Creative Corner

"Have fun."

"Are you just never going to voluntarily fight anything again?" Trouble asks, as apparently such needs asking.

Not yet willing to get into an argument with Redge, Caesar turns away and also sweeps out one wing to usher Ginn along. Meanwhile Redge withdraws emotionally, stung.

After deeming Ginn out of hearing rate she says, "No probably not."

Trouble flounders. Too many conflicting impulses, and then to have the rug pulled out from under her right at the start. She laughs a little.

Redge watches her impassively. Regally, even. When she has no answer, Redge takes pity and explains, "You know how we never particularly wanted to but were more afraid for Caesar than not?" Hands curled, Trouble bobs her head. "I don't know about things if the situation hadn't changed, with him experienced and competend fellows, you and even Ginn, at his side in any case. But that is the situation." Here Redge turns her head away, pearl lifted to further hide and emotions in upheavel. Everything against saying it and speaking anyway, "And I can't seek out a fight for anything."

Trouble breathes unsteadily. Nothing she can think of to respond she can actually say. Upsetting her friend further is not to be done and how would she know what wouldn't? This is a sensitive subject for good reason. Does Redge have the luxury of this hang-up? Does Caesar know? Does it matter? Ugh.

"The boys are waiting for you."

They are. Even at this considerable distance Trouble feels them. Though with noone else around to distract or confuse her...

She swallows down something trite like "At least you know" and flees.

The hunting party, as undoubtedly this is what they are, goes about wordlessly for a long while. And then there's fighting, which doesn't much lend itself to conversation, especially with Caesar and Trouble still so mindful of Ginn. Hardly warranted at this point, he's coming along quite nicely. By now she'd feel confident to let him run around alone, if a situation really requiered it. Though Caesar might well be mindful of both of them to an insulting degree. Comes with seeing someone grow up, she figures, and she did undergo changes recently.

Once no enemies are left, they pause. To catch their breaths. Well. With the battle ferocity wearing off everyone goes back to feeling tentaive and she sighs, so ******* sick of it, honestly.

"So how about running away into the wilderness alone?"

Ginn rears onto his hindlegs in alarm, but Caesar just grumbles from deep within his chest, unimpressed. Not unsympathic, however.

Trouble stretches her body with a sigh. "Yeah, no, just kidding, kiddo, it's cool. On another note, what can be done about food that's not this?"

Already Caesar steps forward to riffle through their loot. If nothing else his size has prospective attackers intimidated. She's not jealous, though. After giving her another look, making sure she's not about to vanish the moment he turns his back, Ginn jumps to join him.

"There's always agriculture."

"What?"

He explains.

Ginn and Trouble exchange a series of increasingly incredulous looks.

Eventually they have their food as well as a few inedible pieces for her to melt down. Caesar winds down as they prepare to make their way back.

"I suppose I can see how that could work some places," she says, as apparently beastclan does it. "But here?" Ginn snaps open a wing with which to gesture at their surroundings in agreement.

"Difficult, yet not impossible."

Trouble looks at the ground, the desert stretching into the distance no matter which direction she turns, only broken up at the horizon by a few Lightning Farms and of course the Tempest Spire rising from the ground, at the storm rolling and flashing overhead.

"We're gonna see, if we ever settle down," she says, careful to keep her scepticsm to a fond degree.

Redge watches them go till they disappear down an incline.

She sees no reason to feel guilty. The others easily bring enough food without her help, and even on days of travel everyone feds well. In fact, she suspects Caesar might be eating more than he cares to simply because he takes all that noone else does and they never exactly figured out how much they really need, nor how to restrict themselves to that.

She calls Strangler over, considers her pet. She has yet to get Caesar one, and then that would leave Trouble...

