ORIGIN

Although Monoceros was a gargantuan beauty unique in its barrenness, it was not a place that Delphine felt any inclination toward. It was only that Magdalena lived there that she found herself fraught with hesitation, once more riddled with conflicting desires to stay and a nearly phantasmal yearning to leave. It took her reminding herself that there was no place for her there, that the dog had others to love and be loved. Only then was she able to leave and only then did she find herself traipsing the smooth tunnels, brimmed with a self-loathing for harboring so much envy. In truth, she knew why she was the way that she was. It was not hard to see that the whimsical Gembound did, to some degree, care for her and that if she left, it was not from lack of love, but that she was already promised to a home and family. The problem was it was simply not her home and family. Delphine had idealized, since her birth, a place where the same congregation of Gembounds were forever bound to one another not unlike a pack, or a herd. It was a silly mortal sentiment and one that had reared its ugly head toward her, fashioning Delphine a petty, spoilt child crying for lack of attention.

She was trying to fix it, she really was. Whensoever her thoughts drifted to a nether space of negativity, the filly caught herself and forcibly wrangled the haunts into a corner, chained by minute distractions that came from brief encounters and natural wonders. This very moment was punctuated with Delphine's newfound fascination for the sentries carved of stone and rock, monsters etched into the walls and ceilings of the tunnel. She would have been frightened if not for the fact she'd already walked the depths of the tunnels once prior. Upon reaching Orion's entrance, Delphine halted in her steps to gaze upon the draconian statute that stood guard in its ceaseless silence. She was reminded of the dragon who'd attacked her in Eridanus and almost imperceptibly, a shiver raced along her spine, tingling ever the more so where her scar lay. It made her wonder if blissful ignorance would have been preferable to the guardedness which she now employed in her every day life, though she was foolish to think that she could have lived without blood or toil. Silly, naïve Delphine.

( @Baratheon )

As it so happened a dragon, not unlike the statue outside of Orion, roamed the halls. His stomach had taken him back to the place that he loved, the place that his ancestors had roamed. How did he know they had been there? Well... He didn't, he just had hunches and dreams and his very own existence proved some sort of a point. Ae'thiya had lived here with her own ilk and when he could he would do the same. He would be King of Dragons one day. He could already foresee it.

Blood soaked his white fur, a testament to the meal he'd just consumed. The Bloodlust had taken him as was normal but it had been sated by the amount of food eaten. His stomach was comfortably full and he was blissfully unaware of the troubles that were to come in the near future. He lounged lazily beneath the throne in Orion, his tongue and teeth dragging across his coat to clean out the blood stains. As ferocious as they made him look the blood tended to scare the other smaller gembounds and as much as he loved to look awesome and fearsome it worked against him when they all ran away.

After his coat was successfully cleaned he rose to his paws and gave a rather feline-like stretch before turning and padding away. For some reason he wanted to take the long way to Eridanus. Call it a hunch but he had a feeling something would happen if he went this way. Perhaps he would get into a fight. Oh yeah... It had been a while since he'd had a good brawl. Or maybe he'd find an old friend! Or--

He'd find someone that made his stomach sink with guilt. He paused right outside the entrance, pink gaze locked onto the small figure of the young horse. There was no mistake about it, this was the young filly he'd tried to kill in the throes of his rampage. Things tended to be a bit blurry and red from those memories but there was no mistaking that scent and the puckered scar at the back of her neck.

He felt sick, he wanted to run. To fly away and never look at the filly again but he couldn't. Running was something that cowards and prey did. He was no coward and he damn sure wasn't prey. He would swallow his guilt and he would approach and apologize. For better or for worst he would confront his problems, not run from them. If he did what sort of dragon was he? And what did Booker work hard to do if he was just going to run again?

He approached the tiny foal, rocks crunched audibly beneath his heavy claws as he walked right up to her. Then, quite suddenly he dipped his large head as his muzzle paused in the air about two feet from her poll. His pink eyes stared down at her but there was no anger in them. In fact, if one looked hard enough they would find those eyes soft and apologetic. A breath of air was released from his nostrils and mouth as he opened it and spoke in his deep rumbling voice, "I remember you... and I..." His eyes closed as he sighed. "I'm deeply sorry. I was not myself... I would explain but I doubt you'd like to hear excuses so please accept my apology. In my right mind I wouldn't dare hurt you..." He blinked his large intelligent eyes as he continued to stare at her. Gauging how she would react to the sudden appearance of a behemoth like himself.

---

Coincidences were a thing of irony, born of cloaks and shadows. It had a penchant for hitting things when least expected and leaving in its wake collateral damage both good and bad. In this day and age, it was entirely the worst case scenario. Delphine, attempting to conquer her fears by staring down a draconian statue, discovered that the very thing she so feared was within the same space as she. A small part of her knew that their confrontation was inevitable but not now, not so soon. There was no one to turn to, no one to protect her should the need arise and when her emerald gaze met with the fierce creature's pink pair, she found that she could not move, petrified to the very spot where she stood. She knew she should run, oh how she wanted to and yet the paralysis was her jailor and she behind iron bars.

