several ways to die trying

It had been so long since she’d thought of resting. Vera often forwent sleep, instead choosing to nap in snatches during odd hours. All she thought about was reuniting with her family and establishing their empire in this strange new land. She’d been tailing Balerion’s scent for the past few weeks, but he must have been in much better health than her - no matter how hard she pushed herself, she was always half a day or more behind him. The fire, though distant now, still seemed immediate in her mind. Her tail, now marbled with bright white fur from where she’d been singed to the skin, was a constant reminder of the horrors they’d experienced. They had been baptized by flame and lost everything for it.

Vera was mostly ribs. She had forgone even basic nutrition for the sake of keeping pace with the fading scent of Vaelnaris blood. A bystander could count her ribs with ease, and her winter coat hadn’t fully shed out due to her lack of food and attention to herself. All that could wait - her mortal body meant nothing without the grace of the empire to support it. She was destined for something bigger than this.

She had made landfall in the morning and slept in dizzy snatches until early afternoon. Vera could hardly stand without her head aching and her throat stung from the saltwater she’d accidentally swallowed during her swim. Restlessly, she began to pace the shoreline. The scent of the ocean was powerful stuff; it obscured Balerion’s trail entirely. Frustrated, Veraxes tipped her head to the sky and called for her brother with all the strength she could muster. If I wait exactly between those two black rocks, he will come, she thought, sizing up the distance between the rocks before choosing a spot to wait. With her sunken eyes, bedraggled coat, and obvious malnutrition, she was something out of a nightmare. A spare and hollow thing.