The flight home was slow and lazy, our bellies full and our wings heavy with meat and air. She flew slightly ahead, casting long shadows over the trees as the sun slid westward, and I followed close, my eyes locked not on the sky—but on the idea of the pond.
My pond.
Our pond, now.
We landed just as the light began to fade, our claws thudding softly into the dirt near the water's edge. I trotted forward, ears twitching, already sensing something off.
The surface was too still.
Too quiet.
I crept closer and peered in.
What I saw made my gut twist.
Half a dozen fish floated dead near the rocks. Others darted frantically through the shallow water, panicked, confused. I spotted the culprit instantly—thin, long-bodied, cold-eyed.
A snake.
It was coiled on a rock, belly bloated from the feast it had stolen. A pond snake, one of the slick, water-hunting types. Small, but deadly to anything that relied on the water to live.
It hissed at me.
Wrong move.
I lunged. Claws first. The rock cracked under the weight of my strike. The snake didn't even have time to slither—it was reduced to paste in seconds.
But the damage was done.
I looked at her. She'd stepped beside me now, staring into the pond with that same silent understanding.
The fish… they were disappearing.
They hadn't bred yet. Too new. Too stressed. If we didn't add more—soon—the pond would be dead again.
I growled softly and turned.
Without hesitation, she followed me back into the air.
We flew to the smaller streams again, faster this time. Not to hunt. Not to feast. But to rebuild.
She hovered above while I dove into the water, plucking fish from shallow pools one by one. I dropped them into a thick leaf I'd curved into a crude carrying pouch, then carried them back in my claws and mouth.
Trip after trip.
Until the sun was gone and the stars crept through the clouds.
By the time we returned to our pond again, we had brought back nearly thirty new fish. I dropped the last into the water and watched them scatter, wide-eyed and wild, but alive.
She stood beside me, watching too.
We'd saved it—again.
I rumbled deep in my chest and laid down at the pond's edge, tail curling around me, wings drooping.
She lay beside me.
No words. No looks.
Just two dragons, watching over the future of their home.
Because this was more than just water.
It was ours.
And we'd protect it—together.