Pine needles crack under my feet like tiny bones.
Bare feet. Again. My last good sandals died ten miles back with a sad little strap-snap noise, and I didn't even bother swearing properly. What's the point. I bend, snap a dead branch, tuck it under my arm, bend again. The grove smells sharp and clean and unfairly peaceful for a place in the upper badlands of Hanigalbat, where everything else wants you blistered, bitten, or dead.
The Dragon is somewhere up on the cliff. I can't see him, but I can feel him—like weather. Sulking, probably. Or keeping watch. Or composing an internal monologue about how this terrain lacks dignity. We didn't find a cave. No overhang, no ruins, no cozy little hollow with dramatic acoustics. So that means open camp. Fire. Ground. Sky. Me pretending I don't mind sleeping rough while my spine already disagrees.
I snap another branch. Sap sticks to my fingers.
Three days now. Goat paths that go nowhere. Hamlets that smell like boiled cabbage and disappointment. One forsaken town where even the dogs looked tired of being alive. This is not the coast. This is not marble and salt air and money changing hands with smiles. This is dirt and wind and people who look at you like you're either trouble or meat.
I straighten, arms full of wood, and just… stop for a second.
Is this it? Is this my life now?
Sleeping rough in badlands, toes numb, feet toughening whether I like it or not. Traveling with a grumpy dragon who complains about drafts and refuses to admit he likes my cooking even when he eats all of it. No cities. No bathhouses. No bright markets where I can vanish into noise and perfume and stolen silk. Just sky and stone and the long stretch between nowhere and worse.
I look down at my feet. Pine needles stuck between my toes. Dirt under my nails. I wiggle them anyway, because they're still mine.
"Could be worse," I mutter to myself. That's always been my stupid little mantra. Could be chained. Could be sold. Could be someone else's problem.
A breeze moves through the grove, needles whispering overhead. Somewhere above, stone shifts. He's repositioning. Watching. Making sure nothing eats me while I'm busy having an existential crisis with firewood.
I huff, adjust my grip, and head back toward where the fire will be.
Fine. Badlands it is. Open sky. Rough ground. Me, a dragon, and whatever dumb trouble comes next.
I've slept in worse places.
I stop again, halfway back to the fire, arms full of sticks, and an absolutely stupid thought crawls into my head and refuses to leave.
Was this actually better?
Better than Madam Zoobaya's house?
Gods, that's a rotten question.
Because on paper, obviously—obviously—this is freedom. No walls. No locks. No rules. Nobody owns me. Nobody decides when I eat, when I work, when I smile, when I get slapped. I can walk. I can steal. I can yell at mountains and nobody fines me for tone. I can pick my lovers, or not have any. I can spit in fate's face.
But.
Bed.
A real bed. Satin sheets that slid under your skin like a purr. Pillows you could drown in. Heat in winter. Shade in summer. Baths. Actual baths. Warm. With oils. Perfume. Soaps that smelled like citrus and honey and lies.
Honey cakes, too. If I behaved. If I played their little game sweetly enough. If I arched my back right and fluttered my lashes and didn't bite anyone too hard.
And the punters? Hah. They liked me. My mouth, my attitude, the whole "dangerously adorable gutter witch" vibe. Some of them paid extra to hear me insult them. I was profitable. Popular. A good investment. The kind of girl you locked with a chain not because you had to—well, you did—but because you didn't want anyone else getting a discount.
So was it that bad?
Collar. Chain. Cat-o'-nine. That bloody smug smile of hers when she dragged it across the wall like music.
I shift the wood against my hip. The bark bites my skin.
Yeah. It was that bad.
Because the bed wasn't mine. The cakes weren't mine. The baths weren't mine. Even my damn skin wasn't mine. It all came with a price tag nailed to my ribs. Behave and you get silk. Disobey and you get leather. Smile right and you get sugar. Talk back and you get iron.
Even the love—whatever passed for "affection" in that place—was rationed. We were livestock with lipstick. Pretty, perfumed, expensive animals. And every now and then, someone reminded you exactly how replaceable you were.
"Was it so bad?" I mutter.
My fingers ghost to my throat, to where a collar isn't anymore. No weight. No ring. Just skin.
Maybe I don't have satin now. Or a roof. Or shoes, apparently. Maybe I sleep on rocks and pine needles and dragon ribs. Maybe I'm cold and hungry and constantly a half-step from doing something catastrophically stupid.
