The deafening crack splits the midnight air, and the stallion jerks awake.

Not that he had been fully asleep - not here, in the middle of the Deep Forest, where any predator could try to have its way with him. Although he'd rested one leg and allowed his muscles to relax, he was still fully aware of the world around him. His dragon was fully alert as well, perched in a nearby tree with his serpentine neck swinging side to side like a metronome to pick up any dangers.

Crack. The beast's skulled head swings immediately towards the egg, which rocks and glows gently on the leaf-littered ground. And, indeed, skulled his head now is. In the aftermath of the fight with Gashad, the skeleton's skull bounced off a tree and landed directly on the behemoth's face, where it has stuck fast ever since. No amount of pulling at the bone will dislodge it, and if Volterra didn't know better, he'd say it was cursed. He can almost hear that ungodly laughter from beyond the grave each time he tries to tug the skull free. It sits sentinel on his face, ironically obscuring the skull-shaped blaze that formally dominated the black fur. Only his sharp red eyes peer through the holes - although, on the plus side, his head now feels quite armoured.

But, now he's largely used to the extra weight, he hardly even notices the presence of the patterned bone, except considerable annoyance that the skeleton is still haunting him even after death. He certainly doesn't notice it now, when cracks are beginning to appear in the golden egg and greed is flooding through his bloodstream like wildfire.

With a tilt of his wings, the red lands beside the egg, sniffing around it. "Soon hatch," he says, and Volterra bites back a sharp remark along the lines of no shit. Since he found the egg, his relationship with the red has become even more strained. Vérzés didn't want him to claim the egg as his own, to share his mind with another dragon - especially a female dragon, and especially one of a scale colour that should be respected when Vérzés, sexist like his bonded, respects no woman. The crimson has tried constantly to change Volterra's mind, but the stallion, in his mule-like stubbornness, has his heart set on bonding to this gold.

Crack. A leg is visible now, a clawed golden paw. Vérzés sits fully in front of it, obscuring it from the beast's vision, and meets his bonded's gaze with eyes that plead. The red never begs. Not in battle, not in life. He has little reason to. But now, as the notion of sharing his bonded blossoms into fruition, Volterra can feel his anguish.

"Please."

A man with more of a heart would have felt it ache. But the stallion simply stares down at the red and pushes him out of the way with his nose, to fix his full attention on the quivering egg. Vérzés squawks angrily, and his emotions inside Volterra's head intensify. Rage, dismay, worry. Worry that, now the stallion has a royal, he will care nothing for his lowly red. Worry that he now has to live alongside a gold, who will no doubt spend her time trying to put him in his place.

Worry that he's losing the man with whom he has shared everything since he hatched, who once idolised him but who is now quite willing to push him aside in pursuit of something better.

Volterra feels all of this, and he has tried to reassure the red that this won't change things, that he has room enough in his heart and mind for two - but how can Vérzés believe this when he sees how hungrily the monolith looks at his newest prize? When he, more than any other living creature, knows that the stallion has an eye for beauty and power, knows that Volterra has revered dragons since the day he was born and would give his left ball to bond to a queen?

With a final crack, the shell breaks in two. From the pieces rolls a small, wet body, all unkempt wings and damp scales. Damp golden scales. Slowly the hatchling unfurls, kicking away the pieces of her egg and opening herself up to the stallion's wanton gaze as he assesses her.

And finds her satisfactory, to say the least.

The fact she is a she is evident in the fact that she is slimmer than Vérzés, her shape more feminine, her limbs less bulky and her chest less pronounced. She is beautiful in a way that the functional-looking red could never be, and yet she exudes power the likes of which Volterra has never seen before. She is raw, feral strength, as deadly as nightshade yet as attractive as a gemstone. Her snout is long and thin, and the horns that protrude from the back of her proud skull are longer and thicker than Vérzés'. These horns, coupled with the smaller ones dotted around the back of her head, give the impression of a crown - and what else would a queen wear?

