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MHD Chapter 7: From Burden to Partner
🕑 Added 2025-06-29 01:38:04 +0000 UTCAki had returned to her nest, and Logan wanted to follow her in—only to be unceremoniously driven out.
He flapped his wings, hovering just outside the entrance, locking eyes with Aki inside the cave. The moment he made any motion toward going in, she would let out a low, rumbling growl. Yet despite the threatening sound, she never actually took any action to force him away.
And so, the two dragons found themselves in an unusual standoff.
“Ugh~”
“Aki, I’m so tired... I can barely stay in the air.”
He tentatively reached out a foot toward the nest’s entrance.
“Roar~” (Get lost!)
“Okay.”
He quickly pulled his foot back.
Some time passed before Logan spoke again.
“Aki, I don’t want to stay outside.”
“Aki, the sun is so bright. It’s really hot out here.”
“Aki~~~”
Aki, lying down to recover and tend to her injuries, twitched her brow in irritation. Logan’s incessant chattering was getting on her nerves.
“ROAR!!!” (Can you just be quiet already?!)
Aki roared in frustration, glaring at him with such intensity she looked ready to lash out with her tail.
“Ugh~” Realizing she was truly angry, Logan quickly whimpered and lowered his voice, signaling submission.
Aki stared at him for a long moment. Once she confirmed he was finally quiet, she exhaled sharply and, still annoyed, slammed her tail against the ground before lying back down again.
The battle with that unfamiliar Pukei-Pukei had left her with more than a few injuries. The worst of them was on her wing. Before the venom struck, that spot had already torn open from the initial impact. When the venom hit, it seeped directly into the open wound.
That’s what led to the wing membrane beginning to rot.
But what truly frustrated Aki wasn’t the pain—it was the realization that, until her wing healed, she wouldn’t be able to go out and hunt. Which meant she’d likely go hungry for the next few days.
A wyvern wouldn’t die just from a few days without food—but that gnawing hunger... she never wanted to feel it again.
Whenever she went hungry for too long, she’d remember those days from her youth, when her mother left the nest and never came back.
There had been six hatchlings in that brood—only three had survived to this day.
At the thought, Aki opened one eye—just in time to see Logan trying to sneak a foot into the entrance again. The moment he noticed her gaze, he yanked it back in a panic. The sight of him acting so timid and stubborn at the same time made her unsure whether to be angry or laugh.
Still, watching Logan hover effortlessly just outside the cave gave her pause.
Among the wyverns from her clutch, she had always been the exceptional one.
She was the first to fly, the strongest in raw power, and also the smartest.
After their mother disappeared, she was the first to venture outside to check their surroundings. While her siblings still lay in the nest crying for food, she made the decision to go out and hunt.
If not for her, those clueless siblings would never have survived—let alone hunted together under her leadership.
Eventually, they went their separate ways and stopped hunting as a group. That was partly because she believed they could now survive on their own—but also because she could no longer stand their stupidity.
Even so, despite how gifted she had been, when she was Logan’s size, she had only just learned to fly—let alone join a fight like the one he’d just been in.
Logan’s performance earlier hadn’t resembled a fledgling at all. His combat instincts and decision-making were unlike anything she’d seen in other wyverns—herself excluded.
Her idiotic siblings, even under her command, could only repeat the same few clumsy moves. Forget about coordination or using their strengths intelligently in battle.
To Aki, Logan felt like her kind of wyvern.
Besides, with his current size, he should still be clinging to his mother—not out here fending for himself.
But his strength was undeniable. He could hold his own.
And Aki simply couldn’t pretend she hadn’t noticed that. She couldn’t keep treating him like a helpless hatchling in need of care.
This contradiction was the heart of her inner struggle—the very reason why, though she kept trying to drive Logan away, she never truly followed through.
Truth be told, Aki wasn’t really Logan’s actual mother. The way she looked after him was simply her imitating what her own mother had once done.
She had never experienced being cast out of the nest. And thanks to her exceptional talent, she hadn’t suffered from hunger or cold even after being separated from her siblings.
What made things more complicated was that Logan wasn’t just any hatchling—he was a male Rathalos. That alone made it hard for her to decide how to treat him. So in the end, she just chose to ignore his relentless clinging.
Outside the nest, Logan breathed a sigh of relief as he saw Aki close her eyes again. Unlike before, she didn’t seem intent on getting up to drive him away. Just as he was about to tentatively stretch his foot toward the nest again, his stomach growled.
