Survival of the Youngest

[HomeForFlowers]

The small Pumpkin squealed with joy as the bigger hatchling flipped her upwards and let her slide down his neck. She let out a little "whoop" and she gripped the hatchling's back gently. She scrambled her back claws forward in hopes of getting a better grip. Alas, it did not work. The little Pumpkin, who was trying to climb up the Spotted Greenwing's neck, plopped back right down onto his back.

"Fuewd?" the Pumpkin asked, blinking up at the Spotted Greenwing curiously. "Wut fuewd?" The hatchling was having a hard time grasping all of these new words. "Food", "Veeeeeeeenus", "H-h-hungggr-y", and so on. It was all getting very confusing, but exciting at the same time. So many new things to learn so little time.

I wonder what this "food" is. I hope it's something really exciting! Oh, and good smelling too!

[Shibadruid]

Calearn started walking off into an area of the forest where the grass grew taller. He hoped that there he'd be able to find prey. Scanning the area, he noticed that the grass swayed whenever he moved through it, and realized that he could track other animals just by watching the grass. Crouching down, he waited until he saw a large disturbance in the grass. He lunged, only to find that it was just the wind. He sighed, returned to his hiding place, and continued to wait. He hadn't expected hunting to be this slow, but then again he had never done it before, so he couldn't have accurately expected anything.