And in any case, they don't much get accosted on the road anymore. Flying rather preempts that, in that even if they don't see it coming from miles away they're too high up to be forced into a confrontation or indeed, she supposes, for those lying in ambush to take note of them. Then, when they choose to engage, Redge spots Ginn from a distance, ready to intervene at any moment with a magical attack, which frees up Caesars and Troubles attention as much as they allow. Not, she figures, that Ginn will need such special consideration much longer. He's coming along much faster than they ever did. Instinct, or perhaps the result of more experienced and pointed guidance.

Flying, under her own power, unassisted, is about the best part of the change, the one thing she'll never regret. With Strangler good, placid, boring company, she decides to stretch her wings.

She takes off and then immediately dips back down to grab Storm seeker. After failing to make any attempt at evasion the bird caws in surprise, but she's careful to keep her grip light.

It demonstrates its intelligence, or perhaps its apathy, by not struggeling. Used to holding her pearl, she pretty much forgets about it. Enjoys the wind against her skin, the static gathering in her fur. Unwinds. Right up until the bird begins to make an enourmous racket and she near squeezes the life out of it.

Coursecorrecting too hard has Redge drop it instead. For a moment she flexes that paw, surprised, and then she draws her wings close and drops in turn.

Killing your hatchlings pet is a big no-no. Though maybe she could spin it like it ran away? If Trouble choose to have mercy on her, anway.

On account of Storm seeker weighting less than her, by, uh, a margin, and of course its frantic attempts to slow down so as to not meet the ground at top speed, she reaches it before it can come to such an end. Redge lands, then, since she's going that way anyway. To say nothing of how she should check how much worse this mishap left it.

Not particularly, it turns out, that she can tell. On a decidedly positive note, the bird has got some life and fight in it. She had worried.

Now, how to keep this active demeanor around? Repetition might well inure it, to say nothing of how dropping it deliberately might well dismay Ginn. Redge conviently disregards the whim which made her take it in the first place. She only wanted to see whether it recovered enough for flight yet!

Which is a no, apparently. On the other paw, Storm seeker proves recovered and active enough to determindedly and loudly make its way to some outcropping.

Redge looks up to watch the storm. From what she can tell after a minute it hasn't changed, or at least not deviated from its usual patterns. Something else must be the matter, then. She transfers her pearl to a different paw with a sigh. Then, she goes to see what has the bird all aflutter.

---

Notes:
I really need to post stuff, once I've written it. On another topic, what do I do with the Banescale eggs? Add them (another two (2)) to the total egg pool, since that's not high enough already, at eight (8)?? And then there's NotN this month. I don't think I've been online for one of those since the first one.

When they return Redge isn't where they left her.

Caesar drops the part of the spoils he carries and, ignoring Troubles cries, takes off, high into the air.

In fact, there is no sign of Redge anywhere.

He alights to Trouble and Ginn looking at him, even though they must both know better. Nevertheless, he shakes his head.

They search the camp. It hasn't been disturbed. Trouble makes that same observation out loud.

"Redge could have just gone for a walk. Well, a flight," she says.

Caesar closes his eyes and tries to envision it. Finds he can't. He sees nothing to suggest a fight, and so instead scenes flash through his head where she's so terribly outmatched there is none. Her sleeping and a great flying beast snatching her off the ground before she is any the wiser. Magical attacks catching her similarily unaware. Even trickery, something crying for help a little ways away and when she goes to check it out against her better judgement a fight ensues where they won't be able to tell.

"What are we going to do?" Trouble asks, voice smaller than he has heard in a while. Picking up on his fears. And, he glances, on Ginns.

The youngest dragon stalks about anxiously. When he notes the eyes on him he points out - literally, by pointing a paw at Strangler and then at nothing - Storm seekers absence.

"Oh," Trouble says after another quick look around. Something fragile to her that's never been forced to the light before. "The bird ran away and she went after it?"

"Perhaps," Caesar says, mostly to soften them up for what comes next. "I'll go look for them. You'll wait here, for when they come back."

Ginn gives him a narrow-eyes look, distrust so heavy he'd find it adorable in most other circumstances. Then Troubles stillness draws their attention. She stares at him. With disbelief, he thinks. Then, predictibly, she glances at Ginn.

