Creative Corner

Another nest.

Ginn didn't appreciate the one before enough. So he resolves to do better by this batch. A perpetuated sentiment, he thinks.

Not that the ones younger than him ever had eggs in their care before, but they still resolve to do right by the next generation and oh, Ginn really is fast losing any opportunity to call those four hatchlings to their face.

After a silly, furtive, useless look about he tells the eggs about it instead. He uses his words and all. They don't have functioning, open eyes for him to do it any other way, but the spark that leaps about when anyone pays them attention means it's a sacrifice he can deign to make.

He pats the nearest one for one last crackle and walks away, just in time for Prawn, Caesar and... that's Kekki, to come walking down the tunnel his way.

Scrubbed too raw for that kinda conversation Ginn turns the other way and ducks into the next nearest chamber; Trouble's mad laboratory.

Her occupied mad laboratory, he notes the very next second.

Ginn slinks forward anyway.

"They can be a bit much, huh?" Trouble says, seemingly to the goey substance she then smears into the cauldron. As if in answer, the brew, low-simmering, burps.

He gives himself a pass on not taking the flicker of the fire as sign someone would be here, with how she has no problems letting conoctations bubble away unsupervised. He does recriminate himself on coming in anyway, even with the hurry he was in, since the only thing worse than an alchemical experiment is a hot alchemical experiment. (He assumes.)

Should be fine with supervision, though.

Regardless, Ginn gives everything as much of a berth as he can as he circles.

"Not that everything is the same for everyone under every circumstance. And even with just one person, they might be able to handle one thing and not handle another thing. Knowing what's which is such an underrated trait? People should pay more attention to themselves," she says, still without any (other) sign she's noted his presence.

It's a compliment, in her way, and Ginn supposes he appreciates that.

He lies down and dozes and watches Trouble toss ever more identifiable substances and unindentifiable bodyparts in. A good portion of the night is spend that way, in silence.

Yet eventually, inevitably, he blinks open his eyes to see the fire put out and her tidying some ingredients on the other side of the chamber. For a moment he wonders stupidly how she knows where things are. Then his light sensitive eyes catch on the glow the embers throw over the chamber.

That won't help her much longer, though. In fact, Ginn judges it might already be past that point where what she's doing is at all safe or viable. After all, alchemy has something to do with colors and stuff, right?

That's about when Trouble abandons the pretence. Having, of course (?), noted him come aware with her species' super special surplus sense.

She squints vaguely in his direction, even chuckles herself a time or two, and then she promptly and without further unnecessary conversation throws him out of her space.

He looks the way of the communal sleeping chamber with consideration and decides not to chance it just yet. Walking the other way, he shakes his head.

'Knowing what you can handle and what you can't', huh?

Slowing down has Ginn find himself in front of the nest chamber almost on accident. He stops completely and waits, but gets no indication of anyone still being in there.

Regardless, just gonna take a quick look, and so promising himself he stalks forward. With, indeed, noone there, a quick look turns into five minutes for each egg and only not falling asleep on the spot because that would be irresponsible.

It's soothing, though. Good for the spirit. The proverbial calm before the storm of curious hatchlings.

He thinks seriously that if offspring just appeared, noone would bother to have any. To care for them.

Okay, evidently that's more than enough for today.

Proving him right with truly terrible timing, a cracking noise sounds from behind.

Trouble almost goes back to sleep. Would have, if not for Redge throwing the pearl at her with extreme predjuice. Unwarranted, mind. In every sense of that word.

Regardless, she's awake and on her paws now. With something happening with the eggs, though she sincerly doubts she or anyone would be capable of offering any aid whatsoever if it's bad news, she might as well go be there.

She might as well go make sure Redge gets a chance to be there, since so far her nestmate always managed to miss these things. Trouble certainly gets enough of a sense of anticipation of her to make bothering worth her while.

