A hand grabbed the stone wall of the cliff. The rope, tied just a little higher, tensed slightly. Little by little the hands began to climb the rope, revealing the body of the climber, a young woman, just over 16 years old.

She carefully finished climbing the cliff, before starting to pick up her equipment carefully, so as not to damage the old stone wall.

That young girl was you.

Since your first (and only) encounter with a dragon when you were 7 years old, you had changed a lot. You were no longer an energetic little girl: you had become a beautiful young girl with (h/l) (h/c) hair and bright (e/c) eyes.

Of course, since then your interest in dragons had only increased. And little by little, although at first they had believed that they were just simple children's games, the people of your town began to worry about your 'strange interests'. Over the years you earned the title of 'the crazy girl': it seemed that people did not like that a woman who admired winged killer beasts, was not that weird?

Well, better let's go back to the 'present'; at this time you were on one of your expeditions, in search of a strange plant that only grew in the area of the cliffs of the forest. The place was inaccessible by foot, and needed to be climbed a couple of meters, before reaching the remotest parts: That's where you were going.

Nature had always fascinated you and, since your first encounter with a real dragon, you had educated yourself to know each and every part of the surroundings of your village, should the situation recur.

You sighed and carefully picked up your equipment; a simple but sturdy rope hooked at one end to your harness and on the other to a climbing clamp. Simple but effective, the entire artifact had been made by yourself and you were very proud of it.

You passed your hand across your forehead, wiping away the small drops of sweat that began to form for being under the hot summer sun. You sighed again and a small smile began to form on your face when your eyes finally met a small group of flowers that grew on the outside of the hillside. You opened your bag and took out a large old book, carefully lined, and opened the last part marked. You watched the drawings on the page thoughtfully, at the same time that you compared them with the founded flowers.

'Raven souls' : small black flowers with healing and analgesic properties. They could be distinguished from other flowers of similar appearances thanks to the small trail of white spots (almost like small tiny freckles) that extended along the interior of the petals.

You smiled softly as you picked up the small flowers and buds and kept them carefully in a tiny cloth bag, before putting them back in your bag; Not only you had dedicated yourself to investigate dragons, during these last years, and led by your curiosity (or perhaps due to the lack of many social relationships), you had increased your knowledge in many different sciences: astronomy, medicine, zoology, botany... little by little the old library of the town was becoming too small for you.

Unfortunately this did not help your situation either; although many men could stand women with strange hobbies, very few could agree to marry one who was as intelligent or strong as them. According to your parents, you should set aside your 'interests' if you wanted to meet a good man to live with and start a family... But, frankly, you were not in any hurry. You knew the men of the village like the back of your hand, and you were not looking forward to a romantic relationship with anyone.

You climbed down the mountain, and now there were only mingled thoughts in your head.

... marry? Was that the only thing they really wanted from you? ...you knew you were different, you knew you were not like the others, you noticed; You saw it in the way they looked at you, like... as if you were disgusting them, or as if you were something dangerous that is better not to touch: a freak...

...

Well, fuck off. You were different: yes, and nobody was going to change that! You were going to escape this horrible place and th-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!

Fuck! What the hell was that?!

Suddenly you saw yourself interrupted by a sharp and intense sound, and it sounded suspiciously similar to the horns alarms that the town had every time there was an urgent or an emergency meeting... but this was... different.

You frowned as you covered your ears, trying to block the high-pitched sound... What on earth was that?!

And then suddenly you remembered...

The alarm of dragons.