Two years had passed since I held that pen and chose a path no one truly understood.
In that time, I had learned to shape letters into words, and words into meaning. My father taught me the skeleton of language—syntax, grammar, rhythm—but it was expression that gave it breath. He once told me, "Anyone can write down a thought. But to write a feeling, to make someone else's heart beat the way yours does… that's what separates ink from life."
And I listened.
Every day.
I copied poetry I didn't understand until I did. I watched how my mother smiled when I read stories aloud to Lina. I watched how her smile faded when I wrote something sad. I started to see people not as they were, but as stories still unfolding—books no one else had read yet.
That morning was like any other.
A gentle breeze rustled through the leaves as I wandered past the east fields, taking the long path home after delivering a note to the village miller. My satchel, stuffed with old drafts, bounced against my hip. I wasn't looking for inspiration. I was just... walking.
And then I saw it.
A pond. Shallow, muddy along the edges, but clear and blue toward the center. The sun struck its surface just right, turning the ripples into silver threads.
And in the middle of it, a fish.
Huge. Graceful. Scales the color of sapphires and moonlight. Its fins fanned like silk ribbons, and it moved—not like something swimming, but something dancing.
Time slowed.
I crouched low, heart quietly thudding in my chest.
The fish turned slightly toward the light, and I caught its eye.
It wasn't human, of course. But there was something tired in its movement. Something ancient and yearning in the slow sweep of its body through the water. As if it had been swimming in circles forever… but longed for the sky.
And suddenly, I felt it.
That aching, urgent need to write.
Not because I had to. Not because it was practice.But because the story was already inside me, clawing its way out.
The fish was no longer just a fish.
It was a dragon. Or maybe something becoming a dragon.
It was born in a forgotten stream beneath the mountains, mocked for its size and color, too soft to survive the predator-filled waters. But it didn't give up. It learned to leap. To dodge. To chase stars reflected on the river's surface.
It dreamed of the sky, even when the sky laughed at it.
I could see it now, clearer than anything:
A story of hardship, of rivers that boiled with stormfire, of betrayal by creatures it called kin, of moments when it almost stopped swimming.
But it didn't.
And one day, through pain and thunder, the fish would reach a waterfall that touched the heavens—and there, through trial, it would be reborn.
Not as a fish.
But as a water dragon.
Majestic. Massive. Wings made of liquid light. A creature that no longer belonged to the world below.
I ran home. Didn't care that I tore my tunic on the brambles or that my feet got soaked when I cut across the marsh path. I burst through the door, panting, and threw open my notebook.
The first line came easily:
"The fish had no name, because none believed it would live long enough to need one."
From there, I didn't stop.
Not for food. Not for light. I wrote by candle until the wax melted into the desk. The story didn't need planning. It had heart. It had pain. It had hope.
It had me.
That was the night I learned what it meant to write something true.
It wasn't just about the words.
It was about taking the ache in your chest and making it breathe.
That was the first story I wrote that wasn't just mine.
It was the first story that wanted to be told.
They say inspiration is fleeting. A moment, a flicker, a breeze you chase before it vanishes.
They're wrong.
Sometimes… inspiration doesn't whisper. It devours.
The day I saw that fish—the one that danced like it was searching for something more—I thought I'd write a short tale. A bedtime fable. Maybe something to share with Lina before sleep.
But once I began, I couldn't stop.
It was like the story had been waiting for me, buried deep in the marrow of this new life, and the moment I touched the pen, it uncoiled—ravenous.
That night turned into two. Then three.
On the fifth day, I forgot to attend the village apprentice gathering. On the seventh, I stopped speaking at dinner.
By the second week, I had moved my mattress to the writing room. My mother brought me food quietly, gently. She didn't understand, but she didn't stop me. Neither did my father. He stood at the doorway sometimes, watching me write until the candle burned down, then left without a word.
I wrote everything.
Not just the fish's journey—but its dreams, its fears, its failures. I gave it a name: Nael. I wrote about the way the water tasted different in cursed rivers, about the ancient koi who taught Nael to interpret whirlpools like prophecies. I invented underwater languages. I built entire kingdoms beneath the surface—ruled by coral monarchs and eel priests who worshipped the Moon's reflection.
Nael faced predators. Betrayals. Temptation. Love. Even despair.
He failed. Again and again.
But he kept swimming.
I wrote like I was possessed. Not by madness, but by clarity. The kind of vision that makes everything else in the world blur at the edges.
It wasn't just a story anymore.It was a world.
By the twentieth day, my fingers were blistered from gripping the pen. My back ached. My eyes burned.
By the thirty-second, I had written over 200 pages. My room smelled like ink, old parchment, and candle smoke. I barely spoke. I barely slept.
But my heart was so full.
Nael had reached the final arc—the Veil of Skystream, a waterfall said to strip away everything but truth. I couldn't stop there. I wouldn't.
On the forty-seventh day, I wrote the final sentence:
"And with one last breath—not of water, but of air—Nael broke the surface, and the sky welcomed its first dragon."
I dropped the pen.
My hand shook.
Then I wept.
Not out of sadness. Not joy, either.
It was something else. Like I had watched someone be born, grow, suffer, and live… and now they were gone.
I had written a book.
Three hundred pages. Front to back. No help. No magic. No shortcuts.
Just me… and Nael.
The silence that followed was heavier than any applause could've been. The house was still. Outside, the wind rustled the trees like a soft breath of approval.
Lina found me asleep at the desk that evening, my head buried in the final page. She tugged at my sleeve and whispered, "Is it finished?"
I nodded.
My voice cracked. "He became a dragon."
She didn't ask who. She just smiled.
And in her eyes, I saw something that made my heart clench.
Wonder.
The kind only a story could give.