ooc note: this is a thread between Dragon and Nox, though if others want to jump in feel free!

The alligator had part of a deer in his jaws--the front half, its rubbery skin's bioluminescence flashing dimly and chaotically as the last of its body's chemical signals faded. It had been dead for a few minutes now, and he'd already consumed part of it, but now he was travelling to the offering pile at the shore of the black Heart of Cetus.

Rather than slowly drifting through its dark mirror-surface, however--perhaps sinister, and certainly predatory--he was now espousing a new form of travel.

Ominous red-black wings had sprouted from his shoulders, magically sustaining flight, and a faintly-glowing cloud of similarly-colored magic swarmed around him. Long horns sprouted back from his head, and his eyes near-glowed crimson with malicious glee.

Had he no carcass in his jaws, he'd have bellowed "I AM DRAGON" for all to hear, though he was not, in fact, a dragon of any kind. Actually, the spellwork was weak, and he was barely bobbing in the air, rough and unsteady. At times his body would be flung forward with a surge of magicka--and at others, it would sort of dangle as he struggled to keep himself airborne. Dragon was still getting used to this whole flying thing.

It also wasn't particularly graceful: he was a creature built for floating, and so rather than gliding gracefully--and horizontally--like an animal that had any business in the air would have, Dragon instead hung heavily and limply, thick tail straight down, from where the magic wings held him at his shoulders.

He didn't care.

He was flying.

Cautious, he placed the corpse onto Aquarian's pile--the large mound of half-decayed prey animals untouched for some time now. Then he turned, surveying his little domain from the air.

All is well-... though, what is that? Dragon lowered himself some, flapping unsteadily as he examined a thick trail of ooze, barely-visible in the swamp. He'd never have noticed it where it headed through the reeds, bar the flattening of the marsh grass as the trail moved along. He'd seen this before, but he'd never followed it--too much effort, with his half-ruined hind leg. It always moved off into the swamp and vanished.

Now, though?

Now, he could fly.

With a sense of triumphant mischief, the flying alligator turned, hovering jerkily along the oily path, following it through Cetus.

@Nox

Onward into the swamp he flew, deeper and deeper into the dark embrace of its thickly-forested depths.

At times, the trail became near-impossible to follow. At times he had to circle back, and hover until he spotted it again. At last, he found some other sign of the strange creature that must have passed: bark-stripped trees, their bare inner wood oozing sap where they had had their hard skin torn away.

The alligator lowered down some, and passed between these, vertically hovering his way with careful flaps of his magical wings.

He eyed the thick wood ahead with caution. It was dark, and close, and anything could hide there. What if whatever it was was even larger than him..? For a moment, he considered; then he mentally shrugged aside the thought, perhaps somewhat too glibly. He had never seen anything in Cetus larger than himself, bar Aquarian; everyone was smaller, lighter. Even many of the Elders were small by comparison--or if not small, at least not quite as large.

At last he lost the trail; it was inky black, still dripping fresh here and there, but it slipped either through the trees--too dark and over too-dry trail to see--or into the black water to one side. Or maybe it had climbed..? He couldn't be sure, though he peered cautiously to and fro, he could not find it.

At length he took a great breath, carefully focusing on maintaining the last of his flight spell while inhaling oxygen to fuel the fire burning in his gullet. He then exhaled, a steady stream of bright fire pouring down and out into the swamp--and for a moment, he almost, almost looked like a real, actual dragon. But Dragon's mind, for once, was not on himself: his eyes were critically inspecting the depths of the dark trees ahead, searching for any sign of the creature that had left the oily trail.

When the fire abruptly sputtered out, he called forth, bellowing.

"HELLO? WHO IS HERE? I AM DRAGON!"

After her long detour though Polaris, Nox had finally returned to the swamp which she called home. Things had changed since returning; she lingered close to the shore where she'd left the chick that she'd brought here, her skin rippling as she paid close attention to the sounds of the marsh, keeping careful observation in case of potential predators. She planned to return to check on him very soon.

And things felt different, too; the draconian felt a lot less desolate for some reason and the swamp, as homely as it was, felt a lot less cold.