Caesar seizes his chance, says, "I'll be back by sundown," and takes flight once more.

Trouble doesn't follow him, can't carry Ginn herself and would not (yet) leave him behind alone in times of turmoil, even if she might bring him into danger with all the rest of them. Ginn can't, as, while he's plenty fast for a ground-bound dragon, Caesar outstrips him easily at the right altitudes. And he employs such now.


From the campsite on he spirals ever outward. Though he can't remember the exact circumstances he does recall an occasion Before where one of the older Clanmembers talked about search patterns. Methodical is best. And with no hint as to the general direction, except perhaps not the one they've come from, it feels to him to take a terribly long time. And he knows it does in fact take - waste, rather - time to dive and check out up close every irregularity in and on the ground and mesa cliffs. But Redge isn't that big, all told, and he might miss something from too high up, to say nothing of the sometimes artifically treacherous lay of the land.

Not far from the camp he sticks his head into an occupied burrow. The animals inside attack (read: defend their home), but as they don't have the strength to noteably scuff his highland garb he chooses to move on without investigating further. These couldn't have taken Redge without a fight.

More time elapses. Caesar is terribly conscious of it. He will be back by sundown, whether or not he has located Redge. It wouldn't at all do for Trouble and Ginn to also get lost.

When he finds Redge he sees and identifies her from some distance away and high above. Catching colors and distinctive patterns have to be good for something. She sits on a boulder and spreads her wings as he draws near, trying to catch his attention. Alive, conscious and fine enough to notice him.

He puts on a burst of speed regardless.

"Took you long enough," she calls when he lands.

Caesar swallows his first three responses. He feels like he did when he understood the hatchlings to be making their way to the old clan lair or maybe, worse, to the adjacent machinesite. Though they aren't hatchlings anymore and Redge never much feared his disapproval, he holds fast to his refusal to raise his voice.

That's not a way to have a productive conversation. Neither with your charges nor your equals.

"And why were you waiting in this place?" he asks. Though a reasonable volume, he doesn't much recognize his voice. He forgives himself that when she turns and commands him to follow with an impatient sweep of her tail.

The rocks hide the entrance to a smaller lair. Of course they do.

"I'm not carrying whatever it is," he says sharply. But as Caesar does not yet feel ready to let Redge out of his sigh again he follows her in anyway.

She laughs at him. "You will." When she steps aside he gives up on a retort, because yeah, he will.

"How do you even."

"It was Storm seeker, actually. I was just on a totally innocent flight when it went crazy. Lead me right here."

A closer look reveals the bird behind and smugly illuminated by the nest and its sparking treasures.

---

Notes:
I've decided. I'm just gonna hatch till I'm satisfied, get one I really like or something, and regardless of how many that actually takes and how many eggs I've left over the counter's gonna be back to zero after that. The rest just didn't make it. Hopefully that'll sort that out.

After growling at the rapidly retreating spot of glint in the sky Ginn goes to cuddle up to Trouble. She's glad to have him. She always is. But for once he feels he might be offering her as much comfort.

He never worries about taking too much. He does now.

The perils of growing up.

Or maybe of being grown up. Puberty lies behind Ginn. He has stopped growing. Feels glad of it. When he stretches, his wings and lengthwise, he measures longer and a bigger span than Redge and Trouble. He hardly ever sees the need to. (He lies low to the ground and otherwise moves naturally to project some false sense of size.) Now, though, he curls into Trouble.

"It's okay," she says, but not like she's soothing him, and picks at his flower necklace with her beak.

He considers words, speaking, soothing her. He could, he thinks. When she settles a wing more firmly over him, he sighs and relaxes instead.

With adulthood comes the urge to run away and find a pack of his own kind. Or at least Ginn's pieced together that's what it must be. If the day doesn't end favorably, he will. He determined a thousand scenarios and cases where he does. But maybe, if none ever come to pass, he can stay here. He wants that as well. Maybe more. He could be happy here.