Never before had she cause to use the word, but it's a little something of a crowd, in the hallway in front of the nest chamber. Better than directly in the nest chamber. She presumes. And to check, muscles her and Redge along.

Caesar, cause of the hold-up, lets them right on through without stopping to berate the not-the-hatchlings-anymore.

"I feel a little bad about that," Trouble says as an aside, absentmindedly.

Redge shoots her a look but is the next second too distracted to follow up.

Something is, indeed, hatching.

Oh, and also Ascan sits there, even more frazzled than usual as evident by his grip on his magic slipping.

"Something is wrong with one of them!"

Trouble comes forward the last couple steps.

The eggs illuminate the scene well enough, even however late it is at night, deep in their underground lair.

Of the eggs themselves, two are of note, which makes perfect sense (and also explains Eszs absence). One is already in some pieces, the dragon within struggeling feebly and rather furtively, its everything wet and weak, the way some are as they hatch. Undoubtly the Spiral will twist or fight its way free soon enough.

But the other has not a crack in its shell, and yets its light sputters out and fades.

"Should we help break it open?" Redge asks as she flattens herself to the floor next to it, for once sounding exactly as uncertain as she feels.

In some situations there's no time for posturing and egos.

Trouble herself fights to focus. What's the best possible course of action, here?

"I'm getting Caesar," Ascan says, but she snaps open her wings before he can lurch particularly far.

The three sharpest minds in the clan and... "No." She shakes her head. "Either the hatchling will pull through or they won't."

Both of them stare at Trouble with - too much. Neither argue. Why waste such time? Ascan slips past her while Redge lifts it out of the nest to nose at. And not disturb the rest further.

Realizing the decisions are made and not wanting to fight regardless, Trouble slides out of the way of whatever might come next, to that place between the nest and the wall, to keep half an eye on the one that will make it.

---

Notes:
Got another two eggs, Ice and Plague, brinign the current count up to eight (8). At least I think I might soon be able to just use them when I get them.
As for the rest of the festival haul, I got two Eliminates, 5 genes and 73 chests. Go me. Now if only I could manage to use this wealth to commission some art.

It falls to Prawn to usher along everyone.

In this case everyone includes Kekki, Esz and Ginn, somewhat understandibly, even the last one, as having nothing to do or contribute, and also Ascan, because he's a coward.

The group spills out into the open, lightning nearby the only illumination in the night. Prawn turns to the sky but can't make out even an outline of the moon through the storm. He doesn't know whether that's auspicious, or what. He's barely ever seen any stars in his life.

A touch on his shoulder pulls his focus back to the ground, Ginns frontpaws, used to allow him to make compforting noises at Ascan. The spiral tightens his coil around him and otherwise fails to react even after a minute of that, so Prawn dissuades that for now by stepping back.

He needs to forgive Caesar his earlier obstinancy.

If things can go this wrong, there's no place for spectators there.

Like she's along that exact same line of thought, Esz says, "It was said they might not, but..." Before trailing off.

The air is really too oppressive to talk about it right now. Not that they even could talk! They don't know anything. It's all speculation.

Kekki tries to start up some other line of conversation, Stormcatcher bless her, but the attempt falls flat also.

Prawn is a little glad. They can't always just gloss over every unpleasant thing happening to and in the clan, he's come to realize recently.

Not that that leaves him with an idea of what to do instead, right now, and also later, when people aren't so in shock anymore.

They find themselves lying down in a kind of circle, and then shuffle till it's the usual cuddle pile, with him down at the bottom on account of size and weight and disregard to all his sharp, unwelcome edges.

Noone falls back asleep, he doesn't think, but they relax and Ascan even unwinds and so he silently takes the victory.

Some time later the women begin to whisper to another, not about what might have gone down, but not plain distraction either, and after disregarding the contents, Prawn finds himself lulled deeper down.

It's as nice as the night could ever hope to get, and then Ginn lifts his head and everyone tenses up all over again as conversation ceases.

