The noise is resounding, a thunderclap against the silence of the forest. The colt's eyes snap open, ears unfurling as he becomes awake with admirable speed, his gaze riveting immediately downwards towards the egg at his feet. The egg that he has been carrying around like a babe in arms for the last couple of weeks, the egg that holds his future within its confines. The egg that holds his glory. He has remained mostly in the Deep Forest since he found it, thinking the dragon inside might appreciate being born in the same place where its mother laid it and died cradling it. But he has not been idle, no. The beastling remembers Nymeria's black egg hatching, remembers how those vicious little teeth had sank deep into the flesh of his nose, leaving the scar that still burns vividly against the black of his flesh. Hunger seems to be the first emotion a newborn dragon feels, and so Volterra has prepared. From child to seasoned killer; he has brought down quite the feast for his hatchling. Rabbits, rats, even a small bird, all caught and slaughtered by him. Taking life hadn't been as hard as he thought it would be, and whenever he felt guilt creep into his young brain he banished it with the notion that this was simply nature. Dragons were predators, and Volterra's bonded deserved the best, no matter the cost.

The moonlight flickers of the taut young muscles of his hefty frame as he shifts to look down at the dragon, heart pounding. This is it. The moment he has been waiting for since the day he was born, the image that has haunted his dreams. When he went to Nymeria's egg hatching, he pictured the same thing happening to him, imagined the day it was his dragon emerging from its egg to meld its mind with his. Tonight, at last, that dream has come true. Muscles quiver with nervous anticipation - what if the hatchling rejects him? What if he's not strong enough, and the red decides to fly off and become wild rather than bond with him? His tail arches anxiously, one white-clad and burn-scarred foreleg pawing at the ground, tongue twitching around his dry mouth as the egg rolls and cracks, a mosaic of lines fragmenting across the blood-red surface of it.

Cracckkkk! This one is even louder, and a piece of egg flies aside. From within, a powerful set of crimson jaws emerges, the miniscule horns atop it being used like attering rams to barge out of its confines. The deadly mouth gapes wide, a loud and ear-grating screech coming from deep within the hatchling's gullet - a clawed paw, then another, emerges as it punches its way out of the egg, which topples under its weight and spews its contents onto the ground. The dragon - his dragon - rolls out in a wet bundle, a pile of bloodsoaked rags glimmering ominously on the forest floor.

The beastling lowers his head eagerly, tentatively flaring his nostrils to sniff at the hatchling - carefully, so as not to encourage a bite. The dragon unfurls itself, petite wings flaring and firm young limbs extending to take its first steps, and give Volterra a look at it. It is magnificent. It - wait, not it, he, because red is one of the male dragon colours - has scales almost the exact same hue as Volterra's eyes, a deep and fierce crimson that glimmers in the moonlight and accentuates every jewelled scale. Pale horns roam along his forehead, with two much larger ones ejecting backwards and sweeping up from atop his brow, before the ridge continues all the way down his spine towards his long, serpentine tail, tipped with a fork. Not a flame, he thinks with slight disappointment, although it seems churlish to be fussy about the dragon's tail when the rest of him is so glorious. The red has four limbs, each ending in a dextrous, catlike paw with fierce talons meant for shredding meat, and the wings that protrude from his shoulders are large and obviously powerful. When he opens his jaws, Volterra sees dangerously curved and deadly sharp teeth, made for killing.

He is beautiful, and exudes predatory power even at this tender age. His long neck arches, lifting up towards Volterra's nose and snap! He aims a bite at the tasty muzzle hovering above him. Unlike with Lilomiel, this time the colt is prepared. He snatches his head away, and uses a hoof to kick a dead rabbit towards the hatchling. The dragon's eyes - which are a brighter, lighter red than the rest of him - glow with hungry delight as he grabs the rabbit and swallows it whole, the muscles of his gullet flexing as the meat disappears down it. Those haunting red eyes lift to Volterra's own, and suddenly the young monolith feels...a presence in his mind. It is undescribable, and finally he understands why Nymeria could only describe it as scary. It is scary, but good-scary. The colt closes his eyes, embraces the contact, the gift that the crimson hatchling is giving him.

