ORIGIN

Serendipity dragged the wagon through Canis, and Orion, and then, finally, Monoceros. It was heavy-- not horribly, exhaustingly heavy, but heavy enough that, combined with her general tiredness, Dip wanted to go right the fuck to sleep.

She dropped the pronged front of the wagon and started wriggling herself back out of her jacket again, pausing only to rub at her face. It'd been a long day-- a lot of travelling back and forth, and a lot of magic cast. Dip hadn't even eaten, or drank, but she felt just too tired to do so.

The jacket was shrugged off and deposited onto the stone table with a rustle of cloth. She headed to her corner, knelt down, and crawled into bed. It had, truthfully, never felt better-- Dip wasn't the type of person to toss and turn all night until she got comfortable but damn, she could have died there.

Her eyes slowly shut... and then opened again.

Shit. "Azure?" She called out, rolling over onto her back to crane her head upwards, peering out the den. "You back yet?"

The little dragon watched the wagon trundle in from his quiet, safe perch atop a rocky ledge. It was his turn--he was alternating with Bug, today--watching the entrance to Tunnel J, and he found himself wondering what the thing was.

It had no legs, but it moved!

Fascinated, he scurried, at first--batlike, almost--along the wall and then, when he ran out of ledge, he dropped off into the air. Wing-beats carried his juvenile body along, soaring some distance behind and above the wagon.

Blight left its sight only to ask his... What was she? He was adopted, and she'd be his--aunt? His aunt, then, by adoption, even though she was only a couple cycles older than he was and hardly more mature--to watch the exit. He (so he briefly explained) was gonna INVESTIGATE.

And so he did, flying swiftly to catch up, his wings pumping to gain speed. When the wagon reached the den he circled quietly, higher overhead--and then flapped down, landing atop its canvas to feel it over, and inspect it.

What is this thing? he thought--at least, it didn't feel alive.

Azure had been lingering, in fact, nowhere near the den. She'd dozed, very uneasily, trembling at the memory of fleeting black shapes in the corners and whispered threats. Or urgings, at least, to kill.

Those had been unpleasant, and the "what ifs" and the implications were still roiling through her mind when she saw Dip trudging back, the rattling wooden wagon in tow behind her. She was pushing up, grimly setting herself to the task of returning and facing whatever dark eldritch horrors the wagon might bring, when another shape flitted down: reptilian, long, featherless...

"Dr--DRAGON!" Azure screamed, leaping from her ledge and arrowing for the den as fast as her four feathered wings could take her. It was a screech of panicked warning, and the poor already-terrified bird-hybrid looked about with eyes round with fear as she powered back for Dip.

"DIP! DRAAAGON!"

The terror in her already-stressed voice was nearly a sob.

The wingbeats weren't entirely acknowledged. Dip was beginning to fall asleep again, her head tilting back onto the blankets and her eyelids slowly starting to close over. If Azure wasn't back yet, she wasn't going to go out and force her. It'd be better if she came back in her own time.

... and then Azure started screaming.

Serendipity flew up at once. There were no thoughts running through her head-- only instinct. Her hands found her spear and she was heading out as she lifted the head towards her mouth, tail lashing behind her.

Coagulated, heated red saliva came spitting out of her mouth and clung to the metal like glue. She lifted the spear in both hands, eyes searching-- first for Azure, who must have been getting attacked. She slid in front of the hybrid with the weapon ready, lifting it to throw.

But she did not see anything akin to Dread. The dragon Azure was afraid of was-- tiny, comparatively. It-- "It's a kid," she narrated, more to herself, as it dawned on her. She lowered the spear just a bit as she stepped forward.

"Hey, uh, you shouldn't be up there," she said. She wouldn't say... why. No need to scare a kid like that, really. She looked back at Azure, and then up again. "Can you come down? What are you doing here?"

The sudden screeching gave him one hell of a fright--he hadn't known the bipedal, purple thing had a sentry! Blight went leaping back, tumbling into the air even as Dip stepped out to address him, confusion on all sides.

"I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!" he protested immediately, shadows flickering up to shroud him as if in automatic, fearful response.

The bird-thing coming in was as big as he was but looked bulkier, black-feathered and keen-eyed, and he hastened to get out of the way--leaping and then flapping to get up above the den, clinging to the wood sheltering the alcove beneath.

"I was just looking! I didn't do anything! -Who are you?!"

The young dragon certainly seemed afraid, tense and wide-eyed, his tattered-looking black tailtip lashing behind him like a nervous cat's.

It would not have been immediately clear to bystanders just why the hell Azure was so frantic. She came in at top speed, hurtling into and bouncing off of the den after trying, and failing, to quite stop. Her feathers were ruffled in three different directions by the time she planted herself firmly beside Dip, partly in front of her, staring at Blight.

For the briefest of instants of she was speechless, sputtering, as she struggled to get some words out.

