you should see me in a crown; your silence is my favorite sound
Oof!
Something nudged him. Hard.
His gold glimmered as he toppled over unceremoniously, painted across stormy gray in gilded shine that even splashed across the wrist of one dragon wings and spotted the other with a stray mark of gold. He used that wrist to try and catch himself, pushing himself back up with tremors and shivers shaking him, sea blue-green eyes lifting to inspect the creature that had assaulted him.
She was loud and he grimaced.
He admired her hair though, all golden like the patch that flowed through his mane and the streaks that shot like comets from his tail. She was dark-skinned though, where he was gray and metallic. His teeny snout reached toward her a few inches away from touching her, sniffing at her strange scent and logging it to memory.
Then another was there, larger and speckled and mostly pristine white. The spots were distracting as he watched them crawl and shift with her movements, approaching him then glancing away to others. He hadn't noticed them either, but he followed with his own gaze to see another small one with a flare of golden hair but different skin. Then an even larger one that seemed... yes. A little gold too, in streaks like his own tail had.
Perhaps they were his.
The speckled woman continued forward, bringing herself down to curl around him as he watched solemnly with a flicker of curiosity. He sniffed at her too, again not quite touching with his dragon nose. Oh. His eyes went cross-eyed as he looked down at it. Then looked at theirs. They didn't look like him? Why did they not look like him but for the shining gold in their hair and the strands buried in the male's dark and pale hair?
She spoke to him, her voice soft and sounding like something he might want for himself to keep near him. Breckin, she says, and it has more weight to it than her other words. This one was the important one. Breckin. He could remember that. She repeated one of the words, name, and he wasn't sure how to respond. His nostrils flared and he stretched his neck a little, pressing a rattling purr from his throat then watching for her reaction with hawk-eyes so alert on her. Expectant.
"Are lakes where babies come from?" the smaller dark one asked and his gaze slid to her to listen. To learn these words, this language.
Then there was another big one, all dark and white and gold and bronze - so many colors he had no names for. There was a sense of power though, a gravity that was born into him, innately knowing that this man was his so certainly, just as a penguin finds its mate and child by voice in a din of sqawking.
He flipped his wings clumsily, squirming against his new warm woman to see this one better, watch as those eyes studied him just as somberly as he had studied these others too. Didn't he recognize him? Couldn't he see? Even with his mother's eyes, her body shape and a good bit of her color, surely the man must know him for his? He had no notion of mother and father, but he knew in his very bones that the man belongs to him.
Look, look! Wasn't he proud of the little dragon? He had collected a whole hoard of treasure beasts already! Look at his spotted woman, and the big gold-streaked man, and the little gilded ones! Wasn't he so proud?
Gilt lifted his chin and cooed at him, his eyes gleeful and snout nosing at Breckin's neck because she was his and he would keep her. They were all his lovely treasures.
But, he did! He must have recognized him because the man stepped forward and said a thing that sounded right. "He's my son." There was such solid weight to it, such truth, and Gilt cooed at him again, pleased with his deduction. His father lowered to his other side, a stronger sense of heat radiating from him than the others had and the child leaned into him, nipping at his shoulder with feisty baby-dragon sass in quiet scolding for waiting so long to come keep him warm.
He felt the absolute most glad and proud when his father tended to him, warm smoky breath fanning over his gilded-gray skin. His whole dragon-face was nearly completely gold with a bold blaze that would've nearly covered his whole face in a mask of white had he been painted colorless and porcelain over a horse head. Gold instead, with shades of grey around his eyes and over his strong little cheekbones, in the forelock that his father fussed through so tenderly.
"Did your mother name you?" his father rumbled at him, and he enjoyed that sound so much, wanted to rumble so low right back but it only came out a trill little purring of pleasure. He recognized that word again though, name again, and the weight the woman had put to hers. He truly didn't remember much, only a brief image of another woman that had said a word to him. Perhaps that is the one that would please his father, that word. His head bobbed excitedly, tap-tapping on his father's dark patch as he growled out his answer as best he could.
"Gghhhh- ilt!" It ended in a sharp huff, the formation of the letters difficult, but he'd been determined to perfom correctly and nodded sharply. Yes. That one. He would get better, but that was the word.
Gilt
the gilded stormdragon