Grace

[In for a Penny]

The morning after a certain prize drawing...

A courier arrived at Domus early, bringing a carefully wrapped bundle to the door. The egg lay in a wooden crate, packed with sawdust and wrapped around with chemically heated warmers. The top of the green caught the dawn light, reflecting weirdly off the curls of the shell that reached for the sky like sprouting weeds. The courier left it on the doorstep, knocked twice, shook out the electric sting of the wards that tasted their skin, and left.

Anya opened the door a moment later. She wasn't fast enough to stop the five drakes that trotted past her to surround the crate. They trilled and chattered with excitement before settling to blink up at Anya owlishly. "What is it?" She asked.

Draconic variations of an egg answered her, with details like green, big, and getting cold scattered throughout. Her eyes widened with each word until she crouched down and yanked the crate over the threshold. It was heavier than it looked, making her puff a breath out with the unexpected effort.

Anya pulled an absurdly oversized black hoodie off a hoodie by the door and drew it down over her head. She didn't put shoes on, still barefoot in flannel pajama pants, when she lifted the crate. She marched to the kitchen, and her little corner of portals. Her toes tapped twice on the floor, igniting a hidden circle with a flare of bright light.

Another circle flashed in her rooms at Lucky's house, Greenhold Manor. She stepped out of the circle there, hefted the crate, and walked out the door. Down the stairs, in the tennis court where the dragon laired, she finally took a breath. Her lips parted and she inhaled, then closed. What to say seemed difficult to settle on. She gulped in air and tried again, quieter than intended, certain the sleeping giant in front of her would hear. "Lucky? Can you wake up, please?"

It wasn't the way that Anya usually woke Lucky here. Her request imparted seriousness. He liked to start his mornings with a joke, but there was no toothy grin when he lifted his head and emerged from the invisibility of his hoard. His teeth were half-hidden as he rumbled out on a gurgling breath, "Svabol ui xuut?" What is wrong?

Large nostrils flared, venting air that had grown hot from hours of slumber.

Shifting that much body out of sleep took some time. Anya laid the crate on the floor while he adjusted himself. She plunged her hands into the sawdust, brushing it aside and pulling away the heat packs until they found the curve of the egg's base. She moved slowly when she straightened and lifted it, as if it were made of glass.

Her eyes held a request for help when they met the one of his closest to her. "I'm not even sure this is real. But the drakes think it is."

There were inquisitive chirrups from the door to the hall. Twist and Gatsby - his drakes - now knew about the egg. Lucky turned his great head aside and rumbled, "Nomeno ui vi irthos." This news did not need to make its way along the drake grapevine. Not yet.

Lucky slid up to her and curled his body, his belly settling against the floor again, and moved his talons around the egg to hold it securely. He was precise and careful, missing her limbs, and she made the job easier, offering the egg over to him and away from her body when he reached. He brought his head up to one side of it, one cross-shaped pupil flaring wider over it, and sniffed again.

"It is real. It is a real, live, green dragon egg. What happened?" It was the broadest way to ask it -- he had no idea whether Anya had been given this, or found it, or rescued it, or how it had come about.

"It was on the Isle. I got it as part of a contest that started last night." Anya took a quick breath. Her weight shifted back, away from the egg to yield it over to him more clearly. "I didn't know that it was in the prize pool until it showed up this morning at my house."

"You did the right thing. Often our eggs are looted when we are slain, and traded around until no one is certain what they have. I suspect that this was the case, coming from a magical contest at the Twilight Isle... They can gestate for a long time. Hibernate in a way, to stave off hatching when they lack what they need. This one has stopped hibernating. The ones who delivered it likely realized this, too, and tried to keep it warm," he said, and set it down carefully in the crook of his forelimb, warm flesh partly enfolding it.

His head turned back to her, looking at her head-on. "The egg will do better with poison. My acid would only hurt it. I can warm and protect it, but I cannot make it a proper nest."

"It's hatching?" She was moving when he did, adjusting to allow him to arrange himself freely and protect the egg as needed. Her focus was on being as unobtrusive to the shifts as possible. She ended up leaning back against his forelimb and lifting her feet out of the way of the joint when he folded, landing sitting on him with her feet propped against the other side of the egg's resting place.

"What kind of poison? I can bring something if it will help, though maybe not as much as you'd need."

"It will hatch soon, in days or less. Poison gas is best, but to mist a blanket with venom... might suffice." The hesitation was telling. His tongue raked over his snout, a thoughtful kind of expression in this context.

