Joy! Relief! Excitement!

He was not alone!

With an ecstatic squeak he circled, lifting higher and then dropping, diving, spinning midair. He wove through the updrafts, and rode the air currents, leading Asimona on a happy race until his wings were near exhaustion. At last he glided down, landing in the loose stones near the shore with a quiet clatter, then looked over his shoulder, turning to face up toward her with bright eyes.

He did not understand what she was saying, but it hardly mattered. He made a few incoherent noises--sounds that might be words, if words in a strange tongue. He babbled, and then thrashed his little tail over the rocks.

"Avamasama. Hot, ah-ah, ot hot!"

Then he lowered himself down, half-afraid that the creature--the stranger--might turn on him--crouching with his head near to the ground in a submissive fashion.

Hopefully, she would not consume him whole! ...Or in pieces. Neither seemed particularly appealing.

@Asimona

Asimona followed the young dragon, spiraling through the air, laughing with joy, sometimes catching up to him before falling back and letting him take the lead. A game of chase and race and it was more fun then she had ever had in her life. Her play in the snow with Faelan at her hatch was something, yes, it was fun and cold, but this was with another dragon. Flying through the air, turning and diving, roaring and laughing and letting herself go. It was truly something else entirely.

When the dragon started to drop back down to the ground, she knew that he was tired. She was getting a little sore herself and floated down with him, landing a little ways away. She was about to run up and greet him on the ground, but she saw his submissive position and realized that he might still be a little scared of her.

She blinked sympathetically and approached slowly, with a casual, relaxed pose. She tried to keep out tension and not to make herself seem too tall or too submissive herself. Once she reached the dragon's side, she sat down and folded her wings back.

"Hello," she said, gently. She didn't want to scare him off or make him feel too nervous. She wanted him to be comfortable with her presence.

"Find the one who'll guide you."
To the limits of your choice.

tags: @Dread
notes: here

Dread responded to the roars with squeaks of his own, a fearful thrill running through him at the sound. It was an intimidating noise, but it was familiar to him. As she landed, he watched with gleeful awe--how she moved, how she flew and how she walked, it was all familiar to him. Like a song he heard, with familiar notes, but which he could not quite place in his memory.

Not that he knew what a song was, either.

Dread skittered somewhat nervously as Asimona approached, turning to face her, ready to flee. But his fear was less prominent, now that the larger dragon seemed less inclined to eat him, and as she settled there, he too relaxed some.

There--she was making those noises, again, those well-formed syllables. Dread lashed his tail, tilting his head to and fro, birdlike, toward the mother-like creature. What could he do, but imitate? His own voice higher-pitched and raspy, he gave it his best shot.

"Hello," he parroted, though his ember-colored eyes remained blank. He scooted closer, eyeing Asimona's shining scales over--then an abrupt impulse took him.

The little dragon turned, bounding abruptly away over the loose stones, scrambling up into the crack in the cave wall where he slept. Here he quickly scattered his now-impressive collection of stones that he'd found shiny or otherwise appealing, and gripped one in his teeth. An instant later he emerged, blinking, back into the light of the cave, sweeping down with a single glide of his wings to land beside Asimona again.

There he spat out his gift, at the white dragon's feet: a single rock, flicked with shining mica, and sat back; his head reared back and he peered at Asimona, pleased with himself.

@Asimona

Asimona was hopeful when the dragon imitated her greeting, but she wondered if he at all even understood what he was saying, or if it was just that: imitation. She assumed it was the latter and gave him a kind smile.

But when he turned and left, she stood and was about to jump after him, wondering if he wanted to play some more. But it seemed that he had a specific destination this time, a small fissure in the wall. So she sat back down and curled her tail over her claws and waited for him to return, curious as to what he was getting.

When he placed the stone in front of her, she looked down to sniff it, admiring the shimmering stone and the small crystals. "Beautiful," she murmured as she nudged the rock. She moved it closer to her, happy that she had this little trinket. It felt natural to be accepting this gift and it felt natural that she should offer something in turn.

But what? She didn't live here and she didn't collect rocks. She wasn't about to just fly off to find a pretty stone for her new dragon friend. She'd have to leave the baby alone and he might think that she had abandoned him. No, she had to figure something out. An idea suddenly popped into her head and she raised one of her claws so that the dragon could see it. She closed her eyes and focused on her magic. She wanted this to be perfect and to last as long as possible.

