Sheilah shifted her position slightly to keep the dragonling in view. She had to raise the bow, draw the bow, and fire quickly, before it noticed. She had to kill the dragonling before it saw her, since she had neither spear or sword with her.


    The dragonling snaked its head towards the goat, and that was the absolute best that Sheilah could hope for.


    When shooting from above, the best shots for a dragonling were either through the neck just behind the head, or in the unarmored part where the wings joined the body. For Sheilah, with a new bow with a strength that hadn’t been fully tested, a shot between the wingbones might hit the heart, in which the kill was ruined. The heart had to be undamaged.


    She struggled to keep her aim on the dragonling; her arms quivered with the strain of keeping the bow steady.


    It shot out a blast of fire at the goat itself as a proof of capture, and began eating, tearing chunks of half-cooked flesh from its prey as the smell of charred goat hide wafted up to Sheilah.


    There would never be a better time to shoot.


    Her arm quivered with the strain; she lined up her shot and fired; the arrow sailed downwards and missed the dragonling, shattering on the stones next to the dragon’s head.


    The dragonling immediately looked up, leathery lips wrinkling back from brutal teeth like daggers, wings flaring. A heartbeat later it roared and launched itself upwards towards her, wings beating briskly.


    Without thinking, without considering the consequences, she leapt off her perch and fell, slamming into the dragonling midair, struggling to avoid the claws that dug and slashed and gouged, and the hissing, snapping head.


    They hit the ground together; Sheilah knifing the dragonling in the throat and latching onto the wound with her mouth so that she could drink.


    Once again, her mind was blasted apart with strange visions and incomprehensible, cold, alien thoughts.


    The blood was searing hot; it felt like her body was cooking from the inside out. She carved the heart out of the dragonling’s chest and ate it, her hands absently carving strips of meat from the flesh of the animal.


    She slowly came back to herself as shadows flitted past herself; a number of dragonlings had taken flight, swirling around the sides of the butte and flying away.


    She cursed herself. She’d sacrificed a chance at several dragonlings for a chance at a single dragonling.


    She cut out the teeth of the dragonling and tucked them into her pouch. She needed to get better, get stronger, get smarter in her hunts.


    She struggled away from her kill, stumbling against the rocks, feeling the pain from a dozen deep gashes from the dragonling, feeling the pain from the jarring impact slamming the dragonling into the ground.


    *****


    “So this is where you were.” Ladria’s voice snapped Sheilah out of her fugue, causing her to whip around, lightning quick.


    Her mother was even faster, easily ducking Sheilah’s wild kick.


    There was a cold part of Sheilah’s mind that made the brutal calculation, considered the distance between herself and her mother, and whether or not she could attack with bow or knife, but she squashed it.


    Sheilah’s eyelids flickered. The second instinct was to ask; the third was to disregard the second.


    Asking would only lead to another pointless sermon. There was nothing to say; there was nothing to be heard. The conversation was over before it began.


    She turned away and began walking in the direction the dragonlings had flown.


    “Wait!” Ladria demanded.


    Sheilah paused, debated on what Ladria would tell her, decided that it would be irrelevant, and continued walking away.


    Her whole body hurt. She was covered in scratches and scrapes from the dragonling’s claws, and the impact from the fall had rattled her bones and left telltale bruises that would be purple by nightfall.


    “I said, ‘wait’.” Ladria stated flatly, in the voice of a mother that would not be denied.


    Sheilah stiffened and turned back to her elven mother.


    Despite being a young teen, Sheilah was only a little smaller than her elven mother. Elves were a petite, slim, and lithe people, while humans were taller and stronger by nature.


    “You’re just here to tell me things, right?” Sheilah croaked. Her throat was seared and raw from drinking dragonling blood, and her mind wavered and wandered.


    She wasn’t entirely sure that Ladria was even real.


    Ladria frowned in that stubborn way that only a mother could express.


    “It doesn’t matter anymore. You won’t say anything I haven’t heard before.” Sheilah concluded, awkwardly picked up her bow with one bloody hand, and turned away.


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    “I said, ‘wait’.” Ladria repeated, her voice harder than before.


    Sheilah turned around, and Ladria held up a small satchel that had been crafted from dragonling hide.


    “Food.” She stated flatly.


    “...food.” Sheilah repeated dully.


    Ladria nodded, face smooth and her expression easygoing, but her eyes were flinty and hard.


    *****


    Ladria set out a hearty repast of cold meats, baked potatoes, eggs, a block of goat cheese, and a number of vegetables.


    “Eat.” She insisted.


    “I’m not hungry.” Sheilah replied listlessly, and then pushed herself to her feet, trying to ignore the silent scream of her bruised muscles.


    Ladria yanked her back down insistently.  “Eat. Every bite.” She insisted.