Then the dragon was upon her, his every exhale threatened to drown her whole and though his voice rumbled with apology and his eyes gleamed with sincerity, hysteria would have nothing of it. Mid-sentence, Delphine reared with a start. The space between them was punctuated with a cry that spoke of the nightmares that haunted her, of the ghastly haunts thrown from shadows and umbra, of the tears that bled her dry. She remembered, even now, the snarl that shook her to her bone and the teeth that tore her skin to flesh. Her scar burned furiously beneath the scrutiny of the dragon and for the first time since her conception, Delphine tried to summon her magic for the purposes of self-defense, if not, retaliation. And try and try she did, slamming upon the cavern floors with as much power and weight as she could fathom except, it had not shaken as it did when she was in Polaris. There was only a sound to puncture the space between them and when the filly realized the futility of her efforts, misery bled across her features.

The young gembound's ears flattened against the crown of her head and upon paper-legs, she backed away into the draconian statue, blanketed by the self-same shadows that coincidences spawned from. Wordlessly she curled between the two forelegs of the earth sentinel, burying her face inside her onyx pelt. "P-Please..." Her voice, a bare whisper — frail and broken — curled between them as steam, ever there, ever not. "Please don't hurt me. I-I don't want to die... Please."

( @Baratheon )

The reaction was almost instantaneous. The poor foal was scared to death, rearing up and then crashing down on the ground in a clatter of hooves. Baratheon lifted his head, eyes staring down at the little creature. He felt a bit of irritation before he remembered that he was no longer a small thing that could easily apologize like he could before. He was large, imposing, a thing from nightmares. He knew that and he knew that he really was a monster when the Bloodlust came over him. Another stab of guilt hit his stomach like a punch.

He watched while the horse backed herself into the statue, the irony not lost on him. Heavy lids lowered over his pink gaze as he blinked slowly at the filly. What was he to do? Would he just have to leave her to prove that he wasn't out for harm. That still felt like a defeat... And he wasn't too be defeated yet. "I don't want to hurt or kill you. Just listen to me." He lowered his belly to the ground, wings on either side of his body tucked into himself so that he could look smaller. His head and neck he also lowered to the ground so that he was fully laying at the foal's level, hoping to connect with her in some way.

---

Time seemed to slow for the young filly as she dithered between opening or closing her eyes. Truly, she was afraid to see if the dragon were genuine in his attempt to apologize. That her mind was able to accept that he even meant well was nothing short of a miracle. If she doubted him it was not of his present self but a result of the trauma that left its unseen scars within her. As she'd confided in Magdalena, it was not so much the physical deformation that bothered her rather than the sleepless nights and a loss of innocence. His voice crooned once more, imploring for her rationale but it was not to her logic which he should appeal but to a child's feverish imaginations.

When she offered no response to his beseechment and therein laid a vast silence, Delphine finally mustered the courage to peek from within her perceived sense of safety. Her reaction, again instantaneous, brought her ever close to the hunched corners of the overarching statue and if she could, she would very well melt into the earth if it meant her heart would not drum so furiously against her chest. Just seeing the pale dragon had that effect on her but the closer she deigned to look, the more she was forced to admit that his efforts were sincere. In the way that he was lain across the floors, wings tucked to his sides, the dragon did seem harmless but the fear was there, perpetually drawn taut beneath tense muscles and a beating heart.

"B-But you did the first time." Her voice crack and broke along the edges, an open betrayal of her attempt at justifying why this conversation was taking place at all. "Why?" There, a sob hitched in the back of her throat and she hated how weak she must have sounded. How weak she must have seemed.

( @Baratheon )

There was a wall between them, not the literal kind but one that was forged of rough beginnings and an unforetold future. She wanted desperately to believe him because doing so would help her restore some amount of faith in the goodness she firmly believed existed in everyone. Even so, they had a long road ahead of them. What had happened that day was not something that could simply be swept under a rug. No, it would always be there and it would always be something that existed between the two of them. An element to play into their dichotomies but who was to say that their interactions now would lead into anything more than the clearing of a bloodied conscious?

Delphine took heed of his word and stopped to contemplate how she should respond; unsure of where to begin and how to end. "A disease...?" She'd never heard of some such ailments but then again, she herself had never really fallen ill. She wondered if there were others like him and when her emerald eyes glanced to the dragon, questions drew themselves to the forefront of her thoughts. "Does it hurt?" She paused. "Are you hurt?" The question was built of ambiguities, neither to be understood in its literal sense or at all. She knew that whatever it was that afflicted him was something that would bring pain unto others but did he feel, as well, the wroth that festered within.

( @Baratheon )

She listened to his explanations and waited, with baited breath, for his stories to unfurl. Each word that passed his white lips brought her ever closer to uncoiling. It started with a gentle raise of her head, as if she wanted to catch and bottle his verbiage to memory because she knew that he was imparting some amount of trust to her for telling her as much as he did. Perhaps it was guilt that propelled him into this direction but for Delphine, it was enough of a start. Enough for her to reciprocate, so she did. "I'm sorry, I didn't know." Of course she didn't know but somehow, it made her feel better saying it because it forced her to acknowledge that he was as much a victim in these circumstances as she.

She would have inquired more into his past, to know more of these dragons but the filly thought that he'd given enough this time around. "My friend told me..." Would he even care to know of such trivial details? It didn't seem to matter because she had naught else to share. "She said that my scar looks good, well not really in those words but something along those lines. I have a story to tell now, if anyone ever asks, about how I was attacked by a dragon..." Delphine was rambling but it felt good to fill the space between them, as if each word were a building block meant to create a bridge between them. "I mean, it's not all bad. I'm still alive, aren't I?"

( @Baratheon )