A traveler is grievously hurt, left for dead by highwaymen who took all her possessions. She lies in sunlit grass, holding onto dear life. She wants to live. She still has so much to do. She had never felt complete; she was journeying to the city in search of her place in the world. Was it all for naught?
It can't be. It WON'T be.
She feels a defiant ferocity. A furious, burning will to Live. To survive. It pours through her like waters from a broken dam. A fury and intensity to outshine any mundane blaze; and yet, it does not scare her. It is not an uncontrolled rage or a bitter and grim determination; it is instead a focused, steely sense of resilience, entirely her; entirely her own. A hidden strength.
She growls through clenched teeth. Slowly, her labored breaths start to ease. The pain starts to fade. Is this it? Is she drifting off at last?
... No. This is something different. She opens her eyes, and sees a world sharper than she had known before. She rises to her knees, and... catches a glimpse of green on her arm.
Her wounds. They're... healing, impossibly fast. But where they were is not normal scar tissue. Instead, over where they had lain are shining, blue-green scales. And yet, like that strength, they feel like they belong to her. Not an alien thing across her skin, but a hidden truth, shining through at long last.
She gazes at them for a moments before she realizes: the scales are spreading.
She gasps. Not with fear, but with quiet gentle shock. Then she smiles. A huge, beaming smile. She cannot see it, but there is a bright and wonderful spark of joy dancing in her inhuman, changed eyes. She draws her arms forwards, hugging herself with joy. And she draws her other arms forward in the same motion, too.
It takes her a moment to process what she had just done. Huge, scaly wings wrap around her, growing from points on her upper back. They're wonderful. They're hers. Wrapped in them, she feels a safety and warmth she had never known before. Her tail swishes across the grass; Of course that's there, as well.
The rational part of her mind finally catches up with the rest of her. She neatly falls into a quadrupedal stance, much larger than she was before. Her scales cover every inch of her now; she doesn't feel naked anymore. She feels horns upon her head, and her mouth no longer feels too short, too constraining, like it had before.
In a moment of desperation, she had found her true strength. And that strength had finally let her truly hatch into the world as the dragon she had always carried, unknowingly, within her heart.
Through hurt and pain, despite the horrors the world had thrown at her, she remains strong. A dragon's strength; a spirit unbreakable, a pride long deserved.
She is still breathing, still alive. She hasn't found her place in the world yet, not truly, but she certainly feels a few steps closer. What kind of dragon she is and her future in this form is still unknown to her.
But she can't wait to find out.