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When the long spring first began to break the ice on the rivers of the outer world, I was born. I broke open the hard shell of my egg, cracking it as the rivers were cracking. Indeed the first sounds I heard were the breaking of the ice outside the warm cave--sharp cracks penetrating the layers of rock between me and the outer world--and the deep thrumming purr of my mother.

Eleven other eggs lay cradled in a hollow in the ground with the long, black, scaled length of our mother curled around them. The next sounds I heard were the cheeping sounds of my ten brothers who hatched after me. I was the first, and I alone was silent. When we were all lying on the warm sands, one egg remained unbroken. I had flopped out onto the sand facing it and as I struggled to stand for the first time on wobbly legs, I saw our mother break open the last egg gently. Another hatchling tumbled out, but it was twisted and strange. I blinked my large eyes (I would later discover that they were purple) and looked at the rest of me, wanting to know that I was not like the dead thing that might have been my brother.

Even then I wanted to know things. The hunger for knowledge was in me at my hatching. My self-examination revealed that I was just like the others who now tumbled around me, trying out their legs. We were roly-poly balls with short stubby tails behind and oversized reptilian heads in front, supported by four short legs, the toes of which were tipped with soft blunt claws. We were all the same color, light blue-gray with a white underside and feet. Indeed the only way to tell us apart was by the colors of our eyes. No two were quite the same, ranging from deep crimson to my own vivid purple. Our exploratory play lasted only minutes before we were aware of hunger. Our mother was prepared for this, and she dropped the carcass of an unidentifiable animal in the middle of us. It had already been shredded, so it was easy for us to pull loose chunks of meat and eat. When we were full, we slept. For a long time this was the pattern of our lives. We slept, played and ate. Mostly our mother was near us, though sometimes she left to hunt. When she did this, she rolled a huge rock over the way out of the cave where we lived so that we couldn't get into trouble without her. Eleven hungry hatchlings can eat a lot, but in the long spring life explodes in relief from winter and game was plentiful.

Time passed, and we began to chafe at our imprisonment in the cavern. But when you are a half-meter hatchling and your mother is a hundred meters of grown dragon, you can't do much in the way of rebellion. She was wise, and knew we would want freedom. Since it would be several short years before we could safely leave the cave, she began to teach us. First she taught us the language of dragons. That ancient tongue came to us easily. We were little more than a single short year out of our shells when we could understand enough to begin our learning of other things.

Since we had been so eager to leave the cavern and see the outer world, our first lessons were on the nature of that world. The outer world was vast, our mother said, and round. We lived near the top, in the northernmost land. Here there was a little ice even in the long summer. We didn't understand that, so the next thing our mother told us about was weather. She explained that while in here things were always the same, outside they were different. There was rain, which was like the spray from the little waterfall in the back of the cave, and snow, which was rain made hard and white, and ice which was water made solid. That sounded very strange, but when our mother explained about the breaking up of the river ice, I remembered the cracking noises, as if the world outside had hatched at the same time I had.

Yes, she nodded. It was very like hatching. Because this weather depended on things called long years and short years. Short years were little changes in weather. In short summer things were a little bit warmer, in short winter, things were a little bit colder. But long years mattered more. Long years lasted almost five hundred short years, and when long summer came things did not just get a little warmer. Things got very, very hot. Then our mother breathed out a little bit of fire, which surprised us very much. We hadn't known she could do that! The fire, she said, was a bit like long summer, but then the whole world heated. In the south the world would burn. Even here at the coldest part of the world it would get warm enough to melt all but tiny bits of ice and snow that hid in dark places.

And long winter! Then it was so cold that even in the south the ice never melted. The rivers froze, and the whole world seemed to halt. There were other seasons, spring and fall, which went in between summer and winter. We were at the very beginning of the long spring now, she told us, and just about to begin the second short spring of our lives. When the river had cracked it had been the first sign of the long spring in the north, though in the south the lands were already warm.