They are one now. The dragon's mind is vast but young, inexperienced, new. It is undoubtedly masculine, and the all-consuming emotion is still hunger, mingled with curiosity as he explores Volterra's mind even as the colt explores his. They mingle, testing each other like new lovers, allowing their consciousnesses to touch and wander. Even after a few seconds, the youngster wonders how he ever managed without it. "You need a name," he tells the dragon aloud. The crimson beast peers up at him dispassionately, still focused on his belly as he drags another rabbit towards him and begins to burrow into it - he doesn't seem able to communicate in words, rather images and emotions. The colt looks him up and down, musing, knowing he needs a strong name. What does he think of when he sees the newborn dragon? Power, rage, war, blood. Those aren't names, though...unless...his mind ventures towards that queer, sharp language his mother teaches him and Nymeria so they may communicate in secret. He translates the words, running them off his tongue, until finally one feels right. "Vérzés," he declares. "You will be Vérzés. It means bleeding, because that is what our enemies will do."

Not seeming to care what a momentous moment this is, Vérzés simply grunts and continues to tear apart his dinner, whilst Volterra stands sentinel over him and allows himself to believe that this has finally happened.

A voice jerks him from his single-minded focus upon his dragon, and his colossal head swings towards the stranger. Wait, where the...? Puzzlement flashes across his face as he looks around, hunting for the source of the voice but able to see only a white-faced raven perched nearby. The stark contrast of the skull marking against the ebony feathers makes Volterra wonder for a second if this is Nymeria - has his twin gained another magical ability to shift into this great bird? But no, when the raven descends and transforms, it is evident that it is not his twin. It is a filly, yes, but a big filly, her draft heritage as apparent as Volterra's is, in stark contast to Nymeria's clean-cut fetlocks. She has a quite unnecesary amount of horns on her head, odd markings, and wings as well. Hybrid. Trying to look unpeturbed by the display of magic - because she is younger than he, and it would not be becoming for one of his maturity to bombard a little girl with questions when he himself now has a source of awesomeness too - the colt nods to her earlier words. "Obviously," he points out, crimson gaze shifting to look at the puddle of blood sprayed around from Vérzés' violent feast.

The girl rolls Vérzés' name around on her tongue, and the ruby war-dragon looks up from his feast to flash bright red eyes across the filly. She is only the second person he has met since his hatching, and through their bond Volterra can feel confusion at the sight of horns and wings. Vérzés has imprinted upon Volterra now, and thinks the massive colt is the blueprint for what all other horses should be. Wings and horns, to his fledgling mind, are dragon-traits, not horse-traits. His forked tail flicks against the ground, spreading his still-wet wings for the first time and using them to balance with as he seeks out the colt's right foreleg. Volterra fights against a wince as pinprick talons press hard into his flesh, his dragon using his taut skin to ascend right the way up onto the boy's shoulder. He finds the area between his bonded's withers and settles himself there, a blood-red bundle against the jet black of Volterra's hard flesh. From his perch he begins to groom, wiping the blood from his scales whilst never letting his eyes waver from the filly, dextrous tail coiling snakelike behind him to anchor him in place as he cleans himself.

Why would you name it that? "Him, not it," the young monolith automatically corrects, and in his mind he feels Vérzés hum his affirmation. It is what you call something inferior, like a rabbit or a fish, a derogatory term that places something as lesser by removing its sense of identity. Vérzés is a fully sentient creature, with a gender and thoughts and hopes and feelings, all of which Volterra is getting acquainted with. Still their minds entwine with one another, touching and feeling and knowing, trying to understand the vast reaches of each other's consciousness. This is new to both of them, and Volterra thinks it will be quite a while before they are fully used to one another. One day they will be a true team, a force of nature, but right now they are like two fumbling teenagers not quite sure which bit goes where.

He thinks for a moment on the filly's question, tail arching behind him and lashing against his muscled hocks as he ponders. Why indeed? Naturally he had wanted a powerful name for his dragon, and had toyed with quite a few since he found the egg. But Vérzés felt right, somehow. It melded beautifully with his own name, and it fitted the ideal he has always had for any dragon of his. They would need to be strong, indomitable - and what is more natural, more associated with battle, than blood? "I could ask you the same question about your name," he eventually says. He does not want to justify his naming choice, and indeed he can't. How can he say that it simply felt right? Nobody would believe that, unless they are privvy to the bond growing between dragon and colt. "Which is?" He scrutinises the girl closely, whilst the dragon does the same from his back.

