**The Divide at Thornbridge**
The smoke was visible from miles away, a black column rising against the morning sky. Noraxia banked sharply, her massive furred wings catching the wind as she descended toward the burning settlement.
"It's Thornbridge," Jukrit called from his position secured between her shoulder blades. "The border town. Set me down outside the walls—they won't react well to a dragon landing in the middle of a crisis."
Noraxia rumbled her understanding, spiraling down to a grove just beyond the town's wooden palisade. As soon as they landed, she shifted, her form condensing and reshaping until she stood on two legs—still twice Jukrit's height, her light brown fur gleaming in the firelight, but recognizably furfolk rather than beast.
"I should come with you," she said, her voice unchanged despite the different form.
"Not yet. Let me assess first." Jukrit was already pulling his healer's satchel tight. "Thornbridge has... complicated politics about shapeshifters."
Her golden eyes narrowed. "You mean they're prejudiced."
"I mean they're frightened. There's a difference, even if the result looks the same." He touched her arm briefly. "If I need you, I'll whistle."
The scene inside the walls was chaos. The fire had started in the animal stockyards—the four-footed cattle and sheep penned there running in panic, some already burned. Furfolk rushed with buckets, trying to contain the blaze before it reached the main buildings.
"Healer!" A badger constable spotted Jukrit immediately. "Thank the trees. We've got burned animals and several furfolk who got trampled trying to release them."
Jukrit set to work immediately, but something felt wrong. The fire's pattern was strange—too even, too controlled. And the way some of the townsfolk kept glancing toward the forest...
"What started this?" he asked while treating a young rabbit's scorched pawpads.
"Lightning strike," the constable said too quickly. "Dry season. You know how it is."
Jukrit did know. He also knew lightning didn't strike in perfect lines along fence posts.
A commotion at the gates drew his attention. Three wolves in their four-footed forms were dragging in a wounded furfolk—a fox who could barely stand, his clothes torn and bloodied.
"Found him by the river," one wolf growled, the sound strange coming from an animal throat. "Shifter by the smell of him. Probably set the fires before we caught him."
"I didn't—" the fox gasped, then coughed blood. "Trying to... warn..."
"Save it for the magistrate," the badger constable snarled. To the wolves: "Lock him up. We'll question him when—"
"He'll die if you move him," Jukrit interrupted, already kneeling by the fox. Deep claw wounds, possibly a punctured lung. "He needs immediate treatment."
"He's a shifter vagrant who—"
"He's injured and in my care," Jukrit said firmly. "You can question him after I've stabilized him."
The constable's eyes narrowed. "You'd defend a shapeshifter? Maybe we should check if you—"
A shadow fell across them. Noraxia had arrived, still in her anthropomorphic form but managing to loom impressively despite it. "Is there a problem with my companion providing medical aid?"
The constable stepped back instinctively. "Dragon. You... you're with him?"
"Always," Noraxia said simply. "Now, let him work."
As Jukrit treated the fox's wounds, the injured shifter whispered urgently. "Not... not me. The Purists. Heard them planning. Burn the animal pens... blame shifters... excuse to drive us out..."
"Purists?" Jukrit kept his voice low.
"Furfolk who... who think shapeshifters are abominations. Say we can't decide... if we're people or beasts..." The fox's eyes found Noraxia. "You... you're like me. You understand."
Noraxia's expression was unreadable. "Rest. Save your strength."
But Jukrit caught the tension in her shoulders, the way her claws flexed involuntarily. He'd seen her shift between forms without thought, natural as breathing. To be told that ability made her an abomination...
"Healer." A young mouse tugged at his sleeve. "My pa's trapped. The beam fell on him, but he's... he was in his small form when it happened. Now he's stuck between. Can't shift either way without..."
Without potentially crushing himself. Jukrit grabbed his supplies. "Show me."
The mouse's father was indeed trapped—partially shifted, his body caught in an agonizing half-state under a heavy beam. Any movement toward either form would be fatal.
"I need someone strong enough to lift this," Jukrit called. Several furfolk looked away. Helping a shapeshifter, even to save a life, carried social weight here.