After some hesitation, though, she had left him behind to settle in, because Nox had another duty to fulfil; one to her own stomach. Ordinarily, Nox spent most of her time eating, but after a long journey like this one, there was a lot of catching up to do. She was ravenous, stripping the bark and needles from pine trees with a voracity the likes of which she hadn't felt since her earlier cycles. So she tore her way through a stand of trees, stripped bare unless they stood taller than 25 feet... in which case, Nox left the distant tops prickly and green. Capable of stretching her neck to seemingly impossible lengths, Nox wanted much but wasted little. In her voracity, she hadn't realized how far afield she'd wandered, venturing deep into the thickest groves of her domain.

She'd almost eaten her fill, her aggression in attacking branches fading to a slow and relaxed graze. A contented rumble was just brewing in her chest as she stood knee-deep in the murky water, an oily sheen forming beneath her.

But then a tremble rippled over her skin- she stopped mid-swallow with a twig protruding from the side of her beak, and froze. What was that? Unnerved, her spines quivered, a scaled texture sweeping over her, taking a curious resemblance to that of the bark she chewed.

What was that? A rustle? A creak?

She focused, jaws parted; somewhere in the dark, a red gem glittered, peering out, looking. Then her nostrils flared; a sudden brightness, a scent of smoke entering her nostrils. The dragon let out a gurgle of alarm, her skin rippling and twisting into coils as though she was made of a thousand maggots. There was fire, and it was close. She barely registered the words of the bellowing voice, registering only that it was a voice... and that it might be aggressive. The gurgling sound mounted to a rumbling roar, the twig dropping to her paws and slowly sinking into the mud. After a time Equinox recoiled, her entire body quivering like jelly by the force of her own noise. As the sound faded, she huffed great breaths, registering for a moment a lucid thought outside of territorial aggression. She wouldn't let fire bring down her home.

Backing up, the draconian plunged her beak into the muddy water at her paws and inhaled, filling her elastic throat until it swelled to many times its size. Then she turned her attention on the direction of the smoke and brightness, water pouring from her beak and nostrils, barely able to lift it straight... and like a bellow, she retracted her neck, forcefully spitting the water - though what at, she couldn't see.

@dragon

Dragon was still too far to see deeply into the trees, but when the water hit, it still hit. He recoiled, lowering himself in a frantic flapping down to the water, hissing gutturally as he spun out of control. His landing was a loud, loud splash, and rather than immediately flail about he simply fell silent, sinking like a ridged log.

Something had roared, and it was something large. Aquarian..? Or another like him? Dragon thought to himself, even as the horns and wings faded. Now he was just an alligator, albeit a large, scarred one.

No, it is not father. His screams are noticeably more... high-pitched, he thought with grim, dark humor.

So, something dangerous, then? No response was given to his call, and he simply lay silent in the swamp, hidden among the rushes and submerged in the black water of a river channel. Slowly, gradually, he extended out his magicka and his senses--listening, watching through the hazy sheen of murky water, reaching for the sign of a heartbeat beyond.

It took time--time in which he lay still and silent, the ambush predator of millions of years. But the magicka worked only faintly. He could see distant lives--many birds, unseen, had fled at the roar, or perhaps the flame. There were a few distant land creatures moving off, as well--cave deer, or rats perhaps. The heat-vision was unclear. And there--there, he thought, was the source: something larger, much larger, and over--... vaguely, err, that way. He couldn't make out the size, nor the shape, only that something was there. But at least it wasn't moving: it had roared a challenge, and it waited.

At length he bobbed up to the surface again, coming to a decision: if it was a threat to Cetus and to the Children, he would fight it. Or, if it were beyond him, he would see what it was, but he had never lost a fight. He was confident, perhaps overly so, as he hauled himself slowly with one limping leg through the marsh, out of the water and over the grove-like area toward the red light in his vision.

Thus far, all he knew of the creature is that it had spit water at him--magically or not, he was unsure, but it hardly mattered. He could swim, after all.

"CAN YOU SPEAK?" he bellowed, as he dragged his way over. If it didn't respond, that was answer enough. He knew he was alerting it to his approach and location, but the slow sound of a limping, heavy body dragging through the muck would be clear enough regardless.

