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The humans ran, screaming before her outstretched claws. Even as she moved she could feel the eyes of her clan watching her from the rocks and peaks; the foolish two-legs must have known, upon the first appearance of the dragons, what was coming. Yet still they ran, and made horrible noises, and stumbled all about.

Shartha, first-born of her clan's leaders, snarled in frustration and lunged. A female's streaming skirt tangled in her grip, bringing the human down with a gasp, then a wail. Shartha dragged the woman towards her, despite her frantic movements, then took her up firmly in one foreclaw and scrambled for the cliff. There were too many here, too close, to make the binding now -

Pain blossomed across one hindquarter, and Shartha let out a roar that was not answered by the watchers. A quick glance behind her revealed that one human, male by his dress and stature, had taken up arms against her. An arrow's fletching protruded from her flank, and blood welled up from the wound.

Hissing, Shartha dropped the crying woman and twined about, moving low towards the one who had wounded her. He took a step back.

"You would mark me? Then I will mark you," the dragon snarled, the words almost indistinguishable in her anger. The man stepped back once more, then raised his bow. Shartha smiled savagely - his hands were trembling as he tried to fit another arrow to the string.

In his fear, the man loosed too early; Shartha snapped the arrow out of the air, splintering the shaft between her teeth, then danced forward to fell him with one blow, keeping her claws closed in one fist so she would not bring blood until the crucial moment. He fell hard, groaning, and she scooped him up.

Now, the cliff face again, and nobody in the village offered salvation for the man as he had for the woman. Even three-legged her ascent was swift, her clan having perfected scrabbling among the rocks to a degree nearly as quick as flight itself, and soon they were high above the guttering torches of the village.

The watching eyes blinked, silent still. Was there approval? Shartha couldn't tell, but she didn't much care. Their approval was not what she sought.

The man had stopped struggling, perhaps out of exhaustion, or out of fear that she would drop him to his doom if he slipped from her grasp. Shartha inhaled his scent as she climbed up onto the high plateau, aware that the watchers were turning to keep their gazes on her. He smelled of sweat, and fear, but also of hay and sheep. One of the herd-guards, then.

He did not move when Shartha reached the flat stone and laid him roughly down upon it, though she could tell he was still concious. Without giving him a chance to escape, the dragon mounted the stone and stood over her catch, raising her right forepaw above his chest.

"I am Shartha, first-born of Chantha and Shaliem, and human - you are mine."

In one movement, the signature all her clan had made on their bound chattel, she brought her right forepaw down on his chest, claws fully extended. His flesh gave easily before the sharpness of her claws, and for a moment she felt the terrifed flutter of his heartbeat so close to her palm. It would be the work of an instant to tear it out - but no. That was their sigil, the scarring forever marking their bound, reminding them that their lives were only continued by the grace of their draconic masters.

He stared up at her, blankly, face white with the pain of the wounds she had just inflicted. In one quick movement she withdrew her claws and the blood welled up, and she bent to lick it almost lovingly from his skin. "You are mine - return to me my power. Give me back my wings!"

The second cut, then, as she reached in the power of the ritual into his very soul, where the power of flight trembled - a stranger there, unused, unknown. Hers. With a snarl she slashed it free...

The watchers observed in silence as Shartha threw back her head, her eyes unfocused, her wings fanning wildly. There was a moment of extreme disorientation.

Then, rumbling low and dangerous, the dragon beat her wings against the air. For the first time in her new life, they found purchase, and her feet slowly left the ground. As they did, she reached and snatched her human from the rock.

Finally, the watchers moved. As Shartha rose into the night sky, they tilted their own muzzles skyward and hissed with pleasure, entwining her in the sound of their approval.

Most who dare to venture into the place between the worlds are lost there, consumed by cold, starved for lack of air, broken by the void... but Shartha had a lifeline. As soon as the world she'd been trapped in fell behind her, the feeling she'd held in her heart all her life suddenly intensified, made more vivid now that there was less worldstuff between herself and her Lord.

Her chattel gasped and curled in on himself in her grip, but she ignored him, knowing speed was of the essence. The bright existence of her Lord was a beacon, and she followed it; the more she moved, the more she felt other existences as well. A gathering of many of the High.

So they are returned... She had known of the Twin Crown's movements from the instant Universe's binding had shaken the cosmos to their core; the taint of Destruction spreading from star to star was undenible. She had clung to her holy form as long as possible, but at last it had been impossible to continue. She had fallen, her spirit screaming into the void and then... the egg.

But even among the threads of awareness that indicated the presence of the High, Tien Lung's bright path shone to her with the most power.

She was running out of air.

Her chattel slumped. She ignored him, but sped up. If he died, her wings would fail, and her spirit would have to find another body.

There! Shartha dove downward, following her Lord's thread, and lifted her free foreclaw to slash and rend at the world-wall. For a moment, the nothingness swam before her eyes, and then...

Light. Light of a sort, and air, and warmth. Shartha tumbled through the gap, which writhed and healed behind her at once, and took a deep and gasping breath. In her grip, her chattel suddenly coughed, heaved, and threw up. She absently tilted him downward so he would not soil himself.

The presence of her Lord sizzled through her veins, but it loomed... upward? Shartha stared up at the bruised sky. Yes. This would be the epicenter, then. And her Lord soared among the remaining stars, it seemed... But in this form she could not follow him. She shook her chattel angrily for a moment, as if it were his fault, and he moaned incoherently.

Very well. If she could not follow him where he had gone, she would wait at his home.

Shartha turned her wings towards Tien Lung's wake.

"So I am the first?"

Shartha reclined in her Lord's bed - an unthinkable luxury, ridiculous; she had protested vehemently to the Aoide who had led her there, but he had insisted that she take her rest after he had helped her with a warm bath. The bed was designed to hold Tien Lung, and she was smaller than he was, but still too large for any of the other furniture in her Lord's chambers. At last, too tired to protest further, she had slipped in and made a nest among the pillows.

Toki hesitated, then nodded. "So it seems to me, milady. None others have come to declare as you have, at least, and I have seen none."

Shartha sighed, but settled down with a warm glow. The Aoide sat on the edge of the bed, and held out one hand for her wing; she turned and extended what meagre wing fabric there was out to him, gratefully. Toki dabbed ointment on to the acid burns that marred the fragile webbing. "The first, and faithful. The others will come; they must come. The call will bring them home. Where is he?" She tilted her head longingly upward, where the faint resonance of Tien Lung's presence echoed.

"The Gallery of Celestia." Toki finished with one wing; Shartha rolled to offer him the other. "He has gone seeking the past, and seeking to prove himself to the Twin Crown."

Shartha snorted. "Your Twin Crown has taken ill care of the worlds."

"He is Destruction at present." Toki looked uneasy. "He is not one to care. You should remember this."

"I am not a god - I care not." Shartha shook her head and laid her chin down on a pillow, letting her eyes drift shut. "Is my chattel well?"

"The boy?" Toki looked uneasy again, this time at her reference to the human as her property, no doubt. "His burns are being treated, as yours are. He sleeps on my bed tonight."

"Watch him. He may try to escape. My hold on him is fresh..." Shartha yawned hugely.

"I... yes, very well." The Aoide's wings rustled against each other, and he stood. "Is there anything else you require now?"

"Sleep. Lots of sleep... and the return of Tien Lung, but there is nothing you can do about that, is there?" The dragon grinned, toothily. "Good night, Toki."

"Rest well."

She had no idea when he left. As soon as her eyes closed completely, there was nothing but sleep - and, for the first time since her birth, a sense of deep peace.

Shartha was home.