Creative Corner

Ascan has no need to be fast. Noone needs to be fast in a race when their flight patterns are this unpredictable to all other participants.

He's waiting for Prawn and Esz to catch on, to decide on some obvious start and end points, the way Kekki is screaming from the ground for them to do, "HELLO, are you STUPID??!"

But Prawn is a little occupied laughing without falling out of the sky because Esz has taken Ascan's continued last second escapes as a challenge/personal affront.

He can't quite dare slow down enough to really make it blatant he's playing with her because then he will fall out of the sky, or worse, overthink it to the point he ties himself into a knot and then fall out of the sky, and calling out taunts would be too much acknowledgement. Gotta make it look effortless and unconcerned.

Evading another pass with a loop in a different direction momentarily has Ascan face Prawn. Who's wheezing hard and actually somewhat concerning. No clue about Guardians specifically, but breathing is important to all flightened things, surely?

Time to cut this short. Not that he wasn't ready to stop a bit ago. But also, playing! Not at all the same since he changed breed.

He thinks as much and promptly, like one of the Gods has it out for him, Trouble whistles, biting into them before they even properly set their paws down, about not overstraining Esz so soon and so callously, about not making her overstrain herself, which, okay, a glance is enough to reveal her not looking so flash, but still sounds really rather questionable, since noone can make Esz do anything.

Yet when Redge raises that selfsame objection from where Ginn and her keep Kekki company on the ground (or in Ginns case - you know what he means), Trouble readily counters with "Different dragon species have different impulses, and you need to be more considerate!" that last part addressed at Prawn and Ascan especially.

By this point Kekki has walked over to Esz, who curls into herself under everyones attention. Uncharacteristic and thus a sure sign Trouble is onto something.

The admission comes out in stutters, that she felt the need to mimic Ascans aeral moves, something that could not possibly have gotten her anywhere, with her spine not nearly bendy enough and two sets of wings too few besides. Even if the one set she has is nothing to sneeze at at all!

Anyway, yeah, no taunting Esz in such a physical way, got it.

Ginn corralls Trouble and Redge (and their familiars) away, into leaving them alone, to go hunting or some such.

Which leaves them.

Uncompfortable.

Less uncompfortable than if they stayed, maybe, but.

"So what'll we do now?" Prawn asks what Ascan is certainly thinking.

Adjust their outfits apparently. Or, as everyone is careful not to spell out, make Esz a whole new one, since her last can't be saved.

Ascan is happy with his and still feels awkward besides, so he begs off. After nudging each of his nestmates, Esz in apology, he takes flight again.

Far, far overhead, Caesar's circling. A truth both known and visible, faintly, provided that green glint against the storm there is him. Best check, though.

Ascan loops higher almost lazily. How does Caesar still glint, anyway, with all those clothes he wears? Any why is he, Ascan, thinking about this?

When he gets close enough to verify that yeah, that's a clan member, alright, lightning arches by, its thunder swallowing whatever either of them might have said.

A thought echoes similarily and far too late; he has never been this high before.

He makes it to Caesar and reflex has him safely curl around so the sudden and entirely irrational vertigo does not drop him out of the sky. That would be a phenomenally stupid way to die. Since being this high up does not actually pose him any issues. Though he knows the air should be thinner he can breath compfortably enough and even the stronger wind impacts him little.

Shruggin unhappily, Caesar asks "Are you alright?"

He explains.

"So go back down," Caesar says, merciless, and leaving no doubt about having choosen the place to be alone.

---

Notes:
This festival was kind to me also. I've got two eliminates, one ambush, four genes, 44 chests, all the usual loot and two eggs, Arcane and Wind, both from
coli and bringing the current total count up to six (6). Which is getting way too high again.
As for the story side of things... Well, I don't know that anyone even reads this, but. There was supposed to be some overarching theme/plot and then it got lost. On the upside, character development or at least interactions, all that good stuff, right??

