OK, I've personaly deicded me and Vox adding bits of what we wrote together for the story will work better XD

I love this chapter!

*EDIT* Vox revised some parts some as to not confuse people and added in the other two hatchlings.

Chapter 2: Recollection and Hatching

Abyss left again in the middle of the night. He wanted time to think about what had transpired. Only a few years ago he would never of considered having a mate or children, but now he had both and did not want to lose either.

For the first time in his eternal existence since his creation he found him self shaping his plans around a family. He had never done that, not even for the Watchers he considered brothers and sisters. He chuckled at him self as his mist form rolled silently over hills and mountains like a soft cloud.

He hadn't even shaped his plans around his pact-partner. But he didn't care about that any more. All he desired was the protection of those he loved, and if even Vita dared test him by attacking the Lair he would show her what power the son of a God could wield at leisure. He moved slowly across the landscape.

Then getting the sudden desire to seek council he tore a hole between two realities and stepped through to his old home. The Crater was silent and empty, the prisons of the Watchers that were still insane looming like a testament to their father. And in the center of the circle their statues made stood a being not even Abyss him self would dare stand against. Eyhain looked over her shoulder as he approached. "Took you long enough to decided to come visit. Here about your worries over your eggs?"

The Destroyer chuckled, "You know me so well after all our time as brother and sister. Yes, I am here because of my worries, what do you see in the future for them?"

The Puppet Master looked ahead as she contemplated his question and Abyss watched as the universe slowed around them. Her power was, compared to his, as close to infinite as anyone could get. She had the power to change something's fate on a simple whim, should they live or die, but even she had to follow rules.

Once she had resurrected him, something that was dictated as beyond the word "possible" and should have been beyond even her power. Yet, she had stretched them to their limits that had never before been called upon to shatter part of reality to bring him back. A creature that was destined to be the end of all things. Abyss had always been thankful for that, and had decided not to try his hand at defeating her.

The Destroyer watched again as she worked her powers and toyed with time to see that witch was meant to be, and meant to happen. To his horror he watched as Vita's masked face appeared. He watched what was meant to happen and growled in anger. He was going to kill that creature…

The vision stopped suddenly and time resumed on it's normal track as Eyhain put a hand to his side, "What comes I cannot stop from here, and I cannot travel between dimensions to stop it. You know what will happen, but you do not know when. Witch I presume is a cold comfort for what will happen." The massive beast sighed as she continued, "You must be there for your mate Vox when it happens. Because when it does happen it will happen fast like a whirlwind. Remember to bring back enough food to help her recover once it does happen. That's all I can tell you, but after that you MUST bring her to me. I will not be aloud to heal her but I can aid." With that Abyss found himself back at the entrance to his and Vox's Lair they let Drkhons share. It was reasonably big, and Abyss knew every nook and cranny because he had been the one to drudge it all out at Vox's request.

He sighed in defeat, this was not the first time he had been unable to stop what he knew was coming but he never liked standing by. It seemed to tear at his soul. Giving up the Destroyer sat down next to the Exit and watched the sky, the stars had always calmed him, even during the war, or before the many battles he had ever been in.

At some point his physical form fell asleep without him noticing as his mind was caught up in thoughts about the past. The thin film of his being he had coated the Lair with to keep an eye on everything about the mountain and inside warned him of Vox's awakening. Giving up he woke and walked in, checking the eggs and sighed. He was uncertain about what the right temperature was for the eggs in Vox's estimate and was worried about accidentally increasing the heat to much.

The Dragons Nytelle had formed after him after her sanity returned to him incubated theirs in live volcanoes across their world. It was a mighty beginning he knew but was slightly overwrought about how they survived. Or how his eggs would survive. Abyss turned his dragon form into a small cloud and floated into the Lair. As he found the nest with a sleeping Drkhons at it he sighed. The drake had been giving it his all to keep the eggs under a careful watch with Vox unwilling to trust Abyss when he said he had a constant watch on them.

