ORIGIN

He liked this cave. He'd liked the tunnel that led to it, too--his brief sojourn there had left him gazing up, head tilted in awe, at the draconic statues standing guard over each exit. He'd tried to take a few shiny objects with him from its dusty floor but, upon entering Monoceros, had quickly given them up in favor of exploring the windswept rock with its heat-driven gusts that howled through.

The young dragon was the size of a large dog, now, or larger, his wings already quite broad, his head now less that of a large-eyed little hatchling and more the long, narrowing snout of a predatory reptile. His horns were growing out, his spines longer and the fin-like membranes between them longer, his talons strong and pointed.

At the moment he was perched quietly on one of the red-brown stone ledges of the Platforms, but he was peering down at the dust hurtling up at the cave's center. It seemed to be spinning, a whorl of its own making, and Dread had no idea if this was a sentient being or a simple storm.

Hot, though. Good. His language was developing, too, and he knew enough to note with some satisfaction that the cave was indeed quite warm. It was, however, dry--he wasn't sure if it was too dry. He'd hatched in Fornax, which was pleasantly sea-side in a sense, and damp, with warm updrafts that carried him easily and joyously skyward. Monoceros at least had the warmth, unlike some of the cooler caves he'd visited--making flight easy--but the dryness was off-putting. No water for drink. No fish for hunt, he thought morosely.

Still, he was a dragon. Perhaps he just didn't need that much water. He'd stay awhile, and try to find out. But first, he had to test the winds, here--and test himself against them. He had to see how easy, or how difficult, flight here was, and to learn to navigate them before trying to seek prey down in the gorges.

Dread reared back, letting out a loud, screeching roar before leaping down and out, wings spreading. He let out another, exulting in his flight, in his freedom, in the feel of spiralling hot air lifting him easily skyward.

The quiet bass thump of his wings was just audible over the whisper of wind that began to whistle past as he flew toward the distant twister. He let out another screech, then faltered midair and quickly refocused his attention on his flight.

Unsteady. Chaos winds.

The cool air from the tunnel, the updrafts of heat, the weaker dead-air spots littered in among gusts of powerful wind--it took a great deal of concentration for him to remain airborne. He was no hatchling, and though still quite young, a mere three cycles of age, he'd still spent that full three cycles learning to fly in various winds. The damp but steady heat of Fornax, the icy dull wind of the tunnel that led there, the cool dry air of Orion, they'd all been unique in their own way. But each had been predictable, once learned.

Monoceros's fluctuated rapidly, from moment to moment and from place to place, forcing the young dragon to pay close attention to its little changes, and to rapidly adjust his flight accordingly. His wings shuddered and swept to and fro to adjust his course; his tail lashed, a powerful rudder to turn him or to keep him straight. The spines along his neck and throat, back and belly, constantly rose and fell, a nearly involuntary fluid movement that added additional, ever-changing stability to his flight.

He rose on the winds for a bit, his forward drift slow but his upward climb swift, allowing himself to merely rise on the heat, higher and higher. He then began to beat his wings more powerfully, arrowing forward, shooting over the trenches of the Gorge and toward the Twister.

Once close he banked away to circle it at a distance, eyeing it sidelong. It didn't react to his approach, so perhaps it was merely dirt tossed by air? He let out another testing, challenging screech, to see if it responded, but it did not.

Cautious, and continuously faltering and readjusting for the unsteady air currents, the dragon slipped closer, inhaling a deep breath of hot, dry air. Instinctively he called on his magicka, ready to assault the strange swirling, steadily-roaring enemy.

What came out wasn't a spray of flame, this time; the wind shifted at the wrong moment, and a blast of mere hot air issued forth from his jaws. He hissed and banked higher, flapping his wings hard to rise and circle the tornado from a widening distance.