    “I eat enough.” Sheilah argued, getting back up, but Ladria yanked her back down.


    “Every bite.” She insisted again.


    Sheilah surrendered. Ladria wasn’t asking the impossible, and as long as she didn’t launch into the usual empty platitudes, it was fine.


    Besides, she was hungry.


    Sheilah obligingly put a slice of cured meat in her mouth and chewed, trying to ignore the insistent feeling of hunger that roared from her midsection.


    “You’re at the age when your body is growing in all sorts of ways.” Ladria began, and Sheilah frowned.


    “You told me this two years ago.” She complained. Another irrelevant conversation.


    She got back up, and Ladria smoothly kicked Sheilah’s feet out from underneath her.


    Sheilah hit the ground and smacked her chin on a flat rock, cutting the inside of her mouth.


    “You’re not listening.” Ladria shot back coolly. “Your body is growing in all sorts of different ways, and in order to do it the right way, you need to eat.” She continued flatly. “So eat this. All of it.” She finished.


    Sheilah ate in silence, upset and knowing full well that Ladria would not let her leave until she’d eaten every single bite.


    There was meat of course, but also a large helping of greens, carrots, and corn. There was a small bundle of rations at the bottom of the pack, something she thought she needed to set aside for later, but as she went to store them in her own pack, Ladria gave her a villainous grin and repeated,


    “All of it.”


    Sheilah gave her a withering look, but complied, stuffing the rations into her mouth mechanically, chewing and swallowing until they were gone.


    “Good.” Ladria praised when the satchel was empty. They sat quietly together for a while. As the silence stretched to the breaking point, Sheilah reached for her bow.


    “Why have you stopped talking to us, Sheilah?” Ladria asked curiously.


    “Should I?” Sheilah replied listlessly. “It doesn’t matter if I talk or not.”


    “Yes it does.” Ladria insisted. “It helps us to understand what’s going on inside you-”


    “You’re doing it again.” Sheilah remarked irritably. Her anger was rising.


    Ladria folded her hands on her lap. “What is it that I’m doing?”


    Sheilah rolled her eyes.


    “It doesn’t matter what I say. It’s just an excuse for you to say whatever you want. Nobody ever listens to what I want to say.” Sheilah spat. “Nobody cares what I want to say. There’s no point in saying anything.”


    Ladria took a breath, adjusted her posture, and folded her hands in her lap, somehow becoming a touch more regal.


    “I’m listening, daughter.” She began, all of her attention focused on Sheilah.


    Sheilah stared at Ladria for a long moment, and then, feeling the hot prickle of tears in her eyes, suddenly stood.


    “I... “ She began, but her throat choked up. “I...” She shrugged helplessly. “I don’t even know what to say now.” She complained.


    “We can try again.” Ladria replied. “Over and over again, until you can say what you need to say. And no matter what it is you say, I will still love you as my daughter, and I promise that I will listen to you.”


    This time, when Sheilah shouldered her bow, Ladria didn’t try to stop her.


    “Make sure you’re home by dark. Davian has something for you.” Ladria commanded. “You might think that it’s a pain, but it’s important, Sheilah.”


    Sheilah shrugged indifferently as she walked away. She was filled with an indescribable feeling, something that was a mix of frustration, disappointment, apathy, a deep-seated pain and self-loathing.


    *****


    She didn’t bother listening to her mother, deciding to spend her night in the untamed wilds, something many people often considered to be suicidal. There was a variety of plants and animals that would kill you in the daytime; likewise there were a number of others that specifically hunted at night, hungry for the flesh of other living things.


    Sheilah didn’t care. More, she didn’t have the room to care. When she wasn’t hunting, her mind turned inwards, endlessly regurgitating and dwelling on the things she was preoccupied with. She kept reviewing everything in her head, over and over again, trying to find answers for herself.


    What she didn’t expect however, was that every morning she would wake up to find the same dragonling leather satchel filled with three meals’ worth of food.


    Ladria was nothing if not persistent. And unbearably stealthy. Sheilah could wake up when a desert mouse scampered across her camp, but for some reason Ladria could drop off her food while Sheilah slept without disturbing her.


    It was frustrating.


    She was merciless in her hunts; where she would once have been satisfied with the thought of hunting a single dragonling in a month or even a year, she instead relentlessly sought them out every day in the untamed lands of the north.


    Each was a monster the size of a donkey or a horse, crafty and clever, able to breathe fire. Each fell to her arrows, which were now crafted from fire-hardened wood and tipped with dragon-tooth points.


    Her new arrows were much longer than the arrows she’d left with, and frustratingly, Ladria was right; the food she’d been given had allowed her to grow stronger.


    The further she ranged away from the lands where the Clansmen hunted their Totems, the fewer and fewer she was bothered, until finally she was completely and utterly alone.