Dread wasn't sure what the proper protocol was for visiting another dragon's den. He'd never done it before, and he hadn't minded Asimona visiting his, though it had prompted a sort of jealous instinct to guard all his shinies.

But he'd brought a gift, at least. Clutched in one talon was a shimmering blue gemstone, pale and watery; Dread associated this color with Asimona, and most of his gifts to her had been some shade or other of light, translucent blue.

Some deep-rooted instinct suggested that if he brought her a shiny, she would not eat him.

Logic told him that she was friendly, and wouldn't eat him anyway.

And some other instinct had him enthusiastic in a friendly, prideful way, that she might like his gift.

Wings pumped at the air, their bass thumping echoing dully through the cave. Dread looked around. Ahead, the waterfall shone and sparkled as it roared into the lagoon below; the air was cold, too cold and damp for him, though at least his natural body heat helped mitigate it somewhat. There were slippery ledges to his right, and rolling ground with greenery here and there along the edges. But nowhere did he see Asimona. He banked and began to fly along the right-side wall of the cave, sweeping swiftly above the ponds that littered the floor, craning his head to eye the wall as he went. His den was a ledge on the wall. It stood to reason that Asimona's would be, too (in Dread's logic, anyway).

"ASIMONA?" he bellowed, his voice carrying.

Hopefully, she wasn't just... away.

@Asimona

Asimona was milling about her nest, tidying things up, pushing out stray bits of bone and rocks that had gotten in. This was the first time someone would actually be coming here and especially someone she knew. She needed the place to look presentable! She turned around and realized that the three nests resting against the wall that had gone unused for cycles were beginning to look pretty ragged, bits strewn about, snow collecting in the center...that wouldn't do. She quickly stepped over and sat back on her haunches, using her front claws to pick through the nests and clean them up. Even if the children wouldn't be sleeping in them, at least they would look fine.

Her nest was on the ground, strangely enough, tucked away into one of the colder parts of Pisces, half hidden beneath an overhang. The air was freezing, most likely bolstered both by Asimona's constant presence and her own magic. Relatively small, perhaps quite large to a smaller creature, but the space was big enough for Asimona to move around comfortably and that was about it. A small hoard, far smaller then Dread's, of pretty trinkets was piled next to Asimona's nest - bits of jewelry, beautiful stones, the singing crystal Dread had given her, and ice figurines that, perhaps, Asimona had carved herself.

And everything, of course, rested upon snow. It was easy to see where her nest began because that's where the snow began to pile thickly. Never melting.

She was in the middle of futiley trying to organize her hoard a little bit when a roar echoed through the cavern. She whipped around and immediately stepped off, bounding forward until she was a little more in the open. She lifted her head and opened her jaws, to breath a burst of ice to signal her location...but nothing came out. Looking a little foolish, she quickly snapped her mouth shut and instead roared back. "DREAD."

"Can you hear their voice?"
"Find the one who'll guide you."
To the limits of your choice.

tags: @Dread
notes:

Dread banked upon hearing Asimona roar, recognizing the sound; a faint hum of contentment flickered in him. Asimona was a friend. Seeing a friend was good. With it came a strange wash of instinct; Dread could rarely stay around others for very long, particularly another dragon. Though he enjoyed her company, there was always that niggling feeling that they should be fighting, that he had to watch his back, though she'd never been anything but kind to him.

When he spotted her, it was with surprise: her den was on the ground, and full of snow? Disapproval rippled through him. Gross. His den was up high, hot and dry, as a dragon's should be! ...to Dread, anyway.

He hesitated, then swept lower, rocking in his hindquarters to set his taloned feet on the ground, likely assuming that Asimona would land close by. Then he half-fell forward, landing on his wings, and peered about the den.

It was neater than his, that much was certain. His own den was--or had been, until he dragged half the crap out to try and trade it all for gold--littered with bones, hide, half-eaten carcasses and dust, and piled with everything from gemstones to random bits of wood. Parts were charred, and the ledge had been cracked (by Dread) to fall away so that none could reach it without flight. This was neat and tidy, wreathed with snow and ice, and the soft chime of the singing crystal seemed more at home among its pale, crystalline aesthetic and its frozen sculptures.