White found that she could often spend a good few hours rooting through things in tunnel J. She had found a shiny thing here, once, for Carvaggio, and he liked that shiny thing. Whenever White came by, she could find even more shiny things. Sometimes they were thin and sharp, or smooth and round, but often times, they were just shiny. She didn't really pay much attention to the dull and rusty things. She found that they tasted bad, too.

She hadn't ever gone too far down the tunnel; not into the next room over, anyway. In all her time wandering the caves, she had never really thought to. Today, however, as she pawed at a shiny-round-thing, she heard a shrieking roar come from the room-she'd-never-touched-before.

The hybrid paused, wide-eyed, staring down the hall for a moment. She could hear a strange thumping within and, before any real fear instinct could kick in, she found herself pacing away inside.

It was windy, here. White felt as though it might take her off her paws (and talons), but she somehow stood her ground long enough to go plodding away inside. She moved carefully regardless, ears perked, listening for that gentle thumping noise. She could have sworn she heard it before-- a bat, maybe, but less... screechy.

When she came close to the Twister, she caught sight of a great thing in the sky, flying. Flying! White liked watching things fly. She even had a pair of wings of her own, but flying was hard. She might be too big, or too heavy, or something, but it was always difficult for her. It was just easier to walk around like her dad did, anyway.

The thing-that-was-flying seemed to be doing something up there, but it was unclear to White what it was doing. White did not care. "Good job!" She called up encouragingly, ruffling her feathers briefly. "Good flying! Hello! Who are you?"

She had to shout over the wind and the twister and the sound of the thing-that-was-flying's wings, but White still did not particularly care. She would shout up an entire conversation, if she had to. It was the only polite thing to do, in her mind.

The dragon turned, banking, to peer down at who might be shouting. Good job, it was yelling--good... flying?--and now, asking him who he was. His ember eyes flicked over the windswept stone, distractedly, as he focused on maintaining his flight in the tossing gusts of hot air.

Rock, rock, grass--oh, there. A white thing, four-legged and winged, and for a brief moment and with a flicker of excitement, he thought Asimona?

But it was not the white other-dragon, the Cold she-of-Ice. It was something smaller, furred and feathered. He hissed to himself and turned, avoiding smashing into a column of stone, a natural pillar. He readjusted his flight to circle the twister, shrieking at it for a beat before peering back and down at White, flying parallel to the ledge she was on, sweeping past her at quite a high level.

Hm. She was talking to him--he thought. But he was busy right now! Fighting the tornado! Thing!

He screeched again, the sound loud even with the howling wind, high-pitched and challenging. A bank of his wings, an upwelling of magic fuelled by his fury, and his jaws opened wide. He felt the heat pour out and exulted in its power. Flame poured out in a torrent, this time, the pain not too terribly bad but still enough to aggravate him further. The spines along his neck and throat pricked up, the webbing between them erected as he churned around the whirling winds, faltering and banking away just before their chaotic surge pulled him off-balance and in. His fire guttered into them, rising and fading, but Dread felt confident that he had shown the--thing--who was boss. It wasn't attacking him back, after all.

...No eyes, he realized, suddenly. Not alive.

He rose higher in the air and drew back, hovering vertically for a moment, blade-pointed tail lashing beneath him as his wings flapped rapidly to hold him aloft. After a moment he peered down at White, remembering her, and swept down toward her.

Wings leaned back as he came in, finger-bones spread so that air billowed into the dark, leathery membranes. Taloned hind feet caught on the stone and he folded his forelimbs as his weight fell fully on the rock. The same wings then neatly flipped forward to catch him as his weight tilted forward, so that he was on all fours, peering and blinking at White from far closer up. His tail lashed slowly behind him.

She was smaller than him--not by much, though. But she was white, like Asimona; she had wings, like Asimona. She--

He caught sight, then, of the glittering moonstone at her chest. A few rushed steps toward her and he was inspecting it, as closely as she'd allow, sniffing at it.

He wanted it.

Dread looked up, blinking at White. His voice was adolescent--not the bass echo of an adult dragon, not yet. It was, instead, the hoarse half-screeching growl of one half-grown.

