Riyarin just wanted to go home.
Go home--and never see another human again.
But it had been a long time since she had been home and safe in her jungle--and it was looking less and less likely that she would ever return.
Things had been rough from the moment she had been dragged from it, and while there had been bright spots amongst the darkness, in the end that light only made the shadows longer. For one shining moment she had believed, really believed, that she had a shot at going home. That she had made a friend, that things could get better even if they would never be the same, and that she would see her family again.
It didn't last.
Nature was unpredictable, and humans were no less.
And so she had found herself on a ship sailing under unfamiliar constellations until, finally, they made port somewhere even more alien than the last. She had been in her true form when she had been captured and chained, and with the enchantments fused into the iron, she had not been able to shift or summon her fire. If only she could--she might have been just small enough to slip the chains and...
And...well...she would have been small enough to slip the chains. Her plans had never gotten farther than that because she was, after all, on a ship in the middle of the ocean. But if she was patient and waited until this very moment, as she was being dragged off the ship and down the gangplank, she may have been able to make a run for it.
In the meantime, all she could do was make it difficult.
Two crew members tugged her along by her chains while she tossed her head and snorted sharply, her flared nostrils expelling tendrils of smoke. She dug her hooves into the wood, long tail lashing, and refused to budge. Or tried. A third one, the one she had come to recognize as their leader, gave her flank a sharp slap to get her moving, like she was a horse, and Riyarin pinned her ears back in indignation. The nerve! Letting out a whinnying snarl, she wound her hind leg up and aimed a sharp kick at him with a cloven hoof, and he didn't even bother to try to dodge.
Her chains rattled, her leg stopping short, and she growled in frustration.
Her legs had been chained together to prevent this exact thing. There was just enough slack to allow her to walk.
"What a beast," the merchant said with admiration, scratching his beard as he looked her over. She bared her sharp teeth at him, daring him to come within biting distance. "Still haven't the slightest idea what it is, but if there's ever a market for oddities, this is the place."
Oddities! Riyarin glared at the merchant as the crew members pulled her along, unable to resist as the chains bit into her neck. They had no idea what she was even worth! She was just an oddity! She staggered after them, but she made them work for each foot they gained, stamping her hooves and pulling against them. She was strong, and they would have been no match for her...had she not been hobbled like this.
And that was how she wound up in the town marketplace, put up for auction like livestock. Like a horse. A strange horse that was more deer, and kind of dragon, with scales and antlers and a fiery mane that brushed the ground.
She could not believe this. Her people had always claimed luck ran in their blood.
Riyarin was beginning to doubt that.
