He'd woken from his chrysalis with the slow shattering of obsidian, the black volcanic rock an apt metaphor for the dragon's entire being. A flex, a stretch, a yawn; then he'd pulled himself free, looking expectantly back over himself. As expected, he was longer again: by now, finally proportional, with a long and sweeping tail that would serve as a true rudder instead of a short keel. Dread had been satisfied with this, turning this way and that to admire himself. The rings were retrieved, put back on his horns with careful maneuvers--the other horn, this time, for some variety.

Then, he had looked over the flint chrysalises. Both were still silent, and still, and he was beginning to wonder if perhaps they would simply mar his den forever. If they were never going to wake up (and he was seeing them more and more as irritating rocks, rather than sadly unhatched eggs), he would have to move his nest, or get rid of them somehow. For now, he still guarded them, though without the fervor of before. He went back to spending his time soaring the skies, skimming the surf, hunting and patrolling. Blight had left shortly after he'd awoken--off to help with something in some water-place, caves knew where. And now Dread was alone again, bar his single visiting fish-child. He didn't mind.

Bone found him napping, resting atop the "sun"-warmed sea stack, curled over the larger of the two flints. All else aside, it trapped heat well, and it was nice to bask on; maybe he could keep it-? He was shifting from one position to the next when the incoming thuds of distant wingbeats half-woke him. The black dragon lifted his head, turning bleary emberglow eyes to the horizon.

Bone came in at a slow pace, giving Dread plenty of time to hear her coming. She knew he tended to get territorial, and didn't want him to think it was some other dragon bearing down on him. When she landed--perched heavily at the edge of the sea stack's high top--she seemed to glow: the light igniting her white scales in blooms and flashes, her hide kept pristinely, perfectly clean.

"Dad!" she called to him, thudding down on rock. Her club tail extended out behind her, balancing, her wings still arching overhead so that she didn't fall back. "There's someone who wants to meet you, if you're not busy? Asimona had other kids--did you know? There's one here now!"

As Dread woke--groggy, grumpy no doubt--she continued. "His name's Charon. He wants to know about sleeping in rocks, and if it'll help him make his wings bigger, how your tail grows-? But he also just wants to meet family. If you're okay with that, he can't fly right; so he's down at the beach. I can show you," she added. And then--with a pause, and a critical eye--"Be nice to him, all right? He's been living with me in Ursa--he was hurt, I've been helping him recover. If you roar at him, you'll upset him, and I don't want that." It wasn't stern--it was a request--given with the full knowledge that Dread didn't tend to deny his children anything. They got along, as family, and being blunt and plain with the black dragon was always the best course of things.

He'd complain, maybe--but he'd (however reluctantly) agree, Bone knew. Sometimes, it felt more like she were the child, and not the parent.

Dread was glad to see his daughter, certainly: he perked up when she landed, red-lined nostrils flaring as he wing-waddled upright and over to inspect her. Satisfied that she wasn't wounded or starving or something, he settled back and listened. "HELLO," he interrupted, but then he let her talk. "SVARTIS IS HERE? GOOD! I WOULD LIKE TO SEE HIM. IT IS GOOD TO SEE YOU," he added, at full volume, as always. He shook himself, finned spines clattering, and looked around idly--but the mention of Charon had him peer at her with curiosity.

"ASIMONA'S CHILD? I WILL MEET HIM. ...I WILL NOT BE MEAN," he added, a little sulkily. Of course he wouldn't be mean. Who would even suggest such a thing-?

When Bone turned, jumping off to lead the way, her flight was heavy: her wings caught her some ten feet down with a loud whap, like an umbrella snapping open. Dread, when he spread his wings and bunched himself, leaping out, was far more graceful: a sweeping fall into a swift glide, one that took him shooting past Bone, the light glowing through his dark wing-leather and lighting the black to a blood-infused red-brown.

He circled, to let her lead him; he shook himself again in the air, revelling in the heat and light and spray of the sea as they descended. And when she landed--a heavy thud that set her feet a few inches into wet sand--he followed suit behind her, landing a good distance away far lighter on the beach, and wing-walked his way slowly over. He'd let her make the introductions, while making his own assessment from afar, and wander in as she spoke.

Svartis, unfortunately, would not be coming. She'd looked for him in Ursa, intending to give him the heads-up that they had a new brother: one of Asimona's sons, someone she'd been nursing back to health, just as she'd told Dread. She'd wanted to tell him Charon wanted to meet, and to name the time and place: "a few minutes," and "the beach closest to Leo's Ursa entrance." Vague, but good enough--she had hoped. As it turned out, however, Svartis was nowhere to be found--sleeping, perhaps; encased again in his stone.

Charon would probably be there by now--or arriving soon. She'd given up the search, broken off and come back to Leo. When she thumped back down in the sand, it was heavily, and she shook herself much as Dread had done before waddling over toward where the two would (hopefully) be.

"Charon? -Over here!" she called, and then glanced back at Dread. "Charon, that's Dad--Dread. Charon's the one I told you both about--he's Asimona's son, and he was injured awhile back. He wanted to meet you!" Granted, it had all been said already, but--polite introductions, right?

@Svartis @Charon

edited to reflect the ooc change in svartis plans

CHARON
The very mountains whisper your name...

It had been a challenge to lug himself across the beaches of Leo. He was definitely built more for snow than sand, and though he'd tried to burrow beneath it, it was too dense and ended up stuck in his scales. Yet again frustrated with how specialized his body was, leaving him struggling to travel through any other environment.