"I am Hot," he responded. He had no idea what his actual name was; he hadn't chosen one, but he was aware that he was, in fact, hot--and so was his fire. These were Good Things, so this was now how he thought of himself. "I fly good! What is that? I want," he added, demandingly. He didn't seem to intend to take White's stone from her chest--perhaps he just wanted one of his own. Or maybe he would try to take it, assuming she didn't kindly offer to tear it from herself and just--hand it over.

White waited patiently, watching. Perhaps the thing-that-flies hadn't heard her, because he just kept flying and roaring around the Twister. He knew he saw her because he turned his head to look at her, but then he was flying towards a column. "Watch out!" She warned above the winds and the beating of wings, but he already seemed to avoiding it.

And he was screaming.

Boy, he was loud.

The hybrid watched the dragon as he swept right past her, and then and there she decided that-- yes, he had seen her. And he was actively ignoring her. How strange! But maybe he was busy. Instead, White settled herself down to sit on the ledge as she watched the dragon scream and fly.

It should be noted that White had no idea what Dread was trying to do. Maybe he was just showing off, or maybe he was practicing. It wasn't her place to question it, and do she did not.

She pushed herself back up once Dread came swooping back down towards her, dog-muzzle opening to speak, though she promptly found a dragon sticking his nose directly into the moonstone gem embedded into her chest. Confused, but not moving, she smiled.

"Hi, Hot," she said. "I'm White, and my dad's Black, and my mom's Eve and she flies and screams like you do." She explained, not questioning how a name like 'Hot' works when she herself was named after the colour of her skin. "You do fly good! That's my stone," she went on. "It doesn't come out-- it's stuck there and it glows sometimes but I don't really know what it does. I think everyone has one, though."

She shrugged, unbothered, then looked around. "Do you like shinies? I can make shinies-- my mom taught me how to make them good," the hybrid babbled as she turned and moved off towards a rock, pawing at it briefly. "Sometimes it doesn't work? But if I can make this one shiny you can have it."

Nodding a few times, more to herself, White put both front paws over the jagged stone and began to concentrate quietly for a moment. With her gemstone glittering briefly, White pulled away to reveal the stone glimmering golden-white, gently. She moved and pushed the rock towards Dread.

"Here you go-- you can have this one. You make good fire, too," she added.

It doesn't come out. For an instant he tensed, about to try it himself--to lean forward and to tear out the stone and keep it for himself, shimmering and perfect. But a moment later the little white-thing--White, in fact, she'd said her name was--was offering him a different sort of shiny, or so she said. Her gemstone glittered, and for an instant he tilted his head and edged the talon of his wing-joint as if bewitched.

Then, White was doing magic.

He craned his muscled neck to peer down at the glimmering golden-white thing she offered, and quickly, greedily, he snatched it in a hind talon, having to scoot forward and rear up a bit to do so. He then inspected her warily.

My rocks are too far. Had to leave too much in next tunnel. Stay here, maybe--good place. Hot. Wind. He could make himself a new cache, here in Monoceros--and start adding Tunnel J's "shinies" to it. ALL of them.

And this person! This--White. She would make him more!

With a quiet squawk he looked around, eyeing the cave's vast reaches. There, up there--the platforms. Ledges, up by the roof. They wouldn't be reached easily, and he could easily defend a roost against intruders--or fly away if he was losing. Plus, they looked like great basking points in which to lie in the light--or to curl away into the shadows at their deeper edges.

"You fly?" he demanded, glancing back at White with one critical ember-colored eye. When she offered a vague sort of yes he turned, and with merely a barked command of "Fly!" he launched off, wings beating to carry his new prize (still clenched in one taloned foot) for the Platforms high above.

His spined, bladed tail rudder-lashed behind him as he arrowed past the Twister, not too close so as to be drawn in, and up toward the ledges themselves. He landed a bit roughly, black scales quickly coated in rock-dust as he began to cast about for the best place to build a nest.

