Citric

Battle Scarred Cave Guard

You head outside. This is.. a lot to take in. The nocturnes roosting just within the entrance cave are quietly communing with one another, ready to fly out and hunt now that the sun is setting. Boot is hanging in his signature spot, unbothered by your presence, or perhaps just tired. You decide not to bother him in case, and instead turn your attention to the two imperials that are resting outside the cave.

Or rather, was resting. One now stares at you with large, friendly yellow eyes. He raises his head curiously.
"Hello!" He speaks excitedly. His voice is much akin to an adolescent, but he's also.. really tall. Taller than an adolescent dragon would normally be, imperial or not. He towers above you, as does the dragon resting next to him. He stands up, and you quickly realize why exactly that is.

A wave of fear knocks you as not one, not two, but four heads all rise on the same body. Have you been dreaming this entire time? Did you go to the nest Gale helped you make and immediately fall asleep? An emperor. You're frozen. Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no-
Is this your punishment for wanting to come outside and get fresh air? Granted plague territory air isn't fresh, but you take what you can get. You're jolted out of your terrified stupor by the soft voice of Boot.

"Lemon, you didn't give a warning.." He murmurs quietly. Shivering, you watch as the yellow and white head of the emperor's eyes widen with surprise. Another head, her purple scales dotted with red, just looks annoyed.
"You need to warn dragons before you do that." She snaps irritably, then throws you a glare. You cower even more. "What do you want?"
The blue headed dragon speaks up, eyes glittering with annoyance, possibly the suppressed urge to snap back at her rudeness. "Nothing was said to us, Clementine. Lemon was the first to start the conversation. Maybe they don't even want anything." Living would be nice. You force yourself to calm down. They don't seem interested in you at all, more occupied with arguing amongst themselves. There's a fourth head who has been quiet during the entire exchange, hesitant to speak.

Right off the bat, they're clearly nothing like the emperors you were told of as a hatchling. Violent, uncontrollable, monstrous beasts prepared to churn the earth and tear apart the world and everything in it. Completely unaware of their own draconity and overcome with the urge to destroy, yet helpless to stop themselves from doing so simply out of lack of awareness. The blue head lets out an offended squawk as Clementine spits out a jolt of arcane magic at him, reveling in his reaction. This emperor is completely aware of their actions, it seems, and the heads are.. acting like children, really. Lemon is quite literally caught in the middle of the two other dragons, arching his neck backwards to move out of the way, as if trying to somehow avoid association. Or he's just trying to hide his snickering.

Unexpectedly, the fourth one starts talking to you, gazing wearily. His voice is soft and yet somehow strained, like pulled fibers. He's incredibly quiet compared to the other two squabbling like crows, but they very quickly go silent so that he can be heard.

"We're not.." The deep red dragon seems to force out the words, as if talking is an effort. "We're not.. being angry, are we?" You don't understand. The blue imperial clarifies for you:
"He wants to know whether we're being destructive, or if we're just having an argument. Like in the stories." Lemon and Clementine join in, speaking in near unison.
"Yeah! Like the one where it's the perspective of the imperials and they're playing in a field or something and then it cuts to the perspective of the dragons and they're wrecking stuff!" Lemon grins, as does Clementine, but her face quickly contorts into a scowl. "I hate when that happens.." You shake your head 'no', averting your gaze awkwardly. This is kind of weird. Actually, it's very weird, this entire tribe is weird and you can't decide at all what the icing on the cake is.

Boot is more reassuring. "Don't worry, Lime. They're arguing but no one is acting out." The sky watcher winces suddenly, and slowly adjusts his position on the tree branch, trying to get more comfortable. All four heads watch him, making sure he's alright, then turn back to you.
"Sorry for not telling you we were an emperor! Bet I got you though, huh?" He says, but he's grinning so you're not sure how genuine the apology actually is. Clementine still wears a frown, but her voice is more even now.
"You're lucky magic is weaker here than in other places. Be more careful next time, we don't want anyone to hurt us." She says, stretching out a pair of butterfly patterned wings. You wonder who in Sornieth could cause them notable damage other than the deities themselves. Maybe a big group of dragons, like some ridgebacks, but even then.. surely they have little to fear? The blue head however, you still haven't caught his name, nods.
"Yes, you must be more careful, Lemon." He lightly scolds him. They sit down, flicking one tail and tangling two together. Their first set of arms reach up to adjust their hat carefully, and the second set digs its claws into the dirt, fidgeting.

"..I feel like going for a walk." Clementine says quietly. Blue imperial hums in agreement. "That sounds nice. I could do with stretching my legs." Lime is unresponsive once more, but Lemon appears disappointed to leave. He lets out a whine of protest, not thrilled at the idea, but turns around anyway, yelping a "See you around!" to you and Boot, the goodbye overlapping with "Have a good night.." from Lime, ever so quietly.

"Interesting bunch, aren't they?" The spiral says. Uh.. yeah. "If you want to refer to them collectively, call them 'Citric'." You thank him for the info, still unsure what to make of it all. Boot adjusts his position again, pulling his body up a little so that he's situated higher up in the dead tree, and his spine is stretching out more. "Well, I'm going to sleep. My back hurts. They should be back soon, so don't worry about me. Goodnight, friend.." You head back in, echoing the goodnight, just in time for the nocturnes to begin swarming from the cave. Definitely time to sleep..




- 4 heads
- 4 wings
- 8 legs + one merging with the right front one
- three tails

I read somewhere that spiders have eight legs because then they have spares when they damage one..
What are you implying?
Nothing, nothing... I just think it's useful to know since we also have eight legs, excluding the one that doesn't work.
We're not a spider. No spider dragon here. And we only use four of them, damaged or not.
What if we tried running with all of them at once though?! That would be so cool!
We don't have that level of co-operation yet..
But we could practice control that way and learn to work together at the same time.
Come on! Let's go try it, it'll be fun.
Ugh.. I won't take the blame if we crash into something.