He’s been here before, once, when he’d searched for an escape from the chill winds of Frostfall. He’d had company then, but today he wanders alone, moving in small, measured steps, carefully skirting the massive crater lit by perpetual flame to explore the dry, cracked earth on the other side. His interest is in this dusty plain, the curtain of stiff, yellow scrub grass surrounding it, so he leaves the pit and namesake caverns behind.

Nose low, ears pricked, he walks the barren landscape searching for any sign of claw-footed activity, any slight musk to the gritty, dehydrated earth. He’s not sure what the ideal egg incubating conditions are, but he’s fairly certain that a constant temperature is important and that some kind of nesting or burrowing behavior is involved. This small sprawl of semi-desert landscape is close enough to the massive fire to stay comfortably warm all year round and hemmed in on the far side by a wall of plains grass even higher than his bony withers, evidence of at least a small amount of subterranean moisture, so as far as Helovian topography goes, this is the ideal.

So he searches, zig-zagging across the amber crust until his nostrils, lips, and eyes begin to cake with dust and his lungs rebel against the dry air with intermittent fits of coughing. He stops then, shaking grit from his coat and envisioning a long, cleansing soak in the Basin’s various pools this evening, his usual state of filth and disarray finally reaching a tipping point. Grains of sand, dirt, and ash cling to his body where the hair is damp with sweat, making his skin twitch and his eyes sweep along the wall of dried out grass with an idea of rubbing his irritated skin along their withered stalks. What a thought.

Breaking into a smooth running walk, a gait he once reserved for special occasions, but that suits the purpose of moving without jarring his tender left shoulder, he abandons his quest and angles across the open ground, tail flicking out to one side in anticipation. There’s nothing more satisfying to an old man than a good scratch and he knows exactly where to start.

Approaching the first row of brittle stalks, he gravitates toward a small mound of reddish-orange earth, hoping to get a better angle on their tufted tops from the higher ground, but as he steps up onto the pile its sun baked top layer crumbles beneath his hooves, forcing him to step back down. He huffs angrily at the delay, being an instant gratification kind of guy, and glances down at the mound accusingly before surprise pulls his ears forward. Peeking up at him from a vaguely hoof shaped hole is a small hollow in the center of the mound.

Reaching down to investigate, he noses a few chunks of broken sand-dirt-mixture away, revealing a nest of seven leathery, soft shelled eggs - Eggs! - approximately three inches long and oval in shape. The stallion’s eyes widen appreciatively, but as he lips gently at the strange texture of one shell his brows pinch together in disappointment. The egg collapses beneath his gentle touch, obviously empty. In a similar fashion he finds the second, third, fourth - Fuck! - fifth, and sixth eggs empty too, some with large gashes along one side, some split in multiple places where the inhabitants have broken free.

He touches the last egg, half-hearted, already resigned to having been too late, when something moves against his puckered lip. He gasps in surprise, drawing back as if bitten, eyes wide and staring. The unhatched creature continues to move, bulging out the soft surface of the egg. Slowly he lowers his muzzle again, excited breaths washing moist heat over the wriggling egg. He imagines a miniature version of the dragons he met in the Thistle Meadow, a tiny golden queen to call his own, a powerful, incorruptible extension of himself.

A triumphant grin spreads across the stallion’s features, but as the writhing creature inside the egg finally splits its leathery outer surface and forces its tiny nose through the opening, his emerald eyes are met by black scales, not gold. Well, any dragon is still a dragon he supposes, queen or not. The little black nose slides farther out of its shell, revealing a row of small pits along its upper jaw, a detail he hadn’t noticed on the white-faced stallion’s dragons, but that he assumes they must have had. Then the creature pushes its head all the way through the opening, revealing two black, lidless eyes and a smooth, rounded head that widens toward the rear, scales shrinking down to a uniform size and shape along the base of its neck.

Albrecht blinks down at the tiny face, confused. It doesn’t resemble any dragon he’s ever seen, certainly not the two he’s seen up close, but he hasn’t had an opportunity to inspect very many of them and newborn animals rarely resemble their full grown counterparts in any significant way. So, undeterred, he presses his chin to the dirt in front of the egg, inhaling the scent of blood and mucus and nickering encouragement low in his throat to the small creature. The tiny head tilts, squaring one pupil-less, or maybe entirely made of pupil, eye on the old stallion.

A humid, heavy sensation pulses behind the elder’s eyes. It’s like a fog in his head, but fog that crackles with electricity and uncertainty instead of moisture. The world suddenly seems too bright, too noisy with sounds and smells, vivid smells, smells like pictures in their complexity. He draws back from the creature a second time, startled, but is unable to turn his gaze from the tiny black eye staring up at him. It sees him, watches him with a possessive intensity, an assertiveness. His hooves shuffle uneasily, backing slowly away. Is this bonding?

Trying to follow his backward movement, the tiny creature wriggles more of itself through the opening of its leathery confinement, exposing another inch of smooth, black scales, these broken by a thin dorsal stripe of copper running from the back of the oddly pear shaped head and out of sight inside the egg. Another inch follows, bringing renewed confusion to the old stallion’s whirling mind, and then another nine inches of smooth, black and copper neck - or does it even count as neck anymore? - ending in a stubby, pointed tip. “Where the fuck are your legs?!” He cries, backing quicker now. “I didn’t come all the way out here for a fancy fucking garter snake.”

Grin turned to grimace, he turns away, fully intending to leave the ridiculous creature where it lays, where he lays – why does he know that? - but before he can take a step in the opposite direction a wrenching pain grips his heart, like a feral cry of distress piercing his ears, but silent, internal, and every bit as cringe inducing. His head swivels back to the hatchling, now fully free of its prison and standing straight up, half its length stretched into the air like a tiny, scaled sapling reaching for the sun, eyes pinned to the stallion’s turned back. Anguish radiates from the snakes expressionless face, directly from his mind to Albrecht's.

The stallion sighs, unsure whether in frustration or relief, and paces slowly back to the young hatchling, his nose lowered and searching, sweeping beneath the snakes outstretched body as it leans toward him, the pain in his chest subsiding. He lifts his chin, holding the snake - his snake, because he knows in his shriveled, emaciated heart that it could never be anyone else's now, that he wouldn't let it be - on the smooth plane of his skull and watches it curl its elongated body around his brow to meet his gaze evenly. “Strom.” He breathes, naming him, claiming him, as if his actions haven't already. “Like the winding waters.”



OOC // Happy Birthday Strom! He’s a male Suma (Super Mahogany) Ball Python which appears black with a copper dorsal stripe. Pic He's about a foot long right now and about the width of a fat finger. ^.^