Magic streamed from her gem through her body, stronger then it ever had, perhaps fueled by her joy and passion and streamed into the palm of her hand. Water began to collect on her skin, twisted and forming and freezing into shape until she finished the spell and, sitting in her palm, was a perfect ice sculpture of the little dragon, perfect in shape, with fine detail and sturdy. As the magic released, she stumbled back a bit, suddenly exhausted from how much energy it had taken.

She stepped back forward and placed the ice in front of the dragon and smiled. "For you," she offered. She turned back to her pretty rock and picked it up in her claws, observing it from every angle fondly.

"Find the one who'll guide you."
To the limits of your choice.

tags: @Dread
notes: here

Dread watched the ice dragon pull the stone to her, his neck-spines and their interconnected ridge of webbing raising up proudly. He puffed up, snorting tiny streams of fire from his nostrils--and then peered at Asimona as she simply... closed her eyes.

For a moment he hesitated, unsure what to do. Then his ember eyes flicked to the droplets of water welling up from her hide, streaming to her clawed forelimb, somehow taking shape. With a soft snort he backed away, eyes widening. Was this an attack? His gaze darted to Asimona's face, but her eyes were still closed, her body language focused but serene. Dread hesitated, and then looked again to the solidifying ice, watching--still creeping slowly backward--as it formed... him. Him?

His eyes widened further. Was it another of--him? Was this how he'd been created? Asimona placed this before him, and he outstretched his neck, ridged line of spines raised in intimidation, now--as if hackles on a dog. Warily he sniffed at the motionless stranger formed perfectly of ice, and then he nudged it.

Cold, ice cold-- With a snort of further alarm he leapt back, blinking, taking no notice for now at Asimona's gentle examination of his own gift. No, he was wondering what this thing was--was it another dragon? Was it--one of them? Would it take life, and take flight? Or was it--a rock...? Confused, he reached out one clawed forelimb, wing held awkwardly midair as he gently prodded and scratched at the ice sculpture. When it did not react, he sat back on his haunches, puzzled.

For a moment he stared at Asimona, and then--in a bubbling burst of nonsensical words--expressed his enthusiastic confusion.

"PLAY OT ASMVAMAMAM ASMA BEAU?!" For a moment he blinked at her, and then--exulting in his entirely useless ability to vocalize, continued. "AS AS AS AS AS AMANAM BEAU HOT."

With this proudly declared, spines still erect and neck again proudly arched, he looked back at the ice sculpture and gave it another tentative nudge.

@Asimona

Asimona was too wrapped up in admiring the rock the dragon had given her that she was startled when he began to babble. She looked up and saw that he was unsure about the sculpture she had just made. She smiled and carefully set down the stone. They had to do something about their lack of communication. Perhaps if she taught him to speak, at least a little bit, it would make things easier.

She slid forward slowly until she was right in front of the tiny dragon. She looked into his eyes knowingly and pointed at him. "Dragon," she said, slowly. She then pointed at herself. "Dragon."

She opened her claw and summoned more magic, forming a nice sized chunk of ice for the dragon to see. She pointed at it with her other claw. "Ice." She set it on the ground next to the sculpture and picked up the little ice figure. She held it out. "Ice dragon." She wondered if putting two words together would be too complicated, but she had no idea how to deal with children. Well, she was still a child herself, but teaching others to speak wasn't exactly something she was familiar with.

"Find the one who'll guide you."
To the limits of your choice.

tags: @Dread
notes: sorry for the wait!

Dread listened intently, watching Asimona and listening to her words. Dragon. She, and he. Dragon.

"DRAGON!" he echoed, in confident declaration. When she formed more ice he scrambled backward a step or two, the settling spines along his neck erecting in alarm again, but he listened as she spoke. He looked from the ice, to her, then to the sculpture. Ice.

He reached out, carefully, tentatively, and touched the thing again. It was cold, icy cold, and he retracted his forelimb at once, shaking his head as if shaking off water. "Ice," he repeated, looking slowly to Asimona, hoping he was correct. Some part of him wanted to please the other dragon, to do... whatever this was, properly. To get it right. He flicked his eyes back to the statue, thinking.