Trouble rouses enough to ask what he's thinking. Four fifths of the days sun has passed.

From deep within his chest Ginn makes an inquisive sound.

"What are we gonna do if Caesar isn't back by sundown?" she asks, sounding calmer again even in the face of such an scenario. He rumbles assent. "If there's no sign of Redge then, either... I'm not sure. What do you think?"

This time, he decides, noncommital silence serves him well.

Soon after such musings become a moot point. Two bright points approach in the distant sky.

Trouble and he unwind and get up, eager to greet them. And be ready for whatever disaster Redge might bring with her.


The disaster is dragon eggs and Ginn is too surprised to feel much of anything else about that before Trouble absolutely loses her mind.

"How do you even - ?! You just! No, seriously, what clan did you raid, what pair's gonna come back to find these gone?? Did you went looking for these or are you just naturally - ?!" And in that vein she goes on for some length as Redge grows increasingly and obviously more smug.

Caesar has the sense to stay way out of that, and once Ginn thinks to extract himself without drawing attention he goes to join him.

One of the eggs rests next to Redges pearl in the cradle of her forearms while she reclines. All the rest - and there are many - Caesar carries in his garb. Carefully he touches them with a paw, inspects them with snout and eyes, long neck bent ridiculously. He looks around and doesn't quiet dare put them down, though he maybe wants to. Ginn noses closer and Caesar sighs but allows him, shifting to bare the eggs further to him without even any reminder to be careful.

Caesars book has a drawing, and Ginn vaguely remembers his own in pieces, though that might be fanciful thinking. The point is he knows what dragon eggs, even those of other elements, look like. Or at least he had some idea. The real deal gives him a static shock and otherwise sparks errantically, resistant to heat vision in that way. Or possibly the hatchlings simply fill out their eggs to such an extent he correctly sees their heat signatures to be these oval blobs.

Ginn closes that pair of eyes. They appear beautiful in color, too. Big. A lot less fragile than everyone acts. Or maybe that's precious.

That's about the point it hits home. If the clan has any luck at all, and there are a lot of eggs so surely some must, they'll live and the clan grow.

He attempts to convey this alarming thought to Caesar. When that fails he moves three decisive steps back, sits down and tries again.

"I don't think Trouble is actually mad," Caesar offers.

Ginn tucks his head close, puts his front paws over his eyes and whines.

Redge feels pretty good about herself. And as she channels all of that into being insufferable, Trouble in turn feels the need to rant for quite a while. Long enough for Caesar and Ginn to pack up their camp under the storm and dare venture to cut her short.

For a moment it appears Trouble would do or say something interesting, but then she turns away.

They can't stay here. This place doesn't suit their improved needs, barely suited their usual for more than one night in a row, can't shelter eggs and hatchlings like a cave or proper lair. But Caesar took one look around and wholesale reject where she found them, so.

"Where are we going to go? Back to Ginn's cave?" Surely not. It lies weeks behind them. But they know of no further accomodations here, that Redge's aware, thus their sleeping in the mostly open.

Her innocent question signals it Caesars turn to chide her. She could have left the eggs back there for some hours, meet the others here and not caused such anxiety while also getting reinforcement and help transportating, but it worked out, didn't it? They knew to search for her and in the course of that Caesar found them a place he thinks might do.

"...so if you hadn't searched earlier we would have to now!"

Noone pretends to be the least impressed with her reasoning. Redge snorts at them.

She eats and then they relocate.

"This cave is better," she admits begrudingly. A single entrance in the side of a cliff, not particularly hidden but not noticeable either, with just two rooms, one big enough for them to all to go about their day-to-day activities or curl up together, being social, and a small offshoot in the back for them to use however they see fit.

"So did you seriously just stumble upon another lair with abadoned dragon eggs??" Trouble asks with the same scepticsm she had the first time.

Redge rolls her shoulders. As a skydancer, surely Trouble should already know the truth of her tale.