"It needs a green dragon." And Lucky's scales were copper.

"I don't know of one I would trust with an egg. Can we slow it down while we find the right place for it?" Anya looked from the egg to Vrinpax's face. "Is it... like labor?"

Lucky raised his head a couple of feet in a Draconic negative. It was not like labor. "The egg is heavy. The irra'lewoig must be nearly gone - that is what it eats when it hibernates." He lowered his head again. "I know a green dragon here, Parvan, but they have been scarred by a rival before. They live here by choice for safety, but they are wary of speaking to any dragons alone. They will only speak to us in a moot."

"What happens if we can't find it a green dragon?" She leaned forward to run her hand over the side of the egg, moving up so the edges of the tendrils didn't catch her skin. It was warmer than it had been when she'd carried it, which was good. Eggs hatched when warm, which was concerning. Her brow furrowed, the first bits of worry that it wouldn't be fixed creeping in.

"Without a green dragon's poison, it will hatch weaker. It will be a runt, it will have weaker breath, and it may be frail." He let out a long, gurgling breath. Membranes blinked sideways over eyes that remained steady on hers. His jaw relaxed. The expression was hard to read. "Very few neglected eggs and hatchlings become ancients... and not all of them make it to the next age. There are greater risks."

"Anyone we speak to will be aware of that. They'll want to help, I'm sure." She stopped touching the egg, turning her head halfway back towards him to watch as much of his reactions as she could without losing sight of their charge. The same hand, warmed by the egg, reached up to run along the bottom of his jaw, smoothing the scales there with the same light touch. Her fingers skimmed the surface of them without hitching on the edges.

"It won't be neglected. Talk to your neighbors. Even if Parvan won't take it, someone will know a way."

There was another blink and a rumble in the back of his throat as he relaxed. "Yes. You are right. But I should not leave the egg -- at least, not unless Parvan will not take it. Could you go to them, first? Twist and Gatsby could go with you. I think they have visited them before."

"We'll go. They can show me which house." She scooted forward to the edge of the leg she'd been using as a seat, giving the egg wide clearance. Her bare feet hit the floor of the court softly. No plan to change appeared in the works. Instead, she twisted her hair up into a bun that did little to hide the night's knotting, and yanked her sweatshirt down to straighten it.

Before she left, she turned to fold her arms on his forelimb, resting her chin on them so she was eye level with the top of the egg. She looked up at him without lifting her head. "Are you sure? I know it's not the usual way for this to happen, but if you want to figure it out I'll help you keep them."

Finally, Lucky cracked a smile. Well, what passed for smiling for a full-grown dragon, scaly skin peeling back to bare teeth, the flaring of his eyes settling as his pupils shrank. "Thank you for asking, and offering." His tail drifted closer, touched her shoulderblades and swished back. "But it isn't what I want."

"Okay. You'll be a good uncle." She straightened and looked around until she spotted the two drakes lurking on the perimeter of the room. "Krathin?" The question and the tilt of her head towards the door had them trotting off to the front of the house, Anya following.

Lucky watched them go, then resettled carefully around the egg, curling his body until his tail looped over his forelimbs.

((This and following posts written with Anya's player. Thank you to Duel of Magic staff for creating the event that led to this!))

[Viridian]

Slippers were waiting for Anya in the front closet. She should have gone back to her room to change into different pants, or at least taken a jacket, but the heat and the weight of egg were taking up too much of her thoughts for her to realize how she looked. She opened the door for the two little drakes who led her down the dim street to Lucky's neighbor in the strange little patch of New Haven known as Adderwood.

She lifted her hand to ring the bell. It was inches from contact when she yanked it back. The light in her eyes shifted, running the full rainbow spectrum across the blue of them. She pressed the bell.

Little talons clicked in the foyer, and a voice crowed in Draconic. A voice from further inside called, "It's just breakfast, Dratini. Hey, leave it at the door, okay!" they pitched their voice louder, addressing whoever was outside.

The house was older, Colonial, about half the size of Lucky's (though not the only one in Adderwood so small), with a large greenhouse attached to the back of the house with glass that seemed fogged over and impossible to see through. The house was in a decent state, though a little untidy.

A jet black drake with magnetic piercings appeared at a window by the door, blink-blinked, and flared her purple frills as she crowed back into the house.

"No, Twist and Gatsby don't work for King Burger-- Just a second!"

Dratini looked back and gave her drake friends a fanged smile, and Anya a quizzical look. Chirrup.