It was cold. He couldn't articulate the word, yet, but he knew how to say it nonetheless. "Not-hot," he decided.

He'd been unable, thus far, to outright breathe fire as a dragon such as he should. Instead he tended to just breathe superheated air, and for a moment he squinted, focusing on drawing together his magicka, inhaling the damp warm air of Fornax and boiling it into shimmering heat. His little maw opened, and the shimmering-hot air poured forth--this time at the more shapeless block of ice.

"Hot!" he said proudly, puffing himself up and looking to Asimona expectantly.

@Asimona

Asimona nodded enthusiastically when the dragon finally shouted out a word, confidently. "Yes, dragon!" She hoped that he had now attached the word to both of them, that they were dragons. Both of them.

She also nodded when he repeated "Ice" back to her and gave him a warm smile. This was working. She didn't know how, but she guessed that pointing things out and saying them slowly, articulating that the sound was that object, was the way that the dragon was going to learn to speak. "Ice," she confirmed. He seemed to be thinking about something after touching and she wondered if he was coming up with another word to describe the ice.

Not-hot wasn't quite what she was expecting. She was happy to know that he knew what the word 'not' meant. That would make a lot of things easier. She nodded again. "Not-hot." She pointed at the ice. "Ice is not-hot. Ice is cold." She said the last word slower, so that he would understand that not hot and cold were the same thing.

She was a little startled when he suddenly breathed out and a wave of hot air towards the ice. It began to melt under the heat, swiftly until it was a few chunks and a puddle. She nodded enthusiastically. "Hot!" He had heard her when she had shouted! That was good, very good. This was going to go along smoother.

She wondered what she would teach him next. They had gotten through their magics - hot and cold, but he still had a long way to go until he was speaking properly. She glanced towards him and noticed for the first time that he didn't have front legs. That was strange. She looked back at her wings, then at the other dragon's. They looked similar enough, at least.

She pointed with one claw towards the dragon's two wings. "Wings," she said, slowly. She pointed at her own and repeated the words. She spread her own and gave a few flaps so that she was hovering above the ground. "Fly," she said, once she had touched back on the ground.

"Find the one who'll guide you."
To the limits of your choice.

tags: @Dread
notes:

He stared, for a beat, ever the attentive student--then shriek-squeaked enthusiastically. He made a short leap into the air, gave a few lopsided beats of his tired wings (during which he nearly fell from the sky, young and clumsy as he was), and then managed a clattering landing among the loose stones.

"WINGS. FLY!" he cried. Then he turned, suddenly seized again by impulse, and flap-flew off back to his niche once more.

This time, when he returned, the rock which he deposited at Asimona's feet was a prized possession of his "hoard:" a smooth, shiny black thing, polished glossy by the long work of Fornax's water. It was likely obsidian--formed from the flow of lava in the water below--but Dread didn't know that. He just knew that he liked it--so Asimona would, too. Or so he assumed, in not so many words.

He pranced in a few leaping bounds around before her, another enthusiastic blast of superheated air aimed skyward with a soft "whoomph," and then sniffed again at the ice-dragon sculpture of himself.

He focused, and concentrated, and thought about it really hard--then looked to Asimona questioningly.

"Ice dragon fly..?" he asked.

@Asimona

Asimona watched proudly as the little dragon immediately latched onto the words with excitement. She watched him fly back to his hoard and her heart was warmed. She was doing good for this dragon, acting a motherly figure, even though she was barely older. The stone he deposited at her feet was much different and she bent to inspect it, sniffing it and running a claw carefully across its smooth surface. "Thank you," she said, gratefully. She liked the rocks and appreciated them. She pulled them closer to herself and then turned to address his next question.

She blinked, wondering how she was going to answer. Perhaps she should not have shaped the ice into a dragon. But it was too late now. She shook her head. "No. Ice dragon not fly. Ice dragon not alive." Would the dragon understand alive? No, probably not. She guessed that she would have to explain it to him and she thought hard about how she would.

"Find the one who'll guide you."
To the limits of your choice.

tags: @Dread
notes: sorry for the wait!