 

~~~~~

 

Madlia, oblivious to the Balloon hatchling's gaze, turned to Noelle, and said, a-are you ready to go? I s-see some orange f-fruit over there. Maybe we c-could somehow c-climb up there? I d-don't want to h-hurt the tree. Madlia shrugged. She wasn't sure if she'd be able to stand up if there was another hatchling on her back, and she couldn't think of any other way to gain enough height. The Balloon hatchling didn't seem to be too keen on floating up to reach them, either.

[Spark-Dragon]

The hatchling shifted in his egg as his eyes flickered open, his comfortable, safe egg was now a small prison and he didn't like it.

The young dragon shifted slightly to see if he could find more space, but he panicked a little as he heard a crack and his leg fell through the shell, retreating it only caused more of the cracking sounds and he fell out of his shell onto the cold floor of the cave.

 

The dim light was enough to make him flinch at the pain it caused to his eyes, and the cold air brushed along his back causing him to shudder.The new smells irritated his nose, and the sounds hurt his ears, he didn't like this at all, he let out a whine and his throat started hurting too.

All he could do was curl up and wait for the pain to go...

[skiddajane]

 

"Yup, I'm ready. Oh yeah, I see it too." She walked over, and tried reaching up to grab it. It was much higher than she could reach, and pulled her arm down angerly. She tried jumping, but it was still much out of her reach. She wasn't too strong anyway, and jumping probably only got her a few inches higher. She turned to the balloon dragon. "You float. Can you float higher?..." She was being a bit straightforward, but better to simply say it than try to be nice. It wasn't exactly mean, after all.

 

 

Madeline looked at Rim quizzically, and looked at where he was staring at. Something was red on the ground. Oh lord.... It wasn't just "something" It was a friend. A dead friend. Before she knew it, her eyes rolled back into her head, and she fell to the cave floor.

Edited December 2, 2013 by skiddajane

[GreatDragon]

 

Rim jerked backwards as he heard Madeline fall to the floor. Turning his head, he flared his fin up as he realized that his new friend wasn't standing anymore.

 

Forcibly pushing the image of the not-right-right hatchling to the back of his mind, the Dorsal Dragon rushed over to the albino Swallowtail's side.

 

What do? What do? Madeline fall, not alright, not alright, what happen if like other red hatchling, what do?!

 

Becoming frantic, he ran in circles around her, making high-pitched squawks of sound.

 

His own voice was interrupted when someone else made a noise. Skidding to a halt, mind still whirling, Rim swung his head towards the sound.

 

It was another hatchling, one that seemed to have just came out of its egg. It was curled up on the floor.

 

Rim looked back and forth between his friend and the other hatchling, but didn't move a muscle.

 

Madeline hurt, Madeline not alright, no what do. Other not fine, other not alright, no what do. What I do, what I do, WHAT I DO?!

[skiddajane]

 

Madeline recovered quickly, but didn't remember anything from the past few seconds. She happened to look right at the thing that had caused her to faint, and nearly fainted again. She looked away, and buried her face in Rim's scales. "Oh it's dead! Rim something ate it! Something ate the friend!" She didn't think much about how well she was beginning to speak. Her sole focus was the poor dead dragon on the ground.

[LegendOfKorraFan]

Kummaline was quite honestly puzzled by Venus's question; what IS food? So far everything he ate wasn't food, so what was? Kumma just shrugged his shoulders and replied with a 'Hmm'. With that, Kummaline slowly backed down off of his ledge and waddled off of the hard gravel surrounding it. He hadn't noticed it before, but those rocks kind of hurt his paws! Kumma leaped over the remaining ones and proceeded out of the cave entrance. The bright Suns light shot into the Spotted Greenwing's eyes and temporarily blinded him; he wasn't used to such brightness (for obvious reasons).

"Go t-thi-s-s wa-y?" he asked his small orange passenger. He pointed to a few bushes not too far from where they were with his maw, hoping the message he was trying to convey was clear.

 

[Spark-Dragon]

He listened to high pitched squeaks first, then sobs. Soon his curiosity kicked in and the hatchling lifted his head up to the sound, then to what they constantly looked at, but all he saw was a deformed, wet form lying on the floor.

He looked back to the creatures that made sounds and tried to get up, surprised he heard another sound come from his throat as he fell.

But he tried again and with a lot of effort he got to them.

[GreatDragon]

 

"Oh it's dead! Rim something ate it! Something ate the friend!"

 

Rim trilled softly, surprised and happy that Madeline was okay now. He made himself not look at the other hatchling that lay on the floor, the one that had scared the both of them.

 

Silent other was friend. Something...ate friend? Silent other...dead...

 

He didn't understand some of the words that the albino Swallowtail spoke, but he did hear the level of distress in her voice and understood that something bad had happened to the other hatchling. Something very bad.

 

There was movement from the hatchling that had interrupted him when he was panicking and Rim watched as it made its way over to him and Madeline. It didn't have a fin like him, but it wasn't white like Madeline.

 

He didn't know what to do with the silent hatchling that was 'dead', so he tried to push all thoughts of it in the back of his mind. Right now, Madeline and the other dragon were more important and, later, he'd figure something out with the 'dead' hatchling. Something that might make the hatchling not 'dead', or at least not as scary.

[skiddajane]

 

Madeline looked back at the dead hatchling. Her mind was absorbing information, and making connections. She suddenly felt less afraid of it, and more inquisitive. Her scientific mind now turned on, she began lightly touching the scales of it's arms, then her own. They were different colors, but they felt the same. They were...the same type of creature....but different. She looked at it's mouth, then felt around on her own muzzle. They seemed to be the same. It's teeth were sharp. Ouch! So were her own. She was terribly sad about it's death, but was very interested in how the hatchling was similar to herself.

[Kitkat10]

