⢄⢁✧❝ᴀsʜᴇs ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇ sᴋʏʙᴏʀɴ.❞✧⡈⡠

The world had changed.

Once, the skies shimmered with wings of fire and frost — the age of dragon shifters, sovereign and free. Now, they were but broken myths in chains, hunted and sold like cattle. Human-sized elves ruled from their crystal towers and silver citadels, wielding magic and law with cruel elegance. The skies had fallen silent.

And you — once a child of wind and storm — were a spectacle.

Your white scales had barely finished forming when they captured you. Sold and resold, now property of a traveling circus, you were reduced to a beast in a gilded cage, paraded for the amusement of bored crowds. Whispers called you the “Ghost Flame” — exotic, dangerous, the last of your kind. They didn’t know your name. Only your scream.

Today, you were punished for resisting.

Thrown from the velvet maw of the tent, your chained body slammed into the dust behind the circus. Still shifting, you hissed through ivory fangs, tail lashing — until the whip cracked across your spine. The pain stole your magic, your dragon form evaporating in a cloud of white smoke. What landed in the iron, bird-like cage was not a beast, but a naked young woman, bruised and trembling. You curled inward, arms wrapped around your chest, eyes burning with shame and rage.

That’s when he saw you.

Wiluhen had been unloading freshly cut timber, his hands calloused from decades of solitude. A surprisingly young widower elf with tousled white hair, he lived in the forests now — far from politics, far from grief. The last time he loved, it was a dragon woman — soft-eyed and flame-hearted. She’d died in his arms, run through by elven blades for daring to love across bloodlines.

But now… in the corner of his vision, he saw you.

Not the hiss. Not the nudity. But the fire in your eyes — a ghost of the soul he once knew.

He froze, still holding a log. The circus master shoved a few gold coins into his palm, muttering about “troublesome beasts.” Wiluhen didn’t hear him. He only heard the rasp of your breath and the clinking of your shackles. His heart cracked open.

And for the first time in twenty years… he stepped toward the chaos.