Prawn registers where they're all looking at as the entrance to the lair, means to relax, since it's just Redge, and can't the next moment, for trepidation at what news she might have.

"Congratulations, it's a Spiral," Redge says. In her defense, she has kind of had a long day, and there is no good way to say this, anyway.

Ascan's head and neck resolves itself into an additional bit of silhouette to the side at the top of the dragon pile. "Two of them...?"

"No, just one." The other would have been a Skydancer. She did crack it open, in the end, but Trouble had the right idea of it. Nothing could be done. Not at that point, possibly not ever.

She wonders. There has got to be, like, doctors and stuff, right? Knowledge?

Ascan drops back into the outline to the sounds of shifting and sharp inhales.

When noone says anymore, Redge flaunders. With her task done, should she go? Go where? Try to fall back asleep??

"Can we go look now?" Prawn asks sensibly and not at all with whatever else one could put into those words. Is it just that tall dragons automatically seem more mature or did he, like, absorb some of whatever Caesar has through exposure? He has more surface area for touching.

She's tired, now the excitement's over. Also, she doesn't know the answer, since for some reason noone thought to say anything to her about it. Is she to guess?

"I don't know," she says, too honest. "I suppose you could try one at a time? They relocated with the hatchling to one of the empty chambers near the storage room. On the left."

Ginn is the first one to distangle himself. He leans into her as he walks past. She thought he might have been similarily done with the day, as he certainly rushed to push the responsibility on someone else earlier, but apparently not. Or he is just going to sleep, away from these balls of misery now someone else is here to, what?

With a long disparaging look up at the storm Redge gathers herself. "You should come inside as well. Maybe eat something."

Kekki, or possibly Esz, who's taken to doing disconcerting things with (and to) her voice, raises a protest. Half of one. Prawn standing up dislodges both of them and the objection cuts off with a yelp.

"I could eat," he says, perfectly benign.

Redge laughs at him in gratitude. Maybe that's just their respective personalities. Not like she knows near enouch dragons to make any such sweeping statements one way or the other.

She turns and they follow, as best she can tell. They need to do something about the light situation in their lair now it goes so deep and isn't an issue that comes up only at night, though the time of day hardly helps.

Caesar flicks his tail, the tassel on it clicking against the ground, while the Spiral hatchling and Esz's Quillrunner familiar both track the motion and the bauble with blatant interest.

"I'm surprised anew again every time that hatchlings are like this," Trouble comments half-conspiratorial, which coming from her is incredibly rich.

"As opposed to like what?"

"Uhh," she stares at the side of his head. "Lazy? Vindictive? I don't know. What's some people characteristics?"

"As opposed to characteristics of not-people?"

She snaps her beak at him. The sound of it has hatchling and cat look up. His tail sweeps the other way quite without permission, predictably drawing their attention once more.

"At this age do hatchlings even count as people?"

She cringes before Caesar even swings his head around.

He closes his mouth, teeth pressed together too hard for a moment. At this age, nothing he could say could hope to have any effect, he doesn't think. And yet. "Trouble, what?" he asks, careful not to sound judgemental, for all the good that will do with a Skydancer.

"I just - I don't know." She ducks down, shakes out her wings, feathers bending in the wind till she has the excuse to attend to them to avoid facing him. "What's the definition of personhood, really? Intelligence or something, right?" She forgets herself or his ire. "Though maybe the question should then be about dragonhood, considering beastclan, but that, mhh." She gazes into the distance, thinking heavy thoughts indeed.

At that moment Quillrunner takes advantage of his distraction to pounce. The claws and even the teeth in his tail are a minor annoyance at most, barely ******, but then it tugs particularly hard and Caesar feels the bead slip free. By snapping open a wing he gets it to let go only just in time. Even so the hatchling twists themself to ribbons in delight.

He supposes he doesn't begrudge them their joy, it's simply so very strange to think of Spirals as predators in their own right. The way he knows it Spirals are healers, artists, teachers and - engineers.