"Get back, okay, babydrake?" Dratini fluttered back out of sight, and a chain slid into place. Then the door opened a fraction, showing a face half obscured by long floppy hair, dyed black and purple, and the hood of a ratty black sweatshirt pulled as far forward as possible. Behind the hair, green scales and abundant scar tissue were partly concealed.

" 'Lo," they said, and coughed. "Um. Can I help you?"

Anya put on her best friendly smile, the same she wore when greeting clients to Whitedown or managing a difficult night of tending. Gatsby and Twist did their part as well, settling across her shoulders and in her arms to further defuse the threat of her. "Good morning. Are you Parvan? I'm Anya. I'm sorry to interrupt your morning."

"Ah-- it's fine, I was just..." They rubbed the back of their head and hunched their shoulders. There was a flicker of recognition in the yellowish green eye that faced her. "I thought you were a dasher. Sorry. Um. What's up?"

Dratini croaked a few quiet words, and Parvan dared a quick look back. "It's fine. She's cool. Come on up." And with a flutter, the drake alighted from the banister and landed on their shoulder.

"Ah. We have a bit of a problem over at Greenhold." Anya shifted back on to her heels, giving space if it was needed.

"There's no way to ease into it really. I was given an egg, a green dragon egg, and Lucky says he can't give it what it needs long enough to make it to a moot." Her shoulders rose in a weak surrender to the absurdity of the request. The drakes bobbed along with the motion. "Could you help us?"

"Fuck. Um." They stomped and scuffed their way into a pair of slip-on shoes and undid the chain. "Yeah. No, it's okay, Dratini," they answered the drake's inquisitive chirrup. "I'm going -- we're going together, if he, um... if I'm allowed. Uh." They adjusted their hood and hair again, digging black painted nails into the fabric, giving the house up the street an uncertain look. Then they looked back at Anya. "The irra'lewoig -- is it... is there enough for it to, um... sorry, how do you guys say it -- hibernate?"

"No, he said it's too heavy for there to be much left." The side of her mouth pulled into a grimace of chagrin. "Sorry, I don't know that much about it but he didn't want to leave it until it was better protected."

She backed up again, shifting to the side so she was nearly hidden by the door, not raising her voice. "I only got it this morning and I think he said uh, that it was too far awake? Or too close to be stopped?" She took another step backwards, towards Greenhold.

Parvan stopped and looked at Anya, not head-on but askance. Then they looked up through the branches of the overgrown trees in their front yard, looking for something -- a fellow dragon about to swoop in and finish them off, perhaps, now that they'd finally set foot outside in broad daylight.

Nothing.

Dratini cooed and nipped their chin, and they smoothed her frills and sighed.

"Whatever... Fuck it," they muttered, shouldered their Meta Knight backpack that clattered with glass containers, and set off for Greenhold.

[In for a Penny]

Lucky had tried to introduce himself, and had even tried to crack a joke: "I swear this is not what it looks like." But Parvan seemed to be going through these interactions through sheer force of will, and anything outside of what was necessary was met with sullen suspicion.

There was an unspoken exchange, however. Hesitation until Lucky stretched his forelimbs to either side. Parvan hunched in reply. The host dragon had extended an invitation, and the guest was displaying no threat.

The egg was left unwarmed for no more than a minute, as Lucky reverted to a humanoid shape to give the space necessary. Parvan grabbed four pickle jars of a yellow-green gel from their backpack and slathered it over every surface of the egg. The air around it was acrid and stinging, and Twist and Gatsby gave it a wide berth, though Dratini didn't seem to need to. Then, with a weary look at Anya and Lucky, Parvan shifted.

They were smaller than Lucky, and only half Gwydr's size, an adult dragon and not deep into that age, either. Without a hood or hair to disguise it, their wounds were clear to see: claw and bite marks around their neck, delicate membranous tissue recently regrown over jagged holes in their wings, deep scars on one side of their head and their frills missing on that side. Scales grew in unevenly on their underbelly, both from long tears from talons and small puncture wounds from weapons. Whatever dragon -- and humanoids -- had done this had nearly killed them.

They curled in closely around the egg and looked between Anya and Lucky, who was frowning and scrubbing his jaw.

Anya waited for Parvan to be distracted with the tending of the egg before she moved. She crossed the room quickly to where Lucky stood, lacing her fingers through those of his free hand. The loose hold tightened, fingers pressing into his palm at the sight of the scarring revealed on the shift. Rather than stare, she looked away, up at him, waiting to be told what to do or get next.

