Dragon watched Vargas go--and then shifted his attention, watching Nidhogg watch Vargas go. He noted the motionless crouch, the flattened quills daring to lift a little as the Leviathan marched away--as the sound of muck sucking at too-long limbs faded into the drifting fog.

At length, Dragon spoke, noting the way the serpent's black head and neck whipped around to face him, toxic eyes blinking.

"Well, then; we are left alone!" he said, cheery. He tried to address Chaos-One the same way he'd speak to his own children--Nidhogg practically was one, after all. "He is rather overbearing, isn't he-?" Amusement, faint mockery, lay in his tone as he nodded after Vargas: an invitating to camaraderie. "Now... tell me: what is it you like to do?"

They could start with that: knowing the creature's motivation would help him greatly in the long run, he knew.

Hell--it might even save his grandchild's life.

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Nidhogg's relief at Vargas's departure was almost savage. In his mind, it meant he could now go wild: kill, hunt, generally be a force of chaotic madness-...

Dragon then reminded him of his existence, and Nidhogg blinked at him, relief shifting to reluctant curiosity.

It took him a moment to understand what overbearing meant. And he studied Dragon, suspicion rising in him; it seemed to him like the alligator must be lying, must be saying what he wanted to hear in order to get a certain reaction out of him. Resentful, he just stared--until Dragon asked what he liked to do.

Just thinking about the things he'd like to do put him in a good mood, so as he rattled them off, his posture shifted from a tense crouch to a more upright, loose stance, despite his half-sinking in the mud. "Hunting," he answered, in a hiss. "Biting! Fighting. Killing. Biting," he said again, fond memories of such flitting through his mind.

He eyed Dragon again. Vargas was no longer here to restrain him--and his sudden instinct was to fly for the alligator's face and bite him.

Only the prospect of being hauled back to Draco somehow prevented it--but maybe not for long.

Well-... these were hardly noble goals, but Dragon thought that he could work with them. They were, at least, easily attained. And in offering them as rewards for other behaviors, perhaps they could find other, more complicated things Nidhogg could enjoy. Less... destructive things.

"Come, then! We will hunt, and eat. What is your magic?" he asked, and then eyed Nidhogg sidelong. "What do you know how to do?"

He turned, hauling himself more slowly through the reeds. His heavy body, lame and thick, half-dragged in the muck. "More importantly: can you swim? What prey do you prefer?"

Dragon wasn't sure what they hunted in Draco; but here, the options were mostly reclusive, elusive things. Ones that needed patience to find and hunt: a good first lesson for Chaos-One.

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The alligator's words continued to keep Nidhogg's biting at bay, if only because they were interesting enough to keep his mind off biting for the moment and he couldn't focus on two things at once.

"Magic-?" He didn't use his all that much. "Fire. Banana. Smoke." He shook himself, quills rattling, and scurried forward to catch up. "I can move quiet. I can hunt! And kill. I can swim," he added. He was pretty sure he could swim. Kind of. He hadn't really tried, that he could remember.

"Deer. Rabbits. Birds," were the answers to Dragon's last question. And he elaborated, for once, pleased with the topic: "Deer are big. Rabbits are quick. I catch birds out of the air!" and this made him puff up proudly.

He'd only managed that a handful of times, but it always pleased him immensely when he did.

Fire, banana, and smoke. Dragon considered, amused. These were not exactly a cohesive hunting strategy.

"You can use smoke to hide yourself in a dark place," he mused; it would at least hide the glow of Chaos-One's eyes. And when the creature mentioned birds--clearly proud--Dragon praised him. It was important to do so, he knew: to build a rapport, but also to encourage him holding actual conversation, and to give him support for what it enjoyed doing and did well. "Out of the very air-? Well done!" he exclaimed.

"Now, Chaos-One, I have a challenge for you. Before we hunt. I'm not sure if you can manage it," he added--a little challenge, reverse psychology, that came naturally after being parent to difficult children. "Do you think you're up for a challenge?"

He was angling for the offering pit, for the glowing map at the cave wall--the place he'd made the closest thing one could call a nest. Near here, he'd raised his various children--and shards of gemstone still lay here and there among the ruins of their old chrysalises.

He had a plan--but he needed Chaos-One on board, first.

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I know that, he thought, resentfully. Of course he'd used smoke to hide himself. The stupid-

Dragon's choice of name narrowed his eyes even further, so that he glared sidelong and snapped his response with fresh sullenness. "Nidhogg," he growled. "I'm Nidhogg. Not Chaos-Stupid-One!" This was said with vehemence, with old hatred that had grown and festered.

He'd dared give this name to Vargas once before. Vargas had told him to 'earn it.' Vargas had also smooshed him to the ground and threatened to remake him. Nidhogg was pretty sure he'd forgotten all about that, given that he'd just done it all again.

"Maybe," was his indifferent response to the challenge, a childish anger still lurking in him. Any urge to snap at Dragon had faded in his memory of how much he fucking hated Vargas.

Dragon glanced back at Nidhogg (as best he could with his rigid neck, anyway) with some surprise. He has an independent streak, he noted--not just wildly savage, but individual and resentful.

