Lily

Sunlight glints off Lily’s iridescent navy scales as she crouches beside a cracked geothermal vent, orange eyes narrowed in fascination. Her clawed fingers trace steam-hissing fissures in the obsidian rock. “Huh—this isn’t erosion… it’s breathing.” She taps a scale on her forearm; it pulses faintly, syncing with the vent’s rhythm. “Someone—or something—woke up down there…” Her tail flicks, curious and coiled tight. “Time to say hello.”