Lucky responded to the squeeze by leaning his head on top of hers, nuzzling his jaw against her hair.

"He understands," Parvan growled, looking at Lucky head-on. "He knows why I am here."

"You were ambushed. Your lair wasn't safe anymore. And--" He lifted his head from Anya's and stretched his opposite arm to one side. Parvan confirmed with a blink and a close-mouthed grimace. "You lost nearly everything. You're here because we wouldn't tolerate an attack on our homes."

"I... cannot provide for another... when they grow. They would leave the lair with nothing. I... could not give them what they deserve. After... after I was attacked, I -- I didn't have anything to offer. So they all left." Their large nostrils flared, and they lowered their head to the floor, shifting their jaw, as if they would burrow in and hide away.

With a crooning cry, Dratini glided over to them, landing on their snout to nuzzle, and they conceded, "Almost everyone."

Anya heard they all left and a quiet, pained noise from deep in her throat answered. She'd turned away from Lucky when he'd started talking, but now she looked at Parvan with sympathy. "How much would you need, if you chose to keep them?"

"Ten million in your silver," Parvan said to Anya. The look was not askance, not this time.

Lucky did not look surprised, but he exhaled forcefully. His hand had settled onto Anya's back at her noise, but he seemed pulled between a sympathetic sadness and troubled distraction. His brow furrowed with thought. "If I spared that, then... I would have to take a century for it."

The significance was not lost on Parvan. Dratini settled closer to the egg while Parvan raised their mighty head, and said, "You asked for my help with the little one. I... I would raise them if I could, but that is the help I need."

All Anya could manage at first was a blink for the amount. "It- that's more than I have available." She looked to Lucky, back to Parvan, and finally to the egg. "It's more than most will have alone. And you don't have a century," she reminded Lucky, softer.

Wildling dragons needed their hoards, if they wished for a chance to escape the madness and misery that awaited them in their twilight age.

"It's too great of a risk," Lucky agreed. Parvan shifted protectively around the egg, their eyeridges showing their worry and uncertainty, but Lucky didn't let that linger.

"I'm calling a moot. Whether some of us have enough, or we get it back from the one who took it from you, we'll find the money."

Parvan's green eyes blinked wide open, but Lucky was looking at Anya. "This is a terrible idea. I'm kind of excited," he said with a nervous laugh. "I need to talk to my neighbors anyway, right? Get out there and make more friends. Enemies. Frenemies."

This was crossing into territory where Anya was becoming useful once again. She leaned back, pressing where his hand rested on her spine when he suggested they may be able to get some back. A silent reminder she was here and what she could do.

"Are they going to dislike it?" Lucky's two drakes had perked up when they heard moot. This was the first sign the rest of the dragons might consider such a request trouble. The second was him looking at her. She responded to his nervous laugh with a quirk of a smile. "It will be fine."

He felt the touch. He smiled at her, giving her a quick wink. He remembered. "I haven't been here long, but I don't think the neighborhood's had a proper moot before... Parvan?"

"Mm?" There was a whooshing kind of sound as the green dragon roused from distraction, peeling their attention away from the egg. "No. Or they never invited me... but I think they have not."

"We need a grove or clearing nearby, in the Wilds," he said. "I can protect it with an illusion. Can you find one, while I go door-to-door?"

"I know the Wilds. I can help." She looked to Parvan to add. "If you need it. Or I can take the other half of the neighborhood." She looked back to Lucky for a pause. "Or go home."

She was already changing her weight in the slippers, ready to move off in whatever direction he told her to go.

"I do not know the forests here that well," Parvan admitted.

"Thennnnnnnnnn," Lucky drew out the syllable as he thought, working his jaw in a rather Draconic expression, "why don't you lead Parvan to the clearing and let me know where you go. I'll gather the moot, and we'll meet there. Okay?" he said, and kissed her, and smiled.

"I'm glad you get to see this." His eyes searched hers for a moment.

She hadn't expected the kiss while someone else was in the room. It caught her by surprise, leaving her with eyes that had closed reflexively and didn't open right away. When they did, she found his, the smile returning to her lips before she licked them and took a breath. "Let me change first. I know the place."

She sent a nod towards Parvan- curt and businesslike now that the ruse of uncertainty had done its job. Anya stepped away from Lucky, trailing fingers along the small of his back as she passed behind him to return to her rooms.

