I Solemnly Swear I Am Up To No Good [OPEN]

"Where is the stawbewwies?"

The tiny hatchling snuffed in the nearby undergrowth for any trace of the berries she loved so much. Upon scenting no such thing, she let out an angry squawk and batted the bush with her stumpy talons. "Hurumph! I want stawbewwies! Where is them?" Mephala grabbed a branch with her tiny teeth and tugged on it in her anger. The branch whipped back and smacked her right in the snout. The baby dragon cried out. She sat back on her haunches and rubbed her snout forlornly. She sniffed. It was sore. She could tell that would be an owwie soon.

Mephala was the daughter of the NightWing Archon, Tenebris. Usually her father had an eye on her at all times, but Mephala got impatient waiting for strawberries. It was hard to sneak away, but she did it. The tiny four-year-old was out alone in the territory, not bothering to be quiet. She snorted and galloped lazily to another bush. "Any bewwies here?" She stuck her head in the bush to see. "No. . . Them is gone." The little one sighed and tried to pull her head out only to face a scary discovery: her head was stuck.

"No!" She began struggling, trying to pull away. The branches were tight and tangled around her neck. Mephala began to whimper. "Help! Help! The bush is eating me!! It mad at me! Help! Pwease!"

"Razzlefrazzing monsters!" Boom Crash! A distant tree toppled over, sending any nearby birds and wildlife running away in fear. "We need more weapons, armor, blah, blah BLAH!" Another tree toppled over with a crash, though a squeak of rage sounded and with another boom saw the tree lift into the air before coming back down. Stepping through a bush came out...a fire-wing Hatchling?

"The materials are for MY future stronghold! Not some pansy, whiny dragons who can't handle some idiot monsters claw to claw." A fire-wing hatchling(?) with attitude and strange antennae on their head swishing back and forth until perking up. Then he heard the sound, which seemed to be a voice.

"Help! Help! The bush is eating me!! It mad at me! Help! Pwease!"

His face fell upon hearing it and huffed in indignation, "I swear, dragons have issues and I can never escape them." With some hops, skips, and crawling through the undergrowth with incessant grumblings poked his head through a bush to find another dragons face in front of him, his eyes dropped in annoyance.

"Oh joy, A nightwing bra-hatchling. Your seriously stuck on this bush?" The one foot maroon scaled firewing wyvern asked, two slender antennae bent forward.

Cyclone and Typhoon slowly walked around the area, discussing a fairly important subject for the two of them.

“Come on. We could jump on the scouting missions. Get to see outside the islands for the first time in years. Plus the scouts seem less stingy on species.” Typhoon tilted his head, looking at his sister. He seemed a bit surprised by this.

“Yeah, but we'd still have to deal with it either way, so why not just go bigger?”

“Cause we may as well at least be around people with more respect for.... You hear that?” Typhoon stopped his side, jolting them a bit.

“Yeah. Sounds like it's that way.” Cyclone smirked.

“Scouting missions.” Typhoon just rolled his eyes before the pair followed the sounds, and soon they would stumble upon.... A pair of hatchlings, with one's head in a bush? Well.... This was at least a nice break from the daily routine. The pair walked up more, surprising stealthy.

“Everything ok?”

The thorns pricked uncomfortably at Mephala's hide as she thrashed to and fro. While the scales of older dragons would be hardened and immune to such tiny prickers, the hatchling's scales were still delicate, unmarred by age and hardship. The thorns snagged on her, drawing a small amount of blood, but Mephala was more panicked than she was hurt.

Sapphire eyes flickered with surprise as a dragon appeared before her. A hatchling? Even smaller than her? "Yes! Help! Pwease!" Then, as an afterthought, (one of the few intelligent ideas the little one had) she added, "No! Will hurt you too. Spiky bush mean! Wait for mommy or daddy to come." By the hatchling's smaller size, Mephala could only assume this baby was younger than her. The little black dragon startled as another voice came.

"Your mommy-daddy's here!" Relief bled into each word she uttered. The young one didn't even consider the fact this newcomer(s) having two heads as strange. Mephala wriggled and squirmed in the bush of thorns. "Pwease help! The bush is eating me!" Tears began to fill her eyes. What if the bush. . . died her? "Tell my daddy I wove him," she murmured, closing her eyes as she accepted her fate, waiting for the afterlife to whisk her away. . .

Calemvir just rolled his eyes and with flicks of antennae tiny red ants started coming out from the ground. Climbing through the thorny bush they steadily marched their way as a flicker of annoyance crossed his face, Why is there so few ants here? This should be a perfectly good habitat, yet HIS Repto-Ants struggle to survive in Nightwing territory? While silently thinking on the implications of the obstacles regarding ant domain expansion the dozens soon become a little over a hundred ants started chewing through the thorns keeping the Nightwing hatchling in place at a slow but steady pace and in a shockingly efficient manner.

