[private] family is who you set fires with

[Derelict]

Fiorina cares for her children, but in her own way. They are not coddled, she lets them explore - lets them make their own mistakes. She’s not particularly worried about her twins this season, not when one of the girls was born with soft armoured plates that are already hardening and a prehensile tail so much like her own. This freedom suits Derelict just fine as the bony girl extricates herself from her sleeping twin and wanders off before the sun has risen - flexing her black bone wings as she does and getting little relief from the action. In the blue, pre-dawn light the curling flames around her small horns are bright as a beacon, lighting up her blood-red eyes as they peer into the shadows that scatter and dance away from her moving, flickering light. Like her armoured sides, the softness to this young filly will harden - there is little option for her to do anything else. Still, there’s a jolt of excitement as she picks up her spindly legs and heads off. She’s not looking for anything in particular, just something new. Some wonderful story she can bring back to her family or keep in her heart just for herself. Movement catches her attention and instinct (and her mother's lessons) take over and she takes off after a chipmunk that definitely should have slept in. Her movements are awkward and she fumbles a lot, but she has fear on her side, and the small striped body is caught in her jaws when she hears a much larger body approach and turns to see who - or what - it is.

SEMI-open for fellow Ghaul babies! @[Sepulcher] @[Isotope] @[savage] and Laura and Avion if you want <333

[Sepulcher]

SEPULCHER

I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes

They are each free to roam as they see fit, the triplets. No one polices their actions or tries to keep them in line. Whether this is due to a sense of apathy regarding their survival or fear of the brood, it makes no difference to Sepulcher. He is content to roam the forests playing hide and shriek with his siblings. Today, however, they are proving to be particularly elusive.

He lifts his head to sniff the air for their scents. There is a trace of them, certainly, but he is unpracticed in tracking to navigate their trail as expertly as his elder brother. Cher gives an annoyed series of clicks before dashing further into the underbrush ahead. Blurs of winter blue air and gnarled green trees are the only things he can see stretching before him. That is, until a figure with white-hot horns emerges on his left.

She’s hunting something small and his prey drive commands him to beat her to it. He scrambles after her and the chipmunk, gnashing his teeth until he sees her devour the little blob of warmth. Sepulcher give a shrill cry of disappointment along with a stomp of a tiny hoof.

“Share,” he pleads with a pout. The small drake nestles closer to her as scales erupt from his skin. He is larger than her but he is careful not to crowd her as he circles his sister, occasionally whining like a begging dog. It does not occur to him that he should, perhaps, introduce himself before making demands of Derelict.

@[Derelict]

[altar]

get up off your knees, boy
Stand face to face with your god

It does not matter how far they stray, they are always brought back together in the end.
But then, it is only natural. For they had spent eleven long months curled so intricately around one another. Crammed into a womb just barely big enough to hold them. There is no reason it should not be the same in life.

She moves through the forest slow, her gait stunted by her concentration. She has noticed that sometimes the air she exhales is tainted by stars. As if they come from someplace deep inside of her. As if, because there are stars in her mane and tail (short still with her age), they must belong to her. She is concentrating hard on trying to call upon them at will.

There is some nearby commotion that shatters her concentration and whatever she’d felt building in her chest abruptly dissipates. It leaves her irritable and she goes in search of the source of the noise.

She finds a curious thing. An armored thing. A thing with fire and a galaxy splashed across its chest. Just as she has a galaxy splashed across her skin. And Obelisk. And her father.

And there, too, is her brother. Demanding. She emerges then, focused only on Sepulcher. “Brother,” she says coolly, “where are your manners?”

ALTAR

[Ozorne]

It’s the silence that rouses her.
And the absence of smooth armor snug against her own bare flanks, gently pressing with every fitful breath.

Her twin couldn’t have gotten far, having noticed the ground where she had lain still felt relatively warm.  Ozorne rises to her willowy legs with eager relief, thinking that it shouldn’t take very long to track Derelict down and ask her to come back.  For now, she needed the comfort of her sister to rest easily and it was far too early to be up exploring and Ozzy was entirely too sleepy yet.

She navigates the brush easily enough with the help of her adept vision - the light of dawn only still just a promise at the edge of the forest.  And just as she easily veers past the trees and bushes that block her path, she could easily be spotted by onlookers, her pearly silhouette a stark contrast against the backdrop of deep, dark woods.