Ginn stalks the place, inspecting every whiskerlength, while Caesar stands by the entrance and either looks around or watches them all.

Possibly just to keep some calm, Trouble beats her to the question. "You don't like it after all?"

"No, I think this will do nicely. Don't you?" Caesar waits for the other two to agree also. When they do, he goes on. "Just thinking whether to put the eggs in the second room, or our supplies."

"We don't have anything to make a nest out of," Redge airs her own grieviance. Nothing was salvageable where she found them, least not to carry it around by flight.

Everybody winces and then Ginn chirps up, clearly indicating they'll just go out to gather bedding tomorrow.

Trouble jumps at the chance to get out. There's too much in the air and it will only get worse with more dragons, or the misery should nothing work out.

But everyone'd rather not let anyone walk off alone, what with no need and Redges thoughtless scare. Also, Ginn not having the opportunity to run all his energy off would turn the situation untenable quickly, presuambly.

She can think of worse company. He runs along beneath her wordlessly without complaint while she attempts to let the wind carry some of her unease away, and they hunt down whatever small prey they encounter, making as terrific a team as any.

While Ginn gnaws on a limb nearby she takes another creature apart. Edible, possibly useful, soft and about to be bedding, and miscancellous. Trouble already has plenty of stuff for use as alchemy ingredient so the latter they'll have to leave, for scavengers or the earth.

He calls for her attention and she turns to him, all senses, including that one, sharpening. Still he does not know how to feel, which makes two of them.

She laughs a little. "We might be running into the limits of unstructured unaided non-verbal communication, here."

He huffs. And ultimately finds her assessment to be accurate, rolling over whining.

She edges closer and flops on top of him. Ginn can't just let that stand so they roll around a little, very carefully. When Trouble lets him have the upper hand they go right back to snuggling. She snorts.

Eventually says, "Do you not want?"

His silence stretches out terribly. In the end he makes a confused noise, which.

"Fair enough. Not sure what there could be done even if you definitely didn't like it, though. Putting the eggs back now would be..." she swishes her tail as the one limb free to move. "Do you wanna check out where Redge found them?"

He does at that, scrambling to get off and ready.

The directions provided the evening before has them find the lair with little hassle. Trouble can't tell whether all signs of recent disturbance should be credited to Redge and Caesar. Once someone leaves their eggs to lie, though, it's kinda their own fault. And their clan will treat them well, as their own. Could be worse.

Ginn scratches at the walls, then when he has her attention gives her a look.

"Too many tiny seperate rooms we can't cover nor need, I think. Not being able to get to the exit in all haste also makes it far from ideal." He takes the situation in, how much of the place one really can't take in at just a glance, and accepts her explanation. "What I'm really wondering is, how could Storm seeker have possibly known?"

---

Notes:
What is pacing? Also at the time of writing I was really unhappy with one of the upcoming snippets? chapters? episodes? But I can't remember which one it was, so there's that.

Ultimately they put the eggs in the second room and decree the area just in front where they'll lie to sleep. Their food and other supplies always get taken, sorted through and added to, so putting the stash that far out of the way just doesn't make as much sense. They have their stuff near the entrance instead.

Caesar surveys the place.

"If we had a more permanent home you could fuss over that instead," Redge says, quietly so as to not disturb the eggs or the two dragons sleeping on either side of her, but no less confrontationally.

Caesar turns to her. Same as before she lies with her head pillowed on her pearl and halfway in the second room, the single visible eye half-lidded and regarding him warily. Darkly?

He sighs. "A talk for some other time, perhaps?"

She concedes the point with a faint huff. After a quick glance outside he curls up around the three of them.


Since Redge would rather stay with the eggs and Trouble is busy with her alchemy, it falls to Ginn and him to go out hunting the next day. Caesar considers making an attempt at talking the youngest out of trying the brew and then figures, why bother?

It hasn't killed anyone yet and there absolutely are worse ways to get ones patterns to come in. He has heard stories of young adults going on journeys and trying all kinds of crazy ****, like deliberately getting bitten by snakes or whatever. Those he tells to Ginn and in the process disturbs them both.

