The next morning came too soon.
Null had barely slept. Not because he wasn't tired—he was exhausted from yesterday's events—but because sleeping as a dragon was uncomfortable as hell. His wings kept getting in the way. His tail had a mind of its own. And the bed, massive as it was, felt wrong for his new body.
"I'll just ask my mother how I can transform into a human like her," he muttered.
The word felt strange in his mouth. Mother.
Jordan's family on Earth hadn't gotten along. His birth parents had given him up before he could even remember them. Foster families had treated him like a paycheck. Group homes were just places to survive. But Aurora looked at him with genuine warmth, protecting him from that corrupted dragon without hesitation.
It was… nice. Weird, but nice.
"Still haven't seen or heard anything about a dad, though," he mused aloud—another mystery for the pile.
Speaking of mysteries, he was a Primordial Dragon. What exactly was that? The cosmic being had been pretty vague about that part. Space? Void? Something else entirely? Aurora had said his element was unknown even to her.
Not having answers to his own questions was frustrating.
Null stood and walked to the mirror that dominated one wall of his room. What met him was not what he expected.
He was small for a dragon—maybe the size of a large horse rather than the mountain-sized elders. His scales were black, but not the flat black of night. They were the black of deep space, with tiny points of light scattered across them like distant stars. When he moved, the star patterns shifted, showing different constellations.
But his eyes were the real showstopper.
They were mini universes. Literally, the iris swirled with nebulae, the pupils were black holes, and if you looked closely, you could see galaxies spinning in slow motion. They still had the vertical slit of dragon eyes, but it was like someone had captured cosmos and trapped them there.
He experimented with spreading his wings. They were proportionally large for his body, and the membrane between the bones showed the same deep-space effect. They looked like windows into the void, complete with slowly moving celestial bodies when fully extended.
"Beautiful," he admitted. Not in a vain way, just… factual. He was a living piece of space given dragon form.
His room reflected his nature, too. Everything was black crystal or dark wood. The bed he'd struggled with all night was massive enough for his adult form whenever that happened.
Bookshelves lined one wall, filled with tomes written in languages he somehow understood. A desk carved from what looked like meteorite sat near the window, covered in star charts that moved on their own. Floating orbs of light provided illumination, orbiting the room like tiny planets.
No TV though. No video games. No phones.
"Different world, different entertainment," he sighed.
A knock at the door interrupted his musings.
"Prince Null?" A maid's voice—different from yesterday's. "Queen Aurora requests your presence at the training grounds."
"On my way," he called back.
The training grounds turned out to be less 'grounds' and more 'massive chunk of reinforced reality.'
It was an open field that stretched for miles, but the grass wasn't regular grass—it was some kind of crystalline plant that could apparently withstand dragon battles. The sky above was enclosed in a shimmering dome of energy. Scattered throughout were various obstacles: mountains that had been placed there artificially, lakes that defied gravity, forests that repaired themselves, and floating islands connected by chains of solidified lightning.
Aurora stood in the center, still in her humanoid form—golden hair flowing in a wind that didn't exist, wearing simple training clothes instead of her royal dress.
"First lesson," she said without preamble. "Flying."
Null spread his wings. "I think I can figure out—"
He jumped and immediately crashed face-first into the crystal grass.
Aurora's laughter was warm and genuinely amused. "Flying isn't about wings, little star. It's about ether."
"Ether?"
"The energy in your heart. Every dragon has a core there, where their element lives. Wings are just for steering. The ether is what holds you up." She demonstrated no wings at all in her human form by floating upward. "Feel for it. It should pulse with your heartbeat."
Null closed his eyes and searched. There—a warmth in his chest, but different from body heat. It felt like… distance like the space between stars.
"Got it."
"Now push it through your body, into your wings."
He tried. The energy responded eagerly, flooding through him. He rose about three feet before the flow stuttered, and he crashed again.
"Too much at once," Aurora corrected. "Like breathing. Steady and controlled."
It took an hour before he could hover steadily. Another hour before he could actually fly without looking like a drunk butterfly. By the third hour, he was doing loops around the training ground, getting a feel for how the ether responded to his will.
"Good. Now we fight."
"Wait, you're staying in human form?"
She smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. "You think size determines strength? First mistake."
She vanished.
Null's instincts screamed. He twisted left just as Aurora's fist passed through where his head had been. The wind pressure alone left a groove in the crystal grass below.
"Too slow."
Her knee caught him in the ribs before he could respond. He felt something crack. His body tumbled through the air, wings flailing to regain control. He managed to right himself just in time to see her coming again—a golden blur moving at speeds that shouldn't be possible.
He brought his tail around this time, trying to catch her mid-charge.
She slid under it like it was moving in slow motion, grabbed the tail with both hands, and used his own momentum to slam him into the ground. The impact created a crater.
"Your tail is a weapon, not a rope. Don't let enemies grab it."
Null rolled aside as her foot stomped where his head had been, the ground shattering like glass. He swiped with his claws—she leaned back just enough that they missed by millimeters. His follow-up wing strike met her palm. She didn't even budge.