That was enough for my brothers, but I wanted to know more. What caused the long years and short years? Why did the weather change? My brothers listened. They hadn't thought to ask why, but they wanted to hear the answer now that they knew there was a question. Our mother smiled and explained. The world was round, as she had told me before, and it turned. The turning made the night, and the day, and the half-day as it went around. It also moved on a circular path. It moved around the lesser sun and the time needed to circle the lesser sun once made a long year. She picked up a round stone to show how the world was and breathed a bit of fire for the sun. Then I could see how the season of the short year were made.

The lesser sun, she said, circled the greater sun, and the time needed to circle it once was a long year. She explained that since the path it took was like the shape of our eggs, and drew nearer the greater sun at one end than at the other, this motion caused the season of the long year. The long year was made of four hundred and eighty-four short years, so a long season took one hundred and twenty-one short years. The two suns were the reason for the day, night, and half-day, which changed in length according to the seasons.

We sucked up this knowledge eagerly, and wondered how long it would be before we could go out and see the spring, long or short, ourselves. We knew that it would be a very long time before we could see the other long seasons. We were smart enough to figure how the time until long summer compared to the time we had lived already. It was a very long way off. That didn't matter to us. We had plenty to do here and now. Our mother began bringing things back from her hunting still alive. She would let them go in the cave and we would chase them around until, usually by luck, we managed to kill them. She brought small things first, rabbits and three-horned gryll mostly, then moved on to larger.

Not long after we had mastered the killing of a deer that was easily three times the size of any of us, our mother gave us a long lecture on the things out there that could kill and eat a hatchling and then let us out. The first few days we didn't go far, but gradually our explorations widened. The area around our cave was empty of both predators and prey, our mother having scared off the latter and eaten the former, so we had several days of exploration without finding any but the smallest creatures.

While my ten brothers were eager to find prey of their own soon, I found something else to occupy me. The river whose breaking up had heralded my birth flowed mere yards from the cavern's entrance. I could sit for hours and watch the ever-changing play of the water. It was then, in a quiet reflecting pool that I discovered two things. The first was the color of my eyes. I had seen, in my siblings, red, orange, yellow, gold, gold-brown, brown, green-brown, green, blue-green, and blue. Mine were purple.

The second thing was more surprising. I hadn't known what color my eyes were, but I knew they would be different from any of my siblings. This other thing though was something I had not expected. Where every single one of my brothers were a solid blue, interrupted only by their lighter bellies, I had a marking on my forehead. It was pure pristine white, whiter even than my pale belly scales, and was shaped like a six-pointed star. I sat starting at this for a long time before rejoining my brothers.

Those gentle days of our youth, when all the world was being reborn in the long spring were free from hardship. We always had good things to eat, we had games to play, we had things to learn from our mother. The only darkness came when two of my brothers died. They had gone together to hunt veerthen, which are large enough to feed all of us, even our mother. We never hunted them alone, but we were growing big and two of us could bring one of the giant feathered reptilian creatres down. Unfortunately a stalker had been hunting the veerthen too. It had crossed downwind of my brothers, and judging that young dragon would do as well as veerthen, it attacked them. They had fought well, and one of them, the one with orange eyes, had escaped, but he was wounded beyond all saving so he died. The other, the blue-green eyed one, died also, eaten by the stalker.

We mourned them, but the nine of us left continued on with our lives. Our mother had told us that odds were only two thirds of us would live to molt as full adults. Not good odds, but she also told us we could beat them if we were smart. So far it seemed we would be merely average.

If we had not known it before, her talk of odds and averages told us that there were other dragon families in the world. We would meet them in the long summer in the south lands, our mother told us. At the time that seemed like forever. But short years passed more swiftly than we could have imagined. The long spring was drawing to a close when strange creatures began to appear in the northlands.