Just then, there is a light-switch in the part of his brain now inhabited by Vérzés, like a candle extinguished. The tendrils of their bond numb and fracture, and the beastling realises his dragon has drifted off into sleep, contentment rippling between their conjoined minds. The ruby reptile has a full stomach, a warm perch and a new soul-partner, and slumber seems the natural next step for him. The colt senses that, at the slightest nudge, Vérzés would snap into alertness, ready for battle, yet his sleep is deep enough for his body to go limp atop his bonded's withers. The sensation inside Volterra's head is considerably odd, as though a section of his mind has been injected with novacaine without truly affecting him. He wonders if, should he sleep too, his and his dragon's dreams would intermingle; could they run together in the forests of their own creation, both adult, both hewn from steely perfection, all fire and blood and glory? But now is not the time to test such a theory, and the colt's attention returns fully back to the tree-girl.

Again his forehead wrinkles in confusion, and this time he makes little attempt to disguise it. "Named...yourself?" He silently curses himself for asking another damned question, but he can't help it. In what unholy world did a creature name themselves? That is the job of the parent, or the sibling in the absence of a parent, or the friend in the absence of a sibling, and so on. Like gender, names give a sense of sentience. Without one, you are just...a thing. "Why did your mother not give you a name? Or your father?" Unless they did, and she found their choices inadequate? But Volterra cannot get his mind around such a scenario. Your name simply...is. He is Volterra. His sister is Nymeria. Their parents told them, and so it became. It is gospel. Volterra would never have dreamed of saying 'no, I don't like that, I'd rather be Flaming von DeathMachine instead' - it would simply have been wrong. His parents gave him life, gave him his size and his markings and his personality, and so it fell upon them to give him his name, too, the word by which he would be forever defined. His ears shift, tail continuing its idle swaying between his thighs as he looks at her as though she has grown a second head.

Choosing your own name. Whatever is the world coming to? On the giant colt's back, his dragon releases a snore, which Volterra decides to take as agreement of his bonded's philosophical musings.

Some of us are closer to Earth than others. Hmmph. The beastling likes to think himself quite close to said earth, given his terra-related name and his status as part of the equine race - he has been taught his history, of course, that in the olden days of Isilme from where his long bloodline hails, his species had been associated most closely with earth. His father and grandfather before him wielded earth magic, blessed upon them by the great Nieque himself. Hearing such a statement come from a winged unicorn, then, is rather odd to the youngster, because he of course has little idea that she bears equine blood, and God blood. Pegasi, with their wind, and unicorns with their water, are about as far away from the earth as it is possible to be. He allows himself to hold her golden gaze with his crimson one, his brow cocking. "You are quite the philosopher for one so young, kis holló," he points out, his voice flexing easily into his dam's Hungarian as he gives her a name of his own. Heavens, when he was her age he could barely string more words together than 'dragon' and 'pretty'.

He watches as the tree continues its path, seeming to cover her like a blanket. Still he fights to keep his expression stony, but his bloodied gaze is greedily fixed on the earthen magic. What he would give to be blessed with such power! He has his dragon now, of course, so that is one thing to be ticked off his list of demands, but the next is magic. Little does he know that magic already flows through his bloodstream, simply waiting to be triggered. It is rather worrying quite how much gluttony the colt possesses, but he craves strength in all its forms. He will ascend, as Mother bids him to.

She reveals she asked her mother not to name her, and again the beastling feels his face twisting into sheer bafflement. One could simply ask their dam not to name them?! So he skirts around the subject, instead focusing on what she will actually become. He supposes the freedom to choose your own name must be quite a daunting task, as it will be what defines you for the rest of your life. "So you're going to choose your own name? Anything in mind?" If he had his way, she would be called little raven or creepy tree-girl, but somehow he doesn't imagine those suggestions would go down too well. The boy also doesn't miss the mention of her father not being present at the birth, leading him to naturally assume her mother was the victim of a one-night-stand, the object of a stallion's lust and his seed but not his love - just the way it should be, in the colt's sexist little mind.