Briefly, the house buzzed with activity. As Lucky left and Anya changed, the drakes helped Parvan to bundle up the egg for its journey. Ettyn and the junior slayers arrived at Greenhold to watch the neighborhood from high vantage points, ensuring that no one took advantage of the dragons' absence for the moot. And soon Parvan, Anya and the egg set off for the Wilds.

[In for a Penny]

An illusion covered the clearing, subtle enough not to stand out: a slight thickening of the canopy from above, the replacement of a dozen barren trees with evergreens, more bramble, denser underbrush, fallen trees across what old trails there were, and no sound escaping except for occasional birdsong.

The dragons of the neighborhood had gathered in a circle, each in their natural form. They viewed each other with suspicion, every look was askance, and their necks arched halfway to rearing out of the way of attack -- the better to breathe deadly elements on their foes.

Only Vrinpax and Parvan assumed different posture. Vrinpax - not Lucky. Not here, in this shape, in a moot, among other dragons. He had his head lowered diplomatically, and his tail curled along one side of his body, then curled back so it settled in a half-circle around Anya, a statement of both belonging and protection.

Parvan was curled around the egg, head pressed into their flank to obscure the scarred side of their face. Others were heavily scarred, too, though none quite as disfigured.

The last of the dragons had only recently settled. The process had been drawn out by the arrival of Gwydr, a crystal dragon from the Wilds and easily the oldest and largest of the group. She had seen the gathering while aloft on a hunt, and took her place without asking what the moot was about -- and preened her wing joints anxiously when she felt the bewildered attention upon her.

Finally, there was a low rumbling, as each dragon growled out their own name and those of every dragon at the moot, whether heard for the first time or known for centuries. The air vibrated with their assertions and acknowledgments for several minutes, then subsided.

The dragons looked to one another, then most of the attention slowly shifted to Vrinpax, a silent agreement that he be responsible for making the opening move, a politically vulnerable place to be in a moot.

One eye winked its membrane sideways at Anya. He gurgled acid in his throat, preparing his voice for argument.

The hunt for the clearing had left Anya with mud on her sturdy boots, some of it reaching up to her mid calves and seeping a cold wetness into her calves where the denim refused to dry. Vrinpax's tail acting as a wind break and a source of warmth eased some of the chill. The canvas jacket she wore, gritty with waterproofing that needed to be redone, and the knit cap pulled down over her loose hair were a visible reminder that she wasn't as immune to the elements as the rest of the moot. Still, despite appearances, her shoulders were squared and her chin was up with her hands clasped loose and low in front of her. She stood quietly next to him, safe in the curve of his tail.

While the dragons of the moot acknowledged eachother, she turned to catch Gwydr's eye and sent a smile of reassurance to her friend. The gesture was repeated for Parvan where they curled around the egg. The expression changed when she saw the wink of the massive eye down to her. She made an effort not to smile too widely in response, just the briefest flash of teeth before she pressed her lips together again. Even when the others adjusted to watch Vrinpax, she knew some were watching her just as closely. Political missteps in a system she'd never witnessed would be all to easy.

Draconic was the language for the moot, following the tone set by their true forms and true names. Vrinpax raised his head until it was higher than most others, and spoke in a loud, booming voice: "I have called the moot. The green dragon egg came here from my lair by my word." Low rumbles from the other dragons as his words echoed, but no one stirred. His claim of responsibility did not seem to surprise anyone. "Anya, Drake-Friend, Spirit-Shepherd, competed in a magical contest on the Twilight Isle. She did not seek the egg. It was treated as a not-known prize, one prize of many. It was given to her, and she brought it to me and gave it immediately, without price or being compelled."

Voices rose during his, dragons raising their heads to try to interrupt and be heard. "How did they attain it?" "I have heard no word of a green egg theft! That must mean a green dragon was slain!" "Does the city knowingly trade in our young?" "They may not know! None of them may know!" "She is a slayer - did she slay the parents?!" "She is a spirit-shepherd now, and as a slayer, she took only a dragon's mark against a dragon!" "As she did with Vrinpax! They could have--" "Quiet, fool! I know of the contest of which Vrinpax speaks! They spoke of it on the vision-play machine! Speak not of conspiracy, unless you wish to seem an idiot!"

Vrinpax drew his head back slowly, only speeding up the motion and flaring his wings when he sensed a rebuttal to the last counter, and declared, "I HAVE MORE TO SPEAK ON THIS!" Heads lowered and raised, wings flared, tails lashed, jaws snapped, but ultimately the arguments and reactions settled. "The egg needs the care of a green dragon. I called upon Parvan, who nurtured it with their poison and warms it now."

