COMMUNION || Ausk & Dask's Hatching

As the candidates and watchers filed into the cozy, dark cavern, Audren made a point and sending a good-luck grin to every single one of them. Ausk became increasingly agitated with the growing crowd while Audren became happier. They had not had a wher hatching since Kalesk's single golden egg had been brought to Dalibor sands. It was cause for celebration, even if the eggs' mother didn't agree.

Ausk let out a terrible hybrid of a bark and a scream, short and piercing and loud. Audren flicked her eyes to see the red gnashing her teeth but otherwise stationary, but beneath her, however, there was movement. A tiny wher bashed its way out of the gray egg. She left the broken shell behind quite quickly, tumbling out into the open. All skull and gangly limbs, she was rather a sight to behold. For those vying for her bond, she must have been so ugly as to be beautiful, but for any other seeing-folk - especially of the dragon-loving variety - she would have been the most unfortunate thing to have ever hatched. The green stumbled about for a few moments, finding her four, two-clawed feet, and then let out a demanding squeal. Why -- it was so bright out here! She was seeing light for the first time, and to all who had seen it before, it was perfectly dim. But no, she squealed, it was far too bright! Unacceptable! She would not stand for this!

And she didn't, for she promptly keeled over onto her side. Her hide, were it lit better, would prove a dark, swampy olive hue, flecked here and there with a darker shade as seemed to be a trend in Ausk's children. Splayed as she was, it was clear that she was quite a healthy baby already, with a good deal of mass about her belly and her tail. It would not doubt spread evenly as she grew. For now, though, she was surprisingly content to lay on her side. This was good, she thought, though it made more sense for her to be upset at it. She didn't have to have her heavy head all swaying about, she decided, and that was something to approve of. She gave a snort indicating her arrival to that conclusion.

While the green righteously laid there, the brown egg tipped over onto its side and hatched. It split clean down the middle and slowly released a tiny wher, head first. And the head - despite being too light - looked an awful lot like Ausk's. There was no doubt who this creature's mother was, for she had inherited the awful, curved, and toothy jaw, the permanent scowl, and thick neck. There was yet to be any movement from Dask's eggs, but already Ausk had provided the world with two new greens. The newer, lighter one - a sort of pale, sickly yellowish shade - realized that she was still partly contained by an egg and hissed at it. Her ungainly exit was quick and almost included a faceplant. She despised that tiny little egg! No space! But it was her egg and no one else's. Though it didn't seem like her face could do anything else, she grimaced, and shook herself dry of the egg goop.

She seemed to be thicker and stockier than her sister, but at this freshborn age, everything was too disproportionate to truly tell. She was much larger, at least. The lighter green barked at her darker sister, who was still laying prone on the warm sand. Get up! she seemed to say. Ugh! Just hurry up and do it! And the darker of the two chattered back as though she had no intention of doing so. The lighter one let out an exasperated growl and tossed her head in frustration. She barked again, and still the littler green stayed down.

The dark green was so adamant with her repetitive, endless chatter that it seemed she would never get up. As a result, when the light green howled in defeat and turned to leave, it was almost startling to see the little green get to her feet and plod after her sister. The lighter green's eyes bulged to see such a sight, and she made to reprimand her kin, but the dark green nudged her gently, which sent her reeling back. The light green hissed violently. How-- How dare she touch her! How dare she! She had better get on over there and find a human to take her away. She had better! So the light green told that to her sister, whining loudly. Of course, the darker green refused to comply, though whether she did it because she truly did not want to yet or just to spite her sister was unknown.

The lighter wher gave up. She tossed her head back and forth and moaned. She didn't have the patience for this! Upset and hungry, she whipped her body around to face the candidates. Yalenia! YALENIA! she screeched. Wh-what-- Yal-- Sister-- she-- NO LISTEN, she! Are bad! Are no listen, ARGH, touch Yalesk. MY SPACE. MY YALESK. MY SAND. MY WALL. MY YALENIA. NO BAD WHER IN. NO COME IN. WE GO OUT NO COME IN FEED YALESK. RIGHT NOW FEED YALESK. And she was most definitely more like her mother than anyone apart from Yalenia knew.

