#qualxon writes

Part 1 - What organs make this work?

Godzilla breathes, we know this, we see him do the classic huff at least once every film, therefore we can easily conclude that Goji has lungs and a diaphragm. However, he also has gills which in turn implies that he has some form of filtration system for seawater. I don't know how to explain this in words but I made a diagram to help me (ft. KOTM screenshot)

Basically, I theorise that Goji has 3 lungs. Two work like regular terrestrial lungs (red), where air is pulled into the chest cavity by the diaphragm and oxygen is filtered through the lungs and into the bloodstream. Simple.

The third lung (blue), however, is used mainly when Goji's doin' his thing in the ocean. Water goes in through his mouth/nose/whatever and over his gills as he's swimming, which then gets pushed into the "water lung" in the same way that air does with his other lungs. Here, the water molecules are sent to the "gut" (teal):

(tbh literally none of these shapes are accurate, they're mostly just to show roughly where everything is)

The water is still full of salt though. So, the water is sent to the kidneys (pink), where the salt is extracted and sent as straight sodium to a gland next to the oesophagus, where it is stored. Any excess salt is dealt with in a way that we'll discuss later.

The salt-less water now goes to the gut, where the molecules are split into oxygen and hydrogen atoms. This generates a lot of energy and heat, effectively creating a 'nuclear reactor' within Godzilla's gut.

Part 2 - How do we get the flames?

Easy answer: hydrogen is very flammable.

Now, how do we ignite it?

Remember the sodium deposit gland? Well, sodium reacts quite violently with water. So, Godzilla just has to hack up a bit of water from that third lung while he expels hydrogen from his nuclear reactor gut, and boom! The sodium reacts with the water, generating heat which ignites the hydrogen and gives us fire.

As for why the flames are blue? Well, there's a type of radiation that actually glows blue, called Cherenkov radiation!

Part 3 - What if he goes thermonuclear?

Now, it's going to get very hot in his gut as Godzilla uses more and more energy to obtain and use as many hydrogen atoms as he can. If he's not careful, this can quite easily lead to a nuclear meltdown, like this:

This is where some of that other excess sodium comes in: sodium can be used as a coolant in nuclear power plants to help prevent a meltdown, or at least to lessen the effects. Although, this isn't a foolproof. Hence, one of the other uses of the water lung; in a case of a nuclear meltdown in his gut, the water lung can secrete any unused sea water directly into the gut, providing a second layer of defense against a thermonuclear reaction.

Part 4 - Where do the dorsal plates come in?

Godzilla's dorsal plates are essentially just made of nuclear waste that has cooled and hardened, we've seen this in Godzilla: Aftershock. But there's also the question of how they form in the first place, since a newly-hatched Gojira wouldn't be born with ridges of nuclear waste along their backs - they've never produced the nuclear waste to begin with. So, let's look at what infant Gojira do have (I'll use Ajax as my example).

Those little bumps along his back essentially act as intentional weak points for when he eventually begins developing his internal reactor and using his atomic breath. The nuclear waste gathers at these weak points and seeps through, causing the formation of the dorsal plates that he has in adulthood.

When Gojira are young, their new dorsal plates are pretty brittle since they either need years upon years of development in order to maintain a sturdy structure or a lot of hardened waste.

So, here he was, on his usual rounds of the rainforest, just coming up to the halfway point of his trek as the sun came to noon. Really, he could have made it to his destination in the West by now, but what was the point in rushing? Unless he were to heed some urgent call from either the lands he cared for or Godzilla himself, then he would take his time, as all things should do as far as he was concerned. Besides, if he maintained a steady pace as he was, it meant that he would have plenty of time to look around and make sure everything was as it should be - he knew this rainforest better than the tusks on his face, so anomalies were easy enough to spot.

That's how he knew that the little ditch under his paw was new.

He stopped and looked down at it, leaning forwards a little to see it better. Sure enough, it was a small ditch, just less than the width of his knuckles and deep enough to curve away from view underground. A tunnel, it seemed. A mound of dirt, shrubs and broken tree roots sat near the entrance to the tunnel, only recently disturbed by the looks of it.