The fires of Derelict’s horns are a beacon and salve to the ache behind her sleep deprived eyes, and she breaches the cover of the overgrowth just as the girl swaddled in stars had finished speaking.

At the point of her darker twin’s shoulder she stops, reaching her pale bone wings to touch against those of her sister’s, yearning for reassurances in the familiar clack of hollow bone against hollow bone.  Ozzy’s ruby gaze turns slowly from her sister towards the apparent siblings - silent - wondering what manners were and where they went and if The Brother was going to find them.

[Isotope]

fire in my lungs, can't bite the devil on my tongue. (i don't need to be loved by you.) The forest is not the ideal location for most to have an encounter with the dragon child. The shadows – her grandmother’s coveted shadows – are unkind.  The shadows strip her bare in the most literal sense.  Flesh peels from bone, sloughing away in a mess of skin and scales and decay.   She is drawn to them. To the burning shapes in a sea of cold. The burning colors dance through the trees.  Her pace quickens as she weaves through the trees – desperate to join them.   “Who…?” She says, perhaps too loudly, as she steps towards them.  There’s no hesitation in her steps as she makes her way towards one, not a single ounce of reservation or shame.  She’s never seen herself, nor would she ever. She doesn’t know how her flesh drips from her bones in the shadows, how decay is the plague passed on to her from her mother.  Her blindness is something inherited from her father – with horns sprouting from her sockets just as his had done.  The horns are still small, but they glow with the same intensity as her mother’s eerie eyes.   But the four figures burn so brightly in her vision – beckoning her out from the shadows.  Calling her to them. She doesn’t turn away or flee into the darkness.  Already, she’s discovered loneliness leaves an awful taste in her mouth.  Unlucky for one like Isotope, to be so cursed yet to have such wants.   “Family.” It is not a question, it is a statement. And she does not ask to be included.  She simply demands.  She’s been denied a family since the moment she’d awoken on the Pangean border alone with nothing but a name ringing in her ears.   She will not be excluded any longer. i s o t o p e .

well. this unimaginable weirdo has arrived.

[yadigar]

YADIGAR

there’s a hole in my chest but it’s mine, baby, it’s all i got.

He’d been so angry for so long. It feels strange to be consumed entirely by sadness, for once. The weight of his self-pitying heart keeps him anchored here on the ground rather than the skies. Yadigar always preferred how small things looked, when viewed from above, but nothing soothes the wild ache in his core now. It is ravenous and it has become a glutton for his every joy, feasting on the light and licking its sticky fingers clean.

When he hears the children up ahead, he has half a mind to turn and walk the other way. Their games and their laughter only poison him further. But they are all shaped so strangely, all tinged with a ferality that beckons him to explore further. Yadigar stalks closer until he can see each of their outlines better. Scaled, barbed, and skeletal. His heart sinks to see them all - so small, so alone. Winter’s snow has only just begun to melt and some of them seem desperate with hunger.

He finds himself staring at Isotope a little longer, at the horns curling from her face. Ghaul, it seemed, had left more orphans behind than he had thought. Yadigar moves closer until he stands near the center of their little gathering, towering over them.

“Family,” he echoes, and thinks of how their father always used the word when addressing his people. “I am Yadigar… your brother.”

Sepulcher offers an apprehensive hiss as he siddles closer to his triplet, uncertain about the tall figure before them. The elder brother offers a soft crooning, the same sound that Ghaul had made when his firstborns emerged from their eggs. Would he have been proud of his youngest brood? Would he have left them for dead like Frenzy? His brow furrows at the thought before dismissing it. He won’t leave them.

His milk-white eye begins to glow and swirl to life as he admires each of his younger siblings. It presents its first bright future in quite some time - Pangea, blooming with the wealth of spring, and all the children hunting in a pack. It paints each of them growing fearsome and proud, just as their blood commands.