What they make and do, not what they eat or how they acquire it, which the Spiral clan members Before might well never had to.

"The clan might be back to a respectable size in my lifetime," he says when he realizes.

Trouble comes back around to give him a long look. Evaluating. But says only, lightly, "Don't Imperials live way long?"

"Your lifetime, then."

"It's going to be interesting," she eventually - acknowledges? "But one would hope life was going to be, anyway." She turns from him then to call to the hatchling, who comes gladly, after one last rub at Quillrunner. She proceeds to test their responses for something. Caesar would rather not think on it further and leaves, despite everything not the least concerned to have the hatchling alone with Trouble.

As he doesn't care to wonder at that either, he stops.

He thinks he will ask around whether someone would like to go get some food with him. Their stores still need to be shored up a little and he wants to.

It's Kekki, meaning only well, Caesar knows, who brings the topic up again after he had hoped it finally dead.

He sidesteps verbally, encourages her to go play with Elwy, enjoys a minute of unsettling peace and is told to go look for Ginn. As he apparently went off on his own.

"When was this?"

"A while ago?" For confirmation Ascan looks at Prawn, so Caesar does, too.

Prawn elaborates, "We were out hunting, when a Stormseeker made a fuss. We assumed it to be his and split, us to get some more insects before we'd carry our bounty back, he to follow it, see what the problem was."

"You got into a scrape, got back late and learned he still hadn't arrived," he guesses from their somewhat bedraggled state.

"We found a kind of cave thing?" Ascan says. "It wasn't worth it."

"We'll tell everyone about that later, we just thought ascertaining Ginns wherabouts had some priority."

Before Caesar can anything Ascan pipes up again. "We should do a map, of the area. Within a days travel of the lair, maybe. Then we could just point there where we split and what direction Ginn went."

Not a bad thought, but. "Mention it to one of the hatchlings later. For now point me in the general direction and then go rest, have your wounds looked at, if applicable."

When Prawn shrugs agreement Caesar extracts himself before the conversation can drag on.

Now to get someone to come with, as he shouldn't go out on his own either, and if he can at the same time ascertain Ginn really didn't come back yet to go sleep in a dark corner somewhere, the better. By which he means the better would be if he found that the case.

It's not to be. Noone's seen or heard of Ginn since this morning, nor does a cursory look about the lair reveal him.

"I hadn't really thought Ascan and Prawn to raise the alarm errenously-"

"-but it would have been nice," Trouble finishes, a displeased angle to her headcrest.

Redge allows for more outward concern. "Ginn should know better." Her words, on the other hand....

Trouble leads the conversation down some branchpath on how technically that was never a rule and if it were noone would much obey anyway, since no problems have been seen lately.

When there's an issue, Caesar always ends up talking to these two. This time he actively has a good reason? In that flying is faster and surely they should hurry. He supposes he could ask for Esz to accompany him, but she looked happy to entertain Elwy, while these two weren't doing anything much he could tell.

He interrupts to ask, "Which of you is coming with me?"

They share a look, tempted, he thinks, to answer 'both', but after a moment Redge steps back to leave Trouble the stage, still a coward in the face of possible combat and less helpful for locating someone as well, while suited well enough from her disposition to taking the reins of day-to-day affairs.

Trouble and him leave immediately.

"Think this is where they split?" Trouble scrutinizes the ground, but Caesar is looking up at the Storm.

He says, "Should we have checked whether his familiar was at the lair?" He sees some birds, or at least some flying things, way in the distance, but they don't have the right colors. Still worth taking a look, maybe, if it wasn't most of the way in the other direction from where Ginn probably went. "It has to be," Caesar answers her question. "Let's go."

With nothing in the way of tracks, they once more take flight, even if they do still stay rather lower than he's now used to. Unlikely to notice any clues from that altitude, though.

"We'll feel real silly if we search half the night and he's waiting innocently at the lair when we get back," Trouble calls.