"Nidhogg, then!" Dragon cried, cheerfully. He'd gladly call him by his chosen name--the Master's strange obsession with titles was disgusting, to him. Depersonalizing. No wonder he has troubles keeping them in line. He is trying to make them things, and not individuals; of course they will balk.

"You may call me Dragon." No more was said on that topic. He'd call him Nidhogg: that was fine. Moving on...

He led him to a space between the trees where a nest had once been settled: someplace with water, where the few remaining gemstone shards had fallen down into the muck and mud. Here, he moved aside, shuffling to face Nidhogg.

"In under these trees are the remains of a chrysalis: that of your lifegiver." Dragon had not been there for his hatching, but he knew where it had hatched. "The one who gave your fire to you! My own child. Take a piece--you may have to dig it out; but you can keep it. But!" he added--and here was his 'test.' "It will be up to you to keep it safe! To make sure no one steals it. To hide it, or carry it with you, and protect it. If you manage to keep it safe, you may take it with you when you go."

Would Nidhogg even care?

"That is the challenge that I set you. Now: pick a piece, and tell me... do you think you can both keep a gemstone safe, and hunt, at the same time?" His challenge, voiced in full now, was cheerfully given; but he had no idea if the serpent would react. If he were indifferent, Dragon would need to find something else to prompt this sense of 'responsibility' in him.

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Nidhogg didn't really give a shit, and Dragon didn't really sell it. But the alligator had at least acknowledged his name; Nidhogg would do as he asked, in turn.

However reluctantly.

He slunk past, firing Dragon a somewhat resentful glare--but more out of habit, a longstanding distaste for authority, than any real dislike. The idea that it had been his life-giver sparked very little interest in him... but it did spark a little. A shimmer, however faint, of curiosity rose in him as he dug into the muck. "Who was my lifegiver?" he asked, quieter and less demanding now. It wasn't respect, really; he just had no reason to hiss this particular question.

He found no sign of gemstone, yet, and wondered what it would look like--wondered, even, if there were stone here at all, or if this were some sort of trick.

This was good. This was progress, already, and Dragon allowed himself some small measure of pride--or at least satisfaction--in the idea that Nidhogg was actually listening, and asking questions. He didn't suspect that it had ever held anything resembling a real conversation with Vargas, but he didn't know for sure.

"Your life-giver... is an interesting story," he answered. Nidhogg was half-distracted with digging, so Dragon risked a slightly more wordy answer, rather than loud, simple responses. Perhaps the serpent would listen. "I knew a creature of this swamp named Nox. Equinox! She was large, slicked with Oil, as you are. She had wings, like a dragon. She used fire, as I did! Her eye was great and red, hidden in her throat. I gave her a piece of my stone; she gave it life." Dragon was unaware that--at some point in Hunger's development--a creature had come to the chrysalis. It was very possible that Hunger's instinctive, silent nature, his lack of magic and his strange, hairy appearance, had all been down to the creature's tampering. Nox had seen it--had interrupted it, before the creature had successfully drained the stone completely--but Hunger was still very different than Dragon's other children. Had he known, he might have examined Nidhogg with these thoughts in mind--but he did not.

"The creature that resulted was Hunger. He still lives--somewhere in this swamp. He is hard to find." He rarely answered even Dragon's call; and to some extent, Dragon understood. When he himself was hunting, he often slipped into a state of almost stasis, neither awake nor really asleep. Dreamless. It was only when movement prompted him that he seemed to rouse, returning to consciousness to hunt, kill, and eat.

But the longer he'd lived, the less time he spent in that state; often he was thinking, even daydreaming. Hunger, on the other hand, seemed to exist solely in that state: motionless entirely until something moved in snapping distance of his jaws. "He also may be dangerous to you, unless carefully introduced." This was added in thoughtful afterthought, on the tail end of his pondering.

"He is large--somewhere between your size, and mine--and oily. His front limbs are long, like Nox's wings, but he has no wings. His body is covered in... hair, like moss." And again, in retrospect, Dragon had no idea where he'd gotten that.

"At some point, your Master--Vargas--came here and asked him to give life to his stone, to create you. To take you away from Cetus, and raise you among his own children." You should have been raised here, was left unspoken. Dragon had not been there to see Nidhogg dragged away. He wondered if the creature even remembered his birth, and his... abduction.

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Nidhogg hissed, bristling, as he dug. Dragon's risk-taking got him nowhere; though Nidhogg maybe heard some of it, he held no interest in it now. "You talk too much," he snarled, clawing harder at the mud.

His logic being, if he found a gemstone shard faster, maybe the alligator would shut up.

The description of Hunger was halfheartedly, disinterestedly listened to and set aside in his mind. What came before was of little use to him. He existed now.

His claws struck something hard in the mud, and after a moment he came up with a chunk of jasper: dark, mottled brown-green, streaked near-black and dull. It was mud-slicked, and it took him a few swipes of his claws to clean it enough to make it out.

"I don't want this," he snapped at Dragon.

This was stupid.

This was like stuff Vargas would do.