That was odd, hadn't he passed through this area just two days ago? Had something really managed to slip past his notice? He doubted it, and instead reasoned that whatever had made this had done so afterwards.

In that moment he found himself distantly wishing that his sense of smell was even slightly more acute, at least then he might have had a chance of finding some semblance of an answer to what, exactly, had been digging. Alas, that could not be, so he turned his efforts towards working out what it wasn't: the hole was too big to belong to any of the rainforest's native fauna, of that he was certain, and near enough every kaiju that he knew of was simply too big in turn to have dug it out in the first place.

Behemoth kept looking, and quickly noticed a parting in the trees where the underbrush sat half-crumpled, torn and trampled. The disorder of the ground formed a narrow path that may have already seen frequent use, leading due North. He considered this for a moment, before straightening back up and following the little trail.

The sun had hardly had the chance to move any further West when Behemoth spotted a drop-off in the treeline where the great river parted the rainforest, and as he moved closer he could just make out the thin line that made up the opposite shoreline. He stopped with the path on the riverbank, watching as the river's dazzling grey surface sat as tranquil as could be while the water moved steadily on its journey. He looked left and right up and down the river, but he saw nothing out of the ordinary...no, wait! There, a short distance out, a dark shape moved in the water; it drifted against the current one moment and then with it the next, only to repeat the actions like it were a game.

Behemoth wasn't sure how long he stood there watching the shape, but eventually it came to a relative stop, just out of his reach. He didn't know what he expected, but the little head that breached the river's surface was most certainly not on his list. It had a narrow snout adorned with three small ridges over the top and covered in grey scales. Luminous orange-and-yellow eyes peered at him curiously with no hint of surprise, and the creature began to swim towards him. He hesitantly reached out to it, and it made now show of alarm as he dipped his long claws under the water and under the creature's slim body, gently lifting it and bringing it closer to his face so that he could see it better. The creature didn't wait for his paw to come to a halt in the air before it scrambled from where it say in the curve of his claw, up over his knuckles and onto the back of his forelimb; its own little claws were far too small to do anything more than tickle the skin under his fur as it balanced itself.

Now that he could see it better, he noted the single row of green-ish crest-like protrusions that ran along its back from the top of its neck to the end of its tail. Its scales weren't just grey, either, as he had previously guessed - the upper part of its body had dark scales, similar to the colour of the mud that formed the riverbanks, and the rest were a pale grey like the water itself, aside from the beige hue on its underbelly. The little creature chirped at him.

Behemoth scoured his mind for any definitive answer, but he kept coming up short - he had a few theories, though. Still, he wanted to be sure, and he knew just where to go to find out.

He held his forelimb so that the creature might climb onto his back or shoulder - having all four of his paws on the ground just made walking that little bit easier for him - and the creature did just that, perching lightly on his shoulder. He gave a satisfactory hum, turned, and began the trek South.

<•°•>

Behemoth's role upon this earth was invaluable. He was, essentially, responsible for keeping the planet breathing: without him, or someone else to fill his place, the vast forests of the world would, through one circumstance or another, slowly dwindle into barren wastelands, taking everything good in the air with them. The winds would become stale before they became altogether toxic, so it fell to him and his natural affinity of the subject to keep the forests alive and healthy. He would even argue that his role held just as much importance as Godzilla's; as the alpha, Godzilla protected the structure of the natural balance, but every structure needs its supports, and Behemoth's work was one such support. However, that wasn't his only task, no.

The kaiju reign's origins predated even the memory of the ground beneath Behemoth's paws - even the oldest amongst those alive today were not the first of their kind. Even so, there remained one who - if the stories were to be believed - was birthed from the very first fires of creation on earth itself, one who had lived more lives than could be counted, and would love and live a great many more. This reputation had very quickly marked her as the everlasting Queen of the kaiju, one who would advise and guide each new alpha as they came and went with a wisdom that could not be found even in the memories of the stars. At the end of each life, she became reborn, and each time she needed a place where she could return to her full being in peace and safety.

For this life, she chose Behemoth's lands to begin anew.