He would have White get him all the glowy things, and he'd collect all the shinies from the tunnel. He'd have the best hoard any dragon had ever had!

As the dragon took the stone without a word, White was briefly confused-- she had indeed grasped that most gembounds didn't have parents like she did, but this one didn't know how to say thank you! Had no one taught him yet?

That was okay. White was here to help people, and surely she could teach Dread how to be a nice person. Before she could teach him a thing, however, he was speaking again. Sort of-- White wondered if saying exactly three words could be considered speaking.

... she decided not really, but she was okay with that.

"Um, kind of--" she began, but before she could finish the dragon was flying away. She groaned-- flying was a difficult thing for her, but she obediently spread the massive white wings on her back and took off after a few beats. It wasn't any particular surprise that Dread was better at flying than she was, not really.

She struggled to keep up, keeping a further distance from the Twister, she bopped up and down in the air unevenly with her wings beating quickly to keep her airborne. She landed with a clatter of talons and nails, shaking out her fur and tucking her wings away with an out-of-breath whine.

"You don't talk much," she observed magnificently. "But that's okay, my brother is quiet, too. Did anyone teach you? About talking, and about people, and about the caves?"

Dread cast about along the ledges as White landed, head lowering, nostrils flaring as he took deep breaths of the hot air.

He found no scent, nothing fresh at least--no sign that other Gembound lived here. He gave a huff of approval, and started to wing-walk his way further along the platforms, until he found a very high, broad one that was good and flat, and which nearly touched to the cave ceiling where it met it at the wall's edge. It was warm, and a bit dusty--a good place for basking--and where it almost touched the edge, cooler and dark, shadowed. He would grow out of it, eventually, but for now it was perfect.

Careful, listening to White speak all the while, he crept to the back and reached his hind foot forward. He opened his talons, and let the stone drop. It clattered forward, and he quickly reached his snout out, pulling it back with slow rolls toward him. There it glowed, glimmering and shimmering, and he stared at it transfixed.

"...anyone teach you? About talking, and about people, and about the caves?"

Dread swung around abruptly, blinking ember eyes and staring at White.

"Make more shinies," he said at once.

...It was safe to say that no, no one had taught him very much at all. That said, he did continue. "Asimona teached me some words. What alive is. Hot. Cold. Hungry. Always hungry," he added darkly, glancing down and around for any sign of a rat.

That was a point, actually--how was hunting, here? If it didn't have enough prey, there'd be little point in denning in this cave. He left his shiny behind, for now, to crawl to the edge of his platform and peer down. His eyes found the deep, shadowed Gorge at once and he scanned it, wondering if there was prey to be had.

His magicka flared, and he saw the faint flicker of heat in his gaze--warmer, even, than the cave itself. There were things like rats, but no-tailed, and winged, lying vertical and upside-down in the gorge.

He did not understand this--he'd never seen a bat before. But it didn't matter; they were present, and he could hunt them. Satisfied he turned back, looking to White with an expectant gaze.

White shook herself out briefly, before she lay herself down onto her side with a short clatter of long talons, sighing. For a time, she watched Dread pace around the ledge, ear flicking. She did not, in fact, know what he was up to. She could have had a guess, but she would also have to assume that she was wrong.

It was not the hybrid's place to question the deep, inner monologue of a half-grown, barely-speaking dragon.

She watched Dread until her eyes slowly began to close over, only to open again when he spoke. "You have to say please," she responded. "When you want something from someone else, you have to say please, or they won't do it." It should be noted that manners weren't exactly something White had a good grasp on, either, but she was likely a few pegs above Dread, at least.

"If you're hungry, then you should--" she began, interrupted by the dragon pacing off towards the ledge. She pushed herself up again, nails scratching against the rock below, and watched. "You should hunt. There's-- rats, and bats, and mice and sometimes there's cave deer? If you're always hungry then maybe you have to eat something bigger," she advised, moving to peer below the ledge as well.