They were fleeing the coming of the long summer in the south. Creatures without protective fire-scales would die in the intense heat of long summer in the southlands. These here were but the first of a great exodus. But while most things were fleeing northward, the time was now at hand for us to go south. Or first molt was very near. We had grown greatly from the tiny balls we had been at hatching. Now we were easily five meters from nose-tip to tail and stood three meters at the shoulder. We were lean and fit, and our backs were growing little humps that would burst free to become wings when we molted. We were eager to go south, chafing at the delays our mother imposed. She seemed sad and reluctant to leave, but she knew it was time. So at last we left, the nine of us clinging to her back as she flew south. We passed thousands of creatures fleeing north, including strange things which rode upon the backs of other creatures.

I would have asked what they were, but our mother never stopped. She flew for many days until we came to a land where the trees were burning. Smoke filled the whole sky. The entire continent was on fire, flames sweeping from the south, headed north, and chasing the last few creatures ahead of them. Behind the fire was a dry charred land, blackened and lifeless. Our mother circled through the smoke for a long time. Then at last she landed in the unburned forest, only minutes ahead of the flames.

"Farewell, my children," she said sadly. "May you live long and well." We stood in front of her, afraid and excited at once. My brothers turned and walked to the flames, but I could not bring myself to leave.

"Mother, will we never see you again?"

"Never." The sadness was strong in her voice. "You should leave now. Go find the fire, join your brothers."

"The fire will be here soon enough."

"Yes. Yes it will."

The flickering flames licked at my back now. I could feel the heat, delicious, wonderful. But my mother gritted her teeth. The heat pained her, I knew. I remembered what she had told us of the life-cycle of our kind. Once we became adults we shed the fire-scales and could no longer endure the heat of the south. I knew then what would happen.

"Must it be this way?"

She nodded. "It has always been this way. We are creatures of change, my child, but in some ways we cannot change."

I understood the sadness, and I knew she wanted me to leave, but I could not. So I stood and watched as the fire engulfed us both. It burned my blue and white baby scales off. For a moment I felt pain, then the flames were licking at my red and orange fire-scales and it felt wonderful. My wings burst free from confinement and were baked dry. I fanned them absently. The fire burned off my mother's black scales as well, but there was no waiting orange layer for her. Her blood boiled out, her muscles charred black, even her bones burned. She was silent to the last. When the fire had passed on and nothing remained but a heap of ashes I rejoined my brothers.

For a long time the world was black and sooty, but gradually the soot vanished, blown away and mingled with the sand and dust that soon covered most of the world. For a while we were all that moved in the sooty waste, but gradually other things appeared. Creatures that loved the heat and had waited, buried deep in the ground all through the long winter and spring. Now they emerged and roamed the barren waste. There were plants too, heat lovers that thrived on the relentless energy of the greater sun. We hunted strange insectoid things as the world turned into a desert, and when we had reached the equatorial regions where it was hottest we found other dragons.

They came in groups, fours and fives, sixes and sevens. A few came by two or threes and a very, very few came alone, sole survivors of small clutches. We romped together, all of us, and dug borrows in the orange desert rock with our fire-hardened claws. We hunted huge worms that burrowed in the deep oceans of sand that soon covered much of the world. We grew too. The molt had burned an outer layer off of us all, so we were smaller than we had been, but not for long. Our growing was different than it had been. The proportions of our bodies changed until we went upright as easily as we had gone on all fours. Our wings grew also, but they were as yet too small to carry us aloft.

We no longer looked all the same. Under our identical blue and white scales had been brilliantly patterned red yellow and orange scales, not two patterns the same. That was a good thing since now there were dozens of blue-eyed dragons, green eyed dragons, and all other colors. Purple eyes like my own, though, were rare, and nobody had a white star on their foreheads. The molt hadn't changed that, it was still there. I'd had to ask someone to tell me that, since in this desert world there was no water to see my reflection in.