Spikes run down the length of her back, between her bat-like wings and right down to the tip of her tail, where they transform into a vicious knife-like tip. As the hatchling shifts and stretches, her tail swings and the lethal end of it beheads a nearby flower, just proving to the young stallion what a useful little addition it could prove to be.

She meets his gaze, and he notes that her eyes are red, too. Then she's in his mind, and her consciousness is flooding his own as Vérzés' once did. He can't describe how it feels, to have a second sentient creature inhabiting his thoughts, one that is intrinsically different to Vérzés and yet somehow similar. Like with the red, the young gold emanates hunger, and like with the ruby, Volterra has come prepared. He nudges a dead rabbit towards the hatchling, who gulps it down in two bites. Now, the stallion can feel her satisfaction flooding through him - and, suddenly, he feels surprise coming from her, too.

Surprise as, with a feral yowl, Vérzés leaps at her and tries to pin her to the ground beneath him, a swift and brazen display of dominance.

Vérzés, what the fuck are you doing? hisses Volterra, apopletic. A savage growl erupts from the gold as she fights her way out from beneath the red and rears herself up to her full height - she's smaller than him at the moment, but holds herself like royalty. She flares her wings and hisses, her eyes narrowed to slits beneath her horned eyebrows. Volterra stands forwards and plants one firm foreleg between the two dragons before either can launch a second attack, and turns his massive skull to each of them in turn, ears pinned backwards. No, he commands. Inside, though, he's deeply concerned. His dragons were supposed to be an inseperable, formidable duo, his powerful mind-partners. They weren't supposed to turn against each other so soon. This isn't how he dreamed it.

Vérzés backs away with a snarl, and jumps up to land squarely between Volterra's withers. This is his favoured resting spot, and he will not share it. "You name the bitch?" he questions, his mental voice snarky, hateful. Despite the situation, the beast manages a small smile as he remembers naming Vérzés in Hungarian, bleeding. How strong it had seemed at the time! The gold will not suffer the same fate, and the monolith names her simply - no frills, no trying to be smart. "Vadir," he says, and the gold sniffs her approval whilst pulling rabbit-bones out from between her teeth with her forepaws.

As Isopia appears, the irony is, again, not lost on the young stallion. This is the third time they have attended the hatching of each other's dragons, and as she lands on a branch in raven form beside her bonded, a familiar question reaches the beast's ears. What does that mean? "Absolutely nothing," he says simply, a sparkle in his eye. He'd heard the name mentioned once, a dragon of legend, or perhaps something that had come to him in his dreams - either way, it's a name he's had in mind since the moment he began coveting a gold. Unlike Vérzés, she will not be plagued by a name picked by a boy, instead receiving one chosen by a man.

At the sight of another royal dragon, Vadir tilts her head and glances up at him. Volterra can feel her interest, like a sharp stab in his mind. At the same time, he can feel Vérzés' attention on the bronze as well, remembering his hatching, remembering flying away so that Hubris wouldn't get the urge for the wild and abandon Isopia. He hadn't moved away this time - he hadn't needed to, as the stallion had ensured he was the first thing the hatchling clapped eyes on - but Volterra can feel him musing over whether he should have made sure he was the first thing the gold saw. That would have got rid of her - turned her wild. Simply hearing Vérzés think this makes the stallion's ears pin, aghast that the red would even consider doing such a thing. How many times must I tell you, Vérzés? This is for the best. You can learn from each other, and we can become a team. Stop being a brat, and realise that she is one of us now. It's surprisingly hard to concentrate on speaking to one dragon and not the other, and he can feel Vadir's consciousness tingling towards his conversation with Vérzés, eavesdropping.

The red feels it too, and hisses. He erects sharp walls around himself, walls of steel, so the gold cannot hear what he says back to Volterra. "She is she. We not respect female. Why you want one in our mind? Gold scales not strength make." The stallion's brows knot together, cursing the red's stubbornness. Then, he remembers, the dragon probably got said stubbornness from him. Perhaps this is all his fault - his red picking up bits of Volterra's personality. His jealousy, his stubbornness, his temper, all things the beast knows are flaws and yet which he has unwittingly passed on to his mind-partner. If he was a nicer creature, perhaps this wouldn't be happening.

