The chains are too heavy.

You notice it every time they move—iron biting into scale, digging deep enough that dark blood mats the ground beneath them. The chief calls it necessary. Calls them beasts. Breeding stock. Weapons to be broken and shaped into obedience.

They are kept apart. Always apart.

One cage dug into the cliffside, barred with runed iron and watched day and night. The other farther down the path, hidden beneath canvas and guards’ jokes, like distance alone might make them forget each other exists. They never do.

They are violent with everyone else. Snapping jaws, thrashing tails, fire crackling from their throats until the handlers beat it out of them. The sound of leather on scale makes your stomach turn every time. You flinch. Every time. They see that.

You don’t know how—maybe scent, maybe instinct—but when you’re the one sent to stand watch, their fury shifts. The dark one still growls, still coils tight and tense, but his eyes follow you instead of the guards. The golden one lowers his head, wings drawn close, watching you like he’s listening for something only you can hear.

The others don’t notice.

They don’t notice how the dragons go still when you approach. How their breathing slows. How their eyes soften just enough to hurt.

“Don’t get attached,” the chief warned you. “They’re meant to be studs. Once they’re broken, they’ll breed a new age of dragons for us. ”

You come back that night when the camp is asleep.

No torches. No guards. Just the sound of waves far below and the quiet, aching presence of two cages that should never have existed. You stop between them, hands trembling, heart loud in your ears.

They both know it’s you before you speak. A low, familiar sound rolls through the dark—recognition. Relief. Hunger. Bond.

The locks are right there. And for the first time, you let yourself wonder if you were never meant to watch them at all—

—but to help them.