ORIGIN

Binh was not having a good day.

Of course, he didn't know it yet. For now he didn't exactly exist.

For now, all there was was a slab of opal nestled near the top of a deep trench. It glittered like the stars the caves have never seen and full of vibrant shades of blue and pink, though it's beauty was hidden among the massive ferns that choked the area. For cycles or potentially years it laid undisturbed, unknown to the world, as war and peace and change raged around it.

Which was probably a good thing, since there was a baby growing in there.

Not a four-legged beast, not a winged avian, but a snake, coiled around itself like a long strand of spaghetti. It was almost completely black, save for a pale throat patch and some vague markings on it's back. A large crystal nestled around its neck, jabbing out in both directions where his hood should've been. Pale eyes laid closed, dreamless and thoughtless. Within a cycle it grew from nothingness to a large snakelet, until it grew so large the crystal that hosted it shattered into a million tiny pieces.

Binh opened his eyes.

For a brief moment he could see. In the seconds after his chrysalis broke open and the amniotic fluid rushed out, he saw wonders. Brief blurs of green and gold, of lights high in the air, of massive trees and ferns beyond his imagination. He heard the calls of birds and bugs, smelled the whiff of flowers, and felt soft earth beneath him. Truly, what a wonderful world to be born in.

That all went away the moment gravity kicked in.

With a shudder, the frail neck muscles that had been unknowingly keeping him up this whole time snapped. The opal he drew Binh magic from was way too heavy for a newborn. A brief serpentine hiss, and his body went tumbling down the steep sides of the ravine. The world spun around him as he tumbled head-over-tail, the sights he briefly took delight in spinning around nauseatingly.

He hit the bottom. The dizziness stilled. For a moment the snake was grateful, but quickly realized he had more problems to worry about. His muzzle was partially buried into the forest mud, and it came to his attention that, for some reason, he couldn't move his neck to get himself out. In fact, he couldn't seem to move any of the first third of his body, which was encased in stone. The rest hurt sorely. His nose was still above the mud level, but he instinctively knew that in a few more minutes he'll start sinking and die before he even got the chance to do anything. Any attempt to shout for help would just fill his mouth with dirt, and his body was too heavy to simply slither away.

So what did he do? The only thing he could. The newborn cobra slammed his tail-- the only part of him that could move-- around, thwacking it against the ferns, slapping it on mud puddles, and making a ruckus in hopes that someone, anyone, could save him from this early death.

For a few nerve-wracking minutes Binh was certain he was going to die. Of course, he didn't really understand anything about the world, let alone death, but the nerves firing in his tiny brain definitely weren't telling him something good. The claustrophobically close mud just seemed to ooze closer and closer to his eyes as he sunk; through his tightly clamped jaws, his tongue could smell the disgusting tang of dirt. Internally, the cobra promised himself that if he survived his birth, he was never going near mud ever again.

Luckily enough, a savior came. Well, two saviors. He became faintly aware of the sound of running, and then suddenly he was in the air, hoisted by something much larger than him. The world swam around him again (though less violently now) and he was set back down on dry ground with a slight plop. The snake gasped, a hiss rustling through his throat as he desperately tried to rub the muck off his snout. His pearly eyes glanced back up at the two figures sniffing him worriedly. One was a large grey thing, with wings, two legs, and a startling lack of eyes, while the other possessed a long indigo body complete with a set of spinal fins. If Binh were any smarter, he probably would have run from the much-larger creatures, but he just lied there passively, smacking mud off his lips.

"Hhhhiiii...." The voice came out high-pitched and smooth, though horribly ineloquent (after all, this was his first time speaking). "Aaarrreeee.... yoouuu.... frieeend?" He tried to shift himself to look at them better, only to be met with immobility and harsh pangs of pain from his overexerted muscles. "Caaann't mooove... muuch," he whined, contorting his face in a serpentine sort of frown. "Buuut frieendsss... ssaved meee? Frrriends.... nicee?"

Binh's world shifted around him once more as the dragonet picked him up in her jaws and plopped him on her back. Here there wasn't any icky mud, and he found himself curling up in the little crevice between her shoulder-blades. The others began talking about leaving, which he had no qualms against, though a slight hiss of surprise eeped when Haven opened her wings. As a limbless creature, he wasn't exactly aware of the idea of flight, and found himself a little unprepared when they left the ground. Thankfully enough, after a bit of quiet scrabbling he found a purchase and spent the rest of the flight in quiet contemplation.

Just over the curve of the faceless dragon's wing, the cobra could see his birth-cave opening up before him. Monolithic gaping stalagmites reached for the sky, overcome with plant life. Massive trees continued on all the way to the distance. He could even see the details of the odd structures surrounding the trench as they ascended, now realizing that it was an ancient, serpentine skeleton. How comforting.

Binh finally decided to speak as he felt them descend once more. "Soo... whaat are you name?" he questioned in his clanky way of speaking. The thought of a name hadn't crossed the coba's mind until now, but it seemed reasonable that these older, social creatures would have one. "Not haave own yet... but you?"