Before we had molted we had all needed to drink water. We had even swum in it. We caught fish and sported in the river. But now it seemed that we needed no water. We subsisted entirely on other creatures of the great dry desert. They too were, as they must be, resistant to heat. Most of them were small, prey things which we ate. But some were large. Sand scorpions in particular could grow to be fifty meters long. We were growing, but even the largest of my brothers was a mere twenty meters now.

So it wasn't surprising that one day a sand scorpion killed my red-eyed brother. It only wounded him before he got away, but his blood, thickened as it was, still boiled away in the intense heat. He screamed as our mother hadn't and fell to the ground, charring from the inside out until all that was left were his scales. Others of the great crowd of young dragons met similar fates, but most of us lived to summer's end. All summer we had been changing gradually. Now as the season turned towards fall we began to test the changes. The tiny useless wings that had been freed in our first molts were larger now, and we flapped them experimentally, trying to get off the ground. Little bumpy buds along our backs grew into rows of spikes, our legs grew longer, larger, to better launch us from the ground to the air. Then the summer lands began to feel too hot. Though each day the temperature fell, yet each day we felt less and less comfortable in the still blistering heat. We knew what that meant without being told. It was time to go north. A less visible change was that we no longer went about in sibling groups. The sight of my brothers became annoying, not comforting.

We began walking north, spreading out to avoid each other. Behind us the desert creatures sought their burrows to wait out the fall and winter that were coming. As we went north our fire scales began to fall out. The temperature cooled to the point where rain could fall instead of vaporizing far above the ground. The moisture washed loosed more scales. They were meant for dry heat, not this damp warm rain. Underneath the red and orange fire scales were glossy green scales. Then came the day when I saw a dragon, I don't know if it was one of my brothers or not, take to the air.

I flexed my own wings experimentally and then launched myself after him. The world was beginning to be green and the sky overhead was blue. I soared upward, exulting in the new power. Then the other dragon caught my eye again. I was filled with rage. The sky was mine!

I bellowed a challenge. He roared in return. We circled and dipped in the air, moving back and forth in feints and counter-feints. At last he struck. But his claws only scraped off my hard green scales. He roared in frustration, but I ignored him, striving for height. When I was far enough overhead I dived. He dodged, but not far enough. My claws struck his scales and didn't glance off. I had drawn blood.

He bellowed again in frustration, but sank to the ground, acknowledging his defeat. I ignored him and flew on. Reaching the distant north was all that mattered.

The rest of the journey went more swiftly. I passed creatures heading the other way, taking advantage of the newly cool and green south. There were even a few of the odd things that rode on the back of other creatures. But I wasn't interested in them. I had to reach the north, soon!

And then at last I was there. It was all green, with great trees growing everywhere. There was snow in places, and mountains rearing over the rest of the world. This was the place. There were other dragons here, just a few. In other valleys like this all around the globe there would be dragons gathering. The young green males waiting.

We waited long, but we weren't idle. We fought many battles, most of them resulting in only minor injuries. We needed to establish a pecking order for when the time came.

And then the time was upon us. From lands further north, from caves in the mountains, even a few from the south, the great black shapes of the female dragons appeared. I had done well in my battles, so no one contested me when I launched myself into the air to meet one of the first females. A few others of my fellows rose also, confident, but most of them stayed on the ground. Those who had lost their battles knew that if they rose now the stronger dragons would drive them back down.

The first female I approached circled me in the air, sniffed at me, then growled. I wasn't the one for her. My predominance earned only the first go, it didn't guarantee me a mate. The second treated me likewise, but the third, whose ebony scales held a hint of blue, found me acceptable. Her eyes too were blue, and her glossy scales and elaborate cresting were the most beautiful things I'd ever seen. After indicating her approval of me she wheeled and flew off to the south. The urgent purpose behind my northward urge accomplished, I followed.

I knew that behind me there would be battles as the females dwindled. There were always more males than females, and the last few females would be fought over in battles that might even last to the death. But there was no need for me to fight. My mate, wonderful and strong, flew ahead of me.