Without hesitation, Noraxia moved forward. But as she reached for the beam, her form rippled involuntarily—stress triggering the beginning of a shift.
"Monster!" someone screamed. "Dragon beast in the town!"
"She's helping!" Jukrit snapped, but the crowd was already backing away, some reaching for weapons.
Noraxia froze, caught between forms just like the trapped mouse. Not from physical impediment but from sudden, paralyzing awareness of how she was seen. Her face—partially elongated, neither fully furfolk nor dragon—showed a vulnerability Jukrit had never seen before.
"Hey." He touched her arm gently. "You're you, whatever form you take. Now help me save him."
She met his eyes, something passing between them—understanding, acceptance, trust. With visible effort, she completed her shift to anthropomorphic form and gripped the beam.
"On three," Jukrit said. "One... two..."
The beam lifted. Jukrit pulled the mouse free, quickly stabilizing his form with practiced touches and a mild sedative. The shapeshifter gasped, completing his shift to full mouse form, tiny and trembling but alive.
"Papa!" The young mouse scooped up her father, tears streaming. She looked at Noraxia with something like awe. "Thank you. Thank you both."
But the crowd's mood had shifted. Weapons were still drawn, eyes suspicious.
"Two shifters in one day," someone muttered. "And him defending them both. Maybe the Purists are right—"
"The Purists," Jukrit said loudly, "are the ones who set your fires."
Silence fell like a hammer.
"The fox told me before he passed out. They burned your animal pens to frame shapeshifters, give you an excuse to drive them out." He stood, small but unbending. "Look at the burn patterns. Look at who benefits from this fear. Look at who was ready with accusations before the smoke even cleared."
"You can't prove—" the badger constable started.
"I can," said a new voice. The mouse father, back in anthropomorphic form, stood shakily. "I saw them. Three furfolk with torches, including your deputy, Constable Gruff. Saw them from the loft where I was checking my store goods. Shifted to mouse form to escape, got caught by the beam when I tried to raise the alarm."
The revelation rippled through the crowd. The constable's blustering denials only confirmed what many suddenly realized they'd already suspected.
As the truth came out—a conspiracy to seize shapeshifter properties, to "purify" the town—Jukrit found himself watching Noraxia. She stood apart, neither fully accepted nor rejected, her existence itself a challenge to the neat categories the Purists wanted to enforce.
Later, as they prepared to leave Thornbridge—the conspirators arrested, the fox recovering, the mouse family tearfully grateful—Noraxia shifted to her dragon form without warning.
"You prefer this form for travel," Jukrit said, but made it a question.
"I prefer this form, period," she admitted. "It's... simpler. No one questions what a dragon is. Four legs, wings, beast. Clear. It's the in-between that frightens them."
Jukrit climbed to his usual spot, settling between her shoulders. "Is that why you said yes to traveling with me? Because I didn't fear the in-between?"
She was quiet for a long moment, wings beating steadily as Thornbridge fell away below. "When you found me in that cave, dying, you didn't see a beast or a person. You just saw someone in pain. Do you know how rare that is?"
"I think I'm beginning to."
"My instincts knew I could trust you. But my experience..." She banked gently, heading north. "Experience said trusting furfolk who accept shapeshifters leads to disappointment. Or worse."
"And now?"
"Now?" She glanced back at him, golden eyes warm despite their reptilian cast. "Now I think maybe the in-between isn't something to hide from. Not with the right companion."
Below them, the road unwound toward new towns, new challenges. There would be more Thornbridges, more divisions between those who walked on two legs and four, those who kept one form and those who changed.
But there would also be more moments like the mouse girl thanking a dragon for saving her father. More proof that healing happened not despite differences, but through the courage to bridge them.
"Next town's about an hour north," Jukrit said. "Want to land outside again, or...?"
"Let's see how they handle a dragon landing in their square," Noraxia said, and Jukrit could hear the smile in her voice. "After all, I have an excellent healer in case anyone faints from shock."
They flew on together, carrying medicine for more than just physical wounds.
