Nox's skin rippled softly. She rumbled a faint sound of gratitude, a throbbing note that would likely become more familiar to Dragon in the coming cycles. Nox wasn't one for crowds, but she felt the faintest glow of excitement passing over her as the prospect of having other Gembounds- the Children- so close to home. Somewhere that she presumably couldn't hurt them, and somewhere that she felt safe. She would remain here.

As Dragon continued, Nox hung back, tilting her head slightly to one side and parting her jaws to look at him. Make children of her own? Find stones, and give them life? The draconian creature recalled the soft tinkling sound that had lead her to the chunk of labradorite, and felt its weight lying in her gizzard- was it only her imagination, or had it gotten heavier? She felt also the stone of the Caller, having shed its corporeal form to the long process of digestion. She blew out, softly, through her nostrils.

When she looked back at Dragon, the creature's skin moved softly in surprise as she watched him crawl out onto dry land, and shed a tiny fragment of stone for her. She watched with bated breath as he moved back towards her, and bent her neck to look closer, peering into the great reptilian's jagged maw. She was uncertain of what else to do, so, after a while of scrutiny, leaned forward to cautiously receive the jasper shard in the very tip of her beak. Then, like the labradorite before it, she tipped back her head and swallowed, feeling it collide with the other gems she was carrying deep within her.

She was moved that Dragon would think to do something like this for her- and felt warmth flooding throughout her body in an array of ripples sweeping like the faintest breeze on the surface of a still pool. The feeling culminated, pooling in her chest, where the shard now lay resting, incubating. Now all three gems felt warm, and safe- now she just had to find somewhere to put them.

"Thank you," Nox gurgled quietly.


"Speech"

@Dragon

Dragon considered.

"Yes!" he said, and then perhaps more appropriately--"You are welcome. It is good, in truth, to meet another survivor. And one so good that I--who had thought myself a survivor of Cetus too--had never seen you!" He dipped his broad snout to blow bubbles again, a thoughtful sound, watching the ripples fade from Nox's skin.

"What did those movements mean?" he added curiously.

Dragon wanted to talk to Nox further. He wanted to ask her all sorts of things; but she was so damned reticent that it seemed it might be hard to entice her into conversation. And no wonder, too; she has been alone an age, it seems, and without the benefit of conversation to learn to carry it on. But what could he ask? She had few goals beyond merely "survive," or at least, had done in the past. She seemed interested in company, and lonely. She liked food! ...Food was always good. But they'd already talked about that.

Errr.

The alligator stared for a long moment. The hatchlings, perhaps? What might they be like? What would--names! Ahh, names! Seizing this, he spoke abruptly. "Sometimes, when they are hatched, they already know their names. Or perhaps, you can name them! Did you know yours, when you were born?"

@Nox

Nox let out a soft rumble of pleasure. She nodded with a slow bob of her head. Clearly, she appreciated the compliment. "I'd never sssseen you, either," she pointed out, after a long pause. Though, she recalled in the beginning, faint memories of avoiding contact, rather than seeking it out; perhaps that had had something to do with it. But her slime trails, and the trail of destruction she left behind, should mean that Dragon would always be able track her down, now. Once you knew what to look for, it was easy to see the scars she'd left throughout the entirety of Cetus.

Dragon's question set Nox opening her mouth, and looked briefly down towards her paws. "Happinessss," she rumbled. "It wassss a sssssmile."

Dragon went on to discuss hatchling names- and Nox's skin rippled, quickly reforming into a scaled texture as she strained to remember that far back. Her name... Nox... had not always been so. But as cycles of aloneness ate away at her memory, she had forgotten parts; abandoning elements for what was easier to say. Finally she shook her head. "I did not," she rumbled, slow with consideration. "But... I chossse it. And then... I forgot it, piece by piece. It was not alwayssss Nox. When I wasss young... before my legsss... Before I lived alone... It wassssss longer."

What had it been? What had she been? Not that it mattered much.


"Speech"

@Dragon

"A smile." Dragon considered this. For the first time, he felt a pang of vague disappointment that he, himself, could not "smile." He couldn't frown, he couldn't sadly lay his ears back or bare his teeth. His face was fixed, static; a reptilian grin with a thick hide that wouldn't allow for such trifles.

Ahh, well.

With curiosity, he looked to Nox. She was speaking of an old name. She had had another, once?

Just how old is she..?

"You had another name, and you have forgotten it?! Perhaps it was important." If he could have frowned--thoughtfully--he would have. Alas.

"I suppose the skin is a good thing. I can make no gestures! I have scales, fixed in place. Armor, yes; but I cannot snarl. I can roar, to make my anger known!" For a moment the alligator puffed himself up just a smidge, proudly--as if about to roar--but he did not.

"Still, perhaps if you create a child, you can give it a name, or it will know one. Perhaps it will smile with its skin," Dragon added thoughtfully. It wasn't a sentimental idea; simply matter-of-fact.

Then again, perhaps it wouldn't.

Dragon tried to imagine the offspring of his stone with Nox's power. It might be a dull gray-black thing, like he himself, but graceful and tall; or it might be low like he, and dripping with Nox's oil, yet perhaps with the balloon-like wings or eyeless face.

What strange thoughts! "If you find time, I would meet it, if you do create it and it hatches!"

@Nox

As Dragon spoke that her old name might be important, Nox let out a quiet gurgle, uncertainty rippling from deep within her chest. Could names be important? Nox didn't know. She clung to hers, and yet it always threatened to fade into obscurity as she wavered between sentience and her inborn primal nature. The longer she lived on her own, the more blurred the line became. The draconian creature thought, her memory reaching back as far as it would go as she struggled to recollect the hazy shards. "...Why important?" she asked finally, her skin settling back into smoothness. If her fervent searching yielded any reward, she gave no sign of it.

