Raerek

Raerek woke up to a few feelings after the crash. The first was the disturbing realization that a long black tail was in his lap, bearing a dark tuft of fur. Shoving the tail away and trying to figure which crewman it belonged to, Raerek realized his own hands and fingers had turned scaled and clawed. A massive black creature was stuck ridiculously so in the captain's chair, a long black body that shone with crystalline facets and seemed to take up the whole bridge.

Raerek struggled up, realizing that he and rest of the bridge crew had turned into strange beasts. Raerek worked to free trapped crew and organized the effort with the big beast that Avril had turned into and Dr. Garrison's new powerful build to get the captain free.

Now the crew shelters in what their native guide Selira has declared a lair, and Raerek is most deeply upset by one thing about his new form. Formerly a strict vegetarian in accordance with his religion back home, Selira has informed that his new race is called a "Wildclaw." And they only eat meat.
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Executive Officer's Log - Day 20
We are surviving as best we can. Silas has managed to salvage with my help as one of the more dexterous races on this new world a significant amount of our comms equipment from the crashed ship. We are attempting to broadcast a distress signal from the highest point we can easily reach by climbing the nearby mountains. Lieutenant Nantais is the only one who has experimented so far with these wings we all have and came back extremely enthused about flying under her own power.

Which really isn't a surprised for a pilot, but I digress. Food is plentiful to gather at least and our group is small. Though I fear the longer we're here, that our group will grow in size. We were exploring our lair site in more depth today and found several open pits of boiling lava. Selira explained that these are nests of the Fire element, as we are in the territory of the Fire element and the Sorniethan's fire goddess the Flamecaller. Out of curiosity, I asked Selira what "element" I am. She fluttered in my face to look me in the eye, almost knocking off my hat, and told me I'm a Nature dragon.

Furthermore, because I'm a Wildclaw, apparently if I fought, I'd have attacks to "Scratch" and "Shred." She says that as a Fae dragon, her attacks are "Meditate" and "Contuse." But she insists we shouldn't fight yet and should avoid the battles, though while hunting recently I saw a team of three native Guardians like our Avril unit fighting several stone cats in the area that Selira calls the Scorched Forest. It was exciting to watch from a distance, but brutal as the blood flew and the cats were shattered into fragments of "augite" according to Selira.

Executive Officers' Log - Day 32
Our clan participated today in the Greenskeeper Gathering festival, a celebration of the Gladekeeper and the Nature flight. We traveled from our lair with many other dragons from here in the Ashfall Waste to the Viridian Labyrinth. I didn't believe what Selira said it would feel like for me.

Until we crossed the Tangled Wood and entered the green of the Labyrinth. It felt like home, like rightness. I breathed deep and it was such a feeling of relaxation. Parades and games and sporting fights took place as we joined the celebrations. In the Shrieking Wilds, though I had never been there before, I saw so many others of my new race. Selira asked me if I would be visiting my clan, but I had to re-explain to her that because of our circumstances, I did not actually hatch here. But I wish I had. The green feels right as we take the hospitality of the Nature folk and visit other bands of my race, Wildclaws. As I see the lush greenery tended by the dragons, I get why my race only eats meat, if the locals are right and the Gladekeeper created them. And maybe re-made me.

Executive Officer's Log - Day 65
It was always in my life plan of sorts to someday get married, have children. But the circumstances of it were something I never imagined back in New Delhi applying for the fleet. Selira is overjoyed for us, talking about how our clan is finally growing.

We all saw Enya getting slower and thicker and I was concerned about her. Then, I thought about what we had done while hunting and asked if she was pregnant. She didn't understand the word of course, since the Sorniethans, or at least the dragon races are egg-layers. I went off on a tangent trying to explain that like some of the mammal Beastclans, what me and the rest of the crew were before carried a child for months and gave birth to a live baby.

Then I just asked about eggs. My wife started to cry, and used her scarf to wipe tears. I hugged around her neck and told her it was great, I could never be upset about this. Still crying, Enya told me why she had initially decided to be with us and with me, because our clan had no hatchlings and she hoped we wouldn't care that her eggs have never hatched, when other men had left her when the eggs didn't hatch.

Of course I told her hatch or no hatch, it would change nothing about how I felt for her, if they hatch this time I'd love them all, one or four! it made no difference. If they didn't hatch it would change nothing about my feelings for her and I was still here for her.

She laid today, three eggs! While having triplets had never been something I'd really imagined, apparently Sorniethans can have as many as five eggs at once! Since we're the same breed, Selira and Enya say that we could have had four, so three is not even as high as it could have been.

Three! Closing this log entry now, because we've just incubated the eggs for the day and have to hunt for the children we're going to have.

Executive Officer's Log - Day 95
I don't know what to do to comfort her. The eggs still look healthy to me but should have hatched already according to both Enya and Selira. I can see the light and hope fading in her eyes and it hurts.

There may be one thing though, Erin told me this morning about her brother back in Portland who breeds snakes, and how reptile breeders will cut open eggs to keep the snake from dying in the shell. If I'm careful with one of the surgical lasers from the ship, maybe, I can save our eggs.