He had no choice. All he’d eaten today was a single Pteryx forestal as a snack. The rest of the day had been spent searching for Aki—and then he ended up in a battle. After all that, of course he was starving.
He glanced at Aki, who seemed to have finally fallen into a proper sleep to tend to her injuries. Then he turned around, whipped his wings open, and shot off toward the deeper regions of the Wildspire Waste.
The moment he turned to leave, Aki’s eyes suddenly snapped open. She stared blankly at his retreating figure, a strange and indescribable feeling welling up inside her.
Maybe it was because it had been so long since she’d seen another of her kind.
That’s what she told herself.
She slowly walked to the entrance of the nest and watched as Logan’s silhouette disappeared into the golden sands. She didn’t know whether they would meet again in the future.
But judging from the strength he had shown... he probably wouldn’t die so easily, would he?
She lay back down in her nest and closed her eyes again. The only sign of her restless frustration was the constant thud of her tail smacking the ground behind her.
Aki had thought she might run into Logan again someday—but she didn’t expect it to happen this soon!
She had only just begun to doze off—not even fully asleep yet—when Logan came flying back with a Kelbi clutched in his talons.
Before she could even react or raise her head to shoo him off, he dropped the Kelbi’s corpse in front of her and immediately turned around to dash off again.
Aki stared down at the cleanly killed Kelbi lying before her and blinked slowly, as though typing out three question marks in her head.
What... is happening right now?
When Logan returned the second time, he had another Kelbi—slightly smaller this time. But this time, instead of tossing the carcass in front of Aki, he just settled down proudly at the entrance and started eating right there.
Halfway through, he even looked up in confusion at Aki’s stunned face, as if to ask, “Why aren’t you eating?”
Aki felt like her entire understanding of Logan needed a reset.
Weren’t you leaving?
I was already mentally prepared for it.
So why are you back already?
And what’s with this food? Is this supposed to win me over?
You really think that just because of this, I’ll let you stay?
Do you think I’m that easy? That I’m the kind of female Rathian who’d accept just any little hatchling’s offering?
“Ah-woo~” (...Not bad at all!)
...
The next day, before the sun had reached its peak in the sky, Logan—who was curled up asleep with his head tucked under his wing—was suddenly nudged awake.
When he lifted his head in confusion, Aki began shoving him more forcefully toward the cave entrance, clearly determined not to let him stay a moment longer.
“That fickle Rathian!!”
Gritting his teeth, Logan took to the skies, having no choice after being kicked out of the nest. Just yesterday, after they’d shared that Kelbi, Aki had completely ignored him and let him return to the nest as if nothing had happened.
But now she was kicking him out again? What the hell did that mean!?
Grumbling, Logan flew aimlessly for a while. Soon, he felt a twinge of hunger in his belly. He glanced up at the sky and suddenly realized—this was around the same time he’d usually be munching on snacks, waiting for Aki to return from her hunts.
Only now did it finally dawn on him—though Aki had shoved him out, her behavior today had been different from yesterday’s. Yesterday, she’d tried to drive him away with full aggression. Today, she hadn’t shown any hostility—she’d simply used her head and wings to nudge him out.
“So... was that because it’s mealtime, and she was kicking me out to go hunting?”
Logan thought back carefully. Aki’s injured wing hadn’t healed yet—she still couldn’t go hunting herself. And his solo hunt yesterday had clearly proven he was capable of catching prey on his own. So now that it was mealtime, it was only natural for him to be sent out to hunt?
Wait a second! If he was being sent out to hunt... didn’t that mean he wouldn’t be kicked out permanently anymore? Did that mean their relationship had changed?
Hold up—this was a breakthrough!
Normally, when a hatchling gains the ability to hunt on its own, it’s driven out by its parents to fend for itself.
But Logan was still a hatchling—and Aki wasn’t a fully grown wyvern either!
So now... were they supporting each other?
A male Rathalos and a female Rathian living together and helping one another—it didn’t sound that far-fetched.
And that made Aki’s behavior today make perfect sense. She was injured and couldn’t hunt, so the responsibility naturally fell on Logan. It was simple, really.
And as for the fact that a hatchling had to hunt for both of them—wasn’t that a bit much?
Heh. In the world of wyverns, once you're capable of solo hunting, size and age no longer matter. You’re no longer a hatchling—and if you’re not a hatchling, then taking on your share of responsibility is only right.
With this newfound clarity, Logan felt a surge of motivation. He flapped his wings and flew straight toward the Kelbi herd.
Given his current combat ability and carrying capacity, Kelbi were still the optimal prey.
