Hours later the waves washed the newborn baby on the beach of an island. By pure luck a Monstrous Nightmare flew over, and hearing the babe's cries, it landed. The female Nightmare looked at the little thing with a curious expression. She had never seen anything like it before.
She sniffed it and it giggled. Whatever it was, it needed a home nonetheless. So what if it wasn't a dragon, it was a living thing no matter what.
The blue Nightmare scooped the thing in her claws and few off to her nest. The island itself was a cross between a jungle, desert, volcanic aftermath, rock and a beach, all sectioned out separately on one island, with rivers flowing through them and never short of fish or wild animals.
"Zala!"
"Where were you?"
"We were worried sick." Various Nightmare mothers swarmed over the missing Nightmare.
"I'm fine really, honestly, I just got a little … side tracked." She put the thing on the ground, gently.
"Wow it's …"
"Well it's… uh…" The Nightmares stuttered, not sure of what to make out of the new found thing.
A green baby Nightmare crawled over to the see the new thing. "It's freaky looking, that's what it is."
"Soros!"
"What? It is." The thing giggled and put a tiny hand on the little Nightmare's snout. "So where's his mama?"
"I'll be his mother?" Kala said, sweetly looking at the thing sweetly.
Just then the leader of the herd, Titus, a massive Monstrous Nightmare, with ruby red scales, and fearsome amber eyes, that could penetrate through the soles of the toughest wild beasts that lurked on the same island, came over. His extremely muscular body, made him look indestructible.
"You know, you really get to like him, when you get to know him." The baby dragon purred in the babe's giggles. He then noticed the leader standing over them. "Zala is going to be the mother." The Nightmare cowered away to his mother, leaving the babe where it was.
"Zala, it won't replace the one we lost." It was no secret that Zala and Titus had lost a hatchling recently to a wild boar, after the hatching ran out of its parent's grasp.
"I know that. But he … needs me." The female Nightmare spread her wings out so to protect the babe.
"Zala, it's not one of our kinds. It's not even a dragon. No, you have to take it back."
"Take him back? But he'll die."
"Zala he's not one of us. So it is none of our business."
"Titus, please. I just lost a son, please, let me have this one. Please."
There was an intense pause. A pause that would decide the fate of a life. The pause that would decide the baby's destiny.
"Fine. It can stay … don't make me regret this."
"Thank you, Titus."
The Nightmare snorted smoke out of his nostrils and left, to watch over the herd as they nested for the night.
"So, uh, what are you gonna name him?"
"I think I'll name him … Aeryn."