Zsazsa

They won’t stop crying.

Ose hisses, the frilled crest of her belly shaking weakly as she curls around herself and again weakly lashes out at the- the spawn that just came out of her.

“Go away,” is what she hisses, hoarsely. She coughs, hacking up lumps of black tar. He’s going to pay. But first, the spawn have to go.

So she’s been saying to herself for the past few minutes.

There must be an irony here. She remembers being kicked away by her mother too. There’s a pang in her guts at the thought- oh, wait no, that’s just her insides churning as more blood and tar drips down against the sand.

Stupid body. Stupid mortal body. Stupid mortal body which apparently did, in fact, have the ability to produce eggs. Stupid mage.

Her expression twists with a wave of nausea and she buries her face against the ground, grinds her skull against it. They’re still crying. Chirping mercilessly. Instincts are stupid. Her instincts say she needs to clean them and feed them.

Her empty stomach feels like it’s going to come up her throat and push through her teeth. Mother, she repeats inside her mind. Mother.

With shaking, skeletal limbs, she pushes herself into standing. She shakes her thin, leathery wings out and exhales, inhales, her hindquarters still shaking violently. She takes an experiment step and pain lances through her gut.

Maybe that’s normal. How’s she meant to know?

“Shut up,” she mutters, looking back over her shoulder.

Thick, green slime drools from where it’s still stuck on her tail, and on the coarse sand, and in a small ditch. The wet, open remains of three eggs which peeled open almost immediately upon breaching into the stale, putrid air of the Wasteland. All three are crying. Tangled up in one another, only one tries to lean on it’s crumpled wings and drag itself closer. The other two are barely more than bone. This one is covered in rippling grey scales, and shiny, grey wings. Shiny like the mage’s wings.

Ose whips around and like a spring pounces, shrieking loudly a mere inch from the hatchling’s face.

It wails in distress.

It doesn’t make her feel any better. The other two cower and the third, this grey one, wails and wails and wails and wails, only getting louder.

Ose’s face twists into something that could almost pass for regretful. She turns tail and, ignoring the pain, limps away. At first only managing a few steps before she stumbles, flaps her wings, and awkwardly takes off.

The grey hatchling screams.

It’s getting cold. The three hatchlings curl up, only colder where liquid ooze has cooled into a jelly-like substance as the cold night rolls in. Their cold, first night.

The grey hatchling is the biggest. She shivers violently, long since having run out of energy to call for her mother, and flops long, ungainly wings over her brothers. They haven’t moved much.

Hungry. Food. Needs food. It hurts.

Not hungry anymore.

It’s the stink of the shade that keeps the animals away. Wild dogs slink closer and then sniff the reek of wrongness and decide such a meal is not a meal after all.

The grey hatchling stumbles on tiny, two digit feet. Stumbling head over heel, she falls into the sand and cries quietly, chirping forlornly. It only draws the attention of some plague flies, buzzing around her as she snaps at them, trying to catch one in her maw.

Success!

She happily chews a tiny, glittering wing.

As she trots across the desert, she pauses to nibble a carcass, shrilly yelling at a vulture as she claims the feast. The vulture leaves as black drips from the hatchling’s nostrils, splashing on it’s feet.

The hatchling nosily crunches the carapace of an electric blue scorpion, and her dark eyes watch a cricket buzz. Zz. Zz. Hh. Hh.

The cricket’s legs fold inside her maw like velvet.

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• feral, unable to read, write, or talk. mostly just chirps and waves her hands around, but she is very full of expression regardless
• she can tell you her name: zsazsa. that’s it. this is done by pointing at herself and cheerfully exclaiming her name, repeatedly, and pointing more aggressively each time
• loves to be helpful! she doesn’t know what a book is but here, she brought you a bucket! please give pets and or a snack
• hates fighting with a passion and will have a breakdown if threatened, crying and curling up
• which would deter most people because it’s not like she has any possessions but if actually attacked then she’s got absolutely absurdly potent magic, a horrific churning mix of blood and shade
• doesn’t entirely understand the concept of ‘death’
• very curious but does tend to explore most things by trying to cram them in her mouth
• likes to paint. or, likes to eat paint. that’s painting, isn’t it? yes, she’s sure it is