[center][b]pets[/b][/center] The new place is their place now, to the point Esz knows all about the surrounding area, where to head to get what kinda food, and water, of course, as well as the locations of landmarks with some quality to make revisiting sometime appealing, and what spaces to avoid if she doesn't mean to fight the local wildlife. This time they (Kekki, Prawn and her) mean to, but only the interesting ones, the kinds they (and Caesar?) might appreciate having hanging around all the time. "It's time to get some familiars!" Kekki says. Not for the first time. "Okay." Prawn sighs. "But how do you classify the not-boring ones?" Esz finds herself looking at Kekki. For the first time in - a little while - Kekki is already looking back. She bodychecks her and says, "Let's start with ones you don't usually see." Prawn lashes his tail as he watches them, but if he has a better idea he keeps it to himself. Though like she said, getting ones they don't usually see means they don't know where any are. "Certainly we know were not to go, though?" Prawn says, this time not disguising his done-with-you look in the least. "Oh yeah?" "They won't be where other animals live. Not the big colonies anyway." Kekki makes a distracted, kind of disagreeing yip. "...yeah?" "Animals aren't like dragons, they can, like, coexist?" Prawn nods, not at all agreeing. "But even on that off chance, we aren't going there, since we'd have to fight the local populance." Esz flaps a wing at Kekki to shut her up and also speaks loudly, "Yeah, you're right, we don't care to today, but that's not what you said. Before." A second, heavier sigh. The kind that might well blow a smaller dragon over. "Sorry," Kekki says, even a little apologetic. "Just. We're gonna have to, what? Walk around without a plan till we stumble over something?" "Or something attacks us," Esz says half a beat out of sinc with Prawn, who continues, "just for variety." They all snort, but there really is nothing else for it. They walk on, undisturbed for the longest time. Lone things know better than to engage a group of dragons or stick around to see whether they'd be magnanimously ignored. Or most do, anyway. "Are the chains a part of it, or-?!" Prawn cuts off. Esz twists herself to hover with the others in her field of view. The ungulate can't reach him, safely in the air as he is also, but Kekki abadoned all her meager self-preservation instincts, claiming the shadebeast as her own, and now tries to twist out of Prawns grip to, what? Cuddle it into submission? He hitches her a little higher and with her safe for a moment shoots Esz a look. She gestures with all her legs how this is neither her responsibility nor her fault. He makes as if to throw Kekki at the thing. Kekki, whoops, calls, "No, do it, c'mon!" "There are easier ways to die," Esz says. "Less painful, too, than getting trampled to death." "Nah. It was someone's pet, see? I'm sure it's friendly!" "Would you put chains like that on a friendly pet of yours?" Prawn asks, but not like he's not considering it. More like he's in fact already dropping some paw spans in height. Below them the beast rears with a kind of battlecry. "Yeah, that looks pretty uncompfortable," Kekki agrees, suicidally unconcerned. "That's why it will apreciate it when we remove those restraints!" [center][img]https://flightrising.com/images/cms/familiar/art/28247.png[/img][/center]

More time passes. Ginn grows antsy.

A different kind to Trouble and Ascan, who are just - bored. Once they figure out something to hold their interest some more, they'll be happy enough. Here, or anywhere.

No, Ginns unease is like and opposite Prawns. In that they need to move, in that the two of them need to be on the move.

Ginn so that he can trick himself into thinking he's on the lookout for a pack of Mirrors and he'll leave to chase after his kind the second he finds even a sign of them, or alternatively that the clan is a pack, kind of, really.

Prawn to look out (??) for a charge (??) without having to leave the clan for a lone and perilous journey through the wild (??) just yet.

He feels Prawn sigh, where the throat of the heavyweight dragon presses against his back.

"The worst thing," Prawn says, "the worst thing is that nothing is wrong! No sign of beastclan since which has everyone assured, no matter how irrational. With dragons able to relax, well, things are just better. Then the place, really makes for such a nice find. Enough space and accomodations, the surroundings appear to be pretty and rich in all a clan needs, as much as any lands can be so near the Tempest Spire." A pause and the shifting of weight. "There's nothing wrong with the situation or the place or the clan or even just my nestmates! It's just me!"

Ginn sympathises deeply. Now, to show this...

Eyes still closed, he arches into Prawn.

Cuddling won't help, but it won't hurt, either.

Prawn goes heavier. Guardians can't really do 'boneless', as far as he can tell the fins are too rigid for it. He might like this more, being kind of trapped in such a way.

Unable to just wander off.

Some time later Caesar says, "You look cosy." He's come from hunting, supervising the youths efforts of endearing themselves to their new familars or maybe just another one of his solo flights. Who knows?

