ORIGIN

Dread considered.

"Long ago? Not Asimona." He settled back down, slowly, the webbed spines lowering back down along his neck. He was reassured, for the most part, but still uneasy. "I do not--need, to go." He spoke slowly, stilted, finding each word and plucking it from his mind, arranging them carefully into this sentence.

At least it wasn't Asimona. But it made him wonder--just how many dragons were there in the cave? Were there many like him? Perhaps there was one great room full of flocks of his kind, coming and going over water, bringing fish and flesh back to nests of hatchlings--and he was just unaware? He should be with them, if so. "Many other dragon?" he asked, hopefully, peering at White.

He hadn't missed her request, however; he lifted one wing-claw, again covering a random point on the ground as he tried to summon up another "shiny"--another banana--for the white dog-crow to eat. He didn't think twice about this; she was hungry, and he had no reason not to.

It took effort, but at length there was a small pop, and Dread raised his wing to reveal a very small, somewhat thin banana. He eyed it with distinct disapproval. After some consideration, he concluded, aloud, "Bad banana." He wasn't sure how he knew this word. And it wasn't bad, not exactly. Just-... small.

White nodded, watching Dread carefully. She felt faintly proud that he seemed to be getting better at speaking, even if he was slow-- he was using his words quite well. "That's good!" She said, waiting patiently for the dragon to speak.

Many other dragons, though-- White had no idea. She heard stories of Raheerah and another white dragon-- and now, an Asimona and Dread. At length, White shrugged. "I don't know everyone," the crow-dog admitted. "But I know there's at least four-- which is way more dragons than dog-birds out there. Maybe there's even more. Who knows! The caves are really big."

White lifted a hind leg to idly itch at her neck as Dread began summoning another banana, adding "you could go looking for some, maybe, but Raheerah was really big and really dangerous, I think. My mom and dad fought him because he was bad." She nodded wisely, then picked herself up and moved over to the banana.

"It's not bad," she said, pulling the banana towards her and biting back the skin with a soft crunch. She paused for a moment, thinking, licking globs of banana-flesh off her muzzle. "It's called a banana?"

Dread listened intently, briefly and stubbornly inserting the argument--"Bad banana." This insistence done with, he paid attention to everything else White said--mostly. Partially, his attention was drifting back to her shiny stone, and when she got onto the topic of dragons, he had to blink back to her, rapidly struggling to refocus his mind.

He considered, briefly, then decided, "Hot strong. Kill Ra-heer-ah. My shiny."

He then settled all his limbs in a long coil over the baubled objects, and his jaw, too. He left the armor pieces to White--for now--and, after eyeing her suspiciously with a single ember eye for a long moment (as if afraid she might try to steal her gifts back out from under him) he closed them.

The young dragon was apparently tired from all his flying.

One great sigh later, a heat was roiling around his body, and he appeared to drift off into sleep, tail-tip neatly tucked safely beneath his body. His wings slowly lowered around him, and he began to quietly snore.