ORIGIN

Dragon lay there for a moment, and at first he almost felt like drifting off to sleep. This had the effect of snapping him awake as his logical brain realized that something was wrong. He needed to get off his back, and quick.

For a wry, wistful instant, he wished he could fly, if only to get safely off this damn rock.

It wouldn't hurt to have long legs, either--or at least four working ones.

Still, as his initial fear subsided, he realized that he could probably flip himself toward the spire's ledge itself, which would be uncomfortable when he struck it, but stop him from falling off, at least.

With a growl, the alligator rocked, then thrust with his tail to try and shove himself right-side-up without flying--or more accurately, falling--right off the side of the spire.

With a sudden burst of motion and a loud thud, the alligator righted himelf only to slam sidelong into the ledge. He lay there panting, nearly exhausted.

"...When I get to the top, I'm going back to Cetus and never doing this again," he growled irritably. He could only imagine what he must have looked like, writhing on his back like a fool.

Dragon lay there for awhile, and oddly enough Eve's insistence that he stop, wait, rest, reenergized him.

"I want to get up there, only to get up there. That other dragon should not be safe up here just because he has wings! I don't need wings to get to the top, and I will prove it." For a moment he was silent, turning to stare up at the Spire's summit. It wasn't too far off, now, but it felt a thousand miles away.

And as before, he found it difficult to explain--even to himself--why he felt he had to climb it.

"I need to do it," he growled at last.

He lay there for awhile longer before gathering himself for another attempt. If he slipped back down to this point, again, he'd have to rest for a few hours or more. But if he succeeded... If he managed, then there would only be a little more left to do, a short distance left to climb.

Dragon crawled to the bottom of the ledge, staring up--then shoved upward, launching himself with a thrust of his tail and another flurry of claws, wriggling to try and haul himself over the edge.

This time his feet dug into slight holds he found in the lip, and he was able to drag himself up and over with a determined shove of his entire body. He hauled himself a few feet onto this next crystal, panting again, and looked around.

The surface he now lay on sloped away a little, and he could see the last step he'd have to make, though he waited for Eve to confirm it. It was a dangerous slope--one where if he slipped, he might fall completely off the Spire, and at this realization, a wave of vertigo hit him.

He considered turning back. His life, the survival he so determinedly went on about, was surely more important than this... whatever it was.

But was it worth it? Was it worth it to slink back to his swamp, beaten by his own fear?

The alligator shifted his body to face the final ledge, and lowered his chin to the Spire's surface, resting.

It wouldn't be long, now.

The alligator lay for a time in silence, only catching his breath, not speaking. Up above glittered the last, the final step; if he could get up there...

Dragon took a deep breath, eyeing over his goal. It would be a steep climb, and he'd have to be extremely careful not to slip on this one. He wasn't sure where he'd end up, if he did--and he didn't want to ask Eve. He didn't want to deter himself. It was all or nothing, this time.

Well--all, nothing, or stuck turtled on his back again, he supposed.

Before Eve could speak, the alligator gathered himself and barrelled forward, a swift heavy run on three lurching legs. As he approached the final ledge, he leapt, the suspense of whether he'd make it tearing through him, adrenaline raging in his veins.

Up he went, soaring through the air, strong clawed limbs hauling him up, over--... past...

He felt rather than saw the slope of the crystal, the way it simply tilted him right back off the other way, sending him tumbling down the other side. He bellowed his frustrated rage as he fell, the sound echoing up through the Spire and Polaris as a whole.

Dragon fully expected to fall, and fall, and die--but instead he hit tail-first into another crystal. At first, this seemed lucky--and then he wriggled, a little.

He opened one eye, filled with dread.

He was vertical: his back was to another shaft of the spire, his front laying up along the ledge he'd been trying to climb, only from the other side. And he was thickly wedged in.

He was stuck.

"OH FUCK THIS CAVE, FUCK THAT DRAGON, WHY DON'T I HAVE FUCKING WINGS?! HOW HARD CAN IT POSSIBLY BE TO CLIMB. A FUCKING. CRYSTAL?!" he roared, thrashing in his now-stuck spot.

He really wasn't sure how the hell he was going to get out of this one. Right now, in his rage, he didn't even care.