The point is, Ginn opens his eyes to blink at him, the only agreement he can give without disturbing Prawn, that he's asking to join them.

Caesar tosses himself onto their pile. They doze some more.

---

Notes:
I didn't put the other two familiar pictures into the last post. I'm beginning to lose track of my cast of characters anyway. I don't suppose the familiars will play much of a role again, ever. Please just imagine them present in the background.

Trouble watches Ascan sling himself around the corner and out of sight and wonders whether something about Spiral skulls protects them from head (and mind) problems or whether they're simply so errantic (and intelligeble) from the get-go that damage isn't noteable from the outside.

Seriously, there has got to be a limit to how many run ins with walls, the ground and anything one can fly away from without issues? Long term or otherwise?

Being effectively boneless and low on tension might not be enough when one runs their face into a rock. Repeatedly.

Trouble thinks.

Has she made a terrible mistake?

Eh. She rolls her shoulders. Spirals haven't gone extinct yet. It'll be fine. Too late now, anyway.

Though she makes a note to keep an eye on that situation, for the moment she turns back to her projects.

She should ask for Eszs presence soon. While the change and memory are still fresh. But not too fresh, for her to be in pain or more bothered than acceptable. So, about now, then.

But Trouble has grown bored with that changing species and patterns thing-a-bums.

Time for something new! "Something more deliberate."

What, though?

She looks about her workshop/laboratory for inspiration. And finds nothing that doesn't make her want to pluck out all her feathers. One-by-one.

"Not alchemy then," she says and sits there, stumped.

It's been her thing for - so long. And there's nothing interesting in the lairs surrounding area, not close by enough for a daytrip nor are they moving anytime soon, she'd agreed.

Where does that leave her, then?

After another couple minutes of heartfelt dissatisfaction and no inspiration she gets up in search of a clan member.

"You!"

Ginn and Kekki look up. They're poking Kekkis familiar. Nasty thing. Violent and disagreeable and sturdy enough to back its horrible attitude up even in the face of a dragons disapproval.

"What." Kekki is all floofed up. That really should have given Trouble enough warning. Ginn's already laughing at her.

But she's already here. "Is there anything you need or want?" She gets two uncomprehending stares for her trouble. Ha, Trouble. "That we can make?"

They share a look. "You're bored," Kekki accuses.

"If you don't have any idea just say so."

Ginn sinks his claws into the floor. When everyone looks at him he gestures around.

After a short guessing game they've determined his suggestion to be "furniture. For their new, permanent residence."

Kekki scratches at one of her horns. "We could use some of that."

Prawn enventually cuts them off. "I'm willing to ferry around materials."

They'd been so hestiant and respectful to ask, almost groveling, no way he could just shrug them off.

And in any case, his willigness really isn't the problem here. "I'm just curious. Where do you suppose you'd get materials? I mean, we are talking about wood, or something like that, right?"

He can see their enthusiasm trip over this logical obstacle. Not a lot of trees in the dessert. Not the clans parts of it, anyway, and what they might have would be nowhere near enough even if one completely disregards the practical aversion to harm their sparse vegetation for any reason other than hunger.

Redge recovers fastest, saying, "Obviously we don't mean wood," but the look she shoots Trouble kinda underminds her words.

"Metal then, and stone," Kekki gestures at a nearby boulder they've taken to using as something of a table. "And we can make glass ourselves, as well?"

Trouble snaps her beak. "Probably we should consult with Caesar. And also, you know, have him help carry whatever."

Prawn grumbles agreement. They really should. He would have thought they'd have gone to him first? The violent way Redge rubs her pearl kills that notion.

A short discussion reveals Ginn and Ascan are off on a trip, together. "Hopefully they'll bring back food."

Esz and Caesar, however, didn't tell anyone they'd be going and since they aren't lying around outside with the rest of them, they really should be inside somewhere. Easy enough to check.

Noone gets up to do so.

Prawn burries a sigh and his head in his frontpaws.

He hears hair sliding around, Kekki by the volume of it and then she says, "Let's work this out for ourselves first, without running to Caesar for help. He's probably busy, must definitely be bothered to always be," she falters, shakes it off, says, "reminded." Some dragons can really use words to say anything, Prawns a little impressed.

