He had a fire in his belly. It gurgled and stung, burning hot against his scales. Looking up, he saw his clan turn smoothly against the moonlight. The knowledge that he should have, could have been up there with them smoldered almost as hotly as his distended abdomen.

He lay his long head against the cool rock and exhaled. Sulfurous fumes rose, steaming spires drifting up from slanted nostrils, were caught in a passing breeze and carried away.

Too old for the nursery, too young for the hunt. Resentment rose and fell inside his scaly breast as he recalled the afternoon. The rest of the clan had been steadily munching on the red crusty stone that enabled their exhalations to ignite when exposed to oxygen. He was there to learn, he knew, to watch as the older members carefully picked good rock from bad, grinding the red chunks to powder with their massive, flat molars before carefully shifting them down into their special gullets.

Yearlings don’t flame; he knew this, but he hadn’t been able to resist.