The cloud of matter collected around the small stack of rocks and flashed lightning under them, heating them far quicker then even Vox's fire could. The Destroyer stopped in fear of cooking the eggs alive. He was always afraid of doing that… then he woke his adopted son up. The Diamond drake's head shot up in panic, "Are the eggs alright?" The black dragon chuckled softly.

"They're fine, I warmed them up, I think you need to go rest. Falling asleep on duty would have a bad impression on your mother!" The younger dragon sighed in defeat and left for his long unused nest. Abyss laid down where he had just vacated and flashed one more spark of lightning under the eggs to make sure they were alright. He knew little about how Vox could tell an egg's temperature. The process eluded him far more effectively then Espera had!

He shrugged it aside as he continued to watch the eggs, and everything else about the Lair as he sensed Vox coming closer.

O0o

Vox reformed herself after slipping into the main cavern again, shaking her head. A few blood drops flew off herself. She glared at them, and they flew back onto her. She then took notice to the large black creature staring at her from his place next to the eggs. She stared back for a moment, before walking over to her eggs, checking their temperature again.

They were colder than they had been before. Drkhons was nowhere to be seen.

She raised her angry gaze to the large male, teeth bared.

"They are cold." She snapped at him.

"They are perfectly well with the range of being fine, according to what I know of your kind." Abyss replied, "I must not of heated them up enough…."

Vox hissed, "They need to be kept warm at all times, Abyss! Drkhons knows this, he should have told. Where is he? You sent him to bed, didn't you?"

The destroyer glared at her with his eyeless head, "He was tired, so I told him to rest."

Vox growled, "Fool! They must be tended to at all times!"

"You worry too much. They are fine."

"Fine my giant black-scaled ass, they are not fine!"

"Ah, so you admit to that?"

"Abyss!"

She leaped over the eggs, swinging her tail at his great horned head. It hit nothing but the stone wall on the other side of his head, as he had turned his head into his natural misty being.

She growled as he laid his head on her rear, a smirking grin on his draconic lips. He was the only dragon other than Vita who could harm her to the point of death. He was the only dragon she couldn't harm, for he had no blood. She spat a mouthful of saliva on his nose, before walking out from under his chin. She wrapped herself around the eggs, breathing her own deep red fire on them. She would not lose her children to the stupidity of a male!

She laid her head down when they were softly glowing in the fire, keeping one violet eye open as she drifted off to sleep. She folded her wing over them, hiding them, and keeping them warmer for longer. "Sleep, my loves…"

Vox slowly opened her eyes, blinking the dreariness away. She blinked a few times, before realizing that the fire had died away. Panicking, she checked their temperature. Furrowing her brow, she checked again, coming up with the same temperature.

"Odd…." She whispered, "Why are they so warm?"

She sniffed the dark blue egg, noticing it smelled different. She opened her mouth, gently biting the egg and moving it into her hands in front of her. She looked it over, turning it over and over, but nothing seemed out of place. Huffing in confusion, she coated her one hand with a thick layer of blood, and then lit it on fire. She held it under the blue egg, illuminating the small hatchling inside. She watched him for a while, before her eyes started playing tricks on her.

"Odd... I thought I saw him move..." she peered closer, and saw the same thing again.

She saw a faint movement of the hatchlings head, tapping its egg tooth against the inside of the egg. She realized with a great shock that the little male was trying to hatch. She put the fire on her hand out, gently tapping the side of the egg until a slight crack could be seen on the blue surface. She put the egg down, holding it from rolling away with her finger. She waited a few minutes, and when the shell did not burst open, she picked it up again, and tapped the side gently until another, larger, crack appeared. She held it gently, waiting for another crack to appear. But it didn't, and she narrowed her eyes. She tapped the egg again and again, making large cracks all over the fiery blue surface.

Suddenly, from near the top of the egg, a thin long flashy object burst from the shell, she shook her head, shaking away bits of egg from her nose. Egg white ran down the side of the egg, making it slippery. She peered closer, expecting to look into bright shining eyes.