The alligator was panting between bouts of fruitless wriggling when a screeching voice came from down below. It was loud, though not as loud as Eve, and was yelling something about a limp lizard. He wasn't sure what the hell was going on, and he couldn't see down through the crystals to figure out just who was doing the yelling. He did, however, feel a faint tug on his stone, which was spectacularly unhelpful.

Oh, how he wanted wings. To spread wing-leather and take flight, beat the air until he lay atop the Spire, and just spew flame.

Second-best would be to scramble to the top, as perhaps he could have done in his lighter-bodied youth, and grin down at those below.

Getting jammed down inside the Spire's, well, spires had not at all been his plan. This wasn't good at all. He was past frustration and a little bit into panic, now, realizing that if he got stuck here, he might starve and die. And now--this shouting, damn it all, what was this shouting?!

Dragon took a deep breath, growling.

"Whoever you are," he bellowed irritably, "if you're too useless to get me out, then shut the FUCK up!" The last part came out as an almost screaming roar, startling even him; it wasn't an alligator-ish noise, really, but more of a frustrated screech. He braced himself against the crystal, to see if he could strain backwards and snap it away--and to his surprise, found that he could hold himself up that way.

...Could he brace his back against the crystal, and waddle his way up to the last ledge of the Spire?

Y... YYYESS...

Where before he'd been afraid, frustrated, close to giving up, Fisher's shouting had filled him with an indignant rage that pushed him beyond his bounds. With a growl that erupted into another roar, which in turn echoed from where he was stuck practically inside Fisher's Spire, he managed to brace back and waddle his way up enough to get a grip on the edge. From there it was a matter of writhing his tail up higher, using it to turn himself horizontal, a further brace from falling backward.

As Fisher watched, the immense black-skinned alligator would emerge from his fail-hole, crawling up onto the top ledge of the Spire. It wasn't the summit--not yet--but it was close, and Dragon turned to glare down at whoever it was who'd been shouting at him.

Is that...?

He stared.
He took in the small brown form, the bristled fur; why, the thing was barely visible from up here!
...And then, Dragon began to laugh.

His laughter was bellowing, even though he was still gasping for breath; that tiny thing had been producing all that noise?! He supposed he should have been expecting it after knowing Eve, but somehow he'd expected a foe, an archenemy-to-be. Instead there was this tiny prey item barking up at him?!

"That was YOU?! You are the thing making all that noise, and all those threats? ...Your entire body would fit in my mouth, little thing," he guffawed. It wasn't even malice so much as amusement; he'd been fierce when newly-born. Maybe this thing was like him. Or maybe it was just obnoxious.

Either way, he didn't stop laughing.

Dragon wasn't usually one for bullying, and even now he didn't feel like a bully--he was mostly only vaguely aware that his laughter was hurting the fisher, goading him on. Mostly Dragon was amused--and very confused.

Why would the tiny brown thing take offense to his being atop the Spire...?

He was of course entirely unaware of Fisher's claim to the blue crystal. What he was aware of was Fisher's scurrying upward. The mustelid still had a ways to go, and he only had to take a couple steps to make it to the top. Dragon craned his thick neck, listening to the angry shouts ringing around him, echoing.

Overgrown frog...? he thought, bemusedly. In the next instant he remembered falling, tumbling, and he was calling out a warning before he could think. He didn't want the Fisher's death on his conscience, or what little conscience he had.

"Don't slip, Land-Fish," he called down by way of warning as he turned away. The name came at random; if he was a frog, then the brown thing that wriggled was obviously a furry fish. "It's a long fall." He didn't mean it as a threat; hell, his attention was already back on that last few feet of Spire. But it might have come out like one.

Dragon glanced at Eve; she was all right. He wasn't sure why she'd flown down to attack Fisher (and wasn't aware of the magic that had dragged her there, didn't connect it with the vague pull on his own stone), but at least she seemed unharmed. He turned again, this time to face the Spire.

He scrabbled at the base of the final crystal of the Spire; he was on the top, but not quite at the top. He could have gone home happy as it was, but he was curious as to what the view was like--and he sort of wanted to just perch on the top, the way Raheerah had done. To pretend, even for a moment, that he was every bit as powerful as the dragon.

Unfortunately, it seemed just a little too steep.