Tiny wanted the highest peak in Ivywood, but she was no bigger than a butterfly. She perched on a fern and stared up at that sunlit summit. One day she would roost there, huge and warm above the whole forest. Today she could barely fly ten wingbeats without shaking. Her wings spread wide and colorful, thin as petals, but her body stayed thin and small. Dragons grew by eating. Tiny could not find enough food to grow at all. She had hunted since dawn. She caught two gnats and a curled leaf that turned out to be just a leaf. Her stomach pinched. Every scrap she swallowed burned away before it could build a single new scale. She needed something rich. Something that would push her past this tiny size and start her climb toward the peak. A warm glow caught her eye below the ferns. A fat beetle crawled along a root, its shell burning orange like a coal. It looked slow. It looked full of fuel. Tiny dove. She hit the beetle and gripped its hard back. It bucked and dragged her over the dirt. Her small claws slipped. The beetle was three times her weight, and it hauled her toward a crack in the root. Tiny bit down hard. Heat flooded her mouth. She held on and did not let go. The beetle slowed. Tiny bit again and it stopped moving. She ate every part of it. The warmth spread from her belly into her wings. For the first time in weeks, she did not feel hollow. But one beetle would not build a dragon. She needed a store, not a single meal. So she remembered the glow. Fire beetles gave off light. If light meant beetles, then she could hunt by hunting light. She flew low across the forest floor as dusk fell. Soon she saw them, dozens of orange sparks glowing under leaves and stones. A whole colony, feeding in the dark. Tiny hunted all night. She learned to pin each beetle before it dragged her. She ate until her body ached and stretched. By morning her wings felt heavier, stronger. When she landed on the fern, the stem bent under her. Yesterday it had held her like nothing. She looked at her own foreleg. The scales had thickened. She was still small, but she was no longer starving. She had found her fuel, and she would grow. Then the ground trembled. Something large moved through the beetle colony below, snapping roots as it came. The glow scattered and went dark. Whatever ate here now, it was bigger than Tiny, and she had just stolen its supper.