im not worthy

The whispers started as a faint hum, a low thrumming beneath the usual boisterous chatter of the dragonet common room. At first, I’d dismissed them, like I dismissed so many things, as just noise. But noise has a way of coalescing, of finding patterns, and soon the hum was a distinct, chilling murmur directed at me. *“Look at her, pretending to be so innocent.” “She’s too perfect, it’s unnatural.” “How does she even do it?”*

My scales prickled. My carefully constructed facade, the one I’d painstakingly built to shield myself from the gnawing emptiness of my life outside these school walls, was starting to crumble. School had been my refuge, the only place where the weight of my ‘brokenness’ didn't feel like a physical burden, crushing my very bones. Here, my natural talents were celebrated, my abilities honed under the watchful, approving eyes of instructors. I was Moon, the gifted dragonet, the one who could weave light with a flick of her tail, who understood the ancient runes as if they were her native tongue, who could coax fire from the coldest stone. Here, I was almost whole.

But the whispers were insidious. They wormed their way into the cracks, widening them, threatening to shatter the illusion. Each sidelong glance, each hushed comment, felt like a tiny shard of ice piercing my already fragile heart. I found myself shrinking, physically trying to make myself smaller, to disappear into the background. My wings, usually held with a confident grace, tucked closer to my body, my head bowed, my gaze fixed on the scuffed stone floor. I wanted to be invisible, to dissolve into the very air, to cease to exist in their judging eyes.