Eyes dart around her body as she becomes tree, still fighting a titanic battle against his own face as he tries to keep any sense of awe out of his expression. He is momentarily distracted as she asks his name, and for the first time he is somewhat loathe to give it, in case she judges him for it and taints it for the rest of his life. "Volterra," the young gladiator eventually reveals, narrowed gaze locked on her as he awaits an opinion he's sure she will give.

Bark tumbles from her like brown dandruff, and he idly wonders if it hurts. She speaks again, her voice wise beyond its years and using long words Volterra doesn't even know the meaning of. But the words aren't what the colt focuses on, because - yes - her eyes widen a fraction, something he likely would have missed had he not been scrutinising her for a reaction to his earlier words. It is not much, but it shows that she does feel, that there is perhaps a chink in that stoic armour. "That's...a whole lot of big words you just used." Let it not be said Volterra is dim, but he is young, his vocabularly limited and his brain ill-suited for such mental puzzles. Eloquism will come in time, but right now he finds himself struggling to understand exactly what she means. Pragmatist? Sounds like some sort of nasty flower that will make his poop turn purple.

She speaks again and he listens intently, keen to pick up some more of these words that she throws in with such ease. But his mind zones in on one particular phrase, one that makes his face contort into an expression of shock despite his best efforts otherwise. His shoulders shift involuntarily, and the crimson dragon upon them awakes with a squawk, his claws digging hard into the tender flesh of the boy's withers. He winces, fighting to stay still even as blood trickles from the back of his neck downwards, the irony of which is not lost on the young monolith. The dragon called bleeding, drawing blood. With a ruffle of his wings and a huff, the ruby reptile curls back up, balancing himself firmly against the colt's back. "Woah, woah, woah - did you say God of the Earth? Offspring of the God of the Earth?" Mother taught them of their Gods, and the beastling had listened eagerly to the revelation that said Gods could bestow magic upon their people, that they were powerful beyond reason and as immortal as the rocks around them. The Earth God in particular had drawn Volterra's attention, because anything earthy appeals to him. Could it be that he is in the presence of a Goddess? That would certainly explain the strong earth magic.

He shifts again at her question about his name, carefully this time so as not to elicit another reaction from Vérzés. "I know not. Father named me, and he told me at my birth that I was named for his own sire Terrador - terra, to symbolise our link with the earth. Although evidently my link to the earth is less than some." One elevated brow and a flick of his eyes towards her tree-covered legs.

She confesses that yes, she is the child of the God of the Earth. She mentions somebody named Hototo, somebody who had died and needed to be replaced, as if one may replace a child as they replace a lost amulet. "That makes you...what, a demi-god?" Deciding to throw all semblance of stonelike indifference to the wind, the beastling gawps openly. Daughter of a god. That explains her hybrid blood, her magic, her raven. Perhaps it even explains why she is wise beyond her years. Did her esteemed father give her such gifts? Volterra admires his own father greatly, of course, because he saw strength there that he wished to emulate, but the teardrop-faced man was no God, regardless of what he may have liked to think. The knowledge he passed to his son was naught more than a name and a lingering sense of racism, certainly not all-emcompassing omniscience. Admiration glows freely in the youngster's eyes as he looks the filly over, appraising, devouring.

She appears momentarily lost in thought, before snapping out of her reverie and declaring that she wants to take her leave. The young monolith is somewhat disappointed, because there is so much more he wants to know. But, he supposes, they will probably meet again, and he has more important things to worry about now. The dragon curled in his withers, the bringer of all his hopes and dreams, needs his full and undivided attention. They are like fumbling new lovers, needing to get to know each other and become accustomed to each other's presence, and Volterra fully intends to hole himself up away from society for a couple of days so he can become acclimatised to the red's presence.

He watches as she shifts into a raven, glossy wings spreading and dragging her up into the canopy. His gaze never leaves her, watching her flight with a lustfully intense expression. To think, she can take to the skies both in her usual form and in the shape of this raven, to spy upon her enemies and add their faces to what she already knows! She would not be the sort of filly to make an enemy of, decides the colt. But when she is out of sight he turns and heads deeper into the trees, forcing his meeting with her out of his mind so he can focus fully on Vérzés.