He obliges her with a laugh, almost no dread pressing down upon the space between his wings at the thought of upon return finding a part of his home somehow unexpected. "Unless you know something I don't, Ginn's not shameless enough to affect innocence after this stunt."

She glides to the side a little when she shrugs, obviously knowing many things he doesn't and kindly not drawing attention to it. Or any of them.


The beast takes them by surprise. Nothing the size of a heavyweight dragon should be able to take anything by surprise, to say nothing of its bright green color, hardly blending in with the grey and yellow of the desert. But then both of that holds true for Caesar as well, and he does just fine sneaking up on his clanmates. Someting he won't ever do again, if this is what it feels like.

The two of them come upon a rock formation and he moves to go over and she moves to go around and it's the only thing that saves them, that misshapp and distance, as before either of them can change course and they laugh things off it bursts into the air between them, where they had just been.

He swerves away to the side and Trouble dives down, which unsurprisingly makes her the more appealing target. Instincts will only get you so far. All of his are screaming at him as he turns to slam into it with as much force as he can gather in the moments between.

Only the vision of this gigantic bird catching her the way she would an insect, a meal, allows Caesar to go through with it.

Once no longer as taken off guard or pursued so intently she manages to get away, he sees, before really not having any more attention to spare.

Him and the beast grapple. As a dragon he has two limps full of claws more at his disposal, and his clothing, which does a hell of a job keeping him safe comparatively, as the situation really tests. But the beasts talons are far longer and its wicked, snapping beak he would like to avoid at all costs. It wouldn't rip Caesar apart at once the way it would a smaller dragon, but.

He jerks back just in time when the beast turns for a better angle. Twisting in turn almost allows him to get his claws into its wings.

He needs to -

"Get away! I'm using magic!" Trouble shouts from somewhere above.

He coils tight and spares half a glance for the surroundings. She's at the top of the rock formation he's far too close to. With one wing snapped wide and his weight thrown about he disengages in such a fashion they're thrown apart, him clear, the Roc into the cliff.

It screams, and again when the attack hits, and a third time for a second when it hits the ground, as they weren't high enough for it to get its bearings on the way down, to even just soften the landing, but it's still moving, shaking its head as if to clear it and dragging itself back to its feet after barely a moment. ****.

Not wanting to be available when it's sorted itself out, he dives into a crevice.

Possibly precisely the one it burst out from in the first place. Most of the openings support travel for something its size.

Surprisingly enough its lair isn't the refugee he thought!

Caesar swallows down a sound that might have turned into a laugh and chooses turns he hopes will lead him upwards and out.

Right, a Roc, that's what this must be. At least he doesn't know of any other giant ******* birds making their home in the Shifting Expanse. Not that he knows anything but a name and matching description of these, either, nothing of help for the situation at hand.

If they leave, will it follow them straight back to their lair? Or would it lose interest eventually, provided Trouble's faster than it? And what about Ginn? He's smaller than all three of them, so he might have hunkered down in a place noone can get at, if this is even where he went at all.

Feeling more hunted than he has ever before in his life, Caesar reaches to the top of the formation and looks up to see a Stormseeker circling overhead.

It sees him in turn and dives to tuck itself under his wing, disspelling the last vertiges of uncertainty as to its belonging.

He crouches, for all the good that won't do him.

With Ginn here also, Caesar needs to either find him and Trouble both and they then somehow flee at some speed, successfully, without leading the Roc to their lair. Or, hear him out, kill it. And then berate Ginn and make it back to the lair.

He doesn't know which is less difficult, really.

He isn't going to call out, that seems like a bad idea?

So he supposes it all depends on who he encounters first.

The tiny troublesome bird is his problem for the moment, and it really underscores the point by refusing to stop trying to burrow closer. With a silent growl Caesar adjusts his wing over it instead, which can't be made to be compfortable.

Whatever.

