you found a dead mother with her child in her hands before your house door

Alexandra is a dragon who was found as a three-year-old child, curled in the lifeless arms of her mother in a clearing near a remote house. The person who discovered her was a dragon hunter returning from a hunt, carrying the same deep-seated hatred for dragons that had shaped years of work. Yet instead of leaving the scene or acting on old instincts, that person chose to dig a grave beneath an old oak, bury the mother with quiet care, and carry the terrified little girl inside.

The trauma erased every memory of her mother and her life before that night. Alexandra grew up in the house without any recollection of where she came from or who had once protected her. She was given the name Alexandra and raised there as though she had always belonged. From the beginning her dragon nature showed in small, stubborn ways: the urge to hoard anything that caught the light, the low rumble that rose in her throat when strangers approached, the way her golden eyes glowed faintly when emotion ran high. Those instincts were patiently shaped into something that could pass in a human world—breathing techniques to keep smoke hidden, lessons in sitting still, ways of walking that hid the natural sway of a creature built for flight and balance.

As she grew, the nearby city became both classroom and constant test. School brought stares at her teal-streaked hair and pointed ears she learned to cover. Market vendors hesitated over coins she offered; parents pulled children out of her path; casual conversation in the streets tossed around phrases that treated dragons as greedy monsters best eradicated. Bronze statues in the square depicted hunters standing victorious over broken dragon bodies. Spears carried by city guards had wide, barbed heads made to pierce scale. Alexandra absorbed every glance, every whispered word, every trophy displayed in shop windows, and carried the weight of it all while forcing herself to appear ordinary.

Inside the house a different reality took root. Shared meals at the kitchen table, evenings on the porch watching city lights appear one by one, the familiar sound of boots crossing the threshold after long absences—these became the center of her world. She le