“What are your names?” he asks, lowering his head to be eye level with most of them.

he is sad but he loves all the babies

[Derelict]

Although she had not intentionally sought to beat the boy to the chipmunk, when he seems disappointed Derelict’s knife-tail flicks behind her in pleasure. He comes closer, circling her, and the light from her still-small horns catches on his face and effectively distracting her from what he wants. So there is just a small moment where she cannot stop staring at the teeth clustered around where his eyes should be. Not because it is odd - she’s hardly one to judge. Not even because she wasn’t sure how he knew where she was or that she had a catch - her mother couldn’t see but little escaped Fiorina. Mostly, she was just confused which of the three mouths to offer the chipmunk to. Another girl arrives, continuing the cycle of distraction (that was only just beginning), and the chipmunk squirms indignantly in Derelict’s mouth. Her jaw is clamped shut and will not budge, though, even though her eyes are wide with amazement. The new foal has clusters of stars that look like wings and Derelict’s bone wings twitch in embarrassment as she compares herself to the brilliant star before her. This beautiful filly speaks, revealing that the scaled boy is her brother, and before Derelict can remember that she was, actually, going to share her sister then arrives and the clack of their bone wings together in greeting reassures the armoured girl. She would not wish for any wings but the ones she shares with her twin. And as if mocking her for this, two others arrive - both with magnificent wings. Figures. Just as another filly joins their group, the chipmunk bites Derelict’s tongue. Instead of dropping it (already well trained not to waste food) she bites it clean in half and moves her head so the tail end will drop before the boy with the multiple mouths. She’s very curious to see which he picks it up with. She swallows her own half whole and is still mentally catching up when the bombshell that they are all family is dropped - and then confirmed. Well, the one confirming it is older than the rest of them which Derelict easily enough means he is telling the truth. They are all, apparently, siblings and Derelict wonders where Fiorina had been hiding the rest of them (not yet having realized that it takes two to parent). Though she’s going cross-eyed from trying to watch the first boy eat, and being fascinated by the rotting flesh of the latest girl, she manages still to answer the question. “Derelict!" She announces this single word proudly in a voice that is light and sweet and, fortunately, completely free of the utter bafflement currently flapping around her mind on pretty star and dragon wings.

@[Sepulcher]

[Sepulcher]

SEPULCHER

I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes

Sometimes Sepulcher notices little sparks of heat from his sister’s mouth and it often mystifies him. She could keep him hypnotized in that way for hours, but the scurry of frantic motion and the scent of fear is always more powerful than the awe she commands from him. When she gently chastises him, he turns his dark head to observe her outline for a moment. He judges whether to heed her or to continue his blunt commands.

The clack of bone meeting bone draws him back to the stranger once more. This time, she is joined by another figure, similar in size and clearly comfortable with the other. Sepulcher offers a snort and presses closer to his own sibling. See? He has friends too. The tag teams are again interrupted when more faces emerge - a girl with horns curling from her eyes and a strange sort of heat pattern across her skin. Family, she says, and a voice echoes the word.

Sepulcher hisses at the taller figure and shrinks closer to Altar for comfort. He claims to be their brother, but the blind child has to pause to reconsider the gathering of strange creatures. They are all unusual in their own way but he supposes they are somewhat alike. He nibbles at his sister’s star-encrusted mane nervously.

Then, he smells blood. He hurries forward and snatches the still twitching corpse between his sharp teeth. Sepulcher hardly chews before trying to swallow the morsel, causing him to cough and wheeze before forcing it further down his throat.

Derelict, the other hunter says.
“Sepulcher,” he answers as he creeps back to his sibling now.

@[altar]

[altar]

get up off your knees, boy
Stand face to face with your god

There are more.
And she is grateful for the way Sepulcher returns to her.
Sinks into her side.

She would never admit it, but she needs him, too. His presence there is a source of tremendous comfort, though her expression betrays no unease. It is cool, passive, as she studies them as they come. The girl with her bone wings comes and she thinks they must be sisters with the way their wings return to each other. As if they belong together.

And then another girl. If she can be called as much. Altar reacts without thought, recoiling in disgust at the way the flesh drips from her bones. It is the casual cruelty of a child and she presses herself even tighter against her brother. So fiercely that perhaps he can feel the way the muscles tremble with the effort it takes not to flee from the girl who calls them family.

And then a giant. He, too, is marked by galaxies. But it still comes as a surprise to hear him say that he is their brother. Collectively. Confirms what the girl with flesh dripping down her legs had claimed. He asks their names and the armored girl answers first, eagerly. Altar balks and presses her mouth tightly shut as Sepulcher surges forward to collect whatever scraps the hunter had left him. She does not breathe again until he returns to her side and she studies the group a beat before she offers her own name.

“My name is Altar,” she says, the voice just as cool as her expression.

She wonders what it means that there are so many of them. If it means anything at all. But she says nothing else, just studies them. Files away their names and tries to decide if they will ever be important or if she will forget them as soon as the group disbands.

ALTAR

@[Ozorne]