For a brief moment, Tahbaki made a face at whom the canopy dragon called "Noelle". "Floating is not as easy as you think. You can't float, so you wouldn't understand. I can still try though. Don't mind me if I start flailing about uselessly in the wind up there." Yes, Tahbaki was going to try but he wasn't going to do it without any equipment to insure his safety. Plucking a vine from the ground, he wrapped and tied it around his hind leg. He tangled the other end of the vine around the branches of the bush. He gave an experimental tug. It held tight- that should do.

He inhaled and pushed the gas into his stomach, which began inflating and rippling with air.

The next thing he knew, he was soaring towards the branches of the tree.

[HomeForFlowers]

After a moment of squealing in pain as the light dazed her, the little hatchling looked over at where her friend pointed and nodded.

"Furwurd!" she chimed as she pointed forward with a claw. She almost giggled at her remark. It sounded silly in her head and her voice was pretty high-pitched. It was cute in her opinion. If... she even knew what cute was.

[Shibadruid]

Madlia watched, interested, as the Balloon hatchling floated up into the air. Soon, she realized that she hadn't introduced herself. Oh, she started, I-I'm Madlia! This is N-Noelle. What's y-your name? While waiting for the hatchling to get the fruits from the tree, Madlia looked around for more fruit bushes. Turning to Noelle, she said, m-maybe we could m-mark down where all the b-bushes are? T-that way we c-can get to them really q-quickly later on. W-what do you think? Madlia was proud of her little idea, but quickly realized that she didn't know how they would mark the locations, or what they would mark it on. She would mark it on the bushes themselves, but that was rather pointless. Deep in thought, Madlia plopped down onto the grass, silent.

[skiddajane]

 

Noelle gave the Balloon dragon a half smile, trying to make up for her rude comment. She turned to Madila, and listened to her idea. It seemed very smart. She tried hard to think of a way to mark them. It would be easier if they could fly, then they could put something on the tops of the bushes that they could see easily while flying over. But...they couldn't fly... Suddenly an idea came to her head. She could imagine she was flying, and see where the trees and bushes were. She poked a dot into the ground with her claw. She made it a little bigger, so it would look like the cave. Then she moved in the direction she had come from, and made a drawing of a tree. It hardly looked like a tree, but she thought it was beautiful. "There. That's the cave, and that's the fruit tree! It's like we were looking at it from above!"

[Aether_Tea]

 

In the far back of the cave, nestled in a groove between two stones, an egg scarcely larger than a chicken's began to shift. In truth, it had been hatching for quite some time now, though the going had been so slow (and the work had been so quiet), that the changes were nearly imperceptible when watched. It wasn't until now, until a tiny orange nose was poking its way through the shell, that anything could be noticed. The little creature wriggled and wormed his milky orange body out, driven only by instinct and desperation.

 

And when he finally did plop out of his egg, disgustingly wrinkled, slime-coated, and weak from exhaustion, it was instinct that drove him to turn and consume his first meal – the remaining fragments of his shell, and all the goop that was left inside it. And when he was done with that, the hatchling finally took notice of all the commotion going on in the rest of the cave.

 

Still too newborn to make out more than some vague blurs that were distinctly not the same as the eggs all around him, the newest hatchling made his way towards the noises in what he hoped was a stealthy manner. And while it was instinct for him to creep slowly and dart from one hiding spot to the next, he was still too weak, and too clumsy, to even hope to sneak up on any of them. For a creature so small, he sure did make a lot of noise when he managed to slam his entire body into an egg instead of hide behind it.

 

Still, once he was less than a foot away, the newborn crouched alongside a rock and squinted suspiciously at the crowd. As far as he could make out, they were gathered around some sort of other thing, though he wasn't sure if they planned to eat it. So he did the only thing he could think to do – he chirped at them.

[skiddajane]

 

Madeline looked up from the dead hatchling, and looked around. She had heard a small chirp from somewhere. Initially, she overlooked the tiny peach hatchling. A few seconds later, she slowly looked down to see it staring right at her. "Oh, so tiny!!!!" She yelled without warning. The dragon was clearly the most adorable thing she had ever seen. It didn't really occur to her that they were basically the same age.

[Aether_Tea]

 

The petite peach hatchling reared up when Madeline shouted and managed a sharp squawk of alarm before he lost his balance. With an equally tiny thud, he flopped flat on his back and thrashed around until he managed to roll on to his belly. He looked almost like a little worm with how he tucked his legs up underneath his body and wiggled to face the albino, his beady green eyes glittering with a mixture of fear, outrage, and confusion.

 

This was bad. This was get eaten before you even make it out of the cave bad. He wasn't sure if the noisy creature was a predator or not, so he just opened his mouth as wide as he could to expose his rows of needle-sharp teeth. He was exhausted, famished, and cold, but he wanted to make it clear that he would not be an easy meal. Not today. Not ever.

[Spark-Dragon]

The hatchling flopped down next to Rim, and looked at the lighter dragon as she studied the strange thing on the ground.

He would've joined her if he didn't use most of his energy on getting over to them! His feet ached from the rough stones and falling and tripping.

 

Instead he studied the area, seeing that a lot of the hatchlings were going to the strange light, but as he turned his head he also saw the light hatchling head the other way.

He looked up at Rim for an explanation, not knowing that the other only hatched an hour or so before him.

[GreatDragon]

 

Rim was confused when the albino Swallowtail turned back towards the 'dead' hatchling. She seemed to be studying it, as if her fear had just disappeared.

 

Before he could ask her what she was doing, or at least try to say something clear, she interrupted his train of thought.

 

"Oh, so tiny!!!!"

 

It took a moment, but then he saw the tiny creature that had caught Madeline's attention. The being was incredibly tiny to Rim, and his derailed train of thought found a new path.

 