"Better. Chain your attacks."
She pushed his wing aside and stepped inside his guard. Her palm strike to his chest sent him skidding backward, claws leaving furrows in the ground.
Null circled her, thinking. She was faster, stronger, and definitely more skilled. But he'd grown up fighting bigger opponents. The key was timing and unpredictability.
He charged, then used his wings to juke right at the last second. Aurora's punch missed. He brought his tail around low while swiping high with his claws—a two-level attack.
She jumped, spinning horizontally between both attacks, and kicked him in the snout while upside down.
"Creative, but telegraphed. Your wings dipped before you dodged."
Blood dripped from his nose. Null shook his head, frustrated. Every move he made, she read like a book.
They reset. This time, Aurora attacked first, appearing in front of him instantly. Null brought both wings forward as shields. She punched through them—not physically, but her fist somehow phased through and caught him in the jaw.
"Solar energy can shift between states—physical, energy, plasma. My attacks can be any of the three. Your defenses need to account for all possibilities."
She demonstrated by throwing what looked like a normal punch. Null dodged, but the heat from it still singed his scales. The next punch looked the same, but it hit like a sledgehammer when he tried to block it.
"How am I supposed to know which is which?"
"Experience." She grabbed his reaching claw, flipped over his arm, and drove both feet into his spine. "And pain."
Null crashed face-first again but managed to roll with it, whipping his tail back where she'd been. She sidestepped, caught the tail again, but this time he was ready. He folded his wings and spun his whole body, turning the grab into his own momentum.
His claw actually grazed her arm.
They both stopped, looking at the thin line of gold blood.
"Excellent," Aurora said, and she seemed genuinely pleased. "You learned from the same mistake. Now—"
She blurred again, but this time, Null was starting to read her rhythm. Not fast enough to block, but enough to minimize damage. Her punch aimed for his chest; he twisted so it hit his shoulder instead. Her knee came up; he brought his wing down to deflect it partially.
It went on like that. Aurora would show him a weakness, exploit it mercilessly until he adapted, then move on to the next lesson.
"Your claws aren't just for slashing," she said, catching his wild swing and showing him how to hook and pull instead. In the following exchange, he managed to use the technique to redirect one of her punches.
"Your wings create blind spots," she noted, disappearing into one and striking his ribs. He learned to fold them quickly, to use quick flaps to clear his vision.
"Your breath weapon will come naturally, but your body knows the motion." She showed him how dragons positioned their heads, how the throat aligned. "Practice the form even without the fire."
As the hours passed, his movements did become more natural. The dragon body stopped feeling like a costume and started feeling like him. Duck, wing-block, tail-sweep, claw-strike—it flowed together like a violent dance.
But Aurora was still untouchable when she wanted to be. Every time he thought he had her pattern, she changed it. Whenever he felt confident, she introduced something new that flattened him.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, she called a stop.
Null collapsed on the crystal grass, every part of his body screaming. His scales were cracked in places, one wing hung slightly wrong, and he was sure several ribs were broken.
"I just want to sleep forever," he groaned, slumped over completely.
Aurora knelt beside him, not even breathing hard. Her training clothes didn't have a single scuff.
"You did well for your first day."
"I barely touched you once."
"Most never do on their first day. You managed it in three hours." She placed a hand on his side, and warm energy flowed through him. The worst of the damage began to heal. "Your combat instincts are remarkable for a hatchling. You think like a fighter
"More than you know. Your analysis and your adaptation speed aren't normal dragon traits. You think and adjust. Most young dragons just rely on instinct and power. It's unusual… but then everything about you has been unusual."
She stood, brushing off her knees. "Rest for an hour, then we continue."
"Continue?!"
"How many have you trained?"
"Hundreds, over the centuries. But none quite like you." She studied his star-field scales. "Your ether responds differently. It doesn't just flow—it folds space. When you moved, sometimes you were faster than you should be. Covered more distance than your wings carried you."
Null hadn't noticed that, too focused on not getting hit.
"What am I, exactly?" he asked. "What element?"
Aurora was quiet for a moment. "I don't know. But we'll figure it out together." She stood, brushing off her dress. "Rest for an hour, then we continue."
"Continue?!"
"You have centuries of training to catch up on, little star. We've only just begun."
As she walked away, Null remained sprawled on the ground, staring at the dome overhead. His body ached, his pride was bruised, but underneath it all was excitement.
This was nothing like Earth. There, he'd been limited by human physics and human strength. Here, the only limits were how much pain he could endure and how fast he could learn.
"One hour," he muttered to himself. "Then round two."
He closed his eyes, letting the alien sun warm his scales. Somewhere in his chest, his ether core pulsed with power he was only beginning to understand.
Tomorrow, he'd be stronger.
The day after, stronger still.
And someday—maybe—he'd actually land a hit on his mother.
But for now, he just lay there, a baby cosmic dragon pretending the crystal grass was comfortable, wishing dragon bodies came with off switches.