He opens an eye. Redge and Trouble are having a silent but not particularly subtle conversation, he cannot, at the moment, be bothered to guess at. When neither responds to Kekki in a reasonable amount of time he says, "You suppose we have that much time and energy?"

She headbutts him. "You got anything else planned?"

"No, but how does that translate to wanting to waste my time?"

Redge tosses her head. "It will be a learning experience, and-"

"-learning is never a waste of time," Kekki and him finish while Trouble looks on with sympathy. Not disagreing or dissuading the phrase and its use, though.

Maybe Prawn can understand that dissatisfaction with the one who raised them. But is that a reason to be callous? Pretending not to hear him, when that doesn't fly blatantly ignoring him or pretending not to understand till the conversation tappers off.

It makes Prawn queasy. Especially when he finds himself participating in it. Not at Caesar, not usually. He finds himself mostly shunning the other three elders, even Ginn who already has such limits on his communcation, but all his nestmates are doing it, and he just.

He just.

He gets up, a sudden unsteady heave that has Redge and Kekki startle back and him snap his wings open. In a moment he's in the air, as it seemed the way to escape.

He doesn't go far. Get far?

After some minutes with noone coming after him Prawn begins to feel real silly.

Yeah, he'd never put it into words, even in his thoughts, quite like that, never much thought of it at all before, critical or otherwise, and somehow that's worse, falling into a particular behaviour without reason or notice and then just.

"Breath, please," Trouble says and he doesn't want her there and thinks about ignoring her, but if he does he might well run away right now immediately.

When he has a handle on his breathing he says, "I think I should run away."

She huffs. "Maybe." At this concession Prawns head whips around. "But one should not make life-changing decisions such as that when quite this upset."

He flops down heavily. Just done with the day in its entirety.

"I ask only that should you decide on such you first say goodbye, not necessarily to everyone, but at least someone, that the clan knows you didn't get lost or else-"

"-to look for me," he interrupts. "Knows not to look for me. I know."

"When the clan was just you three," Kekki hestiates before going on to ask, "How was it?"

Redge looks back levely, seemingly clearly aware that wasn't how she really meant to phrase her question. Soft spot in full effect, Redge answers anway. "Life certainly seemed simpler, though that might just have been youth. Or hindsight. Caesar knew everything and if he didn't deliberately cultivate that impression then he still gave it. Trouble was easy enough to live with, being nestmates and all." She tosses her pearl in the air rythmically. "I don't know what else to tell you. We - or at least I (and Trouble) - didn't much have beastclan or really anything hanging over our heads, not encountering any Harpies to give us problems till shortly before Ginn hatched." Redge stops there, but not like that's the end of it.

Yet before she goes on or Kekki can prompt her to, everyone comes back and up to them all at once, effectively killing the line of conversation dead.

She glares at her nestmates and from the sorry expressions they make she thinks this might be happening to people a lot.

"A little help here?" Not that Ascan holds onto his contrition for long.

Since Ginn and him brought back plenty, dragons move to relieve them some. Even her. She manoveurs herself to be walking next to Esz. Unlike Prawn, she might just appreciate having someone inquiere as to her well-being, what with how she rushed up to them, strange expression and all.

Kekki nudges her with a wing. "Alright?"

A surreptious bob of the head. "I have something to announce, but just in a little while, okay?" Esz whispers.

Kekki can't even begin to guess at what she could have to say. Esz shouldn't be an option of those who'll leave, Kekki really hopes not, and what else is there?

The food is deposited on the respective heaps in the storage hall, and then everyone is already there, so Ginn encourages them to take what they need and go back outside to eat communally.

Except for Caesar. The one who isn't there. Kekki shoves her share on Esz and goes to get him. Wondering whether the upcoming announcement has anything to do with him.

The moment she finds him she has her answer. "Oh. Wow."

Caesar rips his head around. Kekki. Obviously. Just Kekki, which is a little more...?

"Esz didn't tell you," he states.

"Uhh, no," she laughs uncompfortably. "I went to get you, cos everyone's eating right now."

"Ginn and Ascan are back already?"

"I don't know that you can say already, it's gotten quite late you know, but yeah. Got loads of bounty, too."

When she takes another tiny step forward he heaves a sigh and shifts out of the way.

