Hi. I am not CP. I do not own IC. I only own Tania and Ophelia.
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Chapter Four
Over the next three weeks, Tania ate well, and brought down another two deer. The hide she cured and wrapped around the strange stone. She had figured out that if she touched it, colors would spread from wherever she touched. The color and shade shifted with her mood: if she was grumpy or upset, it would usually be a fiery shade of red or orange. If she was scared, it turned either black or amber, depending. If she was sad, it turned pale turquoise.
But the color she loved most was when she was happy. It would turn a beautiful, shining gold, and she would sit there for several minutes, just looking at it. Then, Tania would shake herself and put it back in her pack.
She had decided to traverse south, as she didn't look forward to going back north. It became steadily warmer as she did.
That night, twenty-four days after she had found the stone, Tania prepared for bed as she usually did—the best she could. This time, she was sleeping on the ground, after having made a small fire by rubbing a stick and a piece of wood together, and cooking some of her venison. As it roasted, she carefully took the strange stone out of her pack and set it beside her.
The meat was almost cooked through when Tania heard a squeak. She jumped.
There was another squeak, and she pinpointed it... from the stone?
It squeaked again and rocked this time. It seemed to pause, then started squeaking and rocking with renewed vigor. Tania carefully backed away from it, taking a branch whose end was aflame.
It rocked and rattled, and then a complicated series of spider-webbing cracks appeared across it. It wobbled a moment, and then one side collapsed. A shape tumbled out of the stone—egg—and rolled into the firelight. Tania gasped.
Standing in front of her, fanning silvery wings that were rapidly changing to gold, was a dragon hatchling.
It was a moment before Tania remembered to breathe. She returned the stick to the fire, and crawled over to the little creature on all fours.
She sat up, cross-legged, and leaned down to the dragon. It looked up at her with enormous silver eyes. "Hello there, little one," Tania said quietly. It blinked, and then sniffed her outstretched hand, rubbing against it like a cat. Intantly, a flare of pain like nothing she had ever felt before travelled up her arm. Her blood was made of fire, her bones, ice. It took a few minutes for her to control herself. Looking at her hand, Tania saw that there was a new scar there, a silvery oval.
She looked at the dragon, now a purple thing with red wings and a blue tail. "You choose me?" she asked it.
It looked up at her, and a tendril of an alien consciousness brushed her own. She retreated briefly, then warily opened her mind.
Imediately, she was flooded with a consciousness that was alien to her own. Her breath hitched, and then she relaxed. The mind was familiar, somehow, and seem to understand her better than she herself did. She gently scratched the little creature behind it's tiny horns. "What's your name?" she asked gently. It looked at her. "More importantly," Tania continued, "are you a male, or a female?" It cocked it's head. She sighed.
Then, an idea came to her. She concentrated on the mental tug she felt. Then, asking through a series of images and feelings, it's gender. It perked up, and, answering in the same 'language', it said female. Tania smiled and thought a moment.
"Now what to call you..." she murmured. A name, nearly forgotten, surfaced in her mind. "My grandmother's dragon was Ophelia. How about that?" A mental affirmitive reached her, and Tania smiled.
"Well then, little color-shifter, it looks like we have work to do."
FINALLY! Ophelia is HERE! Phew! Now we can get on to longer and more action-filled chapters :D. Stay tuned!
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Falcon