She blew out of her nose as Dragon spoke of gestures, and showing emotion. "...Armour issss good," she rumbled. "It'sss better than sssslime. The sssskin beneath isss fragile." There was a slick sound as her skin rippled, as though in elaboration- the motion briefly sweeping from nose to tail before settling once again.

Then, Dragon spoke again of their child- whose stone was now nestled within her throat, even if Nox knew not whether it would ever come to life. Perhaps she would never find a way. She nodded slowly. Perhaps it would. Perhaps it wouldn't. But it finally crossed the draconian's mind that the child could be the first- and only- thing she'd ever meet that was almost the same as her. Finally, she might not feel so isolated and alone. Perhaps it would live with her in the depths of the swamp- peaceful and alone. A soft warble rose in her breast. "I will bring it here. To the pile." She thought that it would surely enjoy the scent of carrion too, just like her and Dragon.

"Speech"

@Dragon

Dragon huffed in thought.

Why was the name important? Slowly, thoughtfully, he began to list off the reasons--aloud--as they occurred to him. "Perhaps others would know you by that name! Perhaps other memories come with it. Perhaps it is important in some other way, I do not know. Or perhaps it is not!" A rumble of laughter, good-natured.

To the armor he said nothing, though he noted, in some distant and emotionless reptilian way, that Nox's skin was apparently, supposedly, fragile. He had no intention or reason to attack her--not now, anyway--but should it ever happen, well.

Now he knew.

It was forgotten, in a sense--tucked away into "maybe some other day" memory--as she carried on.

"Not on the pile! Our father is-... I do not think I have described him well enough to you." Dragon turned, a little, to eye the pile. "Were you and I atop that pile--and a dozen like us--he could swallow it all, and all of us with it. He is very large," he added unnecessarily, before turning back to Nox. "But bring the child near! Yes. I would like to meet it. It would be good to meet it. And to speak to you now and again. You needn't leave entirely; you can stay as long as you wish. You are no enemy."

The alligator settled himself contentedly, thinking, for a moment. "Once, there were many here, who gathered, and spoke. Yes, they went away, but they always came back. We are not so many now, but it is still good to have ones who return, ones to speak to!" He meant Nox, now, of course--but his phrasing was perhaps just a little awkward.

@Nox

Nox rumbled. "It wassss... Alwaysssss Nox in part," she hissed, after careful consideration. The draconian creature's skin moved once again in thought, forming scaled patterns and rippling goosebumps. The name felt as though it was there-n but kept slipping between her claws the more she searched for it. And then...

"Equinox," she rumbled, with difficulty, choking momentarily on the difficult-to-pronounce word. and, although it was hard to tell, there might have been pride in her voice.

Nox's skin then broke , splitting into writhing fury again as Dragon- again- warned against the pile. She had been misunderstood. "Not on the pile," she repeated, shaking her head in a manner that shook parts of her writhing skin like a lion's mane and flung countless droplets of goop. "Near isss good. I will bring it near." Finally, she nodded, skin settling. Dragon offered her the chance to stay near, and Nox took it.She had been lonely, after all. Perhaps it would be good to stay near to the Children of Rot. Perhas the cold and the wet would mean it would be somewhere they would be safe from her and her fire.

It seemed too good to be true. "I'll return," she assured dragon. But the time had come for her to find somewhere. Perhaps a secluded lagoon or pool, for the gems she had gathered- three of them. The draconian's jaws parted, and she gazed off into the mist- her conversation with Dragon seemingly forgotten. Instinct overriding her tongue, her skin smoothed, and she began to wade deeper into the marsh.

"Speech"

Dragon peered at the writhing oil, but before he had time to really try to pick out which sort of skin-movement this was and what it meant, he realized that Nox was departing.

Ahh, well; he could slip easily enough back into the silence that he spent most of his life in--the solitude. It wasn't an issue, and even though he was a tad disappointed at the lack of company that would ensue, it was also true that conversation could be a little tiresome. He could rest from it, now, at least.

"Equinox," he repeated after her. "That is a beautiful name!" Dragon was not flirting, or flattering. He simply thought it a beautiful name, one that put him in mind--though he could not have said why--of black water glittering with dancing white sparks of reflected light. Of celestial bodies shining overhead, and a rush of cold wind high above, far more fresh and brisk than the stagnant mist of Cetus.

The alligator turned to make his own way back into the waters, calling back behind him as he went--though really he was just bellowing forward.

"Do not die, then, Nox! Bring the child if it comes, and until then, it was good to meet you."

Falling silent, he watched her go.

exit Dragon
@Nox

Nox's old name, whilst it lingered on her tongue for a few gloriously fleeting moments, felt as alien to her as it had when she'd chosen it. And soon, she knew with morbid certainty, it would be gone once again, lost to the marsh. But, at least Dragon knew it now. Perhaps if she ever came to need it, he would be able to keep it safe.

As she moved further and further into the mist, it was as though Dragon were lost in a whole other world. Her focus was elsewhere, her destination set. She was quiet other than the sounds of the water lapping against her sides and the dull plopping sound of her slime meeting the water's surface. As the alligator called after her, though, she paused, now only a shadow in the mist, skin rippling. A soft rumble of farewell emerged, throbbing, gurgling.

She knew, at least, that she would remember Dragon. At the very least, she would stay close.

Then there was a dull splash, the sound of the water moving, rippling... and the great marsh creature descended back into the depths from which she'd once come.

-exit Nox-