Strength

Lino whined as her muscles ached, but she kept running anyways, sounding even squeakier than the exercise wheel she was working to death. Radice was in trouble because of her, but they had learned something very important; She was as healthy as they could ever make her, and she was uncontainable. As long as there was darkness, she could slither into the shadows and return to Radice. Where there was no darkness, she could simply make it. She slowed to a stop and let the wheel move back and forth until it reached equilibrium. She hopped off with a huff and inspected the rest of the equipment. What suited her next? What could she exercise? 

She approached a large device that looked something like pliers. She groaned and squeezed the handle-like bars together, then bit down. A display in front of her showed her bite force in bright blue numbers: 376 PSI. Plenty of dragons her size could get into the thousands, and she even saw an earth dragon push it up to hundreds of thousands. She had to get bigger and stronger if she wanted those numbers. Currently, she was the only dragon exercising here–they couldn’t keep her out, after all, and she didn’t need the sleep that other dragons needed. She used her true sight to sneak through the dark gym undisturbed. She shuffled from station to station, doing her best to exercise her tenuous body. Radice said it was dangerous without a spotter, but he wasn’t here right now. If she felt too weak, she phased out and let the equipment pass through her.

Lino wanted to grow as fast as possible. She used her fingered limbs to strap a saddle onto her back. Her Worm fastened the parts she couldn’t. She loaded weights into the saddle bags until she felt her legs quiver, then waddled back over to the wheel. Her pace was a lot slower now, but the weights meant she was growing even faster. Radice had used this method to grow. Even though he wasn’t taller, he was much bulkier. Her twig-like limbs couldn’t compare. She had focused so much on growing tall that she had forgotten to make her body stronger. All Radice did was get stronger, and that’s where the problem laid. Curt said Radice could get a lady any day now. Lino growled and grunted, picking up her pace. The audacity! As if Radice needed any lady but her. The two Riders had tried to explain species differences and love and children and all sorts of things that really shouldn’t matter for her and Radice to be together. She was the most important lady in his life, and that was that.

She tripped, fell, and phased out as the weights came crashing down. The bars rattled loudly onto the ground. Lino materialized as quickly as she could, rolling the weights off of her squished Worm and hoping Radice hadn’t noticed. The Rider became dizzy when she phased out; Given that she was independent, it was possible he wasn’t a Dark rider at all, and would never learn to sense her properly in that other world. She sighed, dragging the weights back to their spot and clumsily putting them back into place. It was better if she phased as little as possible, and to do that, they needed to get out of here. They had laid out the plan carefully. Lino needed to grow strong enough to carry Radice in flight. They would use her dark magic to get through any barriers and make it out of the city. If she grew even stronger, maybe she could carry Curt, too…though Grim was always watching, so it was still a secret from him. Her antennae pricked up and she heard a disturbance outside. She hopped through the shadows, leaving the room before she was discovered, and made her way to Radice. She would do whatever it took to make sure she was strong enough to see him home.