"IT'S COLD," Dread observed, at once, in a complaining tone. And then, his foot pitched forward, claws opening to gently toss the watery crystal toward Asimona's nest. "I BROUGHT YOU A SHINY." He then looked away, in case it seemed he was examining her hoard too closely. He wanted it clear, again by instinct, that he wasn't trying to steal her stuff.

...Still, a sidelong glance crept back; he wondered if she'd gotten him a bit of gold, somewhere, after all.

@Asimona

When Asimona caught sight of Dread, she turned and leaped forward, gliding back to her den so that the other dragon could follow. She stopped at the entrance and turned as Dread landed. She let out a small snort - a greeting - and paused when Dread complained. She was...a little afraid of that. It would figure that Monoceros was too hot and windy for her and Pisces was too cold for Dread. They were, after all, polar opposites when it came to that.

"Ah, I'm sorry," she offered. "The cold is a little better for me then heat." She leaned down and observed the little crystal that Dread had tossed towards her, a pleasant look of surprise passing across her face. "Oh, it's beautiful!" She reached forward and picked it up with her claws to hold it closer to her face. Yeah, it was very nice! That was the kind of thing she liked to hoard - finer things, beautiful things, instead of everything - and she turned, hopping back to her pile with it, and setting it down next to the pearl Dread had gotten her last time. "Thank you, Dread. I have you something as well." She reached beneath the nest that sat next to the hoard and pulled out a chunk of metal - this time, it was real gold, not pyrite, and the edges were polished to shine. She returned to Dread and set it in front of him. "I made sure to get you a good one this time." She watched him expectantly, very much hoping that he'd like it. She'd spent a while searching for it while he was away.

"Can you hear their voice?"
"Find the one who'll guide you."
To the limits of your choice.

tags: @Dread
notes:

Dread shook himself, glancing around and licking his jaws in a sort of grimace. It really was cold, here, at least compared to Monoceros. He was half-absent for a moment as she spoke, instinctively reaching for his magicka to warm at least his own personal space, though he was listening to what she said.

He looked back to Asimona, and then to the gold that she held out. As she set it before him, he leaned forward, ember eyes springing wide and comically reflecting the mineral's luster. For a long moment he sat, transfixed, and then--very delicately--he rocked himself backward on his wings to extend a taloned foot forward, grip the gold, and pull it back beneath him.

"It is VERY GOOD," he assured her, and he looked very pleased. "It is good, gold. I like gold; it is treasure." He then looked around, almost awkwardly.

Pisces was... cold. Empty, even; it was misty here, and seemed to him almost a cavern of ice in its inhospitable (to Dread, at least) lack of warmth. Did she just huddle against the cold all day? (It still couldn't quite make sense to him that anyone would feel at home without heat.) "What do you do, here?" he asked, at last, blinking as he peered around. "Does anyone else come here? It is empty."

Somehow, he was surprised. Asimona had struck him as more social than he was; he'd somehow assumed that she must have others close by, others that she knew and spoke to. And maybe she did; maybe they just weren't here, right now?

@Asimona

Asimona let out a huff of breath when Dread became transfixed by her gift, happy that Dread not only accepted it but seemed to love it a lot. She'd never polished anything before and she thought that it had gone rather well. "I'm glad you like it." She sat herself back on her haunches, long tail curling around, the scorpion's tip jutting out so that it didn't sting her and she looked around.

"What do I do? Well, I mean, sleep. And hunt. Look for nice things to collect. And wait." She glanced back at the empty nests. "I used to live on one of the ledges on the wall. Better for takeoff, better view. But I hatched a few children and two of them couldn't fly so I had to move myself down here. It was too difficult to reach without wings." She stood and turned, pointing with a claw towards a spot on the wall far up where a small ledge could be seen jutting out from the wall. "That's it there."

