Mauja Frosthjärta

[ Blaming his fever for the slight weirds in this post. xD ]

He wasn't sure if moss was the best thing to eat, because, y'know, it's moss? It had a strange texture, but was blessedly moist, cupping the natural humidity of the cave on its strange "leaves". In and of itself it wasn't as juicy as spring grass (as his tired body rumbled awake, his belly informed him he'd kill for a bite of that right now), more like the dried, browning grass of autumn, but the texture—it felt like eating seaweed. (He'd tried that, once. It had been a dare back home.) Or.. something. It was the strangest mixture of dry and wet he'd ever come across, but he chewed it diligently, jaws grinding it down to a salivated glob. It chafed against his raw throat otherwise. But, the strangest thing he'd eaten or not, it was nutrition, something to fill the empty spaces in his gut, something for his acids to pry on instead of the inside of his stomach.

But of course, he wasn't going to be left alone. He never got to be left alone. Lots of horses had probably passed by when he was passed out, too. The dragon's screech sent a lighting bolt through his feverish skull, courtesy of the fact that his entire body jolted at the sudden sound. The heavy vegetation of the cavern swallowed the echo. Mauja let out his breath in a tentative, unimpressed snort, and continued to chew his mouthful of moss. Moss. Seriously. But Irma, amused and relieved that he was fine and that the egg was fine, just told him she'd seen dozens of horses graze the moss, and none of them had died yet. You can't.. "graze" moss. You have to moss the moss.

Shut up and eat. Said lovingly, of course.

And then, the peace was broken. It was no surprise, given the proximity of the dragon's earlier screech, but it was an incredibly unwelcome distraction. Mauja was hungry. He wanted to eat. Painstakingly he tipped his head backwards, raised his heavy crown towards the cavern roof, and stared at the face of his disturber. It was.. small. Set on a foal's body.

Well, at least it didn't have a huge, over-sized wolf-head full of sharp, hungry teeth. He'd had enough of wolf-headed foals to last him a lifetime. Though, they did have one thing in common: open jaws. Mauja chewed his moss with a fairly unimpressed air, staring at him with a mild kind of neutrality. "Are you ok?" the colt blurted, earning himself a few brownie points. The dragon, on the other hand, growled. Mauja gave it a sour glance. If it so much as breathed a tendril of flame in his direction, he'd fucking murder it on the spot.

No regrets. His head was pounding. What a damnable time to get sick.

The startled colt pulled himself together, and asked anther question—this one more composed, refined. Mauja took his eyes off the dragon. Up in her nest, Irma was tense, watching it with keen, blue eyes. I think it's in everyone's best interest that he keep his dragon under control. Speaking of which... Two horns hinted against its white body. A hybrid, then.

Whatever.

"I got stuck up on the surface a bit longer than was healthy," he responded after having, carefully, swallowed his mouthful of precious moss. His voice had a note of exhaustion to it, and he grimaced slightly. Every word had come out slow, pronounced with careful precision, because the heavy, dumb weight in his head threatened to slacken his jaws and tongue and slur his speech otherwise. It was a marvel he felt as composed and relatively friendly as he did. He could just as well have greeted the colt with an eyeful of spikes to send his ass over to bother someone else. And, courtesy be damned, he was hungry. Keeping one blue eye on the colt he lowered his head again, biting down a groan as the movement sent his head pounding, and grasped a mouthful of moss. Instead of tearing it off with a sideways motion of his muzzle he stubbornly ground the strange filaments between his molars until they yielded.

A million miles from home, I'm frozen to the bones, I am... a soldier on my own, I don't know the way.