#dragontrain

Of all the creatures he expected to find in the desert, his own species wasn’t one of them.

His kind was solitary, long-traveling - many years could go between meeting another wanderer. Raising young was a simple matter of storing the eggs in their plates until they hatched, letting them forage until they were strong enough to start wandering on their own. The parent could easily forget the young were ever there at all. In some respects, they were on the brink of extinction, too large and spread too far apart to thrive in a changing world.

The fact that this broken fellow shared his scent was meaningless, because he’d forgotten it. Perhaps he was a clutchmate?

A deep thrum echoed from his broad chest as he approached, leaning down to sniff at him to make sure he was alive. His posture was about as non-aggressive as a massive beast could get, and once he verified the signs of life, he’s going to be hella friendly and affectionate. Not a threat at all.

The human den with the lake and the scent of oil has long since been left behind him, reduced to a hazy memory with few bright, vivid patches.

One of those patches was an older, smaller, gruffer female dragon. Flightless, but tenacious. Ordinarily he would have left her to her territory and he would continue wandering - but she chose to wander with him, nestled safely in his backspines. They've ah.. suffered from her travel anxiety. A bit shorter than is proper, one almost down to the quick.

She wasn't quite used to flying.

Luckily for her, he had finally deigned to land, allowing her to rest with ground under her claws and him to rest his wings, stretch his legs, and find something more substantial than seafood to eat.

Maybe a moose. Or twelve.

Thousand. Twelve thousand.

The massive beast hunkers low to the ground and prowls, aware that there isn't much cover here. Rocks, mostly. A lot of them. Once in a while he sniffs them, and the further he moves away from his landing point, the more sidetracked he becomes.

You imbecile. Now she’ll have to remark that area.

What was that? He couldn't hear your complaining over HOW ITCHY HIS BACK IS.

This one is rolling around on the ground.

It's an ingenious move, really. It's telling other ground-based dragons that flight-based dragons are staying here and really do they want to fuck with that?

Or well, it would be ingenious, if he wasn't just scratching his back.

Burble burble purr.