Kekki walks up with that curiousity-awe-apprehension the young ones always have when first faced with a dragon egg.

Caesar can't say where it comes from. Him and his agemates were never like this, were they? But then, Before the clan was big enough to always have a nest going, if not a half dozen.

While he watches she nudges one with her nose.

Five all in all, that means one has got to live. And they are, the clan is, more stable here, now, more secure.

As for himself, he feels markedly more responsible, to say nothing of invested, compared to that ill-advised first nest. Can't say he likes it. Any of it. The implications. Setting himself up for grief like this.

He didn't care so much before because he was numb, still? But he didn't even compfort Redge, who he cares about, has always.

Caesar did a bang-up job, is the point, and he needs to do better this time. And from now on.

"Kekki."

She startles back guiltily. Since she is, of course, extremely careful with the eggs, he waves that off, a little frustrated.

Eventually he settles on, "You grew up-well, to be a good dragon."

Kekki doesn't know what to say after that, which makes two of them.

They are rescued from the conversation by the rest of the clan showing up.

For some minutes everything is very loud and busy. Caesar can't recall whether it was like this Before. It must have been, with so many clan members all in one place, all talking? Surely??

Of course he was younger and smaller then. Things wouldn't have seemed so cramped and disordered. And he would have an agemate or three with him, to stick close to, their own private clique.

Just as he realizes what he's feeling is lonely, Trouble presses herself to his flank.

He oulls his wing out from between them and drapes it over her before she can backtrack very far. This doesn't relax her like he might have hoped. The dread has him go a little heavier and she laughs uncompfortably.

"Just spit it out."

"I should probably bring my eggs over so they're all in the same place, huh?"

For some seconds what she's saying doesn't register for Caesar. Then, he doesn't rear back because he is very big and the chamber is plenty cramped with clan members of varying fragility and eggs of serious fragility and he doesn't raise his voice for the same reason, like volume could hurt them, and then, "You managed to brew some up?!"

A beat. Trouble laughs.

He suffers the wait in resolute silence.

"Uh, no," she smushes her face into his side which does less than nothing to hide the hilarity she feels. "Ascan and I made them the old fashioned way."

That - actually makes sense, for those two, might be the worst part.

Still, "And you didn't think to mention it?" To me, he just about swallows down, keeping secrets in a clan this small is.

"We forgot," she says and yeah, from the two of them he can just about believe it.

"Go get them," he says, lifiting away his wing, and then louder, at everyone else, "Alright, enough gawking! You can come in later, in smaller groups."

---

Notes:
The document hit 50k words today, so there's that.
On less happy news, the plot of things is kinda floundering, it feels like?
Also, I'm not visiting the Coli nearly as regularily as I'd like? Not that I really need to, festivals supply me with more than enough food and money, but still.

Redge doesn't usually go out to get food, not in such a way where getting food is the main goal, since picking up something when you're out already anyway is the logical thing to do, and so she justifies this occassion to herself as being mostly to see what they could use for furniture.

Of course she figures by this point everyone else has forgotten. Not quite like that misadventure with the book, but still just like that, where they started out strong and doing it all together and then in the end she had to make do by herself.

Ginn takes a particularly rough tumble only to come back up teeth bared and Redge laughs.

"It's good though," she says, partly to him, a little bit to herself. She breathes lightning at one adversary, promptly joined by a second thrown in the middle of her attack. "For the clan to grow."

Ginn snorts at that, and yeah.

"For our social circle to grow?"

That, he can agree to.

Her need for companship mellowed out with her change, but she still remembers it, and she still feels it a little. Though whether adding more dragons, particularly young ones, to their mess will do anyone any good...?

"What about you, Ginn? Interested in a nest of your own?" In some more Mirrors running around their clanlands?

She gains some altitude to see that they're close to done with this group. He swipes one with a paw, gets his teeth on anothers throat and then Redge calls for him to back up so she can do area of effect and fry everyone absolutely still.

While she drops down he inches forward to nose at one, apparently not trusting her?

He beats a solitary wing at her without diverting any attention away from his current occupation.

She huffs, but wanders over. "What's the issue then? We should take them apart while its still easy."

Only because Trouble is like that does Redge know things generally become less easy to take apart over time.