She was met with a silver spade, attached to a long dark blue scaled tail. She blinked a few times, before realizing she was holding his egg upside-down. The tail twitched every which way, sometimes tapping against the side of his egg. The sickly slippery egg white covered it, making it look like some horrific slimy blue worm. She gently placed the blue egg on the cavern floor, staring at it closely. The blue tail squirmed; making the egg roll around, like the tiny dragon inside was enjoying the ride. She chuckled slightly, fallowing it closely; to make sure it didn't run into anything. Finally, a small blue limb burst from the egg, near the tail, bearing a thin foot with tiny claws. The foot was a lighter blue than the tail, but it faded into the same color by the dewclaw.

The leg and tail contradicted each other, trying to move opposite of each other, and Vox couldn't help but laugh. She could hear small peeps from inside the egg, like the male was calling for help. She simply lay where she was; she knew that if he couldn't get pact his egg, he wouldn't get through life. She wouldn't help him out of the egg like vita had helped the runt of her hatchlings. The egg moved more slowly across the floor now that the leg was out, but surely, he kept it rolling.

Another limb broke free, what looked to be an arm. The hand was the same light blue as the foot, fading into the dark blue at the thumb, like the foot. The hatchling by now seemed to be tired out, and the egg becoming still. Vox looked at it in sorrow, knowing she had helped too much already. She sighed, and got up, walking over to the egg and picking it up in her jaws. She tightened her jaws slightly, cracking the remaining egg in half.

She put it down, and sure enough, the other legs and arm freed themselves, followed by a spiked and horned blue head. The small daring shook his head, small bits of shell and slimy goo all over his dark blue scales. Vox peered closer, at the slimy limps tried to move in every direction at once. The male hatchling bore long spikes on his head, which the egg white was branched between like a slimy spiders web. He had no griff on his jaw, just a slight black mark where it should have been.

"Such is alright, he may have fallowed abyss on that path." She thought, since Abyss did not have a griff or a frill. She guessed that's where he got the spikes as well.

She notices he had thin, almost golden, horns curving down toward his bottom jaw, ending at a sharp point a tad bit past his nose tip. The hatchlings underside was a multi shade medium blue, and he sported a small bone plate. The same black substance that was on his jaw bone went down his back. She wondered what it was, but pushed the thought aside once she saw his left side. Two symbols on his shoulder and his hip caught her eye, and she was perplexed as to what they were…

The tiny male opened his mouth and started peeping helplessly, his large eyes shut tight. Vox grumbled in annoyance before giving in and picking the small male up in her jaws. She almost gagged as the sickly sour tasting egg white touched her tongue, but she kept her gentle hold on him as she carried him over to where she had been laying.

She put him in her hands, where he squirmed slightly, but he soon calmed when she started to clean his scales. Revolution spread through her taste buds, and despite knowing the answer, she wonder if she could just use cavern water to clean him. Spitting the horrid substance that befouled her mouth out, she continued to clean him, ignore his peeps and squawks of protest.

A small tap on her leg made her look up, to see another egg moving with a small head peeking out. It was the purple egg, one of her daughters. She smiled in mischievous victory at the sight of the female hatching correctly, head first. The small girl thrashed her head back and forth, breaking small bits of egg away at every movement, until she wrestled her one arm out. After that, she just pushed, and her egg cracked and split into pieces over her. She stopped squirming, lying still beside her mother, and the dark egg white slime over her as well.

Vox growled, she would have to clean all of them. She didn't dare trust Abyss to help her, the male was brainless when it came to proper egg bearing.

She placed the blue male where his egg had been, and slightly clumsily, he curled into a ball. She picked up the deep dark purple female, noticing that a small crack had appeared on the black egg. She touched her tongue to the purple hatchlings back, but the girl turned quickly, tiny jaws with even tinier needle sharp teeth biting her soft tongue. Vox hissed, and the girl let go, making her own noise that sounded like a hiss as well. Vox healed the bite quickly, before turning the purple female over and cleaning her belly. The purple hatchling become confused at her new position, and calmed, allowing her mother to clean her without another bite.