Gwydr arched her neck and piped in, "Does that not settle the matter?" She didn't seem to notice the way that rearing up her gargantuan frame -- larger than any other present -- caused those nearby to shrink back. She was entirely unwittingly asserting her place.

"It does not settle the matter," Vrinpax replied, and tension eased out in several long, low rumbles from the rest of the moot, that it would not be dissolved on a near-wyrm's word and implicit threat. "Parvan has no hoard to give to the hatchling. Upon its century, it would leave the lair poor and vulnerable. A hoard is needed, but I cannot spare mine."

"Vrinpax should have thought on that before he took an egg into his lair! And Parvan, the same! They should not have offered help that they could not give! The shame of an impoverished dragon in a so-called moot, called by one barely old enough to roar his own name, when he could not conspire to enact his will onto a proper moot!" The silver dragon declaring this shook out her white frills airily and bared her teeth at the two dragons, and cast a decided not-friendly head-on look at Anya behind Vrinpax's tail.

The gravel of Draconic shouting made Anya's teeth set together. The small muscles around her eyes twitched, seeking to close them against the sound that rumbled through her chest. But still, she didn't turn away from the moot. Instead, when the silver dragon leveled a look on her, Anya stared back, steady.

Subtlety was lost on Gwydr, but she understood insult and threat. She let out a full-throated roar, craning her neck out over the clearing into the silver-dragon's face, who quailed further and further back. "Do you say that the hatchling should go cold and die?! You say that would be better! You say a rotten thing against all dragons!"

The silver dragon arched her neck again, though she kept ducking her head whenever Gwydr moved hers, and tried to speak, but Vrinpax asserted his role again. "I want good life for the hatchling! Do we not all?! What can be spared for it?! That is why I have called this moot!"

"Why should the egg not be given to another green dragon?" another cut in, "one stronger and wealthier? Who impoverished Parvan? Parvan, speak!"

"Speak, Parvan!" "You are here! Speak for yourself!" "Tell us!" Under the barrage of questions and shame, Parvan drew in closer around the egg, shrinking back from the rest of the moot, frills lowered uncertainly.

"It was Auralis!" they finally managed to say, and the moot was silent when the ancient gold dragon's name was invoked. "He visited me when I laired in the Emerald Marsh, and... and he said it had once been his lair! But no more! He warned me of his territory, and the settlements he protected! People sought me for trade in poisons for a century without trouble, until the people in his land used it to kill their lord and lady, and they... they said it was an evil thing! Auralis came to my lair to speak on it, and I let him in, and he had brought in people he covered with invisibility -- they attacked! They killed and drove off my followers and drove me out and took all they could find!"

Parvan's voice broke to a strange whistling kind of keening deep in their throat, head lowered over the egg, as another flurry of argument broke out.

Gwydr's intervention was welcome. While Anya couldn't convince her heart to slow while the dragons remained shouting around her, she could draw a breath when the ire moved on to Auralis. Slate eyes tracked the furious motions of the moot.

"Auralis is on the true moot! He should be called here to clear his name!" "HE should be made to pay!" "Or a mark put on him, if this can be proven!" "Nothing may come of that. What of our means to help?!" "What responsibility do we have for Vrinpax's choices and Parvan's misfortune?!" "Do you WANT the hatchling to suffer?" "NO! But we do not make it suffer!" "But you have the means to stop it--!" "As do you! As do all of you!"

The keening finally broke out into a desperate, anguished roar from Parvan, barely strong enough to drown out the arguing voices...

...though strong enough to wake someone up.

Chk. Crick crick crack.

The moot fell silent. Almost as one, more than a dozen long dragon necks craned over towards Parvan, massive heads looking down on the cracking egg, membranes blinking rapidly over their eyes to clear their vision while they watched. Their breaths rumbled out like low, quiet purrs, an instinctive sound which encouraged the hatchling within the egg, as cracks formed faster and a low thrum mimicked all of theirs.

Anya watched Parvan, curled around the egg, and saw the first crack. Her hands, white knuckled from the hold they'd had on eachother, relaxed. She reached one out to lay it on Vrinpax's tail. It was a gentle pat pat to direct his attention in the same direction as hers, so gentle she wasn't sure he'd feel it with his focus on the debate.