"Hrmmm, do I need to start crossbreeding with the local population? Or supplant the local queens directly? Either choice is annoying and time consuming..." He mumbled to himself, not worried in the slightest of the work of his obedient underlings.

Cyclone and Typhoon both stopped for a moment when the hatchling stuck in a bush called them the other.... well he sure didn't sound like a hatchling... but his "Mommy-daddy." The pair looked at each other and shuttered ever so slightly at the thought before getting closer to the bush. They Cyclone noticed the odd ants chewing at... the thorns? She then looked at the smaller dragon.

“Whoa.... Is this you? Never seen ants do that.” While Cyclone looked at the ants and made small talk, Typhoon focused on the hatching. She looked... familiar.

“Ok, so we aren't that dragon's parents, and your not going to die. It's just a few pokes from the needles.” Typhoon would try to move some of the branches to help ease the thorns pushing on the little hatchling. He couldn't get over that something seemed familiar though. Hopefully this would help while ants his sister mentioned did their thing.

The death Mephala was waiting for never came. Instead, the sound of the tiniest crunches filled her ears. Her eyes slid open as she was suddenly aware of the other hatchling's mommy-daddy easing the thorns off her tiny body and itty-bitty insects chewing through the wooded barbs. "A few pokes!" Mephala whimpered, sniffling. "But it hurts! Wook, my body is cwying!" She gestured with her snout to some wounds that now marked her neck and underwings, trickling with crimson. Yet at last, with the help of the twin storms and a FireWing youngling, Mephala was able to squirm free.

Now out of the bush, the NightWing flopped onto the earth with a sigh so relieved and dramatic that one might think she just had a brush with death. . . And maybe in her child mind, she did. "You saved my life," she murmured, looking at the three dragons with a gaze full of gratitude. "Thank you!" Her eyes drifting to the ground below, she added, "Oh! You bwought snacks!" before bringing the ants to her mouth with licks of her small, bluish tongue. "Mm. . . cwunchy." They weren't strawberries, but they'd do.

Yesssss, yesss, all praise be myself! Bow and-Crunch crunch. "MY ANTS!" With quick commands whatever gathered ants that appeared had quickly scattered in all directions and soon went out of eyesight. "YOU.ATE.MY.SUBJECTS!MY GLORIOUS SUBJECTS!" Panicking he frantically shooed her off, "Stop! THEY ARE NOT ZE FOOD! WHAT SANE DRAGON EVEN EATS ANTS?!" This one apparently and he had the unfortunate luck to have met them on this very day it seems, many ant lives were sacrificed that day to the terror that was Mephala.

Typhoon smiled a bit, looking at the little the little wounds on Mephala, nodding a bit.

“Yeah. I can tell, but at the end of the day it'll heal. Should even... uh... cry for too long.” He had no idea how to explain it to the little hatchling, but both him and Cyclone would smile as she thanked everyone, then began eating the ants, which seemed to tick off the smaller dragon with them. Cyclone snickered a little bit before she would speak up.

“So, what's your name? You seem a bit familiar for some reason.”

"My name!" Mephala beamed as though nobody had ever asked her this before. "Mephala! I'm wearning to wite it. It goes wike this. M. . . E. . . P. . . H. . ."

Snacktime came to an abrupt end when the ants skittered away, disappearing into the earth. Mephala gazed down with large, shocked eyes as the fellow hatchling shouted at her. She flinched as though she had been struck. As a princess, she was often coddled. Indeed, she had everyone at Shadow's Refuge wrapped around her tiny little talons, her father most of all, even if she did not intend it that way. Nobody had ever raised their voice at her before. Startled, Mephala backed away from the hatchling. Then, in a tiny voice. . .

"Are you mad at me?"

The small NightWing began to sniffle. She flopped back on the ground, curling herself up into a fetal position and covering her face with her wings. "I'm sowwy. Pwease don't be mad at me. You tiny, but you talk vewy scawy." Whimpers came from the black scaly huddle, joined by high-pitched sobbing sounds.

And again, Calemvir is left dumbstruck by the reaction Mephala gave, inwardly groaning. "This is why I don't deal with hatchlings." Their annoying, they demand food and cry every single hour, they make a mess of anything they get their grubby little claws on! ARGH! Shaking his head scowled before looking over to the other nightwings, "I'm not dealing with that," he gestures to the curled up nightwing, "not my problem and besides, I'm a firewing, nightwing stuff isn't my problem."

The twins looked at each other, not exactly sure how to handle this. They walked up, with Typhoon sort of trying to pat Mephala, while Cyclone spoke up.

"Hey. Don't worry. He was just... overreacting. I'm sure there's a reason though. Oh, and since you said your name, mine's Cyclone, and he's by brother, Typhoon.”