"She'll be a feisty one…" Vox thought

After cleaning the purple quickly, she turned her back over and placed her on the cavern floor. The purple hatchling fought with her own limbs, and Vox was sure she wouldn't get far. So she reached for the black egg, setting it in front of her. Not long after, a head broke out of the egg, the disgusting goo covering it as well. Vox blinking in confusing as a faint pink color was beneath the white goo. The hatchlings tail broke out, with was followed by the legs and arms. The hatchlings limbs hung in the air like an upside down dog, and indeed, the pinkish hatchlings was on its back.

But a pink male? It's happened before, but on rare occasion…

Vox cleaned the hatchlings head off, noticing the scale wasn't just pink, but bright purple with pink swirls. Golden flecks and black runes also decorated the scale, and she looked at it in confusion. She continued to clean the hatchling, which wouldn't stop moving. It kept squirming and twitching and trying to crawl away from her, she had to repeatedly keep repositioning the hyper thing.

As she cleaned up the hatchling, she noticed that his proportions and smell was off for a male. So she examined the little one more carefully, and found other things that suggested that her gender estimate was off. The shape of the head, the thinner waist, the longer tail, and overall missing dragon "bits" confirmed her thoughts.

The little swirled and runed hatchling was a girl.

Loud cracks from her side brought her to set swirly next to her purple biter as the sickly green egg started to crack open. A thin nosed slim hatchling burst through her egg, clawing at it frantically. Her sharp egg tooth was still attached to her nose; her sharp claws would be any feral dog's worst nightmare.

She squawked, loudly. Her voice echoed off the entire chamber, and Vox's tail twitched and a kind of fear ran through her. She shook the feeling away, her raised scales returning to normal. The sickly green hatchling folded her long, thin wings against her back, her whipping tail setting. Her closed eyes were clamped shut, like she was suffering from a bad dream. Vox picked the slimy girl up, licking the reddish egg white off of her sickly deep green and yellowish stripped scales. Thin trails of bright red rivered across the hatchling, a black triangular symbol on her left side. Vox peered at it in confusion, but tossed the thought away as she remembered that the blue hatchling had had symbols on his sides as well.

As Vox's rough tongue cleaned off the unusually thin head, the hatchlings eyes snapped open and her head struck upward. Vox hissed as her tongue was injured yet again, the razor sharp egg tooth firmly fixed to the girls snout. Vox glared at the horrid thing, perplexed and slightly angry that it hadn't fallen off. She looked to the others, theirs had fallen off perfectly. But this hatchling's tooth remained firmly on her snout. Vox tried to gently wiggle it loose, but the hatchling made it clear she didn't want her mother messing with it by putting tiny holes in her fingers.

Vox sighed, and cleaned the rest of her without hassle.

The last orange-ish red egg cracked, and a small piece of egg fell off. A tiny nose appeared in the hole, trying to push its way through. But the hole was far too small, and the hatchling had to slowly chip away at it until his frilled head pushed though. Instinct guided him as he squirmed out of the egg, leaving it practically whole. Three sets of spikes ran down his back, and a large frill that reminded Vox of Drkhons's frill was perched on his slimy head. Vox cast a wary eye on the second male, then to the first blue. She picked up the orange-ish male, cleaning his pale red egg white off of his bright orange scale. Tinges of yellow and red were all over him, and his under shade was a reddish orange.

The hatchling also had the starting of a spike on his tail, three pronged horns on his head, and long spikes on his jawbone, like a griff. Small round pebble-like scales that were bright red divided the orange mainscale from the reddish orange rough skin.

Vox kept this male near her, placing the females and the other male in the crook of her tail

But generations of instinct guided the males to fight each other, for dominance of the nest. She heard a loud growl from the hatchling near her, and the orange hatchling fallowed his instincts. Fighting against his limbs, and charged toward where he smelled the other male. The blue male squawked and cumbered over his mothers tail for safety. But the orange leaped over his sisters and the tail, landing on the blue hatchling.