The responsibility of such a task at first weighed heavily on his mind, but it wasn't long before he had learned that she needed little more from him than some company with the occasional friendly conversation. Had he not known of her status, he would have called her a friend instead of a queen.

The sun was perhaps an hour from the horizon when he found the yawning entrance to her cave home, and he descended into the darkness carefully.

The cavern ceiling was high enough so that Behemoth didn't have to worry about catching his head on the slick rock, and the space was shallow enough to where he wouldn't need to spend long searching for her. In fact, he spotted her as soon as his eyes had adjusted to the low light, a larva curled up in a nest of silk. She looked up at him as he approached.

"Behemoth," Mothra greeted cheerfully. "You're earlier than usual - is everything alright?"

Behemoth nodded. "Everything's fine, I just have a question or two that I hope you can help me answer."

"Then ask, my friend."

He sat on the damp, moss-covered floor of the cave and raised a forelimb to retrieve the little creature (who had remained entirely at ease and quiet on his shoulder aside from the occasion chirp for the whole journey). He held it out in his upturned paw, where it tucked its thin limbs underneath itself and looked between to two large kaiju. Mothra hardly needed to glance at it before she spoke.

"A gojira infant?" she asked.

"Apparently so."

"Where did you find her?"

Well, that was two of his questions answered.

"Well," he started, "I found a small hole, like a tunnel entrance, and a fresh trail that lead to the river, and that's where I found her."

Mothra leaned in a little closer to the gojira, inspecting her. "She seems a little undernourished, but otherwise fine - go on, you can put her down. I take it there were no adults?"

"No, nothing."

"And...how has she behaved around you?"

"There's not much to say, she hasn't seemed cautious at all - downright friendly, I'd say." Behemoth watched the little gojira as she waddled on slightly wobbly legs to his front paw, snuffling around until she found an angle where she could start gnawing on his claw.

He heard a light chuckle from Mothra.

"Ah, then it seems she's imprinted on you."

His head snapped back up to face Mothra. "Imprinted?" he echoed.

"Gojira are a social species," she said. Then she paused and added: "mostly. Many of them prefer the company of a pack or colony, if there's enough of them, meaning their young aren't fit to make do on their own; not this young, certainly. They need some kind of guardian to look after them, and they usually find it in anything that isn't a direct threat."

"So, you're saying..."

"This little one has picked you to be her new family. You needn't worry too much, most things she'll learn by herself in time, but she will need you to provide for her until then."

Behemoth shook his head. "How do I know she's not just lost?"

"You said there was a tunnel - her kind in particular don't make tunnels unless they plan to stay."

He looked back down at the little gojira infant, where she now lay, idly scraping her miniscule teeth against his claw. He didn't have many memories of family, truth be told, and the few he that he did have were murky at best. He nodded

Then she can stay.

<•°•>

The moon was high and bright in the starlit sky by the time he bid Mothra goodbye and left the cave; he started heading back North, intending to cover some more ground before he continued the trek of his rounds in the morning. On his shoulder, the gojira shifted, yawned and fidgeted in his fur. Instead, perhaps it would be best if he just found somewhere to rest for the night.

He wandered through the trees that reached no further than his chest until he came across the face a sheer mountain. A thin waterfall tricked down the middle of it and fed a stream at the bottom. This would be as good a place as any, he thought as he settled down in the foliage.

The gojira infant climbed down his forelimb and onto the ground, sniffing and pacing until she pushed herself against the crook of his elbow and curled up with her limbs tucked underneath herself, fast asleep before she even closed her eyes. He realised then that, if he were to become her caretaker, she would need a name.

"Kōkei?" Godzilla called. He hadn't seen his nephew at all for a few days, and it concerned him - it was beyond unusual for him to disappear like this.

As he strode along the island's coastline, he could sense something up ahead, on the other side of a rocky outcrop that split the beach. Godzilla couldn't see the other side, but he knew something was there.

Rounding the corner, he saw Kōkei laying down on the sand, staring off into the horizon as the sky's colours bled from the clear blue of day to the soft red of dusk. He didn't notice his uncle until he was settled down beside him on the beach. Godzilla spoke:

"Lovely colours tonight," he said.

