ORIGIN

He'd ended up here, of all places, strangely enough. The small and sickly-looking hatchling might have gone the other way, and found himself in a bright place--a suitable place--full of bones and death. And given his tattered appearance, that might have fit him.

But, somehow, he had gone the other way: and now, the plague dragon stumbled about wide-eyed beneath a star-swept ceiling, staring upward in confused awe.

Green eyes glowed brightly, blinking now and then, oversized in his tiny face; a body barely two feet long, far belying what might in time be his full adult length, toddled and stumbled here and there.

Tunnel K had been dreary, misty, and dark. Blight had left behind the shattered shards of butter jade chrysalis--a leftover stone, though he wasn't aware of this, a rock that swelled and burst like a malignant pustule over and over again. All he knew was that he'd assumed the entire world to be that way--sick, dark and unwelcoming; and now he was in a place that felt like pure magic.

He revelled in the glittering lights all around (though the still-lingering scent of smoldered stone touched him with instinctive worry). Tiny wings spread, batting at the air, as he stared up longingly at the roof high above.

I want to go up there, he thought--but the ceiling itself was far out of reach.

The little hatchling looked around, and at length his glowing eyes settled on the tower looming overhead. With an excited squeak he began the bounding, stumbling run for it, eventually leaping into the air while gazing joyously upward.

"Fly!" he half-demanded, half-declared, as he jumped; and his wings, if clumsily, caught. His flight was slow, weak; his muscles were underdeveloped, as yet. Little bobs in the air brought him gradually, but steadily, skyward, until at last he maneuvered himself onto the tower's roof.

Here was a problem; for his flights thus far had been short, a few yards at the most, and he'd never really tried landing before.

The hatchling skidded onto the stone, nearly falling off again, clinging fearfully with wings and talons both.

But a few moments later he'd settled himself; and a small, glowing-eyed dragon would be visible from the ground below, staring raptly up at the false stars overhead.

Blight reacted with--perhaps understandable--absolute terror at first.

The soft yet solid thump of distant wingbeats had made him think first of Umbra, and he'd peered out only to see this hovering black monstrosity. The first "Hey" was friendly enough. But then it was sweeping forward, utterly eclipsing him, and he knew that it could swallow him--whole--in a heartbeat if it wanted to.

Instinct drove him to try and get a little distance, to hide, so that he could maybe get a second to... gauge this thing's intentions. Said instincts didn't provide all this detail--they just said RUN!!! -but not too far!. Maybe they recognized Svartis as a dragon, where Blight didn't quite piece it together just yet consciously. A possible parent. Or a predator, of course.

The little dragon scrambled away at Svartis' approach, blinking bright green eyes, shadows (at first seemingly reluctant) roiling over him to swathe him in brief darkness. This, apparently, was to cover his retreat: he dropped off the back of the tower, and angled, flapping clumsily (and nearly falling) into the single window atop the hollow tower.

The darkness faded from around him, and for Svartis it might've appeared as if the baby had first gone dark, then vanished, though a telltale dark flapping shadow had tumbled off the tower's back--but now said baby stuck his head out of the window, and craned it up.

He peered for the large black dragon.

Fear mixed with desperate curiosity; he didn't want to be left alone by the second creature he'd ever met (and the first truly like himself).

"I came from a rock. In a cold place. Dark! There was Umbra. And then I came here," he explained, in simple, childlike terms.

...But he was noticeably reluctant to emerge from his tower, barely peeking out, and up.

After a moment's hesitation, and fearful suspicion (but that bright light of hope lurking behind it), he then called up: "...Are you going to eat me?"

Blight hesitated.

On the one hand, this thing could eat him in a heartbeat and might be lying and every instinct was screaming at him to stay hidden. What could it hurt, after all?

On the other hand--friend!

He hesitated, and then slowly, cautiously--stealing suspicious glances up at the black mass above him--clambered back out of the window. For a moment he paused on the ledge, clinging to it and peering down. Then he slipped, scrabbled at the stone briefly, and fell. Tiny wings snapped out, ragged, and caught him as he tumbled out; his clumsy descent for a dozen yards was only barely not an outright fall.

When his tiny bulk caught itself, the wings struggled, pumping, to bring him back up to Svartis' level; the intense concentration on the tiny draconic face was laughable.

When his claws settled him in on the roof--as far from Svartis as he could get, which wasn't far, given the other dragon's immense size--he hunkered down, gripping rock, and squinted up at him.

Blight had already half-forgotten the things that Svartis had asked of him, and he paused, tiny child's brain mulling it back over.

"My name is Buh-Light!" he explained proudly, joy lighting his face, his body rising and puffing out. "Blllight! 'Cause I can do THIS!"

The baby dragon inhaled, drew back, held his breath--and then froze like that, little cheeks a little puffed out, neon eyes fixed on Svartis.

Nothing happened.

After a long moment--in which the hatchling's face had begun to darken through lack of air--he puffed his breath heavily out. "It didn't work," he told Svartis, not seeming too concerned or disappointed about that. Instead he began to clamber closer, circling a little, peering at Svartis' wings.

"Um, why are you so big? And black. Will I be big when I'm bigger?" Tiny, ragged-tipped tail twitched behind him, balancing him a little as he wobbled across the stone roof of the tower.

It was only then that he paused, remembering the other question. "I'm a little hungry!" he decided. He'd eaten a single mouse on the way over here--hunting was still very new to him, and he wasn't sure he liked it. But his stomach gave a little twinge--nothing terrible, as yet. "If you're gonna hunt, can I come with you? I wanna come!" he added, eager not to be left out, either way.

The blast of ice took him--needless to say--by surprise. Head-over-heels he went tumbling back over the edge of the tower roof, a single frightened squeak escaping him.

Seconds ticked past.

Two glowing green eyes crept back above the level of the top, wide, staring. They flicked up to where the ice had been, and then back to Svartis. "...What was that?" he asked, meekly. 'THIS,' hadn't really covered it.

He was spooked, that much was clear--his bit of boldness lost; he made no attempt to try again with whatever magic he'd apparently been trying. Instead he lingered as far from Svartis, for now, as he could get, casting sidelong, wary glances at him, crouched lower now to the stone. "We can hunt," Blight agreed at last, but he didn't seem very comfortable about it.

He was too young--too inexperienced, really--to get the joke. But Svartis' words, and demeanor, put him back (for the most part) at his ease, and he relaxed some, squinting and trying to imagine this "snow" the other dragon spoke of.

He wing-crawled forward, looking down into Orion from the edge of the tower. "Umm. If you wanna eat, too--deer?" he suggested, uncertainly. There was faint reluctance to it; he wasn't sure which the 'right' answer was, and he still wasn't sure about eating living things. But he knew deer were bigger than mice, which were tiny, at least.

And the offer to--what, ride?! What was the point of that! He had his own wings. "I fly," the child answered emphatically, insulted pride in his voice in the way that only a near-toddler could pull off. As he readied himself for flight, he glanced sidelong at Svartis.

Something else the dragon had said was niggling at his mind--he'd not mentioned it, at first, purely down to his surprise (and fear) of the icy blast. "You have a dad?" he asked, peering with eyes half-narrowed in thought. He didn't quite know what it meant, but it sparked concepts in his mind: protection, friendship, loyalty, family. Guardianship, and guidance. "Can I have a dad, too? Can he be mine too? Or do you wanna be my dad?"