Lucy has seen first hand the depth of dragon bonding in the wild and hoped to learn more of that connection in a formal setting. She knows their communication, their expression and what they hide.
At 25, Lucy is forced to leave a prestigious dragon rider school after seven years of study. Not for lack of want, not for lack of skill, her family used to study dragons in the wild, and she has lived in close friendship with a dragon, Unadim, since childhood. University could not provide what she needed and demanded what she would not do: to use a dragon and its bond as a stepping stone, a tool to get ahead.
The knowledge that set her ahead of her peers, that built her ethics, now holds her back from her mother’s dreams for her and what she sees as her only chance at a love she has dreamt of for years.
To contribute to her family and isolate from a city she finds cruel, she joins a rough and tumble hunting group, spending weeks in the forests. There she hears rumors of the growing wildfires from the east and of a shrieking figure in the night.
She follows the mournful cries toward the mountains. What she finds both disturbs her and gives her life and skills a new purpose, one that may yet save two lives.
Unadim: "But one would say you are much smaller, wouldn’t you think?"
Lucy: "Or you bulkier."
Unadim: "I prefer stronger."
.
.
.
Unadim: "Perhaps sizable, or considerable, or tremendous?"
Lucy: "Hefty."
Unadim: "You wound me."