Kōkei startled, turning to face Godzilla. "Uncle Goji! I'm sorry, I - I didn't notice -"

"It's alright, I wasn't sure where you were, so I came to check on you - you seemed deep in thought, is there anything you want to talk about?"

"It's fine," Kōkei answered. "I didn't mean to worry you, I've just been thinking."

"Oh?" Godzilla quirked. "Is it anything I can help you with?"

"I don't... it's just..." He sighed. "Do you think my father would be proud of me?"

Godzilla didn't know what to say. Of course Dagon would have been proud of his son! He would have had no reason not to be! He wanted to say these words to Kōkei, but settled on a different approach.

"Kōkei, do you know what your name means?"

"You told me it means 'successor'."

"Yes - and do you know why your father gave you that name?"

Kōkei shook his head.

"It's because he was always proud of you. From the moment you first opened your eyes he knew that you would do great things and grow to be the best alpha kaiju anyone has ever known - even greater than he was. It's why I call you Junior, too. You're every scale of your father's and more. When the time comes, you'll rule better than anyone before you."

"I just don't think I'm ready." Kōkei spoke quietly, barely above a whisper.

"As you should."

Kōkei's eyes widened as he looked back at Godzilla, shock and confusion playing on his face.

"You're too young yet, Junior. Your father may have taken the mantle of alpha at a young age, but that does not mean you have to. My duty to you is to raise you and keep you safe, not to hand my title to you before you are ready."

Kōkei was silent for a long moment, and Godzilla continued:

"I never wanted to be the alpha when I was your age. I used to watch how Dagon would handle the role and I always believed I would never live up to that standard, but when he died, I didn't hesitate to take over. It was the only way that, in the face of war, I could ensure you would be safe."

"Safe? Safe how?"

Godzilla chuckled lightly. "When you're at the top of the food chain, very few kaiju are willing to fight you. Yes, I've had a fair share of tough opponents, but you'll be in that position anywhere in life. And besides, from your perspective, anything that targets you has given themselves a death sentence - it's rare to battle an alpha and win, that's why we pass down the title."

Kōkei considered this for a while, and the only sound was the gentle lapping of waves on the beach.

"So," Kōkei started, "when do you think I'll be ready?"

"You're ready when you're ready - I'll see to it that it happens no sooner than that. I made a promise, and I intend to keep it."

Another of Valkor's howling cries echoed through the air. Ramoth could smell the blood now, too much of it to be from one fight.

What had Valkor gotten himself into?

Ramoth stayed near the cover of the clouds as he flew nearer: if nothing else, he hoped to have some advantage of surprise. She shook his head to himself. No, who was he kidding? He was half blind, for goodness' sake! What chance would he stand against Morsen, if it came to that?

No. No, he wouldn't think like that, not now. He needed to focus. Valkor had saved his life once, now it was Ramoth's turn to repay that debt. He could rebuke Valkor for his foolishness later. For now, he just needed to find him.

The first glimpse of sunrise stretched over the horizon, reaching up with slender fingers of warm, golden light to grasp the sky and wipe away the clouds. Ramoth watched it for a moment, ignoring the pang of bitter nostalgia in his chest as he marvelled briefly at how the horrible gloom of night came alive with the hope of a new dawn. He felt that hope, however fleeting it was. There was a chance, he told himself. A chance that they could all make it out of this alive. He clung to that.

By now, the cacophony of battle had fused into one amalgamation of noise, making it almost impossible to distinguish any individual sounds. He was close, that much he knew. Ramoth dipped from the clouds, just far enough to see the land.

Drakes swarmed the air below him, swooping and diving, screeching and howling as they fought amongst themselves. In the middle of the chaos, down on the ground, Godzilla barreled into Morsen, roaring as he threw the drake into the dirt. Morsen quickly recovered from the blow, scrambling back to his feet and landing a firm bite on Godzilla's throat. A familiar shade of yellow streaked towards the two, crashing into Morsen's side with enough force to make him release his hold. Godzilla's dorsal plates began to glow, but at a command from Morsen, some half a dozen drakes swarmed the alpha and forced his attention away.