Returning to her seated position, she looked a little more downcast. "No...nobody comes here. Not anymore. You're the first for...a long time."

"Can you hear their voice?"
"Find the one who'll guide you."
To the limits of your choice.

tags: @Dread
notes:

Dread's eyes widened, slightly. "That is what I do!" he cried, excited, apparently, that his habits were similar to Asimona's. What he'd expected her to say, there was no telling. He pondered the rest, for a moment, before speaking further. "But there are children in Monoceros a lot. I DO NOT EAT THEM," he hastened to reassure her, a necessity after the little incident with Kalama. "But there was Siren, and Alastorm, and--others!"

He pondered, further. "Why could your children not fly?! What has happened to them now?"

For once he seemed an able conversational partner, though his words were still half-shouted and stilted; but he sat, gold clutched in one foot, watching Asimona attentively.

@Asimona

It was very amusing that Dread both had the same habits as he and had to emphasize that he didn't eat children. She didn't think that he did but...well, she could see why he felt like expressing this. It was strange - she'd always thought of herself as more social then Dread, but he knew more others then her? Was Monoceros just more active then Pisces? Or maybe more comfortable? If Dread wasn't too happy here, in the cold, maybe others weren't as well.

Maybe that's why they'd left.

She shrugged. "They hatched without wings. They came from three stones I found here, in Pisces, and only one was capable of flight. Wyvern - she left some time ago to forge her own path. The other two, Abeni and Jotun, they simply stopped coming home. Abeni didn't look like my much for some reason, except for the silver skin. I think she was mostly a skunk, though, since she had black and white fur as well. Jotun, well, he was a bear. A very strong one. Neither had wings. Wyvern was almost like a bird, all covered in feathers. The time we spent here was nice. I liked being a mother." She trailed off, realizing that she'd perhaps rambled a little bit, sadness coating the edge of her voice. She missed them, a lot, and wished that they were still here, still around, so that she could love and care for them as she always did.

"Can you hear their voice?"
"Find the one who'll guide you."
To the limits of your choice.

tags: @Dread
notes:

Dread considered.

He looked very deep in thought--and his mind had been listening. He'd pictured the silvery child, the one with black and white fur, and tried to picture a bear and a dragon mixed, though he'd already forgotten which child that had been. It must have been big, though.

All he said, however, was "A dragon with feathers?" His voice was quieter than usual. He was picturing a dragon--vaguely like Asimona; silver and white, but draped with long, flowing feathers.

Eventually, he shook himself from his thoughts, blinking. "I could give you a piece of my rock? That's how it works. I was TOLD," he informed her proudly, though for the life of him he couldn't remember who had told him. He turned, and waved the tip of his tail at her; it wasn't exactly the seductive "bring her a dead buffalo and roar a lot" that he might've done were this a true wilderness, but it was an offer, at least. "At least then it could fly!" He paused, and then, in a perhaps surprisingly considerate gesture, added "If I see any of your children I will tell you!"

@Asimona

Asimona nodded, bringing up an image of Wyvern in her head. "Yeah. She was a little smaller then my, with white and blue feathers and a beautiful fanning tail. She was very kind and gentle, but I was holding her back." The conversation they'd had sprung to Asimona's head and she shivered. She wondered if she'd ever see her again...

But Dread's offer had her looking up with shock. "Really? Are you sure? I..." What could she say to that? She knew that others didn't see it as some great, intimate act but to Asimona...giving each other a piece of their life was as intimate as anything could get. A gesture of respect, love, and ultimate companionship. She doubted that Dread saw it as such but to be honest, she found herself not minding exchanging stone and life with him. She did care about him, a lot, as a good friend, but this business, now that she was faced with it, wasn't as grand as it had been in her head.

"I...yeah. I think I would like that. And I can...I can give you a piece in return, if you'd like." It was an offer that fell from her mouth, but it made sense. They echanged gifts when they saw each other - might as well do it here as well.

"Can you hear their voice?"
"Find the one who'll guide you."
To the limits of your choice.

tags: @Dread
notes: