ORIGIN

The creature-which-looked-suspiciously-like-a-log was drifting in the black water, as he had for almost as long as he could remember. He still brought food to the monster in its depths; he still hunted, and ate, for himself. But there was little more.

The others had shown no interest in... survival. His sons and children had departed, and he had remained, indifferent, his reptilian mind almost in hibernation, lost in dreams... or nothing.

Now, however, a scream pierced his silence. "Help me!"

Dragon slowly lifted his large, boatlike head from the water, turning to listen to the cry.

Someone calling for aid..? How unusual. Cetus was unkind, inhospitable: gembounds died, here, as often as they had time to cry for help. Its depths were dark on the best of days, mist-filled and wet, and now, with the lights wholly out, it was outright deadly.

But who was this, who cried out?

The reptile lifted himself, dragging his heavy body through the mud and forward, moss and reeds clinging to his dark-skinned body. He made his way toward the cries--toward the scratching of claws on rock.

No--claws on gem.

He exhaled heavily through his nostrils, and lowered his head, feeling along the edges of the chrysalis with his broad snout. After a moment he spoke, rumblingly quiet; he had aided young ones in hatching before. It was instinct for the alligator, and anyway, often they turned out to be loyal comrades. Servants, even.

"Be still," he rumbled. "Be still, and I will free you."

He carefully lifted his jaws to close them around the stone, and--cautious not to put forth too much strength (he didn't want to crush whatever lay within, after all--he attempted to crack the shards away.

The alligator thrust his head forward, trying to feel over the small creature before him. It was--yes, it was small, though not so small as some; and it was soft. Fuzzy. He lifted his head, looking blindly about him, and then opened his large jaws. He attempted to call upon his magic, to summon fire up within him--something he had not done for some time, now, not at this level--and ignite some of the plant matter beyond the two, to provide them some measure of light.

There was a sputter of flame--not the gout he'd been hoping for, but it would do. A few twigs and some dry grass some distance away caught fire. Cetus was too wet for flames to spread very well, but it would at least let him see this, Layla, more closely.

He lowered his head again, ignoring the searing pain that crackled over his now-burnt mouth, having gotten used to it long ago. He sniffed at the snow leopard, now somewhat more visible in his firelight.

Small, yes, and soft. A predator..? It is hard to tell. At length, his massive body sprawled behind him, he spoke.

"I am Dragon," he declared with quiet pride. "And you--you are new. What, are you? Do you hunt, or do you flee?"

He eyed her curiously, first with one eye, then the other, almost birdlike, heated breath flaring from his gullet. She was almost... cute, in a way, he decided; like a cub, a tiny child.

That is it! A cub. She is, a cub.

Dragon could see her more clearly, now--and--was that magic?

What was that? Was that fire?

He sniffed briefly at the chrysalis's now-glowing stone, but could not sense fire within it. Perhaps her power was the same as the black crow's had been: the ability to create, and to sustain, light. He eyed it approvingly--it was impressive, for one so young. And she could speak quickly, and knew things--but what was a, snow leopard?

He eyed her over again. Sharp white teeth glinted as she yawned, and she had said that she hunted. He considered this, approvingly.

"A hunter may find much to hunt, here," he declared to the little one in his booming voice. "There are great spiders in the cliffs, but they are dangerous, and their bites can kill. Their webs can pin you down. There are fish--and the white ones are best of all; but they are best burnt. There are rats, too, and birds. But there are larger things, things that might hunt you, as well," he explained. His words came slowly, patient and rumbling.

"I have seen one other with your magic--she a bird, and one of my Children. If you wish to learn more... or to feed... then perhaps I may aid."

It had been a long while since he'd aided a newly-hatched gembound, but he took pride in doing so. It was probably just instinct, but the alligator laid out his offer nonetheless, making no threat toward the far smaller newborn.

Dragon listened.

She was well-spoken, and wise. Good.

"These are wise words," he agreed in his deep rumble. "Those who are strong, are stronger with allies. Come, then. I will show you where you may hunt. I do not know what a snow leopard is, but your teeth are sharp."

He dragged himself quickly through the reeds, going by memory and by touch--Cetus was his home, and he had not left it in as long as he could remember.

Not since Raheerah. Not since the dragon.

The big, dark alligator hauled himself more swiftly, but paused, for a moment, peering back--eyes glinting in his now-more-distant firelight--to see if the cub "Layla" would follow.

The bulky black alligator eyed the snow leopard cub over the high ridges of his tail, and then nodded to himself with a faint bob of his reptilian head. He then turned, plodding rapidly onward, pushing through long marsh grass in the dark. Whenever he looked back, he could see the slight light that Layla had created bobbing along behind him, and in this way, he knew she was following.

At length his clawed feet, one of his hind legs slightly dragging in a limp, began to splash in shallow water; and soon enough, shallow gave way to a narrow channel threading through Cetus's swamps. He threw himself in with a loud splash, and ducked his head under. He began to swim along the channel until he found what he was looking for: albino cave-fish, something he considered perhaps the best eating here, if one first burnt the slime from their scales.

"This is water--and in the water there are fish. They can be caught, and eaten!" Dragon declared, before again submerging into the pitch black waters.

He opened his jaws, swimming forward with a thrash of his ridged tail, trying to snap one up in his jaws.

He felt the faint, triumphant thrill of the predator when something brushed his lower jaw, over his teeth, and his maw snapped shut beneath the water in an instant, over the thrashing tail of the fish. It had nearly escaped him, and he tossed it deeper into his jaw, crushing it dead, before carrying it out.

He then dropped it before the cub, and spoke again.

"Look at it, in your light. Do you see the slime? It is no good, for eating. You can open them--or I can burn it for you; and then they taste good," the big reptile declared.