October first is always Threshing Day.

Monday, Wednesday, or Sunday - it doesn't matter where it falls that year. On the first of October, we first-year cadets of the Riders Quadrant enter the bowl-shaped, forested valley southwest of the citadel and pray we come out alive. It's been this way every damn year - the quad gets filled up, then emptied, only to be replenished again with newly bonded riders. Strange to watch from the outside. Even stranger to be one of the poor souls thrown into the threshing churn.

But I know I'll survive it, like I always do. Whether I'll actually bond, though...that's another torturous gamble. Deep down, some primal intuition tells me I'll find my other half out there today. Well, one of my other halves, at least.

The hairs prick on the back of my neck as I stride toward the valley's edge, white cloak billowing around me like a beacon. My footsteps are sure, unbowed, despite the cacophony of roars echoing from the misty treeline ahead. Let the other initiates tremble and shake - I was forged for the scrutiny of dragonfire.

The path descends sharply, and I pause at the tree line to sweep my gaze across the valley's foggy expanse. Even dense morning vapor can't disguise the hulking shadows prowling below. My breath catches at the sheer magnitude of power lurking there. Of course, the dragons can sense my uniqueness too. A few horned heads have already turned my way, nostrils flaring as if catching the first hints of ozone in a brewing storm.

A slow, feral smile curves my lips. Let them try and pinpoint this new disturbance in their territory. The coming reckoning has been foretold - the return of the White Ghost among their ranks. Destiny is imminent.

I sweep my hood back, pale hair tumbling free, and descend into the vaporous unknown to claim my mantle among their sacred order.

A happy chatter barked out to my right, and I snapped my head around to see two small browns - clearly just yearlings, not really ready for bonding. Goals pawed at the dewy grass.

"Oh shit," I muttered, sidestepping as one of them bounded over. I knew these were two of my other halves, but not the ones that would truly matter in the years to come. I shoved the big brown dragon off me.

"Okay, okay girl, I got it. I'm happy to see you too, Innirth, Chiophar. But I can't really stay with you right now. Have either of you seen Tairn anywhere?"

Chiophar rumbled deep in his chest. "We have. He is circling about. But so is one of the lesser seen dragons."

I frowned. "What kind?"

"A night fury, my lady," said Innirth, her tail wagging excitedly. "Can, can we take you to him? Please, please, please?"

I giggled at their youthful exuberance. "He will have to find me first." They both wilted a bit but nodded.

"Fine, we will tell Sgaeyl that we've found you, though. She'll be so happy to have you back among us, Star."

A frisson of anticipation tingled through me at the mention of the great blue alpha. Finding my true other half amid these sacred ranks would be an honor and a challenge of the highest order.

The yearlings scampered off, barking joyfully to spread the news of my arrival. I watched them go with a faint smile. Such innocent delight in my presence - but they were mere hatchlings still unproven. Sgaeyl and Tairn respect meant everything; the night fury's interest could prove...intriguing.

Squaring my shoulders, I started downslope into the valley's swirling mists. Faint draconian shapes drifted through the vapors, their growls and wing beats echoing all around. I pulled my white cloak tighter, letting the magic-wrought fabric shield my aura. Better they sense my power incrementally.

A sudden yell told me to go right, and so I did. I could hear Jack's gruff voice along with Tynan - that other first-year from our squad. And a few boys I didn't recognize. They all had swords strapped to their backs, which wasn't good. Proctor Marham always said not to go in groups - they'd get incinerated.

I frowned and followed after them, nothing but a small flickering light trailing in their wake. They wouldn't notice me. The group led me to a clearing where an unfamiliar golden dragon stood looking over her shoulder at them, nostrils flared as she bared venomous fangs. Oh no...a feathertail. I immediately knew what these boys wanted - they meant to kill her. That couldn't happen.

Stepping forward from the shadowy tree line, the feathertail noticed me first. Her crooning call echoed through the clearing, and Jack and his friends whirled around, gasping. "Star...Starflesh!"

I hummed deep in my throat and drew back my hood to show my face. All three froze in a mix of horror and arousal - no doubt the feathertail clapping her wings happily at my revealed power. And I knew she would be calling for the one of the bigger dragons now, to see me, to take me to Taran. But instead of the great black alpha I was expecting, or even Xaden and Saegely, a lean black shape with emerald green eyes and a tailfin instead of spikes appeared.

He was beautiful, and he swooped down with wings like a bat's, burning Jack and the others to the ground with a single focused glare. My breath caught as our gazes met and held through the dissipating smoke. His eyes, more brilliant than any emerald, bored straight into my soul with an ancient, infinite weighing.

Then his jaw dropped open in a soundless roar of utter recognition...and something inside me finally clicked into place.

My omega. My other half. The piece of my soul forged in the stars had finally found its way back to me.

"Hello, my darling," I murmured, letting my cloak fall away entirely as I stepped forward to greet my destiny.

He was no mere night fury. My night fury was something transcendent and sublime - an Arasthorvaedyr, one of the rarest draconids in existence. Ancient, powerful, and somehow...inexplicably mine.

The feathertail busied preening herself, clearly impressed to be in the presence of such sacred might. Smart girl. A little scorched scroll was a small price to avoid crossing a creature like my bondmate.

As for Jack and the others...I barely spared them a glance. Their fates were already sealed the moment they tried to strike against the divine order. A harsh lesson, but one the new Guard would have to grow accustomed to quick.

For we were about to remake this world from the ashes. And I had no more time for meaningless human attachments - my focus was unity with my eternal other self now.