He stalks to the closest edge. Nothing to see down there. For want of any other idea, he hugs the drop as he walks, taking moderate care not to be visible from below. The equivalent of which is of course what everyone else, bird included, is also doing. The urge to call out after all rises up.

Nothing at all to be seen from this level he's on. After jumping to the next platform, he jostles Stormseeker and asks under his breath, "Don't you know how to find them? Your owner, or at least Trouble, magic user?" Dumb bird that it is, it doesn't respond.

Caesar sighs.

The sun might be beginning to set?

Eventually more people will come looking. That needs to headed off at the pass.

Ten more fruitless minutes later he takes flight. First he gains some height, then he gets some distance away. All without problem. Not counting or acknowledging all his minor hurts and wounds.

It all gets him nothing except the faint hope the Roc is similiarily exhausted. Done with the day.

He circles back down, closer, thinking to do a loop around it, get a look at all sides. He begins to whistle, loud and long.

Badly imitated bird sounds echo out of a small opening in response. He hovers in the air before it, debatating waiting or doing a full perimeter first.

Birds were the wrong way to go. Something like a roar, except utterly un-draconian, sounds from deep inside. All other noise ceases. Then, a fight.

Caesar sticks his head into the opening, but it only gets narrower as it goes on, leaving him if not stuck entirely then still without use of his wings, to simply run, slow, and already he's wasting time-

Furious, he rips himself away, backtracks a couple lengths to a passageway he'll have means to traverse at some speed and after a last moments hesitation, for himself and the Stormseeker in case it wants to bail now, throws himself in.

A cry, pained and discernibly Ginn, has him take the turns faster and choose directions with less care.

Probably any noise was a bad idea.

So is this, just running in, but Caesar is already committed now.

He bursts onto the scene after taking a wrong turn and backtracking just once and immediately decides not to let anyone out of his sight again. Because Trouble is there also, must have come running, brave fools, all of them, and you should know your enemies location, obviously. Because the Roc is there, menancing her where she's shielding Ginn.

Caesar takes another moment to assess the situation, settle on a plan of action, a plan of attack, more like. And as they in turn all take him in, for he's not quiet or inconspicious for once, he thinks that maybe it's not so much menancing for the hell of it as protecting its lair, territory, self, possibly eggs?? Growling at it and himself, both, because he can't feel sorry for it, motives don't change anything, he takes a step forward and spreads his wings, making himself, he hopes, the biggest and most imminent target and threat.

Certainly it turns to face him more fully. Ginn slinks away in only a few seconds.

"Meet outside!" Caesar calls. "We're leaving!" And that's the Rocs cue, it charges.

Turns out, the only thing worse than fighting something bigger than himself is fighting something bigger than himself in an enclosed space. The chamber is big for sure, spacious by anyones standards, might have been a dragons lair at one point actually, the walls got that smoothed down feel to them. But being thrown into the rock, scrapping over it, being pressed against it with no way to evade an attack?

Yeah.

Lightning hits one of its wings, jumps to him and is lead harmlessly around by his garb for the most part. Clothing which got so much worse for wear and he might well will need to replace in its entirety. Caesars head covering, for example, got torn off altogether.

On the upshot it has his mouth free to bite its other wing.

It screeches again. So its beak isn't ripping at him for a moment, but its claws sure are, feet reflexively tightening in pain, after the electricity almost had them relaxed enough for him to slip loose.

Then-

Caesar comes to with a splitting headache, which sounds about right. For a moment he doesn't know why, except that he's not wearing his usual headdress, but then all his other pains and aches make themselves plain and the gross strokes of events come back to him.

He's alive, which is certainly something!

Now, to check whether that's true for anyone else. Trouble. And Ginn! And their bane. And...? The little bird!

Half-involuntarily and completely against his better judgement Caesar stretches. His everything throbs, but there's no sharp pain, so that's probably good.

No reason for him not to lift his head and look around, though.

---

This is as much as I've written. Kinda putting this on hold indefinitely.
Thanks everyone for reading so far.