Ginn flaps a wing at her again, though less heavily this time, and begins to take his victim apart in some strange new manner. At least it definitely actually is dead. Also, a made out of meat kinda prey, which Redge has never much appreciated having to concern herself with.

She understands others eat meat, but for herself, it's... With a shudder, she looks away.

Omnious sounds, of squishing and then snapping.

She considers her pearl. As shiny as ever, though of course she'll need to add another layer soon regardless.

When something pokes her she leaps straight up into the air and almost brains Ginn with a wing. He only just dodges.

"That's what you get for-!" touching her with a bone. With a shudder Redge backs up another step.

He gives her a deeply judgemental look paired with an open-pawed gesture, like, "were you always this squamish?"

And the thing is, she honestly can't recall?

"It doesn't matter. What matters is, what do you think you're doing?"

Ginn bristles, the way she knew he would. He doesn't appreciate insinuations he - whatever it is one insinuates when one says "what do you think you're doing." The overall effect is made worse by the bone sticking out of his mouth.

Redge sighs, which obviously he doesn't appreciate either. So she approaches again and nuzzles at him.

A huff; apology relucantly accepted.

"No, but seriously though, what do you want with the," she gestures.

He must feel it, as he backs off after a nudge. Then follows minutes of conveying difficult and previously unneeded concepts. Or, Redge thinks when she catches on, that might just be her subconscious protecting her from understanding.

"Oh, Stormcatchers second set of arms, no! We're not making furniture out of prey! I don't care for your logical arguments of how we're already using bodyparts for all kinda stuff!"

Settling down in that way that means "That's not really up to you, is it," he goes on to take the rest of their victims apart the normal way. After a minute of cursing Trouble and how her nestmate might well like furniture made out of bone, like in some particularly uninspired horror story, Redge joins in once more.

Ascan sits with Esz and Kekki around the nest. Prawn wandered off a little while ago to see what argument the - older adults have got going on now. At least it seemed the silly kind, rather than the serious one? Though of course such can deterogate fast.

"Oh no," he says. Before anyone can react to this beyond giving him their attention he rolls on, "Now, soon, we really can't claim to be anything but adults, not even by comparison."

Only Kekki sees the horror in this, Esz just nods along like yeah, you're right, what about it.

"Okay, but you have noone to blame but yourself? In fact, I have noone to blame but you," and so saying, Kekki glares at the both of them in turn, before getting distracted by the eggs, who garner a much warmer expression.

"So you're only a normal amount of bothered," Esz decides.

Kekki scratches her claws (such as they are) along the floor a little. "I have hope the benefits outweight the disadvantages."

Esz and Ascan share a look while they consider. That devolves into a silent argument, because of course it does. Ascan loses. Just barely. He huffs and checks, "You want hatchlings running around?"

Surprised, Kekki looks up and then back and forth between them. "Yeah? Dragons to look up to you, listen to you, being appreciative of your wisdom and guidance? What's there not to like?"

"Because you look up so much to the older guard," Esz snorts.

Kekki rears back, complete with all her fur gaining enough volume to double her size. "Uh, yeah! I do?" A beat. "Wait, you don't?"

"Uh." Esz hunkers down. "I mean, I guess I do? I just say stuff to sound edgy, you know that."

Kekki and Ascan nod, because they do know that. Or, well, he at least figured as much. The confirmation is still nice, though. With a mental shakedown he goes back to the topic at hand before. "You don't mean to go make eggs of your own, though?"

Esz gestures at the eggs, five of them hers to his two, not that anyone can say which belong to whom now. He supposes they'll know when they hatch. If they do.

"You weren't adressing that to me," Esz realizes, embarressed and chargrinned.

They laugh at her. But then Kekki fails to answer and thus gloss over the situation and it falls to him to salvage things. "I suppose we'll see how we like it and whether we'll be doing it again somwhere down the line."

Distracted, Esz nods. The eggs aren't even doing anything, but he, too, has a hard time pulling himself away.

"Why bother, when apparently I can unload all the tricky responsible parts on you fools instead?" Kekki asks eventually.

Esz snorts but then meets Ascans eyes, unloading the tricky part onto him instead. Lest she draws anymore of the others ire. Back when they were both Tundra they were so close and now...

He shakes himself once more. "Not to mention, your patterns haven't come in yet. Gotta assess how ugly your offsprings have a chance to be, first."