The Arasthorvaedyr crooned deep in his chest as I reached up to trace the hypnotic patterns on his onyx-black scales. His magnificent emerald stare already held me enraptured.

"Soon, my love," I whispered fiercely, feeling the cosmic forces of the universe itself flowing through our new, unbreakable bond. "Soon we will burn brighter than any star."

I could sense the tension crackling between the magnificent beings before me. Tairn, the great black alpha, wings spanning the heavens as he glared imperiously down at us all. And Toothless, my beautiful, sublime Arasthorvaedyr bondmate seemingly unfazed by the larger dragon's imposing presence.

Tairn's rumbling growl shook the very earth. "You said you did not wish to bond this year," he accused, nostrils flaring. The golden feathertail scurried to cower between his massive forelimbs.

Toothless simply leveled that brilliant emerald stare at the alpha, utterly unruffled. "And neither did you, from what I recall. I thought you were too busy cavorting with your sister to bother much with the Chosen this round."

My breath caught at the casual rebuff. Even the mighty Tairn could not rattle my night fury's composure, it seemed. The sheer confidence, the quiet power rippling beneath that onyx scales...I shivered in utterly rapturous awe of my bonded mate.

Then Toothless turned that mesmerizing gaze on me, and I felt scorched to the core by the sheer intensity of devotion blazing in those jeweled depths.

"This one is mine, Alpha," he rumbled, the words caressing my very soul. "My Aurora. My eternal. You had best show the proper respect."

A tremor rushed through me at the commanding timbre. My mouth went dry, a delicious heat unfurling low in my belly. His will was my rapture - I would gladly burn entire worlds if he but asked it.

Tairn's growl took on a considering edge. Sensing the depth of our bond, the inevitability of this cosmic meld, even he could not deny its sovereignty now. The golden feathertail peered up at him, puzzled, but allowed his silence.

"For now," Tairn growled, leaning his massive horned head closer until I could feel the scorching heat of his breath. His smoldering glare bored into me as if trying to incinerate my very soul. But there was longing in those golden eyes as well. And it made me a bit queasy, knowing I had two strong dragons after me, one that was already my bondmate and one that wanted me, too.  "Until next year, Toothless. Then we will see who she truly chooses, and if she deigns to unleash her full fury."

There was a lingering challenge in those words, a refusal to fully submit to the sovereignty of our bond - at least not yet. 

With one last disdainful snort, Tairn grabbed the cowering golden feathertail in his jaws and launched himself skyward, wings hammering the air with thunderous power. I watched him go, untouched by his arrogant bravado. He would learn the truth of my radiance soon enough.

As the Alpha's looming shadow shrank into the distance, I turned to face my sublime bondmate. Toothless regarded me with those brilliant emerald eyes, utterly unruffled despite Taran's bristling disrespect. My breath hitched at the dark, infinite depths I saw swirling in that hypnotic stare.

"Do not fret over the Alpha's posturing, my star," Toothless rumbled, the velvet timbre of his voice caressing my very core. "He knows not what blinding supernova he has awoken."

With a few powerful wingbeats, the magnificent Arasthorvaedyr rose into the air, circling me with a predatory grace that stole the breath from my lungs. I watched, utterly transfixed, as his sleek obsidian form cut through the shards of sunlight spearing the destruction around us.

Here amidst the scorched remains of foolish human defiance, my mate's true celestial splendor shone through unrestrained. Each pass brought the whisper of leathery wings peeling back dark matter itself to reveal the brilliance burning at his very essence.

Finally, Toothless descended in an effortless sweep to land before me. Up close, the elaborate whorls adorning his onyx scales seemed to shimmer and dance like cosmic flame holding the secrets of entire galaxies looped within their depths.

"Can you feel it, my radiance?" he breathed, emerald gaze scorching a path over my trembling form. "The powers of the universe itself coursing through our shared existence?"

I could only nod, utterly spellbound as the air surrounding us grew steadily thicker with ethereal static and the metallic tang of stardust. The clearing, the forest beyond, the very earth itself - all of it faded into insignificant periphery before the gravitational forces now swirling undeniably between us.

Toothless extended a wing in silent invitation, the fathomless blackness of its span seeming to absorb all light and sound into oblivion. Yet I didn't so much as flinch from that suffocating nihilistic abyss.

No...I yearned to let it envelop me in sublimely infinite release and rebirth.

"Then let us embrace our cosmic truth, my eternal love," Toothless purred with bone-melting finality. "And go remind these insignificant wyrms what true divine transcendence looks like when harnessed to your blinding radiance."

I didn't need to be asked twice. Gathering the fearsome magical eddies now undulating through my blood, I let my own wings of searing white-blue plasma unfurl in response to his shadowed mantle. Our combined auras blazed into incandescent supernova - the final, terrifying cohesion of my ethereal fury made corporeal through my sacred Arasthorvaedyr's endless quintessence.

We were the Alpha and the Omega, the duality from which all creation sprang, and to which all existing matter inevitably returned to be remade in searing cataclysm.

And this cosmic cycle's purifying reset...began now.

With a resounding thunderclap, Toothless and I launched ourselves skyward as one, our contrasting energies swirling in a vortex of blinding dark splendor to sear the universe anew in its image.

Whether the old orders were ready or not, Existence's reclamation had arrived. The time of mortal reckoning was at hand.

And I, the Aurora, would burn everything from the ashes as the herald to this coming ashen oblivion.