Chatter of small roars, squawks, hisses and squeals echoed in the cavern, even as Vox tried to pry the blue and orange hatchling ball apart. The blue hatchling broke free, and ran (clumsily) across the rock floor. The orange hatchling charges after, him, but Vox grabbed his tail. Blind anger made the vicious hatchling sink his teeth into her fleshy fingers with all his strength. Vox yelped and accidently dropped the small hatchling, who shook it off and ran after his terrified brother yet again.

Abyss opened one sleepy eye, growling about being awaken in the middle of the night. He pushed his large bulk off of the rock he called his bed, yawning the sleepiness out of his mind. He climbed up the near vertical tunnel that led up to the main cavern, poking his great horned head into the middle of a sight he could only label as alarming.

The orange hatchling snapped his jaws at his brother, backing him into the cave wall. The frightened blue hatchling hissed repeatedly, but the orange ignored the threatening sounds. They had chased each other behind a tall line of stalagmites, into a small hallow Vox couldn't reach them in. Abyss fully crawled out of the hole, walking over to his mate.

"What is happening?" he asked, his limited knowledge of her kind had stopped long ago.

Vox hissed, "When there is a clutch of more than one male, the males fight to the death for a kind of championship over the nest. It's a horrid instinct tradition."

Abyss nodded solemnly, "Can you not separate them?"

She glared at him, "I would if I could get to them."

Abyss snaked his hand through the small opening between two of the rocks, picking the orange hatchling up around the middle. The hatchling snarled and sunk his teeth into the hand, making Abyss yelp slightly.

"They have teeth?" he questioned.

"Very sharp teeth." Vox replied.

Abyss pulled the orange hatchling out, ignoring the various bites and scratches the vicious male made. Vox looked at him like he was stupid, but Abyss ignored her as well. He took the hatchling over to the farthest side of the wall and laid down, trapping the angry male with his tail and bulk. Vox tried to clamber over the sharp devil-rocks that kept her other hatchling from her, but to no avail. She finally gave in and turned into a blood rope that pulled the poor hatchling out by his tail.

She returned to her daughters with her son, plopping down around them in a semicircle. She looked to Abyss, who still blocked the hissing and growling male, and she shook her head.

"That won't work forever, Abyss. At one point or another, they will fight." She said, her voice slightly solemn.

Abyss just tilted his head to the side in a sort of dragonoid shrug, "Perhaps. But not today."

Vox nodded, and looked at the new hatchlings with admiration. She didn't know their elements yet, or even if they had any, but she was sure that their personalities and actions would soon give them away. she laid her head beside them, hearing Abyss walk over to her. He lay down next to her, his tail still blocking his young son. He laid his head down, looking over Vox and his new children.

"They are restless." He pointed out. Indeed, the purple pink swirly was clambering over her dark purple sister, who was growling and grumbling. The sickly green just watched nonchalantly.

"I think I can fix that."

Abyss looked at her, his head tilted in confusion. Vox smirked at him, before she softly began to sing.

"Listen my hatchlings, for now you shall hear
Of the only seven slayers a dragon must fear.
First beware Pride, least belief in one's might,
Has you discount your foeman who is braving your sight.
Never Envy other dragons their wealth, power or home,
For dark plots and plans will bring death to your own.
Your Wrath shouldn't win, when spears strike your scale
Anger kills cunning, which you will need to prevail.
A dragon must rest, but Sloth you should dread
Else long years of napping let assassins to your bed.
'Greed is good,' or so foolish dragons will say
Until piles of treasure bring killing thieves where they lay.
Hungry is your body, and at times you must feed
But Gluttony makes fat dragons, who can't fly at their need.
A hot Lust for glory, gems, gold, or mates
Lead reckless young drakes to the blackest of fates.
So take heed of this wisdom, precious hatchling of mine,
And long years of dragonhood are sure to be thine. "