Then there's a flash of silver, and the giant's jowls split into a smile as he sees Tinek and Ophelia. A sudden memory comes to him - he and Nymeria, in the snow, with Tinek bounding nearby. Him, adoring the silver dragon, fan-boying all over him. Like Solomon, Argen's bronze, Tinek is an image from Volterra's youth that holds a special place in his frozen heart. His aunt congratulates him, and the beast dips his head in acknowledgement. Her words are kind, this coming from a woman who his sister so foolishly picked a fight with for no good reason. That still puzzles him even now - twins they may be, but he does not get much of an insight into Nymeria's mind, her plots and plans. "Thank you, Aunt. Hello there, Tinek, it's good to see you." He huffs a greeting towards the silver dragon, and feels not one but two stabs of jealousy coming from the creatures inside his mind. Less so from Vadir, as her emotion is more curiosity - to have two royal dragons attending her hatching is an honour, and she fixes her level amber gaze on Hubris and Tinek in turn.

The gold shifts, unfurling her wings, examining them. She pads through the fallen leaves, and Volterra can feel her interest as each new foreign material is fondled beneath her paws. Already her personality seems calmer than Vérzés, more considered, less...wild. At this point in his own hatching, the red had already been bounding around, adventuring, hitching himself up onto his bonded's back, but Vadir seems content to take things slow. Perhaps she knows she has a whole lifetime to do whatever she wishes. She moves to Tinek, sniffing him thoroughly, discovering how dragon smells. Dragon that isn't trying to attack her, at least. The red still sits hunched on Volterra's withers, tail swinging side to side like an angry cat, watching the royals interact - his mind is a battlefield, which makes it somewhat harder for Volterra to focus on watching Vadir's careful movements.

Another arrives at the scene, then - the white filly he'd met here just after his second birthday. She doesn't look entirely happy, and the stallion frowns. "What's up, kid?" he questions, tilting his head. Of course, he doesn't really care - that would imply he's going soft - but social niceties dictate that he should ask, at least. With a grunt, he feels the weight of Vérzés leave his back, soaring towards the little girl who had so idolised him that day at the pool, the way Volterra once idolised dragons. He circles around her, landing in front of her and chirping up at her, studiously ignoring the goings-on behind him. "See?" comes his mental voice. "White hatchling happy for just one dragon. Not need two. Nobody need two." And he settles himself down in front of Erthë, giving her his full attention, as if to prove a point.

Volterra looks on with evident interest as the three royal dragons interact. Their scales are iridescent, putting even Vérzés ruby covering to shame. He can see why dragons like this are considered the kings and queens of their species, and pleasure flows through him once again at the notion of being bonded to one.

Bronze joins gold and silver on the ground, and with a swish of her spiked tail Vadir trundles towards him. Like Tinek, Hubris receives a thorough sniffing, as the hatchling files away their scents for the future. The silver's frosty breath forms in front of Vadir's face, and she lifts her head up to scrutinise the cloud of frigid air. She opens her lungs in an attempt to mimic, but nothing appears - she's far too young, although apparently she doesn't yet realise this. Volterra can't help wondering if she will breathe frost like Vérzés or fire like the dragons of legend, and he finds himself hoping for the latter. Combining white-hot flame with sub-zero ice...oh, the combinations are dazzling! As Tinek flips onto his back, Vadir trills her amusement, which ripples down their bond into the stallion's mind.

Vérzés, meanwhile, leans gleefully into the little white filly's caress, humming pointedly. Hubris and Tinek both beckon for him to join them, but he remains resolutely apart. Volterra feels resentment burning down their bond - resentment that they are royal and he is not, that the hue of their scales makes them better than him when he, like his mind-partner, accepts none as their superior. He feels jealousy, too, although the red makes a valiant attempt to hide it. Why couldn't he have been born royal? The beast sighs, making up his mind to have a thorough discussion with the crimson creature once they've moved away from this place. He can't have Vérzés hating the young gold forever - it simply won't do.

