Abbadon

Life for a young coatl without barely any knowledge of his parents can be difficult. Abaddon can remember seeing them on the day he was born, but after that he was on his own.
… though to be fair, this was mostly his fault.
Ever the adventurous type, he wriggled out of the nest as soon as he worked out how, and went to look outside the lair. Entranced by the open air, he went further and further, eyes fixed on the birds flying above his head.
"They can fly," he thought, "but I can't. I wonder why?"
Watching the sky rather than the ground, he stepped too close to the edge of the river running close to the lair. The water caught him at once, pulling him away from his family and home forever.

It was True who found him on the riverbank, bedraggled, frozen, feathers fading from exhaustion. Uncertain if he was still alive, the big Imperial carried the hatchling to a secluded cave so that he could rest properly. Over the next few days, True watched him as he regained both his strength and colour, feathers returning to their jewel-like brilliance.

On the day that Abaddon first spread his shining wings in the sunlight and flew up to meet the dawn, he met Ruckus. Or perhaps she met him. They could never decide. Drawn to his brightness, she called to him from her place halfway up the mountain, voice booming through the rocks and making strange echoes that confused but entranced him. He loved her from the moment he saw her, partly for her charisma, partly because she was so different to everything he had seen before – the greatest adventure he could ever choose.

Like many others, he entered on the will of the lair queen, and never saw the need to leave. To begin with, though, he and Ruckus could not communicate at all. Abaddon only had his innate knowledge of the Coatl humming-language, and Ruckus had only ever learned Draconian. It was only with the help of True that the two of them were finally able to learn something of the other's language, though Ruckus is still not very good at humming.

He likes nothing better than letting the hatchlings cuddle up to him, even if that means he's completely covered by baby dragons. Ruckus and True tend to roll their eyes at this behaviour, but Abaddon doesn't care. As long as he is safely within the lair, he will act as much like a hatchling as the newest dragon to climb out of an egg. It is only when strangers enter the lair, drawn by Ruckus' indomitable presence, that he starts to behave like the lair lord that he is rather than the dragonling he likes to pretend to be.

Written by Naurath