Ramoth needed to do something. Just as Morsen threw Valkor across the battlefield, Ramoth tucked in his wings and dove.

This was borderline insanity, but what other choice did he have?

He crashed against Morsen's shoulder. The impact sent a horrible jolt up his legs and through to his spine, but he paid it no mind.

Ramoth wasted no time in clamping his jaws shut around Morsen's head. He sank his talons deep into Morsen's flesh, feeling hit blood run over his feet. With a sharp jerk of his head, Morsen slung Ramoth from his back, who barely managed to keep himself standing.

Morsen's eyes widened for a moment as he looked down at Ramoth. "So," he growled. "You're still alive."

He lunged forward. Ramoth narrowly dodged Morsen's jaws as they closed on thin air. He ducked down, charging forward and shoving Morsen back, taking the opportunity to go for his outstretched wing. Ramoth snatched part of the membrane between his teeth and pulled with all the strength he could muster. The wet, sickly sound of tearing skin filled his ears, and a large flap of the membrane came away, leaving the bone of the lower part of the innermost digit exposed.

With a twisted, disgusting twinge of satisfaction, Ramoth knew that Morsen could not hope to fly now.

A concentrated jet of fire sprung from Morsen's mouth, leaving Ramoth with only a split second the throw up a wing to protect himself. Drakes could withstand the heat of their own fires, that was no secret, but everything has its limits. There was a screech, the thump of an impact, and then the fire ceased. Ramoth couldn't focus on anything other than the searing tingle of his wing as the charred skin smoked and the frantic pulse in his head.

He risked a glance back at Morsen to find Valkor clinging to Morsen's side, slashing and biting and tearing at anything he could get a hold of.

Ramoth gritted his teeth against the pain and lunged at Morsen once again, finding a strong purchase for his teeth around the drake's throat. He ignored the way the feathery fur on Morsen's neck almost suffocated him. Ramoth jerked his head once, then twice, then thrice, listening to the snapping of muscle as he yanked away the flesh. An enormous wing swatted him away before he could do anything else, knocking the air from his lungs.

Valkor was gone when Ramoth managed to look back, thrown once again onto the ground, bleeding heavily and barely able to stand. He shouted something, but Ramoth couldn't hear it.

Morsen's jaws closed around Ramoth's neck. He must have flanked his blind side. Ramoth opened his mouth - to roar, to gasp, to do something - but no sound came out. His lungs screamed for the air he couldn't draw in. Dark spots began clouding the remainder of his vision.

He was vaguely aware of being flung down, the newfound release of his throat only giving him enough breath the hack up the coppery taste of blood.

Something slammed onto his chest. He felt his ribs buckle and snap under the pressure.

It occurred to him then: where was Godzilla? Wasn't he - ?

A feeble glance around the bloodshed told him everything he needed to know. Godzilla, the fearless alpha of the kaiju, had fled.

Through his ever-darkening sight, he looked up at Morsen with every morsel of anger and seething rage he had. Nothing but contempt and disgust awaited him in Morsen's gaze as he reared back, bloody maw open.

Ramoth couldn't fight anymore. Was this how Ddraig felt, too? Beaten, broken, bloodied? Did he also feel his life slowly slipping from his heartbeat, growing weaker with each pulse?

A commotion caught his attention, and he looked to where Valkor struggled against someone.

He wished he hadn't.

Caelignis' wide, terrified eyes were the last thing Ramoth ever saw.

Sat on the shore of a lake, Ramoth watched on as Caelignis and Eagon chased each other and splashed around in the water. No-one was even the slightest bit concerned of anyone's wings getting too wet to fly, since the sun was high and warm enough in the sky to dry them off by the time evening would come around. 

Emrys had left that morning to find Rodan - she said she saw other drakes, from the Eyrie, circling around the area lately, not many, just a few, and wanted to ask the volcanic kaiju if he knew of anything. Valkor thought it best to search for himself if there were others. That left Ramoth and his one working eye to watch the children. 

