ORIGIN

The dragon stared, listening to White's words about the possibly-babies. He huffed, and plodded past her with his long, serpentine body, scales glinting, to plant a clawed forelimb firmly over the glow-rock she'd made. The one she'd abandoned when peering over at him scaring bats.

He'd already forgotten the stuff she said about "thank you" and so forth, and the bats--well, he'd investigate them later. When they weren't all flown-away. For now he nudged the second glow-stone to join the first, and stared at them in rapt wonder.

He loved them! They were his. They were shiny and perfect and he could stare at them all day. He was pleased, now, with White's performance--not grateful, exactly; the concept was a little beyond him, to be thankful for objects. He was, however, put in mind of Asimona and her gifts, and slowly came to the tentative, and perhaps somewhat unfortunate, conclusion that "white things are good." Kind, helpful.

With a huff he again turned, smoke trailing from his nostrils in brief tendrils, eyeing White.

"Stay. Wait," he ordered, and again leapt off his ledge. This time, his wings spread wide, catching him on the air, and he swept away past the twister and entirely out of sight.

Quickly he engaged himself in his new mission. After some searching, he found the tunnel through which he'd entered. He landed before it, and began to drag, with his wing-limbs and with scratching kicks of his taloned hind legs, the various shiny bits of armor he'd left behind--sorting them into a neat pile.

Eventually he began the laborious task of getting them all into his mouth. It took some time--he tilted his head and sort of shoveled them in, and several times, pieces simply... fell back out.

Once he had enough pieces in his mouth, though--"enough" being an entirely subjective and random judgement--he turned, plodding back into Monoceros. A running start, a few swift wingbeats, and he was soaring back to White no more than fifteen minutes after he'd left her--perhaps a little less.

The black dragon landed.

He stared at the white bird-dog.

He opened his maw, and an entire collection of old, shiny pieces of armor tumbled out, clattering down around her feet.

He stared, unblinking.

Yes. This will do.

White had, incidentally, also forgotten her lessons about 'thank you' and so forth, instead watching the bats fluttering across Monoceros. She heard Dread turn away and move to the shinies she had made, but she only turned around herself when the bats settled back where ever they had been perched before.

She wasn't sure if he was happy, sad, or perhaps even angry about what he was looking at. Instead, White paced away from the ledge again-- half-afraid that Dread might, for whatever reason, try to shove her off it --and sat down on her previous spot.

"Uh," had been her brilliant reply as the dragon spat out more commands and took off into the central room. Confused, but not surprised, White obediently remained where she was-- although, it was.. particularly boring.

Two minutes into Dread's departure and she wondered if he would even return, picking herself up and beginning to pace back and forth on the ledge above the room. Another two minutes later and White had adopted the pastime of rolling onto her back and stretching as far as her pale limbs would go.

But then, she was bored again. Instead, she rolled across to another pebble and clamped her paws over it. She felt considerably less bored as light filled the rock, but only for an astonishing thirty seconds before she thrust the stone across to the other two faintly glimmering rocks.

She went back to pacing, though she paused in her step with one paw lifted when the dragon landed, turning her head towards him.

Her ears perked as the armour clattered onto the ground.

And she stared.

In silence.

The seconds ticked by and White found herself only capable of staring blankly forward at the adolescent dragon, her mind completely empty and her maw hanging slightly open. When too much time had passed, she jolted as Dread made a noise and pushed some of the armour closer.

Was... this a test? A test of when to say thank you? White sure hoped so.

Quizzically, her lifted paw moved towards a gauntlet and she dragged it closer, slowly, hesitantly. "Thank you...?"

He wasn't sure what all this "thank you" business was all about, but he accepted it as an acceptance of his gift.

Well, shared gift. It was theirs, now. Both of theirs.

Later, he'd probably forget this, and it'd just be his. But for now! He was a generous dragon.

With a grunt, indicating his acceptance of her acceptance, he turned and hauled himself past the little pile of dragon-salivad armor and the white hybrid staring from beyond, and he crawled down in among the grand total of three glowing shinies that now lay at the back of the crevice. He pulled them closer with a sweep of his wing-talon, and curled around them protectively, laying his head and one forelimb over the obsidian blade-tip on his tail.