But when I lie down, I do it because I chose to.
When I get up, I do it because I chose to.
When I stay, it's because I want to.
Chains are chains, even if they sparkle. Even if they come with honey cakes.
I take a breath, shake it off, and start walking again.
"Yeah," I mutter under my breath, to the pines, to the rocks, to the unseen hulk of ancient lizard sulking above me. "This is better. Annoying as shit. But better."
Then I step on a sharp rock.
A really sharp one.
"—fuck!"
I hop on one foot, drop half the wood, hiss through my teeth and clutch my heel like it personally betrayed me. Which it did. Absolutely did. Blood wells up fast, because of course it does. Freedom, apparently, comes with tetanus.
"Fuck this freedom," I mutter, limping. "Marble floors don't do this. Satin doesn't stab you. Neither do rugs. Or obedient servants."
I blow on my foot like that does anything. It doesn't.
I sigh, long and tired and dramatic, and keep going anyway, because what's the alternative. Sit down in the pine grove and cry about hypothetical bathhouses? Not my best look.
What am I doing.
No, really. What am I doing.
Running from silk to stone. From roofs to sky. From beds to dirt. From chains to… whatever this is. A dragon. A fire. A horizon that never seems to get closer. I told myself it was freedom. I told myself it was better. But right now it just feels like I traded one kind of owned for another kind of exposed.
I limp into camp at last. The fire's low, just coals breathing orange. I dump the wood in a sloppy little pile and drop onto a rock with a pout so obvious it could be taxed.
The Dragon looks down.
Of course he notices. He always notices. Gods forbid I have a silent spiral like a normal person.
He leans closer, squints at my foot, then at my face.
"You are bleeding," he says, mildly. Then, after a pause, "And sulking."
"I'm reflecting," I snap. "On life. And also my heel."
He snorts, a quiet puff of smoke curling out between his teeth. Then—damn him—his voice softens without him meaning to.
"You are bad at this land," he says. "But… you do not belong on marble floors."
I glare at him. "Excuse you."
"No," he continues, fumbling right through it, "I mean—those places were designed to keep things in place. Still. Polished. You… are not."
I open my mouth to bite back.
He adds, quieter, almost embarrassed, "And you walk where you choose now. Even when it hurts."
That shuts me up.
I just… deflate.
Gods damn it.
I get up, limp the last step, and wrap my arms around his warm, stupid neck, pressing my face into scale and smoke and ash. He stiffens for half a heartbeat, then carefully, awkwardly, folds a wing around me like he's afraid I'll break.
"I hate rocks," I mumble into him.
"I hate brothels," he replies.
We stand there like that for a moment. Me barefoot and bleeding. Him ancient and grumpy and trying very hard not to be gentle.
The fire crackles.
I sigh, long and deep, and let myself stay.
I limp into camp like a martyr returning from war. Drop the wood in a messy little pile. Let it clatter louder than necessary. I am pouting. Professionally.
The Dragon looks down from where he's coiled, firelight catching the edges of his scales. He doesn't comment on the drama. Just watches me for a second too long.
"You were gone longer than expected," he says.
That's it. No accusation. No lecture. Just… noted. Like it mattered.
I shrug, stare very hard at the ground. "Pine trees were being difficult."
He hums. Then, after a pause that feels suspiciously deliberate, he says, "I was thinking we should head south tomorrow."
I squint up at him. "Why south."
"There is a town," he replies.
I wait. Raise a brow. "And."
Another pause. Gods, he's bad at this.
"They are… apparently," he says carefully, "famous for their honey cakes."
I snort despite myself. "You're moving migration plans based on pastries now?"
He tilts his head, then—very briefly—smiles. Just a small curl at the edge of his mouth. Like he doesn't quite know he's doing it.
"You like them," he says simply.
Something in my chest does a stupid little lurch.
Oh.
It's not about the town. Or the cakes. It's about me not sulking barefoot in badlands for another week. It's about roofs. Baths. Plates. Me being fed and warm and loud somewhere that isn't trying to stab me through the sole.
I exhale, the fight draining out of me all at once.
"…yeah," I mumble. "I do."
I step closer and hug him, arms around his neck, cheek pressed into warm scale. He freezes for half a breath, then relaxes, a wing shifting slightly so the wind doesn't hit my back.
We don't say anything else.
The fire crackles. The badlands wait.
Tomorrow, apparently, there will be honey cakes.