"-It's a dragon!" was what she led with, in the end, glancing to Dip with what could only in a generous moment be called "concern." It was more like near-panic, her blue eyes near-spherical in terror. Feathers trembled, and breath came fast.

Only Dip's calmer demeanor made her hesitate, and she looked at Blight, ready to fight, ready to flee, and paused. Oh. Shit. ...He's tiny. He's only a kid.

After a moment she drew herself back up, a little, taking three shaky steps back.

"...He looked bigger from far away," she managed, at last, her quiet voice shaking.

Serendipity gave a small, sympathetic nod at Azure. It was a dragon-- that much she wasn't going to deny, but a kid didn't seem like it'd be much threat. Though, in the caves, you never knew-- magic was volatile as all hell.

She still didn't fully drop the coagulated spear but she held it loosely in one hand, half-prepared to throw it and ignite it if need be. "I'm Serendipity," she said. "Or just Dip, if that's easier. It took me a while to pronounce it right." She gestured to Azure. "This is my sister." And then the wagon. "And that's a wagon."

The wagon, hopefully, would not introduce herself. Dip had enough of talking objects for one fucking day.

"You can take a look at it if you want? Just be careful, it's magic. Things go missing off it sometimes." This might be marginally less ominous than things will vanish into thin air and be gone for eternity, but really, it might not be that better.

She turned to Azure. "Are you okay?"

The little dragon hesitated, eyeing the wagon, then Azure.

"She's not gonna eat me, is she-?" and then, as an afterthought, a child's warning: "My dads are really big."

Down he clambered, leaping with half-spread wings to land again on the canvas roof, claws sounding as though they were ripping but it was tough material and, after a moment--when Blight leapt fully down--it remained unharmed. He sniffed at the wheel. "Hi! I'm Blight." Then (as if to make it clear he was introducing himself to Dip, and not the wagon) he glanced up at Dip. "How does it walk?! It has no legs. What magic does it do?"

He looked around, briefly. "Do you live here? My family lives here! Dad and Dad-Dad and Bone and--" Blight paused halfway through the recitation of his family; "I've never seen you here before! But Dad-Dad says other people live here! He says Glory's here but I never met him, but you look like him?" he asked Azure, now, squinting.

Apparently it was the feathers, or something.

At least the shadows had faded from him, slipping away and leaving him pale once again.

Azure stared, nonplussed, at the babbling dragon--and after a moment she turned her gaze to Dip, and then to the wagon. She was still uneasy about it--let alone the unpleasant, honestly horrible shaking come-down from the adrenaline rush.

She turned, glancing back at Blight, as she moved toward the wagon.

"Hi, Blight. I don't care how big your dads are, don't set anything on fire. I won't eat you," she added, her normal brashness making a rapid comeback. There was a shake in her voice, though, and her eyes were still a touch too wide as she circled around the back of the wagon. "-This is what he wanted to give you? How does it move?" She'd never seen wheels before, and hadn't really been able to tell, from a distance, that they were turning. "I saw it coming in behind you, but-... Do you have to drag it? How's it magic?" And then, more quietly--looking to Dip--"You okay, sis?

She glanced at Blight, then, and hesitated. "Your dad didn't burn down Orion, did he?" she asked, warily.

"Hi, Blight," Dip repeated cheerfully. She also, for the record, did not care how big his dads were-- she'd met Dread. In fact-- "Is one of your dads Dread? I met him when I was a kid and he was pretty nice."

The babbling hatchling and barrage of questions were fondly familiar to her and she was going to answer every single fucking one of them. She padded after the hatchling and spent a moment staring up at the canvas to make sure it wouldn't need any repairs, and then back down.

"You gotta pull it," she said, patting the wooden prongs. "Someone with four legs might be best-- I think I could maybe make something here so that they can pull it with their chests if they don't have hands or something. Not sure."

She nodded towards Azure, then. "Aye," was the response as she circled back to the wheels. Her tone was fond, as it often was when explaining creations like swords and armour and things. "These things, right-- it's really clever --they're really smooth and they're connected to the bottom to keep it up. It doesn't move on its own but if you give it a push, or pull it, they sort of roll along the ground and carry the wagon with it."

Dip couldn't wait to try to build another and figure it all out for herself, inside-out. "I guess it's teleporting magic," she went on, answering. "If you ask me though, I think he just, uh. Comes along and takes something while nobody's looking. Not sure, though."

Her head turned back towards Azure as her second-last question, and she gave a little nod. "I'm fine, just tired," she murmured. "Did a lot of work and walking today, haven't had anything to eat yet. Just gotta get a nap in at some point and I'll be fine, though." She didn't want her to worry-- especially when there was nothing to worry about.

"Oh I know Glory!" She planted her spear into the ground and leaned onto it idly, smiling. "They look pretty different, though. Glory's brown and smaller." She hadn't seen him in a long time either-- but she did check in on his forge now and then.

... she did want to give Dread gold rings better than the ones Glory had made, but really that was going to line up onto an endless list of Shit To Do at this point.