For a moment he lay there, silent, ember eyes on White; then his head came up just a little, again, and he spoke. Or-... Tried to.

"Not hot," he noted, and for a brief instant exposed the glowing stones for White to see. He then covered them promptly back up again, possessively. "Light, not hot. I make hot; magic? You make--light. Shinies."

His narrow reptilian head tilted, the dragon quizzically regarding his "guest."

White hadn't been eaten yet, so that means she must have passed whatever test Dread had planned for her. She pushed herself up and took to sniffing the pile of armour the dragon had bestowed upon her for a moment, allowing him to possessively guard his own three whole shinies for his own.

Maybe Caravaggio would be able to use them, but she herself didn't have much use for them-- the gauntlets were oddly-shaped, with long spindly-bits at the ends that would have made too much noise if she tried to walk around in them with her paws. The chestpieces were too small to fit over her wings, and she had no idea what the heck these long tube-things were, that were connected at the base.

She was halfway-through sticking her face into the crotch of some legguards when Dread spoke again, lifting her head. "Fire," she corrected absently. "The bright orange hot-stuff you make, it's called fire. It burns." As if the fire-breathing dragon didn't know what fire does.

"Yeah, I make shinies and light. My brother and mom do, too. When the cave's all dark? We make shinies, and bright things, so others can see." She lifted one talon to itch absently at the soft down-feathers along her neck, looking over Dread briefly. "Sometimes people can do two things. Maybe you can make fire and shinies. Have you tried?"

Thus, began White's intricate lesson. She paced off and pulled over two rocks, pushing one towards Dread and sitting down in front of the other. She nodded downwards, speaking, "You touch it, and you focus really hard."

She was, of course, an expert.

So much so of an expert, in fact, that when she touched the rock and-- in her own words --focused really hard, the rock billowed into bright light. Moving white paws from the pebble, she inspected it briefly before pushing that one to Dread, too.

"You try," she said, observing.

Dread watched and listened as the white hybrid spoke, and then--of course--immediately dragged the fourth glowing stone over to himself, scraping it into his growing little pile.

"Fire," he repeated, settling the word firmly into his memory. It occurred to him that collecting words was much as collecting treasure: shiny things to secure away in his mind, keeping them for his own.

For a time, he considered White's words, trying to understand them. He knew that he could call upon his magicka for other things--not only heat. "I see in dark," he answered roughly, as if dismissing this need for merely light--but then added, "--with magic. And see things. Red. Hot things."

But making things glow? He considered. Could he make his own shinies? Slowly he lifted his head, craning his muscular neck and peering down. Settling a pebble in his predator's gaze, he extended out a wing, dragging it closer. Then he focused, willing himself, his magicka, to make it glow.

When he lifted his wing, there was still a rock. It was not glowing--but beside it was a sparkling banana.

That was definitely something.

With her eyes on Dread's rock, White lowered herself to lay on her belly, hind legs twisted around to lay a little more comfortably, without her talons digging into her sides. She listened, ears flicking, and then nodded.

"My dad can do that too," she said. "He can make things dark, too, and sometimes he can make a big hole that sucks everything into it, but that might just be stories." White had not, in fact, ever seen a 'big hole that sucks everything into it.'

She hadn't heard of seeing red-hot-things before, though. So, instead, she chose to ignore it, watching Dread as he attempted to make himself a shiny. She certainly saw a glittery something under there-- a shiny, yellow thing.

Had he done it? That was good news, it meant that Dread would be able to make his own shinies and he wouldn't have to scream 'PLEASE' in anyone else's face for a while. She lifted her head, staring intently.

.... what the heck.

What was that? How did-- what. The rock, untouched, had a long, glittery yellow thing next to it. "What?" She asked, quizzically, pushing herself up at once and moving over to sniff the banana.

It was.. sweet-smelling. She gave it a tentative lick and found that it was strangely leathery and bland, however. Was it some kind of shell? Instinct took over and White moved to drag the banana back and, upon not hearing the dragon snarl at her for it, pulled it towards her and began to bite it open.