Anyway, authorithy is - real fricking weird. On the one hand if people listened to him, they'd listen to him, but on the other, then if things went wrong, it'd all be his fault. Responsibility is a two-edged blade that way. Caesar figures most things are.

"And what do you think about this?"

Ginn grumbles, which he can't interpret with any confidence.

"You won't be the youngest anymore, which I understand the hatchlings took great comfort in."

Ginn laughs so long and so hard Caesar cranes his head around to look, fearing him falling off.

"Ginn, be careful, please."

After long moments Ginn gets himself somewhat under control. Caesar decides he should land anyway.

Ginn stumbles off and descends right back into laughter.

Caesar watches this before conceding with a sigh, "No, I don't suppose it will change our perception of you terribly much. There'll then still be people we'll worry over more than you, though."

At that Ginn snaps his teeth, because only children are brats like that.

[center][b]words[/b][/center] [center][url=https://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=56264923] [img]https://flightrising.com/rendern/350/562650/56264923_350.png[/img] [/url][/center] Ginn tries the brew and stays the same. Well, species-wise; his patterns come in at once, painfully. And while he likes it, they don't needlessly brighten his colors and should even aid him with camouflage, or so Trouble said, he very specifically took the risk of it to not be a Mirror anymore. To not feel like running off anymore. "I don't know whether I'm relieved or spitting mad," he says. The eggs, as the only ones around to hear him, predictably fail to respond. Noise from outside. With a swish of his tail Ginn leaves the nest to check it out. Redge, returned first on her own, immediately ropes him into spreading out half of the leaves and loose papers she brought. "Caesar has his book, and of course Trouble has her alchemy journal, but what a pitiful showing for an entire clan and not enough in any case. So we'll just make some ourselves!" Ginn looks around their 'front yard'. A wind attack hitting some plants and books would make for a more plausible explanation for the scene. Not to mention, Trouble would be of more help than him, or even Redge. But since he still aches too much to move about carelessly and the eggs are not yet particularly entertaining he's going out of his head with boredom and nothing better to do. He settles down and does as she commands. "Hey, Trouble!" Redge calls before Trouble even has a chance to land. "What do you use to write?!" Trouble bypasses the scene to head directly into the cave with her loot. Which leaves Caesar to look it over dubiously and say, "Do you really want the answer to that?" Ginn snorts. Redge considers. Trouble comes back out and hands her a tiny pot of - stuff. Ginn walks over. Some kinda thick fluid. "Is this some kinda alchemy reject?" Redge asks after a moment. Trouble bobs her head. "Yes." Redge holds it a little further away from herself, even though she already put the top back on it and it doesn't smell that terrible, anyway. "I suppose, if you don't want it, you can instead just use blood. Or find some creature to give you ink, here in the middle of the desert." Redge puts down the pot next to her book-shaped loose conflegoration of papers. "Thank you, Trouble!" Trouble curls up on the ground, asks, "What are you going to write?" Moments pass. Caesar refolds his wings and also goes to stash his contribution safely away. "It's a secret?" Redge meets Ginns eyes, since he knows, she could not resist telling him at length while they were working, but he's a little shit also. He tilts his head and she puffs up. "It is, as a matter of fact!"

Wondering whether she'll have to brew something, Trouble searches through her alchemy supplies for some kinda glue. Can't call something a reject if it ends up being of use!

Not that such reasoning will sway Redge. Trouble huffs. And as she thinks about how to make her friends latest project end in anything but frustration, a crack sounds from deep in the cave. For a moment she glances about stupidly, failing to see anything falling down or otherwise responsible and then foreign determination hits her. Immediately followed by realization of her own.

Her supplies clatter when she abadons them, but the scene which greets her in the second room has her pay no heed at all to the possible ruin of her prized collection.

An egg explodes up and outward, leaving behind a wet mass blinking big eyes full of lightning.