He'd never hold any complaints about having this job, mind. He was a father, and that meant it was part of his daily responsibilities; it also meant he could be there to watch his daughter grow up (even now she was already nearing  the end of her years of adolescence), and he couldn't ask for much more than that. 

Still, some part of his mind nagged him to take some degree of action, like going off to scout with Emrys and Valkor. But the more sensible part of him knew that him leaving would put Caelignis and Eagon's safety at risk. They were each perfectly capable of caring for themselves at this point, but Ramoth was not going to take that chance.

Instead, he let his focus wander between the two young drakes playing their games in the shallower water and the ripples of the lake. Underneath the surface, tiny flecks of light darted in and out of the translucent shadows. Small fish which, to Ramoth, were hardly any different to the ground beneath them. He continued to watch the creatures as they idly went about their business, blissfully unaware of the world outside of their lake. At one point, Ramoth caught a glimpse of a slightly larger shape in the water; darker, too. As it slowly grew larger, the splashing and games from the children ceased entirely.

"Dad?" Caelignis called out.

Ramoth looked up to see her and Eagon staring upwards towards the clouds. Following their gazes, he realised that the shadow in the water was really a silhouette in the sky. A silhouette that was moving rapidly towards them. 

"Get out of the water and stay behind me." Ramoth rose to his feet and moved himself between the shape and the young drakes. 

A grey drake landed harshly a few places away from them. 

"Well, well, well," the stranger sneered, revealing a row of jagged fangs. "This is certainly a surprise."

"Who are you?" Ramoth growled. 

"A scout."

"For what?"

"Our king's command."

Ramoth felt a vicious heat rising in his chest and throat. He spoke through gritted teeth. "Morsen is no king of mine."

The stranger chuckled. 

"Of course, how could I forget, Prince of Treason?"

Ramoth stood a little taller, baring his teeth  as he hissed: "Leave, scout. I will give you this one chance."

"Now why should I? Your head would make for a valuable prize." Ramoth noticed the stranger's gaze flick to Caelignis and Eagon. "I shouldn't let your spawn go free, either."

The stranger reared up into his hind legs and, wings spayed outwards, half-ran and half-flew in a charge at Ramoth. He was significantly larger and stronger than the grey drake, and so he clamped his jaws around the stranger's neck and hurled him towards the water, where crashed in the shallows. The stranger picked himself up and lunged again. This time, he leapt upwards, slashing with his talons at Ramoth's torso. 

Ramoth threw him off by the shoulder. When the drake landed in a heap on his back, Ramoth raised one foot and brought it down on the stranger's wing.

Hard.

A sickly snap filled Ramoth's ears as the drake below him hissed and screeched. 

"I gave you a chance to flee," he said lowly. "You threatened me and my own. You decided your fate."

The grey drake opened his mouth as if to say something, but Ramoth cut him off. He snatched the other's throat in his jaws and wrenched to the side. 

Another rapid series of snaps, and the grey drake's body went limp. Dead. 

Ramoth turned back towards Caelignis and Eagon. "Are you two alright?"

The both nodded without a word.

"Good," he continued. Approaching them, he nudged them both away from the scene. "We should leave here, get you to home where it's safe."

"Can you fly?" Eagon piped up. When Ramoth shot him a quizzical look, he nodded to Ramoth's left wing. 

It stung as he unfurled it. He smelled the blood before he properly saw it. 

Two thin slashes marked the membrane between his elbow and first digit. They had both torn through the flesh, but the bleeding was already subsiding. 

"I'll be fine," Ramoth replied. "It might slow me down a little, but it looks worse than it is."

After some further encouragement to the two young drakes, all three took to the sky in the direction of home. When they arrived, they found Valkor already in the cave, nursing a series of scrapes and a few harsh gashes. Ramoth and the children sat beside him.

"You too?" Valkor asked.

"Believe it or not."

It was almost sundown by the time Emrys returned to the cave, sporting a few scrapes herself. They exchanged a gloomy look, each knowing what the other was thinking. Without a word, Emrys nestled in beside Ramoth as he draped his wing over her. The five of them made idle conversation, not directly addressing the events of the day (they would have that conversation when the children weren't near enough to hear it), until, one by one, everyone had fallen asleep. 

