My eyes are starting to droop. I wanted to hear more about eating. I haven’t even been awake that long!” Rosalyn groused internally.

“You can extract mana it from anything in nature, but you have to be very careful not to harm the ecosystem of where you call home. It is very easy to kill forests and sallow fields if you take too much too quickly. Pro-tip from an old dragon for you, causing fields to go sallow will also make people want to kill you.”

“Mana is our greatest resource, but it also is ultimately why people hunted us to extinction. I realize that genocide and extinction is a very heavy meal time topic from your Mama, but even the least magical dragons were giant balls of mana who were slaughtered and dissected for the advancement of magical studies. For you and me, it is even more pronounced. Everything about you is magical and there isn’t a mage on this continent who wouldn’t sell their soul to get their hands on you.” Serena chuckled “You are right though, this is a little too heavy for your first meal let’s talk a bit about eating some more.”

“Oh right she can hear my thoughts.” Serena then spent the next few minutes walking through how to pull mana into herself so that Rosalyn could feed herself if there was no one around. The work was hard and she found that she did not pull in mana exactly the same way as her mama. Serena pulled in mana through her mouth while it seemed that Rosalyn used the strange blue horn on her head to absorb mana. Still, the process was the same and after a while she had gotten the hang of it but found herself very worn out from the effort of learning something new.

Noticing the drooping eyelids on Rosalyn’s face, Serena smiled and said “Why don’t we do this instead…” and with that she starting singing a haunting lullaby as Rosalyn sleepily drank the last of her mana potion meal. The excitement of seeing Mother Cham again coupled with learning to pull mana in from the environment coupled with the gentle rocking motions of the chair meant that Rosalyn never stood a chance and was out in minutes.

“Man, being a baby is hard work,” was her last thought before darkness took her once more.

Cham walked over to Serena, she barely needed the walking stick these days but it was surprisingly handy for keeping unruly kobolds in line during class,.and watched the sleeping form of the baby dragon that was now Rosalyn. “What happens now?”

Looking down with a serene expression she said, “We teach her how to defend herself, because if she is ever found out the mages will come.” Cham grunted and crossed her arms

“Now about that supposed cultist that has been tailing you over in Spite when you go to buy those ridiculously alcoholic potions…”