After staring her fill, Trouble closes her eyes and feels.

Oh, wow. Oh, no.

Someone calls for her from outside, and without thinking too much about it she calls back, she's fine, just messed up a little, give her some more time.

This, she wants to, needs to, keep for herself.


Two are Tundra, she can tell even with the wet messy hatchlingness of the situation. Another miserable heap gradually reavels itself to be a Mirror, which she hopes with some shame Ginn will appreciate. That leaves the two green ones, model tiny-even-for something-just-hatched and kinda-armored?

Four distinct species is another takeaway. Trouble postpones speculating about the story behind that.

They feel kinda, she doesn't know, a lot. Ginn was... right, she wasn't a skydancer yet at that point, and when she first was, everything was too much, age didn't much play a role.

"Maybe this wasn't a good idea." Six pairs of eyes blink at her and this really wasn't a good idea. What was she thinking? She wasn't.

She backs away. So of course the big green one traipses after her.

Probably healthy, then. But also, they should have asked Caesar about what to expect and do. They've got to be hungry or something, right? Usually she's thankful she can't much feel that kinda stuff.

"I need an adult!"

Trouble only notes the chatter when it ceases. That's generally how that goes when she's involved elsewhere. Concern and irritation from the usual parties move near and she fixates on that to blend out the hatchlings and all they feel about everything for the first time.


Later, when she's questioned she lies and says she was minding her own stuff when she noticed something strange and called them immediately. With Ginn and Redge too busy to pay her much mind that leaves Caesar to give her a measured look. Everyone who hatched is fine, though, so. He lets it go.

---

Notes:
So I'm an absolute sucker for obsidian and especially for obsidian tert. It's just. Yes. So when the fifth one turned out that way, I stopped. I said I would when I got one I really like. The rest aren't too ugly either. Only one of them got common eyes, with two uncommon and two rare, again proving RNG's making fun off me?

"There's too many! It's too much of a good thing! They're too cute!" Roughly appears to be Ginns feelings about the situation.

Redge doesn't disagree, and yet the eggs that don't hatch, which it has become clear now will never hatch, weight heavily on her mind. At least everyone, especially Trouble, is too distracted to send her pitying looks.

Well, not everyone. The Fae (Too tiny! Too cute!) blinks up at her from where they perch on her pearl.

"You're still too young to go around nagging people, though, aren't you?"

They flutter their crest.

"That's almost certainly supposed to mean something, but alas."

Since they almost certainly have not a lick of understanding yet for what she's saying either, they have no problem taking her response in stride.

"It's different," Caesar acknowledges when they end up alone together (with the hatchlings) two days later. "But I suppose," he reaches out a paw to keep one of the baby Tundra from falling on their face, "it's different every time. Since the circumstances and the involved dragons are always..."

"Different?"

His whiskers twitch, displeased.

Redge muffles her laughter in the Guardians hide. They squeak but beyond some squirming stay laying exactly where they are.

"Is this going to be okay?" she asks. The logistic of things she tries to keep away from. As she'd much rather stay and herd the hatchlings there's not much she could do, anyway. Not much the others can do even when they go out, either.

Caesar sighs, the whole of his body heaving, much to the Mirrors ire. She cooes at them and they bare their teeth, irritated with all the adults constantly when Ginn's even only just out of their sight. As usual Caesar doesn't much appear to notice them climbing all over him, despite how Redge knows the Mirror at least does not take the least care with their claws.

"We'll see, won't we? We know what to do, we are working hard to be as prepared as we can be... What more is there to life?"

Too true. Later that evening, after Trouble and Ginn returned with as much food as they could carry, she writes down what he said on one of the loose pages which will have to wait a little longer to be bound into a book. She notes down, too, some of the hatchlings idiosyncrasies and antics while they're still so fresh in her mind.

---

Notes:
Bodylanguage is already my weak point, but with non-humans/fantasy creatures you gotta specify the emotions behind it all the time anyway. I don't know what I'm complaining about exactly, just that I don't like it.