Madeline right, very tiny. Very, very, very tiny. Why?

 

Raising his head and looking around, he noticed that the other hatchling had flopped down onto the ground near him. Tilting his head to the side, Rim glanced at Madeline, the tiny creature, and then the other hatchling.

 

Madeline white Swallowtail, two tails. Rim purple Dorsal, fin. Tiny creature very tiny, and...orangeish color. Other hatchling brownish, only...two legs? Why all different?

 

Lost in his own thoughts, he tried to differentiate why all of them weren't the same. In a way, they kind of were, but big things seemed to separate their physical appearance. Rim could also see that how they acted was different as well. Madeline liked to talk and seemed more...thoughtful than himself, the other hatchling seemed to be trying to get their attention, the tiny hatchling was...well, tiny.

 

And scared of Madeline.

 

Fin halfway up, he tried to get Madeline's attention.

 

"Mmaadeline. Ttthiney loook sccarthd. Nooo...looudth?

 

Maybe tiny not like loud noises. Or cold. Or bright. Or others...

 

Rim looked back at the other hatchling, remembering that it had hatched and then had slowly made its way to him and Madeline. It was looking at him and he stared back at it, not understanding what it wanted.

 

When he had hatched, he had wanted to be warm and back in the tight place. And then he had wanted to see the green light hatchling.

 

Maybe...other hatchling want to see me and Madeline? Maybe even tiny?

[skiddajane]

 

Madeline looked at the tiny dragon with clear interest. It backed away, scared. The way it wiggled made it seem all the more adorable. She giggled, and poked it. "Poke." She said to it as she poked it. Suddenly, Rim spoke up, and said something along the lines of Madeline, Tiny, Scared, and Loud. She was being too loud. She closed her mouth, and got down to the pigmy's level. She laid on her stomach, smiling at the Pigmy. She poked it again. "Poke." She didn't even notice the other dragon that had joined their little friend group.

[Aether_Tea]

 

The first time Madeline poked at the pygmy hatchling, he just hissed and swayed his head back and forth like a snake. When she did it again, he snapped. Surprisingly quick, his head shot forwards as he tried to sink his teeth into the offending limb. His tail lashed angrily against the rock, and he tried to dart around her.

 

His vision was finally starting to clear, at the very least, and gradually the three other hatchlings were coming into focus. White, black, and brown blobs melted into something he could make sense of, and already he could feel something in the back of his mind furiously taking notes of his surroundings; where could he hide, what could he climb, and every route that seemed like it could lead to an escape. Past them, though, was...

 

He froze as he tired to figure out what he was looking at. It all looked so wondrous and promising, and he could hear new sounds. For a moment, his attention skittered back to the other hatchlings, and then he chirruped and bounced closer to the mouth of their cave. He stretched his neck out and took in a deep breath of the earthy, rich air outside, felt the cool breeze wash over him as the sun prepared to set, and let the music of the evening insects wash over him as he tried to soak it all in at once. He glanced back over his shoulder once more, chirped again, and crouched low as he prepared to go bounding from their cave.

[skiddajane]

Madeline jerked back when it hissed and tried to bite her. She was done trying to make friends with this tiny thing. She saw it run off near the cave entrance, and frowned. Fine. You stupid little thing is mean. She thought. She turned to Rim and the other dragon. "Hai." She said to the new one, smiling.

[Spark-Dragon]

He was beginning to think it would've been better if he stayed in the egg, the little orange thing the albino one was so interested in had bounced off and was now heading for the light like the other... creatures.

 

His head turned back to the albino as he heard her make a sound, it was much better then the sounds he made, so he tried to imitate it, "haa-i?"

[GreatDragon]

 

Rim followed the tiny hatchling with his eyes as it ran to the whiteness that covered one of the walls in the cave. His eyes were accustomed to the darkness of the cave and could not see what was outside, so he had no idea that the world was actually larger than it appeared.

 

"Hai."

 

He turned back to Madeline and the other hatchling, fin in a relaxed position. The albino was now interested in the new hatchling, which he thought was better than the 'dead' hatchling.

 

Glancing at the limp form a few feet away from them, obscured by a few of the eggs surround them, he turned his attention back on the other two dragons.

 

"haa-i?"

 

Tilting his head as the other hatchling copied Madeline, he made a little trilling sound, his own greeting. He had greeted Madeline the same way and they became friends, so maybe he could be friends with everyone by doing the same thing. Circling around the other hatchling, Rim remembered his train of thought about how they all looked and acted different.

 

Why different? Why all look different, what purpose?

[LegendOfKorraFan]

Kummaline casually rolled his eyes at Venus.

Goodness, doesn't she know how to say any other words? he thought to himself.

Kumma petted the top of Venus's head with the tip of his tail, then proceeded to advance towards to bush. The berries on the branches appeared to be withered and dead, but Kummaline didn't know that. The Spotted Greenwing swatted at the berries lowest on the bush. knocking them onto the dry dirt. A small cloud of dirt rose from the ground and got right in Kumma's eyes. Kumma flinched in surprise, but focus back on to the berries.

"E-eaat V-veee", he chirped.

Kummaline sat on his rump hoping that Venus would slide off his back with ease.

 

The eyes of a Hellhorse opened violently as sudden bursts of noise infiltrated it's ear holes. Startled, the dragon immediately began kicking it's nature-made prison, shaking it violently in the process.

Must. Break. Free! it screeched in it's mind.

The only thing that it wanted at the moment was to get out as soon as possible. The confined space began making it very uncomfortable. Shortly after "breathing" became much more difficult than previously.

Eeee!

A loud screeching scream sound emitted from the egg as if something of demonic nature was trying to break free.

Let. Me. Out!

Edited December 10, 2013 by LegendOfKorraFan