"But you can't eat things that speak," White then added. "That's bad. Rats and bats and mice don't speak, see? I don't know why that is, but it doesn't matter because if you eat something that can speak, everyone else will be really mad and try to kill you. It's happened before." The dog-crow did not sound particularly bothered by this, merely very matter-of-fact.

She turned after this, moving back away from the ledge, and sniffed around. Her nose quickly found another rock-- dark and jagged where the other had been pale and smooth, slowly placing her paw on it. She focused, but nothing happened-- there was no swell of magic within her and her gemstone didn't shimmer and glow.

Instead of admitting to a failed spell, White instead sat by it. "When you want something, you have to say please," she repeated. "And when you get it, you have to say thank you. Or people will get mad and not want to do things."

Dread listened, considering.

What White was saying was, "don't kill speaking Gembound or they'll all get angry with you; say please, or others will not want to help you. Also, you might get killed."

What Dread was hearing was, "I'm not making you shinies right now, instead I'm saying words, and something about killing? And hunting? Hunting is good."

Irritated with the slow pace of his shiny-creation, he erected the spines all along his neck and throat and let out a loud, frustrated shriek-roar. "PLEASE!" he bellowed, directly into White's face--not a request, but a demand, clearly a secret-password for ordering others to do as you wished.

A moment later he'd leapt from the ledge, a graceful sweep of wings and tail signalling his drop into the winds once more. He'd spotted the bats down below, and angled for the gorge, wings half-spreading, half-folded into a dive.

The rustle of air beneath his finger-bones, slightly billowing the leathery skin between them, felt good: warm, swift, and dry. A moment later he'd dipped into the gorge, dropping, opening his maw to breathe hot air in an attempt to stun a bat--but they were all around him, squealing and circling and they'd somehow seen or heard him coming, he realized. As they spiralled up into the open, he noticed that they had wings, like his, and he promptly shut his mouth.

...Little dragons?! he thought, surprised. But before he could get a closer look, they'd scattered back into the gorge.

A moment later Dread was again landing back up on "his" ledge, claws scrabbling on rock, his ember eyes peering closely at White--she who obviously Knew Things. Hopefully she'd have heard the frantic, high-pitched squeaking of the myriad bats, otherwise his next curious question might seem markedly bizarre without context, possibly alarming. "BABIES?" he demanded.

White was no stranger to loud noises. She had her mother to thank for that much. The hybrid's eyes slowly shut as the dragon roared in her face. It... was close enough? A start, at the very least. She began to recast her spell, paw still on the rock.

This time, light filled the rock until it began to shimmer a soft yellow: disguising White's previous failure almost entirely. As the dog-crow pushed the rock forward, she hesitated and placed her foot on it. "Now you have to say thank you," she reminded the dragon, before removing her paw. "You also have to add in what you want with 'please,' so you say something like-- 'please make me a shiny,' and stuff. You should say things like 'thank you for the shiny,' too, because then people will want to help you more."

With this grand knowledge imparted, White nodded sagely and shoved the glowing rock forward. Though Dread was already down somewhere else and, by the sounds of it, was scaring bats.

White plodded across to the edge of the ledge, peering down to the billowing cloud of bats as they promptly scattered. She had-- perhaps rather luckily --known of Dread's dilemma as the dragon came back onto the ledge, though perhaps not entirely. "They might be babies?" She offered. "I don't know. Some of them, at least?"

She turned her head back down to the room below, thinking for a moment. "You could try talking to them if you're not sure-- but if they don't talk back then they should be okay to eat and stuff. Just-- don't eat things that talk, because that'll make people really angry with you, okay?"

This time, White had a clear idea that her infinite wisdom would likely be ignored-- but perhaps if she repeated it enough, it would finally set itself in Dread's brain and he would finally understand that she was trying to advise him in life.