Charon looked up at the beating of wings, seeing two shapes in the distance. One practically glowing (Bone with her bright scales) and the other silhouetted instead, looking like an odd black blob. But that might have been Charon's less than perfect eyesight against the bright light of Leo. But that had to be Dread.

”I'm here!”, he shouted, slowly slithering over the coarse (well, coarse compared to snow) sand, making his way towards Bone and Svartis.

He stopped just beside Bone and looked at Dread, half in awe, half in, well, dread. He was definitely nervous, anxious that Dread wouldn't like him and neither would Svartis. He'd gotten lucky with Bone, barely having found her at all, and now he found himself struggling to find the words he wanted to say, to proclaim his relief at finding his family. So, in lieu of the speech he'd prepared on the way over (which was unnecessary now that he thought about it), he decided on something simpler.

”... Hi,” he said rather lamely, tucking his short wings in and carefully settling down, ”Uh... nice to meet you, Dread.”

Charon felt kind of small compared to the other dragons. Bone was bigger by a few feet and then Dread was just... massive. He didn't doubt that he would end up being the smallest of the family, unfortunately. Great. Not only was he the 'baby' of the adults but he was the smallest too.

@Bone

Flameglow eyes searched Charon, examining him, studying him. The glint of white armored skin, the scales, the horns; the wings, the bristles. He looked a lot like Asimona, indeed, and Dread curled his neck a tad back in faint surprise. "YOU ARE ASIMONA'S CHILD," he half-asked, half-said. "YOU LOOK LIKE HER! HELLO," he added.

The black dragon glanced around Leo; half of him felt he should welcome the other dragon, and half of him wanted to declare which bits were his and shouldn't be encroached upon. But--family was family, and he settled for a middle ground. "BLIGHT LIVES HERE, I LIVE HERE. YOU CAN LIVE HERE IF YOU WANT TO BUT DO NOT STEAL MY THINGS." Oh--Bone had asked him not to be mean--he cut his eyes to her warily; the anger of a daughter at a father, should it come, wasn't something that could be brute-forced away. "I AM NOT BEING MEAN," he added hastily.

He was closer, now, trudging through the sand to come up before and beside the pair. Ocean winds rustled his spined fins, and as his nostrils flared, a faint glow was visible deep within. "WHERE DID YOU GROW UP? HOW IS ASIMONA, DO YOU KNOW?" he asked, as he came to a halt at last.

Bone listened, beaming, content. Family! Her family was finally meeting! (The faint presence of Mother in her only seemed pleased with her own joy. That was a good thing, right?)

For a moment, Bone simply basked in the warm light, feeling the cascade of heat and cool wind coiling against her scales, brushing across her armored skin. It was a pleasant feeling--along with the scent of the sea--and she wondered why she did not come here more often. She enjoyed it. It wasn't cold, biting, like--home; it wasn't home.

That was why.

She turned her attention happily, blithely, back to Charon and to Dread--her thoughts fading, lost to her. She didn't interrupt, though; let them introduce themselves, get to know one another, instead.

@Charon

CHARON
The very mountains whisper your name...

Charon bobbed his head up and down in a nod at the statement, glad Dread recognized his mother in him. He breathed out a sigh of relief and relaxed a bit, his wings moving so that they rested in the sand.

”I won't touch your things,” he said with a frown, though that was just his natural resting expression, ”But I don't know about living here... I'm more built for the cold, and this sand is hard for me to walk on. When I get bigger wings, then I will think about it.”

Charon watched Dread walk closer, quills raising at the sudden questioning. He swallowed and thought about it, wishing he had a better answer than 'I don't know' for the latter.

”Monoceros, I think it was called,” he said, ”Mom raised me there, I remember her cave. Eventually, though, she left and never returned, I don't know where. I don't think I was ready to leave her quite yet, but I had no choice. Took a while, but I got to Ursa and managed to find Bone.”

Charon didn't grow up in a stable nest like he was promised. He hadn't managed to meet everyone by the time he finally ventured out of the cave, hungry and wondering where his mother had gone. Where everyone she'd told him about had gone. For the first few cycles of his life, he'd been alone.

@Dread

Dread had settled in, rocked forward to lean on his wings. "I LIVED IN MONOCEROS," was his full-volume (somehow meant to be conversational) response. Asimona had raised Charon there-? He cocked his head to one side. "SHE DID NOT LIKE THE HEAT. I AM SURPRISED SHE DID NOT RAISE YOU IN PISCES! IT IS WHERE SHE RAISED BONE, AND SVARTIS," though not, of course, their entire childhoods. The hatchlings had switched between caves often enough in visits to their father. "BUT I DO NOT THINK SHE ABANDONED YOU. SHE LOVES HER CHILDREN! SHE LOVES FAMILY. PERHAPS SHE WAS HURT," he added, bellowing this grim possibility with utter obliviousness to how it sounded, "AND WENT TO SLEEP FOR AWHILE."

People did that, after all.

It was certainly more likely than "abandoned her only remaining child." Or had Charon been-? Dread blinked. "DID YOU HAVE BROTHERS OR SISTERS?" he asked, wondering if there were more Asimona kids out there.

Asimona had abandoned him-? Concern laced Bone's gaze, even as Dread's reassurance--and she knew him well enough to know he meant it as reassurance, despite his obliviousness--boomed out. (And it was a shame she didn't know the phrase 'inside voice,' because right now, she would absolutely have asked him to use his.)

"No," she hastened to agree, "Mom wouldn't have just left you." A pause, hesitation--they couldn't do much about it, now, aside from maybe just look for her when Bone next had the chance.

"-But, um, he can stay with me in Ursa as long as he wants--and we can visit each other, Dad," she explained.

@Charon