She flew for most of the day until she reached a secluded valley. Cliffs rose to the north, east, and west, and high hills warded the narrow southern entrance. The side of one cliff had a hole in it. The female dragon went in, crouching low. I followed. Being only half her size, I didn't have to duck. Deep inside the earth we lived out the autumn, my mate and I. She told me her name was Vrisha, but I had no name to give her. She understood that. Males never have names of their own. She taught me, like my mother had taught me. Males also never teach. As before I absorbed knowledge, though I did nothing with it. I learned eagerly, I even asked questions, which surprised and delighted my mate, but I didn't think much about what I learned. Enough to learn it.

Many animals lived in the little valley, and some of those strange creatures, which I now knew were called humans, lived not far off. When they began to move it signaled the end of the long fall. Snow fell now in the short winters, and it hardly melted over the short summers. Animals sought dens, or went south, and humans followed them.

But dragons, always living at the extremes, stayed in the north. I felt a kind of restlessness as the snows began to settle in to stay. I didn't know what I needed to do though until the day I tried to enter our cavern home and my mate growled at me. She drove me out when I would not leave and I limped away, bleeding from a half-dozen light wounds. Then I knew it was time to find a place to sleep through the long winter. I flew north again, seeking the far places where the ice stays even in the summer.

I saw other green dragons flying north too, and joined with them. There would be no fighting now. We flew together until we found a snow field that seemed right. Then we dug holes in the deep snow. I found several of my brothers and together with a few other males we built a snow house. We alternated building with hunting, and we ate as if there was no tomorrow. By the time we entered the house to pull the last block of packed snow over us we were all as fat and round as we had been as hatchlings. Then we slept, curled together in a tangle of arms, legs and wings.

I woke first, as I had hatched first. Water dripped down around us as our snow house melted. I extracted myself from the tangle of my siblings and burrowed my way through the snow to the surface. During the long winter several meters of snow had been added on top of our house, but it was simple to dig through it. My head popped out into bright daylight. Both the lesser and the greater suns were in the sky, and all the shadows were doubled. I could hear the others stirring below me, but the communal instinct that had driven us together was gone, and I wanted nothing of them.

I made my way across the soggy snow to a place where firm stone thrust up. I climbed up on the rocky peak, surveying the scene around me. Snow was everywhere, the world was white and cold, but there was moisture in the air, and I knew the spring was here. The intense cold of deep winter, which I had never known and never would, was long gone.

Mountains towered in the far distance, the still unmelted snow on their peaks glinting in the sunlight. A faint crack sounded through the clear air. Behind me other noises indicated the others had followed me to the surface, but I kept my back to them. I flexed my wings, testing the stiffness of the long winter. I stretched all over, like a cat, and then in one smooth movement I launched myself into the air.

From above I saw the dark specks of the other dragons. I saw too a glinting movement. Miles to the south a great river had once flowed. The long winter had stilled the surface, till water ran only in the deepest channel. But now spring had come. As on the day of my birth the river was breaking free. Sharp cracks sounded loudly, now that I hovered over the rushing water. Huge sheets of ice were breaking up, moving downstream. Below me a sheet of water spreading out over ice that had not yet broken reflected myself back at me. I bore an elaborate crest now, though the star on my forehead was unchanged. My scales also had changed. They were now jet black. I was leaner than I had ever been, and my stomach was awakening, telling me that I would soon want food.

But that didn't matter at the moment, for with the vision of myself in the water something chimed in my head like a bell. I knew my name. Males can never bear names, but after the long sleep I had awoken a female, fully adult now and able to wonder at the world in a way I had never know. A male may learn, but they seldom think. I thought now, and I realized that so much was ahead of me!

I soared on, over the river that was bringing the world to life, as I was now alive for the first time. I voiced my new-found realization in the only way I could, shouting my name to the sky.