As pale banana-flesh spilled into her maw, she grimaced. This was some kind of plant, or fruit, she realised-- and she began to focus quietly for a moment, to properly digest it, just in case. She could probably eat fruit fine without getting sick, but in the off-chance, she did not want a repeat of laying on the ground for hours at a time with stomach pains.

Gemstone glittering, White felt no real change, but she was content enough to continue eating away at half of the banana. She licked her jowls, paused, and then shoved the rest of it towards Dread. "It's kind of shiny," she offered. "It's a type of shiny? It tastes good, can you eat it?"

Dread stared for a beat, then looked back down. Could he eat it? He remembered eating them, but now White had eaten that one. He covered the stone again--despite the rock having nothing to do with the magic--and focused.

This time, when he removed his talons, only the rock remained.

The dragon lifted his head to peer at White, as if expecting her to explain this--but it reminded him of something, and so, he asked.

"Hot not always come," he declared, and then asked--"Why?" He didn't understand magicka--neither its existence, nor its functionality. He had no idea how it worked, how to call on it, of any link to one's gem. He only knew that sometimes he tried to blow fire--or even hot air--and nothing came.

He thought of heat as more intrinsic to his being--not an outside force, like summoning bananas was--but perhaps it was a similar concept? Maybe there was a reason he was failing?

As dread left the banana alone, White slowly pulled it back towards herself, slumping down onto her belly to finish off eating it. She tore banana flesh from banana skin with her teeth, spending a moment to thoroughly chew and make sure nothing was getting stuck between her teeth.

She spent a moment in silence, thinking. She wasn't very magically inclined, she only really made rocks shiny and, on occasion, made herself shiny. Or she focused really hard to she could eat things like bananas and not get sick.

Eventually, White shrugged. She tried not to consider that she just failed a spell two minutes ago. "I dunno," was the wisdom finally imparted. "Maybe you get tired, and can't think about doing it as hard, or you accidentally think of something else. I know, uhhh..."

She paused, thinking, licking banana off her jowls. "I know, sometimes? You do it, but not in the right way. I heard a story about a big white dragon like you, but-- white, that accidentally took his eye out when he did something wrong. My mom hurt her ear, once, being too loud, and now she can't hear out of it," White said, babbling just a little. "So sometimes it's best like-- not to make fire at all, than to accidentally hurt yourself doing it?"

The hybrid gave off another shrug, before going back to her banana.

Dread listened closely, though his reptilian face remained wholly unchanged in expression, to White's lessons. When she spoke of the white dragon's magic backfiring, of it losing an eye, he grew visibly more alert. His head raised on his muscled neck, eyes widening, the spined webbing along his backbone all rising up to give his face an almost fanned-out look.

"White dragon? Asimona? Hurt?" He had met only one other dragon--and she had been big, and white. His cold and draconic emotions could barely feel anything particularly social, but he felt distinct concern nonetheless. It wasn't the instant agonized worry a mammalian being might have felt, but was something, and it was there.

But Asimona was female, was she not? Then again, perhaps things like this, creatures such as this one, perhaps they couldn't tell dragons apart?

He hesitated, coming half-upright and glancing around. How could he find her? How could he check on her? She had been his ally, once--taught him, aided him. She was family. Worried, the dragon looked around, as if expecting to see some sign or hint on the walls of Monoceros that would guide him to the solution to his concerns.

Behind him, catlike, his tail slowly lashed over the stone: a clear betrayal of his thoughts, even if his face could not show them.

White absently began sniffing into the banana skin once she had finished it off, ear flicking as Dread spoke. She looked over, briefly, thinking.

She hadn't spent very long mulling over the details. She had forgotten most of them, even, but she was fairly sure that this white dragon was male. And Asimona seemed female, but maybe she was wrong.

The hybrid gave a third shrug. "I don't know his name," she said. "But does he only have one eye? He lost it a long time ago, I think. Before I was around."

As Dread started moving away, she turned her head to stare after him. "Are you gonna go find him?" She asked quizzically. She had no idea how she was going to get down from this ledge, or if the dragon would throw a fit if she tried to leave.

..or how she'd get all this armour down. Maybe she'd just have to leave it.

She resumed staring for a moment. "Can you make more food before you go, please?" She asked.