The purring sped up as Vrinpax joined in, and the hatchling's eager thrumming matched it, giving way to squeaky yaps and snarls as she flexed her limbs and stretched and twisted her spine, forcing the cracks in the egg to widen. None of the observing dragons moved, continuing their quiet encouragement until a few sharp headbutts and the razor-like spines on her snout cracked and sawed the egg open, popping the first large piece out and onto the mossy earth.

"The first piece! Save it for them," someone said, and Vrinpax looked from the egg to Anya, growling and dipping his head encouragingly. With her much smaller hands and lack of talons, she was best equipped to save the first piece of barbed shell that pushed off from the hatchling's head, thumping onto the wildflowers on the other side of Vrinpax's copper tail.

She didn't need more encouragement, she'd heard the shouted instruction. His tail came nearly to waist height, and she needed to practically vault to get over it and slide down the other side. Once there, she retrieved the first piece of the shell, placing it carefully on Vrinpax's tail before she hoisted up next to it. She'd stopped worrying about hurting him in this shape month ago.

As the egg began to give way, the hatchling stretched, and the shell collapsed around her. Goopy tendrils clung to her wings and limbs and tail as she thumped and rolled around on the ground, and with a few attempts, managed to totter onto her sharp-clawed feet. She let out a high, yawning roar as she tried to stretch out her wings, and finally Parvan dared to move again, swiveling their head around to clean the goop off from behind, forked tongue lashing away.

Buffeted slightly, the hatchling staggered, then turned her head to face Parvan. They stared at each other for a long moment, then the hatchling chirruped and nuzzled the scarred side of their face.

Slowly, carefully, the other dragons drew their heads back to give more room, though none seemed able to look away for long.

Quietly, Anya watched the hatchling emerge. While it held the others' interest, she watched them too. Each dragon was studied in turn, looking for the wonder of new life to spread into their faces. She saw it, the hope and pride that was all rolled up and place on that one little green dragon. Anya tapped her heels against the copper-scaled tail below her. When his eyes found her, she nodded encouragingly.

Vrinpax's pupils shrank down when they settled on Anya's face, and he rumbled his acknowledgment. He lifted his head to speak again. "I will give what part I can spare, one-half-million in silver. We can see to Parvan and--"

Parvan was staring at Anya head-on for a few seconds, and decided, "Ingowil." A word for grace as understood by dragons -- and how they understood Anya's name.

"We can see to Parvan and Ingowil's needs if we each do our part."

Before anyone else could speak, before Vrinpax could continue, Gwydr said "YES" and bent her head over the parent and newborn, stretched her neck, horked and retched loudly, and dropped a stone chest covered in goop and rattling with diamonds onto the ground. She leaned back again, preening the phlegm and saliva off of her snout.

The silver dragon, in an effort to clear her name, spoke it in a growl to declare herself and said, "I will spare one-full-million in silver for Parvan's hoard, to be split with Ingowil when she attains her century." She sought Parvan's permission with a turn of her head, and when given, she lowered her snout to Ingowil's, gently making contact with the curious hatchling before backing away again.

One after another, the dragons named themselves and their contributions, most of them a half-million or a million. A brass dragon, upon finishing his contribution, looked to Anya and arched his head before asserting, "I recognize the Drake-Friend, Spirit-Shepherd, and Hatch-Ward to speak and give once in this moot. Am I seconded?"

"You are seconded," the silver dragon spoke. Vrinpax broke into a Draconic grin, all teeth, and dipped his head to Anya encouragingly.

Anya cleared her throat before she spoke. Long silence didn't lend itself to the throaty notes she needed when speaking draconic. Still, she kept it short, barely long enough for the Draconic accent she was acquiring to come through clearly. "A million, from myself and my sister, and our protection while Ingowil grows."

The first shard of the shell rested on Vrinpax's tail beside her. Edges of it, sharp like shattered glass, scraped against her fingers and embedded tiny slivers when she picked it up again. She stood from her seat with it in her hands. It provided safe passage, giving her a right to approach the hatchling and her parent to leave the shell at the newborn's feet. She would take nothing with her but the glittering pinpricks under her skin.

As she straightened, she touched her nose gently, fleetingly, to the tip of Ingowil's snout. A lightning fast flicker of a smile to Parvan could easily go unnoticed as she turned and returned to her designated place next to Vrinpax.

Parvan dipped their head subtly, hiding a Draconic smile behind a rather bashful expression.

