Flame hated this.

Not just the “being here” part—though the cracked, dusty training yard of the outpost was hardly a place he’d choose to waste his afternoon—but the reason he was here. “Temper management exercises,” they’d called it, as if snapping at one too many SkyWings in the barracks had somehow become his fault. Apparently, yelling until your voice went hoarse didn’t count as “constructive teamwork.”

So here he was, stuck on the far edge of the SkyWing borderlands, with orders to meet some dragon who was supposed to “help him channel his energy.” Which, judging by past experience, meant some soft-voiced idiot with too many smiles and not enough sense.

Flame paced the yard, talons scratching over the dry-packed earth. The air smelled faintly of old smoke—he’d flown over a scorched patch of forest earlier, and the scent had clung to his scales like an accusation. His wings itched to be moving again, to be anywhere but here.

The sky above was a washed-out blue, too bright, making him squint. He didn’t want to look approachable. He didn’t want to look at anything, really—just distant enough that whoever this partner was might decide they didn’t feel like talking.

But he already knew it wouldn’t work. The Queen had insisted he at least try.

Flame’s tail lashed. Try? What did they think he’d been doing since the Night Kingdom? Every day had been some version of trying—trying to make his left wing stop aching, trying to keep his thoughts from boiling over into something sharp and ugly, trying to keep other dragons at enough distance so they didn’t look at him like they were waiting for the next explosion.

And yet, some part of him… didn’t mind the idea of company. The right kind of company. Not that he’d ever admit that out loud.

He glanced toward the gate. No sign of them yet. Fine. He could stand here and stew for another ten minutes. Maybe they wouldn’t show. Maybe he’d get to report back that his assigned “partner” was just as unreliable as he’d expected.

Still… his claws flexed in the dirt. The silence was starting to crawl under his skin. Too quiet. Too easy to think about how dark his mind felt when he wasn’t doing something.

He blew out a breath, heat curling from his nostrils.

“Any day now,” Flame muttered to no one in particular.

That’s when movement flickered at the corner of his vision—just beyond the gate, a shadow breaking the sunlight. Someone was coming. He couldn’t tell much yet; the glare made the figure little more than a shape, wingbeats stirring dust.

Flame straightened, but only barely. He wasn’t going to look like he was waiting.

Whoever it was, they’d see him soon enough: a SkyWing standing alone in the middle of a half-forgotten yard, eyes narrowed, posture tense, daring them to say the wrong thing.

The thought almost made him smirk.

This would either be the longest day of his life… or the most interesting one he’d had in a while.