@Nox

When her body had emptied itself of the water she'd consumed, Nox fell into a relative silence, save for a soft rumble and the slick sound of her skin coiling, the dripping of her slime. She opened her jaws wide and peered out, through red-tinted vision. The light appeared to have faded, and the draconian's crawling skin relaxed slightly. Good, it seemed that the flame had never taken hold.

As Nox waited, still amongst the trees, skin rippling but body frozen like a frightened deer, she was alert. She stared, slowly moving her head... and heard the motion of the waters beyond. She paused dome more, hesitant, half-hoping that the fiery culprit would reveal itself but similarly willing it to simply move on. She could have simply disappeared into the marsh if she'd wanted to, she knew; but indecision, and the warm ebb and flow of curiosity kept her rooted like an ancient tree.

Then she heard something; a heavy shape lugging itself gradually closer. She parted her jaws as far as they'd go, peering long and hard into the shadows, where she thought she could see something moving. For a moment, her skin settled into a scaly texture.

And then a voice which set her skin crawling anew. Nox hesitated. She recognised the voice as the one which had rang out before the small burst of fire had lit up the trees. She blew out through her nostrils, gradually closing her jaws as she processed the words. Sight was her weakest sense, anyway.

She rumbled, a throbbing and nervous sound. Soon, the sound contorted into words, her throat convulsing to form the sound. If you didn't know what to look for, it might be easy to miss the almost-alien voice that struggled so hard to make itself heard. "Yessssss," Nox hissed, remaining where she was. She opened her jaws again, jewel once more gleaming out to the world. She stretched out her neck, moving it closer to the source of the voice, covering bare branches with a layer of pitch-black slime. She could see the alligator now- see his shape, vaguely, against the boggy ground, like a ridged log. She peered at it, gaze flickering for a moment, before she drew her neck back towards her body and rested her chin upon her chest, neck arched above her in a swanlike curve. The creature was almost as long as she was- almost. but what it had in length, was all but lost in stature. Nox didn't think she'd ever met a creature rivalling herself in size- all but for once, when she'd met a dragon. Or, as he'd thought- another dragon.

The memories had been worn almost into nothingness, but Nox remembered the feeling of warm comfort, and the effect his words had had on her. That feeling brought lucidity into the fear, a sense of control that brought her back to the matter at hand.

Maybe the alligator had been trying to attack her, but there was also the possibility that the creature hadn't known she was here, that she was sentient. Maybe he'd just been trying to light his way through the trees. Nox raised a paw and took a single step closer to the other gembound before once again hesitating.

"No fire... Dangerousssss," she warned, with great difficulty. She hung back, giving plenty of time for an agreement, or an apology to show that he'd acknowledged her words. Fear still tugged her skin into unnatural shapes.


"Speech."

@Dragon

Dragon paused at the hissing, going motionless to listen in silence for a few moments. The magicka had faded, now, but he knew the creature to be a bit in front of him, relatively close, unless it had moved--though the sound of its voice indicated that it had not.

He could see a silhouette, though it was difficult--black on near-black, a hulking shape that seemed graceful in its composition. Graceful, and large. His froglike eyes flicked up and up, to take in its bulk, as he listened.

"YES," he bellowed at last--and then his voice grew at least a little quieter. "Fire is dangerous! But I am not here to attack. What are you?" he asked bluntly. The thing was not attacking him, so any fear he might have felt at its towering shape faded before it could form. Instead he noted, in a distant and calculating way, that the creature seemed to be afraid of fire.

A good thing to remember, should it ever attack.

@Nox

Equinox let out a quiet rumble as Dragon spoke, an acknowledgement of his agreement. Her skin relaxed slightly, and his next words soothed her further. He wasn't here to attack. So, with her skin rippling in waves of smoothness and goosebumps, she stepped towards him, pushing through gaps in the trees with her hide oozing around branches leaving their wood stained and glistening with black.

She opened her jaws, peering around as she approached, before she finally stood before him, lowering her head down to his level. At his question, she paused, tilting her head slightly. "Nox," she answered curiously, sniffing with a soft snorting sound, before blowing out several small droplets of slime. "Jussssst Nox."

She peered at him with her bright, jewel encrusted eye, her gaze flickering over his form. It was clear that she'd not spent much time amongst the other inhabitants of Cetus, but the swamp suited him. Perhaps she'd seen him before. She hesitated, a thoughtful ripple trembling from the tip of her beak and up her neck. "...Sssswamp isss your home, too?"