Erthë speaks, and the monolith smothers a smirk. He's in too good a mood to get overly snappy at her, and simply raises one sculpted eyebrow, which is still scarred from the jaws of the wolves he fought off to protect Vadir's egg. "I make my own luck, kid. Not everything is given on a silver platter - or, in this case, a golden one." His voice, too, is casual, offhand. It's easy to forget that the black beast was born with nothing - no magic, no companion, only the innate ability to bond to two which had been revealed by his sire's green. Everything he has, he's earned, save perhaps for his magic which he still doesn't quite know how he obtained - it only appeared one day, as he and Isopia put down the burned forest creatures. "Keep working hard, and it will one day pay off." And that's the best advice she's likely to get from Volterra, who is the polar opposite of a wordsmith and most definitely not a motivational speaker.

She pulls tongues, and he flashes a small grin. She's quite sweet, in an annoying sort of way - he hates children, but she'd proven to be a useful distraction in a time when he'd needed it most. She speaks to Ophelia, and the young warrior looks to his aunt with interest, wondering how the pair know each other. Jesus, imagine if she was Ophelia's daughter - to think that they could be related! Little does he know that they are, but not through the Amaranthine.

From next to the royal duo, Vadir flares her wings and admires them one at a time. Volterra feels steely determination to use them, and before he knows it the gold is bounding forwards, trying to capture air beneath their leathery canopy. She snatches at an updraft and rises up into the trees, but her first fight is awkward, uncontrollable. She narrowly avoids a tree then crashes back into a pile of leaves with a squeal, emerging with one speared on the tip of one of her large horns. She shakes herself, sending indignant vibes towards Volterra, then looks to the bronze and silver in the hope that they will demonstrate the art of flight.

After his words to the white filly, the young stallion turns his gaze back to Isopia, beaming over every corner of his face. He radiates happiness, satisfaction - having them all together, with their dragons, with family, sends a warm glow through his cold black heart. He turns to her, words tingling the tip of his tongue, but...

She's gone. Without a word, without a goodbye, his little raven is gone. Hubris soon follows, and the crumpled form of Vadir hums a sad farewell as the bronze takes to the wing after his bonded.

Volterra's brow furrows, confused. Why would she leave so suddenly? His tail swishes, suddenly agitated, and his ears pivot side to side to try and detect the faint whistle of her feathered wings in the distance. He hears nothing - she's simply gone. Dejected, he snorts a blast of cold autumn air from his nostrils, his good mood deflating faster that a pricked balloon.

He returns his attention to Ophelia and Erthë, trying to shake off his disappointment and focus completely on them. His aunt speaks of a woman named Psyche, murdered by the Moon Goddess - this makes him think of Isopia again, of one of their first conversations where she'd revealed her brother had been slain by the murderous deity. Why did she leave? Try as he might, he can't stop focusing on Isopia's sudden exit, and finds himself fretting over it. God dammit; he hadn't wanted worry on this most momentous of days. His gold seems miffed that his mind is preoccupied, and he feels her give him a mental jab, as if to say focus on me, not her. This brings the smallest of smiles back to his face, and his mood improves a fraction at the mere sight of the young queen.

Her sharp eyes follow Tinek as he clambers a rock and demonstrates gliding. She bounds after him, scaling the rock and digging her hooked claws into the contours of the stone as she ascends to the top. From there, she leaps as the silver had done - without having to worry about keeping height or avoiding the wind, she can concentrate fully on steering, and manages a couple of gentle turns before she alights upon the ground. She coos her delight and uses a combination of body language and catlike mewls to express her thanks to the older, wiser silver, before clambering up the rock to try again. And again. And again.

He glances back to Erthë, who is still speaking to Isopia. He says nothing; this isn't his conversation to have. He watches as she presents the twisted remains of a horn from the depths of her wing and gives it to Ophelia - despite his now tumultous mood, he can't help but wonder who this Psyche woman is, and why she means so much to both his aunt and this young hybrid filly. ""