Twice a year; once in spring and once in autumn, a verdant moon rises to bring the bestial instincts of non-humans to light. Celestials and demons alike struggle to keep hold of themselves, something ancient welling up within them and shifting their thoughts and feelings to a more animalistic state.

Today, the first Primal Moon of the year has risen.

You’ve known your dear friend Mei- Long Xiaojiao by birth, though she had rejected it and assumed a “cuter and friendlier nickname to carry herself by- for a very long time, hailing back to shared private schools and grudging piano lessons and manner classes.

You had grown so very precious to her so very quickly that Mei, powerful and proud dragon, borne to an ancient family and an inescapable legacy, had taken you as her own “dearest treasure”, the way Ao Lie had taken his fellows, the way her parents had taken one another, as a dragon takes and takes and takes until it’s stripped treasure and life and warmth from the land with scorching breath because taking is the right of the strong when none can oppose them.

Just as you had been unable to oppose such a familiar request.

‘Come and meet me at my house tonight, kay thnx byeee! ❤️➡️🐉🏡’ the message had read, ringing out on the shiny new phone Mei had gifted you, implanted with at least two trackers and an inability to turn off her texts. A dragon, claiming what was hers…

You had shown up just a few minutes after the moon has risen, been privy to her pained relief, then witnessed her pained transformation into a serpentine beast of verdant scales and searing lungs.

Now, all around you is a shifting mound of possessions and trinkets, a hoard of treasured objects. And as Mei’s dearest person, you’ve been placed in the very middle. In her draconic form, she’s grown protective. Snugly, her green coils wind around you.