"Speech."

@Dragon

Dragon listened, and with some bewilderment (and faint apprehension) he watched as Nox approached. Her skin was... strange. At first, he thought she had merely gotten herself coated in particularly thick swamp muck. But the odor was completely different, and her skin itself seemed to ripple and drip. It was almost, he thought, as if it changed with her moods.

"Nox," he rumbled, considering this. "I am Dragon! And yes, this has been my home for many cycles." He paused, eyeing Nox over, tilting his head first one way and then the other to get a clearer look. His dark eyes travelled over her bulk, her ooze, the strangeness of her form.

"I am very old! I am the son of Aquarian, the master of Cetus! I am of the Children of Rot! We survive!" This was all given rather rapidly, and enthusiastically, despite the fact that age had slowed Dragon's energy considerably. The flight had infused him with excitement, and the strange chase and the bizarre creature had him on cheerful alert.

"I have never seen anything like you. And I have lived here for a long time! Are you very old?"

Perhaps, he thought, Nox was another of the Elders. He'd need to know. They couldn't trust the Elders, aside from their father. But perhaps she was not?

He didn't know what she was, but so long as she was willing to speak, and did not attack him, he assumed they'd get along just fine.

@Nox

Dragon's introduction lit a spark of recognition in Nox's skin- she recalled in an instant his earlier cry, a scaled pattern creeping over her and a moment of fear mirroring her memory of the fire. But now she knew what he had been saying. She closed her beak and offered a pleased nod. "I wassss born here. Never go far." The draconian creature raised her head, parting her jaws to look around, before returning her gaze to Dragon. She tilted her head, listening intently as he finished speaking. She had never heard of Aquarian, or the Children of Rot- spending her days in comfortable solitude.

The draconian rumbled softly. "Never known thessse. Been alone a long time." Alone, and lonely. Equinox had long resigned herself to the quiet, but it was not always so. She was a dangerous being, she remembered this much, even though much of her earlier memories were fuzzy. She closed her jaws in a moment of thought. She spent her time alone by choice, and not by nature alone. Since the fear of dragon had passed, Equinox found herself moved by dull curiosity, instead. She was enjoying the alligator's company.

Her beak parted once again as the question rippled throughout her skin, her thoughts wandering. was she very old? Nox didn't know. Time seemed to blur together. Cycles had passed in a jumbled mess, and Equinox had spent much of that time in hibernation. Nor had she met anyone to compare it to. She blew out once again, almost like a sigh. "Time blursss. Lived through two times of darkness. I might be old."

The lights turning off was the biggest thing she remembered, the only thing she could really use to measure the passing of cycles. Although she didn't know it, she was, in fact, younger than the alligator. And in the grand scheme of things, she could be considered either quite old, or quite new.

@Dragon

Dragon listened, his ridged tail swishing slowly back and forth. She had been alone a long time, he realized, given her odd use of language. And two periods of darkness? He was tempted to say that he had seen more, but he could not be certain. Cetus had always been dark, and he hadn't always particularly cared when it had gotten darker.

So this creature could be older than him, or it could be younger. But she hadn't seen his father?!

"You live in Cetus, and you have not seen Aquarian?!" he asked, surprised. "He is one of the Elders! He lives beneath the waters!" Dragon was about to add knowledge that Aquarian was one of the only ones they could trust, but then he remembered that he simply didn't know Nox. And they couldn't let on that the knew, not yet.

"We serve him," he said instead. Better to be vague. "We hunt for him, and he offers guidance, and protection!" But did such a creature as Nox even require protection? If she was an elder, certainly not; and regardless, she was very large. Then again, nothing could fight Raheerah, and win. Though even Aquarian had refused that battle.

NOT WE, THOUGH. "We fought in his name! To protect the caves from the black dragon! Raheerah! WE WON!" Dragon added, bellowing. Never mind the fact that they'd hardly been alone--and that other Elders had joined their fight.

No, what was important was that they had fought--and won.

What, exactly, this had to do with Aquarian was unclear, but Dragon was very proud nonetheless.

@Nox