Kekki swipes at him with a wing and he fails to evade in time, resulting in a bit of amusing slapstick, if Eszs howling laughter is to be noted. He'd thought to be quiet at first, but the more adult clan members assured them all talking to and around the eggs can only be good for their development.


Still, Ascan would like her to be quieter than that.

They are talking about some logistics now.


He flails awake when - Caesar attempts to - something?

"Uhhh?"

Caesar huffs and straight up drops him, which isn't at all what he wanted either.

"Hey!"

"If you're awake now, and awake enough to know what you want, you might want to move it. Sleep somewhere else. You aren't particularly heavy, but still."

While he looks about at the otherwise gloomy and empty nest chamber Ascan makes a kind of noise of incomprehension.

Caesar explains before he can take it back. "With the way you come awake you shouldn't sleep too close to the eggs." Right, uh-hu. Then, "Most of the others are in the usual room."

Ascan takes the out. By twisting and drapping himself over Caesars shoulder. Or perhaps that's still his neck? All the scales there are extensively covered in cloth so he can't actually tell.

A huff, but when Caesar just accepts this and leaves after one last sniff at the nest, Ascan decides he read that right as the original intention.

---

Notes:
I completely forgot to post, sorry for the delay.
As for something relevant, in a curious role reversal I must have liked this passage better when I wrote it?

As Esz can't spend all her time in the nest-chamber, nor driving her clanmembers sparse 'obsessing', as Ginn gave her to understand, she goes on a flight.

Something about it helps, she doesn't have to admit to anyone, being alone up here and all. Maybe that's what helps. Oh well.

She goes into a dive, skims some scrub, wings it back up, high, high, high, till she's almost uncompfortable and there begins to do manoveurs and tricks and all that makes flying the joy she didn't expect.

Her thoughts drift to the future, quite without her permission, and Esz coursecorrects mentally and physically.

"It's surprisingly hard to live in the present, somehow." It didn't used to be. She can only assume this to be adulthood, somehow. Maturity. Responsibility?

They shouldn't have made so much fun of their elders. At least Esz mostly manages to only have worries about the future, than regrets with the past?

She does a flip and laughs. Anticipation is the better feeling if possibly less productive cousin of fear. She'll get to teach how Nocturne fly to her hatchlings. Provided they don't all end up Imperials. But with five eggs, what would be the chance of that?

When she actually catches herself considering she laughs again, less happily. With just not thinking not working out so great right now apparently, "What else is there?"

She has got a familiar of her own now, even if she doesn't pay it as much attention as she maybe should. It's the independent kind, though. Folk wisdom has her sure of that much. Cats and all.

Hunting... should at least be done with one other person, so she won't try it now, even if she does see something moving over there.

The wide desert isn't as lonely as it could be, but usually still manages to give off that empty impression. If you don't look closely enough and sometimes even then.

Esz wonders whether other regions are like that. Whether she'll ever get the opportunity to see for herself, to go further than her clanlands, or even, now, outside the half-day trip circle round their lair. A look around assures her she's nowhere near there yet, but she didn't go out all that early, so she turns back regardless.

A short while later she begins to feel silly. She won't be late now, but there's such a thing as too early, too. And the moment she lands, she'll go right back to 'fussing'. Picked that up from Trouble. Nevermind that Esz can't do it as understated as the older dragon. Or rather, that's the problem.

Though she sees the appeal no longer, she can at least pick up some plants.

She pulls out one by the root on accident and with the entirety of it in hand then thinks. Didn't someone mean to plant a garden of their own?

Even if they stay at the current lair forevermore, Esz can't quite see the point.
Not for food. It's not even (yet?) a question of need or desperation. It would just be too much work, maybe? For too little gain and so unnecessary, too, they have so much land at their disposal. But for medicinal reason, that her recent stint as pained invalid would have her appreciate.

"Something to bring up to whomever."

For right now she anchors her haul in her clothing and takes off once more.

Outside the main entrance lie Redge and Prawn, not awaiting Esz, exactly, so she doesn't dare speculate on what disaster could have befallen in her absence, but still uncommenly interested in her approach.

Somehow? Of course? It's about that furniture thing again. She throws the medicinal garden idea reminder out at them again just to escape without being too rude.