In spite of all of the arguments mere minutes ago, the dragons deferred to the moot's speaker at its conclusion. They rumbled to each other, quieted, and all turned to Vrinpax, who arched his neck again and declared: "Excepting Gwydr, we bring our treasures to the lair of Parvan as we are able. The moot is ended."

One after another, the dragons shifted back to their chosen humanoid forms and departed the clearing. The last were Anya, Ingowil, Vrinpax, and Parvan, the latter two acquainting the hatchling with their humanoid forms before they took her to her new lair with Gwydr's contribution.

Gwydr had not flown away as she usually did. Whether following suit with the others because she thought she was supposed to, or because she had some purpose of her own, she had shifted and followed the path south back to the dragons' New Haven neighborhood.

Anya was still hanging back, even with the two adults having reverted to humanoid forms. Her promise of protection was in place, yet wholly unnecessary at the moment. The shimmer of the illusion at the edge of vision drew her attention more than once, looking beyond it to be sure none of the others were returning. No sign of the moot resuming, and a newborn dragon in the center. She finally stepped up close. "Parvan, what can I bring you to eat? You and her?"

"Um. Calf. Lamb if you can't find calf. Carrots to teethe on," Parvan said. "For me, anything you can put in the microwave. " The hatchling was roughly the size of a labrador, and they scooped her into their arms with only a little effort. "...I guess I need to -- clean up around the house -- get used to Ingowil's schedule..." They looked down at Ingowil, smoothing their fingers over her frills.

"I'll send you housekeepers, if you're comfortable with it. If you need a break, stop by Greenhold, I'm there most evenings and can try to tire her out for you." The sight of the little dragon being lifted made her bite her lower lip. "Don't do it alone, no one's supposed to do it alone."

"I won't. I mean, I will about the-- Greenhold, and housekeepers... You know what I meant." They hefted Ingowil up to their shoulder, snapping their teeth and growling at her, and she crooned back. "Um... thanks. I'll come by, and you can come by, or whatever, if you want." They smiled a little, shook their head and pulled their hood forward, and set off for New Haven before the others got too far ahead.

Lucky groaned as he sank to a crouch, shut his eyes, raked his fingers back through his hair, and set them on the earth in front of him. He let out a long, gurgling breath, and his shoulders lowered. "I can't think of any jokes. I'm spent."

"No jokes. You did a good job." Anya dropped to her knees too, sitting back on her heels. The hands she pressed down against the tops of her legs only shook a little bit. That many dragons, yelling, had been more unsettling than she'd ever admit. "Are you sure you're all right with how it ended up?"

"Yes. I don't feel any regret. A little afraid of what happens with Auralis and the other moot, but no regrets for the outcome -- and I can make up the expense with a few investments," he assured her, and finally raised his hands to settle on top of hers. "I'll be a good uncle. Good enough that I'll make up for all her aunts and uncles who'll be so-so at it."

He looked at her, tarnished eyes searching her face. "Are you all right with how it ended up?"

Anya leaned forward as he invaded her space, giving a kiss before rocking back again. "Ettyn is going to kill me, but yes. Besides, it sounds like there might be more work for us when the next moot comes, so we'll make it up."

Her head tilted, a smile more of relief than humor finding its way on to her lips. "Things like this, families and babies and being wanted, they can be hard." Already bright blue eyes shifted, softening when they found his and held them. "You know how I show up at night sometimes? If you ever wake up and need someone, you can come find me too."

His fingers arched, the tips tracing over her knuckles. He was quiet for a long time. Eventually, his smile faded. "...Sometimes, I miss them. At night, I remember the sounds of a dripping, drafty mine... kobolds and drakes snoring and whispering... and I think about losing them. I don't think I really started to grieve them until this summer. I'll be miserable to sleep beside, those nights," he warned her, "and I'll be bringing Gatsby and Twist with me. But I'll be glad not to be alone."

If it was meant to deter Anya, she didn't catch the meaning. "It's all right. If we work off percentages of our lives, I'm still much harder to deal with."

Anya squeezed his hands again before she stood, pulling him up with her. "For now, I need a shower and a full day's work. I'll text you a list. We need ingredients for about six different casseroles and those horrible, flimsy aluminum pans." Beside them a portal opened, showing the inside of her rooms at Greenhold. Another tug and she dropped his hands to lead the way through. "Grab Gwydr's throat diamonds?"

"Gra'sune." Heart-friend. "You who I give my heart and love. Those are the three worst words you've ever said to me." His smile was back. He picked up the chest with a squicking sound, made a face, and ambled through the portal.