Breathing Heaven's Fury
It was storming the day the Ra'zac hatched; a deluge fit to wash the land of all life raged in the dark night. In the midst of all the celestial chaos, two colossi loomed within a copse of weather beaten pines, their leathery hides glistening silkily with dampness each time a fork of sulfurous electricity split the mounting thunderheads above. One lay shivering in the mud, her enormous wings twisted into a careful embrace as she shielded her shelled offspring from the elements.
Far off, a dragon roared.
"Star Mirror, we cannot stay here," the male chittered softly as he sent the words lancing through the panic in his mate's mind, feeling her conscious swell dark and foreboding over his own. She was not in a good mood.
Intimacy aside, Mirror allowed her words to clatter free in a physical torrent of native squawks from her beak. "Rage Cinders, any other day I would comply with you, but at the moment I find your judgment to be fatally flawed!" a hairline crack appeared in one of the eggs between her claws and she moaned. "Curse the riders to oblivion; I'll fill my stomach on their hatchlings!"
Cinders drew her mind into a mental embrace, nudging her along and taking up one of his children in his claws. "Don't lock up on me now," he cautioned sharply, nipping her crest in an attempt to raise her ire and spirit. "We must move to a safer location before we are found and slaughtered."
When the charred-meat-reek of fire-breathing-reptile filled the air, Mirror grudgingly complied, gently taking up the other infant and spreading her wings; moonlight cut through the clouds for a brief moment, and rendered the world in silver as they took to the sky.
Even as they coasted eastward on flight weary wings, they could feel the two eggs tremble and reverberate with frustrated mewls.
The birth would soon be upon them all.
It seemed at first that they would never land, and a desperate sort of concern took up their minds and bodies as they rocketed through the wild winds. For every inch of movement they fought for, their chances of finding a suitable shelter seemed to only grow worse. The landscape below was indistinct and webbed in torrents of gushing water, as well as being made precarious by fallen trees and overflowing rivers so that it was almost impossible to touch earth.
But ground they did, and soon too when a reasonably protected gully opened up below. The luck was welcome, and they sank down into a forest of maples, their broad leaves slapping the pairs' sides as they burst through the canopy.
Mirror and Cinders struck dirt heavily in woodland filled with hush. The darkness pooling there was nearly impenetrable—even for the Lethrblakas' keen eyes—and a stifling atmosphere of sun warmed mulch filled the air.
Deeming the maple stand acceptable under the circumstances, the soon to be parents relinquished their precious cargo to the soft loam between their claws and huddled together soddenly over the twins as a measure of calm returned to their exhausted flesh and bones.
"This won't last long," Mirror predicted bitterly, grinding her beak with nervousness as she watched her hatchlings fight for their freedom.
"A lick of time is all we need."
"Let it be true . . ."
The two fell silent, even in their minds, and allowed themselves to revel in the glory of the Ra'zacs' hatching. In the wan light, a tiny claw poked through the surface of one egg with a raspy click, a triumphant squeal soon following the minute victory.
It would be several more minutes before the first of their children broke free, dripping and shuddering from the shell, but when it did, Mirror immediately rushed forward.
She hooked the Ra'zac's squealing beak in her claws and effectively shushed it into quietness as she stared deeply into its eyes. Cinders behaved in a similar manner with the other twin, and the quartet of creatures was silent for several moments.
"Danger Glint," the mother finally proclaimed gleefully. "She's ready to tear this world apart."
"Austere Guile" the father chuckled chillingly. "He's going to run circles around the dimwitted."
"Oh this'll be fun," the two agreed in eerie unison, steering the hatchlings toward each other for introductions.
Having been named for what had been found in their wide open eyes, the twins soon found themselves looking into each other's with increasing levels of confusion. Virtually identical in every way, they bemusedly patted at one another's heads and tangled fingers, sniffed shoulders, and nibbled on carapaces. When at last they seemed happy with theirs and the other's appearance, they both let loose a keening wail.
Glint leaned on her brother, her mouth wide open in hunger as she sought to gain her mother and father's attention. The mated pair was ready though, and a second, grimmer parcel was tossed to the starving siblings.
The dead human struck the ground with a muffled thump, sandy hair bloodied and body stripped of clothing. His young dragon had made a decent meal for the bread breaking Lethrblaka hours before, and its rider was more than enough flesh to satisfy the younglings.
Guile snapped at Glint's face, driving her back with a grating wail as he scuttled over to the meat. She was soon in coming though, and the two bickered over the man's back with increasing voracity until their sharp claws tore a gash along his spine.
As the scent of blood filled the air, something seemed to take hold of the Ra'zac. Their eyes glazed over and the argument was quickly discarded. Guile drew his hatchmate close in a fit of generosity and allowed her to claim the first taste of blood, watching with his head cocked as she lapped at the crimson fluid.
She widened the wound with her barbed tongue, and then invited her brother to take part in the repast. Slowly but surely, the two worked their way through the corpse as Mirror and Cinders looked on, pleased beyond words as they appraised their children with murmured clicks and whistles.
A new family was born, and terror blossomed at the prospect of their future reign.