Everyone, except Ramoth. 

Ramoth's eyes snapped open as a flash of white lightning streaked along the sky. A deep rumbling of thunder accompanied it from overhead and, as he saw the curtains of rain lashing down outside, he was thankful for the fact that the cave gave shelter from the elements, even if it was somewhat cold. He looked on pensively into the gales, as if some part of him were waiting for... something to appear in the haze.

As another crack of thunder sent a bolt of light zig-zagging between the clouds, Ramoth felt something shift beside him. Turning his head, he saw that Emrys was still sound asleep (harsh storms like this had never bothered her as much as it did Ramoth). There was another shifting at his side, and a small, red head shuffled out from under his wing, peering up at him with large, bright eyes.

In that moment, a shrill, blood-curdling screech rose up through the storm.

The little drake darted back under her father's wing in terror as Ramoth's gaze snapped back to the rain outside, half-expecting to see some dark shape pass through the clouds. Instead, a faint blue glow appeared, just a speck on the horizon.

Another lost, he thought to himself.

Emrys was awake now, too, and she stared towards the blue speck as well. It lasted not even a moment longer, before fading out.

The war had been a folly affair, Ramoth knew. There was never any hope for his kind to reclaim their hunting territories from the gojira. Even a single smaller member of the latter species could kill an adult drake alone. And their king, Dagon? Well, Ramoth firmly believed that not even Morsen would be able to kill such a fierce and powerful foe.

Raising his wing, Ramoth turned his attention to his young fledgeling as she cowered beside him, while Emrys continued to watch the sky.

As Ramoth gently nuzzled the fuzz along the little one's back, he felt a sharp pang of sympathy for her. It was thought the war was over when she hatched from her egg, but now, not even four years on, the fighting continued on in its own staggered way. Petty squabbles turning to each tearing at the throat of the other.

The world was cruel, Ramoth knew this all too well. Sometimes, he feared it would be too much so for a child such as his, so small and scared. However - and this he promised to himself and his daughter every day - as long as he had air in his lungs and movement in his bones, he would always protect his fledgeling child.

A chill gust of wind filled the cave, carrying with it the faint scent of ocean salt and a low rumbling like thunder that seemed to fill the ground before the air. Ramoth raised his head as the small form of Caelignis sought shelter from the cold by burying herself in the plumage of Ramoth's chest. The rumbling ceased for a moment, then returned, closer now.

Ramoth and Emrys kept their eyes locked on the mouth of the cave as the sound continued to draw nearer. The sting of sea salt in their nostrils grew stronger despite the rain, and Emrys hissed quietly to Ramoth:

"Gojira."

Ramoth didn't reply. He just kept his gaze fixed on the lashing torrents of rain.

By now the rumbling was all but right outside and below the cave (which sat as high up in the mountains as it feasibly could). Thin whips of steam rose up as the gojira paused at the summit of the mountain. There was silence for a moment as Ramoth, Emrys, and Caelignis - upon sensing her parents' apprehension - all sat motionless with baited breath.

The moment seemed to last an eternity as the gojira snuffled and snorted below. Eventually, there came a new sound, more like an avalanche. It paused briefly, and repeated. Then it paused again. And it resumed.

Ramoth could guess at what was happening - he had seen gojira, particularly the larger ones, rub themselves against rocky mountains. He wasn't sure why it happened, though he assumed it was something to do with shaping their dorsal plates or removing dead skin.

The routine continued for some time longer before the gojira ceased, and the rumbling of its breathing followed it as it lazily stomped away.

Ramoth kept his sight locked on the cave's entrance the entire time.

When the retreating sound of the titan became faint, all three drakes let out a sigh of relief. A few minutes of silence passed before Emrys spoke.

"I think someone's tired now," she said warmly, nodding towards where Caelignis lay curled up to her father's fur. She was sound asleep.

Admittedly, the sight made Ramoth feel drowsy himself. Emrys must have been in a similar state, too, because she huddled closer to Ramoth and laid her head on the ground. Ramoth followed suit, but not before nuzzling the top of her head affectionately.