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#9BAE59

Yalesk is incredibly territorial, bossy, and self-entitled. Imagine all the terrible stories of angry, moody greens put together, and that is Yalesk every day. She does not like to be touched, she does not like having her things touched, she does not like to share, and she does not like being reminded that she isn't actually in charge. That being said, if there's anyone she actually listen to, it's Yalenia (whom she does love dearly, if in her own special way), though she'll put up a fight even for that.

Her patience, though, is terrible. Short-fused to a fault, Yalesk will get angry quickly, but will also give up on it quickly. If things don't go her way fast enough, she'll stomp off and fume about it by herself. Somewhere in there, she does have a calm side, which shows when everything goes to plan. Yalesk is a creature of habit and a schedule is quite possibly one of the most reassuring things she could have. If her days go the same way, every day, she'll be content. If nothing changes and nothing happens without warning, she'll be alright. The problem is, she just can't predict what anyone else will do - and most of the time, it makes her mad.

She just isn't a peoplewher.

The other green left observed the candidates mildly. Then, her eyes narrowed, and she groaned. Terrible, the lot of them. Absolutely terrible. Why couldn't they be, oh, at least a little bit better than they were? Because they were terrible, that was why.

Yalenia looked up into the stands and spotted Kalenna. She was pleased her friend had been able to come down. With Kalenna being a goldhandler and the only betahandler now Ridan had passed, Yal knew how difficult it must have been for the other woman to get even some small amount of time away from work. Yalenia smiled at the goldhandler but abruptly turned her attention back to the sands as one of Ausk’s eggs cracked. A green spilled forth onto the sands and she was certainly an interesting looking green. Much like her older sister Dask than her mother Ausk. Yalenia watched, like many of the other candidates, running a hand over the handle of her blade. One egg hatched and five more to go yet six possibilities for Impression. Yal breathed in deeply, trying to calm herself. A calm mind would draw a wher to her, not chaos. That said, Ausk was not the calmest of creatures.

Yal bit back a smile at that thought and then watched as another egg hatched. Immediately, Yalenia recognised something of the red in the tiny green that had hatched. She was small, very small but there was no denying the bulkiness of the wher and nor the cruel, curved jaw of the green wher. She looked like a miniature green version of her mother. The green almost tumbled out of her egg, almost fell on her face and then hissed at the egg. Already the personality was showing through some as the lighter green yapped at her darker sister, ordering her about and tossing her head in an annoyed fashion. With the touch from the dark green, Yal’s first thought was that the lighter green had been bitten. This proved inaccurate for there was no ichor on the sands. It was just something else…

The green whipped around and almost immediately, Yalenia heard a voice in her mind. Yalenia! YALENIA! A voice screeched in her mind. Wh-what-- Yal-- Sister-- she-- NO LISTEN, she! Are bad! Are no listen, ARGH, touch Yalesk. MY SPACE. MY YALESK. MY SAND. MY WALL. MY YALENIA. NO BAD WHER IN. NO COME IN. WE GO OUT NO COME IN FEED YALESK. RIGHT NOW FEED YALESK.

That was it, her Yalesk. Yalenia exhaled softly in awe of the green and then laughed heartily.
She was just trying to be friendly my dear.
NO! She… SHE ARE BAD! WANT FOOD. WANT FOOD NOW! Are no can be touch Yalesk! YALESK ARE YALESK’S.
Calm down, we’ll get you some food but for the moment drink this.
Yalenia drew her blade across her hand and then held it out for Yalesk. The green sniffed it and then seemed to pull a disgusted face before relenting and drinking the blood. Thus the blood bond was made.

Together they walked from the sands, Yalesk tossing her head in a frustrated way, speaking loudly to Yalenia about how she wanted lots of food. They reached the buckets and as soon as Yal pulled some meat from it, Yalesk snatched it from her hand.
No. You do not snatch.
Yalesk looked at Yalenia with whirling red eyes but she took the next piece of meat without snatching.
It are all MY FOOD! MY BUCKET!
Yalesk eyed the entrance to the sands, watching for the next wher. They would not touch her meat or her bucket! It was all hers.

