With powerful strokes she pushed and shoved and wriggled through rock and stone, holding her breath until she punched through into water. With emerald eyes open she saw the faintest hint of starlight above, filling her with a fervent hope that after ages of privation, she might have found her way back. With the same powerful strokes she beat the water into a flurry, swimming up to the surface past startled fish and other creatures too small to feed on. She emerged in the steady current of a river and took a deep breath. Scents both wondrous and sublime tickled her memories of when she and her kind had soared above the mountains, above plains and forests. Memories of creatures from this realm came to her. The calflings and their feedstock. From time to time in the past, they had been scarce and she had known hunger. Yet now her nostrils flared. It was as though they smelled the whole world. The air itself was a banquet of possibilities. She hammered at water and air, expanding her gas bladders, clawing her way up with puffs and snorts of fire jetting from her snout.
