Rakeshi

-Job title by Rakeshi!!!
-addendum by Sorna, daughter of Chocofraxis and priestess of the Flamecaller

Rakeshi came into the world centuries past the death of his parents in long ago glorious combat with the forces of the Southern Icefield, a dormant egg protected by a last sacrifice and a light flung into the future for his breed.

He remembers none of it, his first memory being breaking free of his egg and curling into the big, warm body of a massive female dragon. The clan calls her priestess, he calls her Mama.

Rakeshi can usually be found trying to play with the smoke coming from the portable forge Mama carries while he sits on her back, he feels comfortable there but safest up against her belly curled like he's still in his egg. Mama is warm.

Sorna, though occupied currently with training the devotees going to Flamecaller during the flying of the Nocturnes, has embraced parenting one of the goddess' long lost first children, even if he did take up Wind when he broke his egg. Maybe their clan is too close to the Windswept Plateau's territory?

Rakeshi is irrepressibly curious, getting into things when he's not feeling like clinging to priestess mama. Ruby and Lacy are particular targets as Rakeshi tries to join their singing, their hums as they tend their own eggs reminding him of something he heard long ago before he ever hatched, another Mama's voice.

Ruby and Lacy, about to be parents to twins, had already refused to add the two re-awakened Banescale eggs to their clutch and try to discourage Rakeshi's interest when he plants his baby self on the edges of nests to look at the other eggs as their parents tend them.

But the egg Rakeshi is most curious about and can be found curled around when sleeping with Mama is the second Banescale egg. Can you feel a bond of centuries with someone you've never met? Then that egg hatched out one hot morning on the Ashfall Waste, warmed by the heat of the Great Furnace and the body of the priestess.

And Thrawn was born, and Rakeshi felt complete. Though as a baby he missed his egg friend, a bond began from the egg was locked into place. Rakeshi is now an adolescent, having mastered his wings and able to fly smoothly without crashing into trees, rocks, clouds, and Pearlcatchers who lead clans.

He's eager to do what the rest of his clan and family do and enter the Coliseum to hunt food and search for treasures, but Sorna is having apoplexy at the idea of the Flamecaller's blessed going into fights with the Beastclans. Rakeshi just wants to get out and have fun kicking some Beast butt.

Rakeshi has entered his first battles, training alongside the acolytes bound for the Flamecaller. Though he misses the now Exalted Mirror dragons that he fought with to train in the Coliseum in combat, he's on his way to being a warrior, in his own cheerful goofy way as he curiously checks in on clan leader Auriela's new laid eggs. He has his slash and strength stones now, and knows that his Wind powers will help the clan's great trio of Guardian dragons against the forces of Earth in battles to come.

Now a level 12 dragon and skilled in battle, Rakeshi's worldview took a hard shift with the arrival of two female Banescales, Nyobe and Ashiya. He's never seen a girl before, at least his own breed. Rakeshi stumbled over his own feathers the first time he tried to talk to them after rescuing them in the Scorched Forest, and knew he hadn't impressed Nyobe with that move.

Rakeshi and Thrawn, both young adults now, moved into their own smaller cave above the main cave chambers in their mountain. Gathering insects, hunting and fishing with the two females who despite insisting they were wanderers hadn't left and seemed to be setting up house in the Banescales' cave, Rakeshi puffed up his chest and showed off his plumage trying to impress Nyobe, while also making her laugh with making the fish they caught "talk" and the tricks he's trained his kelpie to do.

He thought it was just a night hunt for bats when Nyobe asked him to fly with her. The flight turned into a chase, and Rakeshi knew that all his efforts to fix his first bad impression with Nyobe were working. It was just a flight, right? But as Nyobe looked at him and bumped his wing with hers, dared him to catch her and took off flying hard, Rakeshi chased.

Her body was longer, but his wings were broader and he was stronger, using his Wind magic and feathers to execute hairpin turns in flight to chase the thinner female. This was it, Rakeshi knew this was his last chance to prove himself as not just a goofball Wind dragon to Nyobe. He put all his energy and strength into the chase, feeling something very new as he pursued Nyobe through the smoky clouds above the Ashfall Waste.

Finally, thinking that all's fair in love and Coli, Rakeshi used a Wind Slash to break her flight rhythm, and immediately started apologizing for it as he managed to grab onto her with his talons and arrest her fall. Nyobe just grinned and bumped the base of his neck with her horns.

Now Rakeshi finds himself with a new and intimidating responsibility as the four Banescales make their housekeeping in a new cave, for all the time Rakeshi sat full of curiousity on the edge of a nest with other clan dragon's eggs, now he has his own to watch and guard.

Nyobe talks about the future of their breed and generations to come, but he's happy just to care for their own clutch for now. Days passed tending and turning his and Nyobe's eggs, interspersed with Rakeshi's efforts to feed their eggs.

It was explained to the young father that eggs do not need fed and Rakeshi followed the instructions of the older dragons for how to care for the eggs with a level of serious focus that surprised even Thrawn from his oldest friend.

Rakeshi was tending the nest when he saw the first hatchling nose sticking out and ran for his mate to come and see their babies starting to hatch. Enthralled as he gently turned the cracking egg so the hatchling was facing up properly, he didn't see Nyobe's fear.

The next morning, Rakeshi woke up having spent the night being the one to watch and tend their eggs while Nyobe slept. The first egg had cracked more, the baby had her head completely out and one wing. Rakeshi quickly asked Amelia to watch the eggs and went to get Nyobe to see their first daughter. But Nyobe's things were gone from their cave, and Thrawn was up and looking as well.

Ashiya and Nyobe were both gone, and had taken their things from the cave. Rakeshi looked at the hollowed and polished space where he and Nyobe had worked out a routine to sleep in their cave and their chamber. And he knew she was gone, the wanderer unwilling to stay in a settled clan life.

Though heatbroken, Rakeshi had three little eggs relying on him and left the cave to go back to the nesting grounds, as the first girl shook off her shell, her feathers wrapped in waxy sheathes. And her body and wings bore her mother's savannah and safari stripes, her body a perfect place in between her parents' shades of green.

Rakeshi cleaned and preened the baby, holding the small hatchling between his feet as he tended to the newborn and tucked her under his wing as he sat protectively over the other two eggs, ready to raise them alone if he had to. The clan helped him name the hatched girl, Eliana, "light," because a baby cannot be named Awesome.

The flapping of leathery wings got Rakeshi's attention as he turned the other two hatching eggs upright. Nyobe was back, her eyes spilling with hot tears as she dropped the bag she carried, and the haunted stone orb he'd given her rolled out. Speaking no more of it, Rakeshi bumped her horns with his and hugged her, as their first daughter snuggled into her mother.

The other two hatched to see both their parents together and their older sister over their nest to welcome them.