The green, realizing that she was now - with the Impression of her black nephew - the last hatchling on the sands, took a moment to turn her attention away from the terrible candidates. There were also terrible eggs, she saw, that didn't move and didn't transmit any life at all. All three of the remaining eggs disinterested her, and she snorted and gave her flank a twitch in their useless direction. The eggs' mothers earned most of her approval. Dask's verdant nature pleased her, as did Ausk's size - but that red colour was most awful and made her hungry more than anything else. It was the colour of blood, though she did not know what blood was or why it looked so appetizing. Her stomach clenched and gave a pitiful whine; she rolled her eyes and looked back to the candidates.

She would have liked to do away with her bothersome body. It was achy and heavy and immensely inconvenient. Her mind, though, she liked quite a lot. It was a very, very good mind, if she did say so herself (which she did). The minds of the long-limbed two-legs, however, were not as good and she found herself quite upset with most of them. She passed by Abetzi - no way. By Cilia - definitely not. Burleinherjar - also a no. She had no qualms about displaying her displeasure, scowling and huffing and scoffing. Her eyes whirled an agitated red-orange, and she was beginning to lose hope in the world as a whole. How terrible it was! Could it not offer her a proper feeder-person? For shame!

She spotted another one of those smaller, curvier, feminine things, touching its mind quite gently. Tesla was her name, and the green tried it on to fit. Tessk? Teslsk? Teslask? But they were all completely and utterly wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. She wrinkled her swampy nose up at the girl, disapproving... mostly. She did, however, suddenly approve of the girl's taste in friends as she eyed the man beside her.

Boxier, taller, darker. She liked his hair. She liked his eyes. She liked the view she had of up his nose. She didn't like those nasty bushy things on his brow, but she let it slide. She liked Edison's silly little mind, too, which was the best part of all. It had some bad bits in it - some stupid ideas, some ridiculous thoughts - but for the most part, little green Esk would have stamped a giant red approval across him if she could.

Yes, yes, yes, keep talk to little friend, she told him, swinging her head in Tesla's direction. Is good for friend, good for you, good for me. Oh, wait, no! Nononono! Nonono, must feed, yes, must feed right now. Yes yes. Must feed, good for belly, then belly go away. No more rrrrnnnngghhh rnnnngh from belly. Feed feed feed, fast fast, now now. No talk to friend. No friend. Yes Esk, no friend. Feed feed feed.

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#696C21

Esk has an opinion about everything. She's often hypercritical, and always quite stubborn. She'll stick to her beliefs as though her life depended on it, and oppose authority on a whim. She does not like to be bossed around, because she's usually convinced that everyone else is terribly flawed and therefore unfit to tell her what to do.

That being said, she can also love people - and things - for reasons that aren't very, well, reasonable. Her thought processes are usually convoluted and nonsensical. She may decide she adores someone because their feet are small, which means they're definitely good at cutting up meat for her to eat - or she may hate them because of it. Esk's world is black and white. She's never wishy-washy about anything. She's always very sure.

She loves to talk to Edison (and anyone else who will listen) about what she thinks of this and that. Her use of sound effects and onomatopoeia is bizarrely frequent, and she talks - for lack of a proper Pernese, non-Terran reference - her broken English in a vaguely Russian-accent sort of way.

In Soviet Russia, YOU have ludicrous criticism to give to ESK.

With Esk bonded, Ausk settled down. She had known that her two eggs - the largest and the smallest - had been lifeless for quite some time, but hadn't cared enough to do much about it. She guessed that Dask's second egg was a dud, too, but again - didn't care. She left them there among the broken shells for someone else to deal with, and marched straight on out of the hatching sands. She passed by quite close to the remaining candidates and the small cloud of spectators, but paid them no mind. All she wanted to do was get out of there and into the cool night air. With a snort and a swish of her formidable tail, Ausk was gone.

Audren stood there, briefly baffled, but smiled and clapped and congratulated her new wherlings. As she had expected, the hatching had been quick - but it had been a good, clean one, too.