Talons and Tails

Goodbyes

A small black paw the size of a blackberry poked through the center of the crack, wiggling around to widen the hole. Then the egg rolled to one side, and a wing broke through the shimmering shell.

Everyone gathered around to watch as a tiny dragonet tumbled out tail first onto the grass, sprawled on its stomach with its back legs still inside the broken black husk.

It yanked its feet out, which sent it rolling further away from the momentum, to where it landed in an upright position and promptly sneezed.

Kinkajou was the first to make a remark.

"AWWWWW!! Look at its little nose and little feet and tiny wings! It's so cute! Tsk, if only I could be its mother oh look at those big eyes." She continued to coddle the baby Night Fury as the others stared at her.

Zuri looked rather amused and took it upon herself to pick up the child and place it safely in her bundled-up cloak. Kinkajou came over and peered over her shoulder to get a better look.

"What should we name it?" Toothless asked, and Winter took a few steps back.

Changed or not, he was uninterested in becoming a caretaker of this little guy. He knew it was just a matter of time before "cute" and "sweet" turned into "loud" and "obnoxious".

"Her," Qibli corrected him. Qibli had studied and read about many topics, one of them being genetics and the make-up of different dragons and genders. He could tell this dragonet was female despite being a different type of dragon due to the more narrow look of her tail.

This wasn't guaranteed, as Toothless was the only other Night Fury he'd met, but it was a solid estimate given what he had to work with. On Pyrrhia, most dragon types don't have a distinct difference besides females generally being larger than males, although some tribes have some subtle differences between the two genders.

Most of the time, dragons can tell another dragon's gender by the way they smell, as males give off a slightly different scent than females which most dragons never even knew about. They just believed it to be instinctual, which was in part true.

But this dragonet was not from Pyrrhia, so he had to assume it was female; given the different tail shape, thinner snout, and longer eyelashes.

"You are quite correct, Qibli. This young lady is the first female to be born in over 7 years. Humans are quite barbaric," Zuri said sadly, in a hushed voice.

Toothless took a few steps closer to her. "So why didn't you do anything? We were dying out and you did nothing! You have all this power and yet, before today I was the last Night Fury alive."

He looked hurt and betrayed, shocked that a dragon with such power would do nothing to help those she supposedly favored.

"That is not true." She said, looking at him with hard yet sincere eyes. "You are not the last of your kind. And I did not abandon your kin."

She took a deep breath as if gathering her thoughts before she plowed forward; suddenly a commanding and large presence in the small clearing. "When I first arrived on this island, I was lonely. I was mad at the dragons who drove me away from my friends and entire life. So I built a world around me. A world where there were so many different kinds of dragons that I didn't feel like such a freak.

"Humans came from Pyrrhia, looking for land. And somehow, they found it. I ignored them, letting them grow in size and make a living for themselves. A mistake, it turned out. Night Furies were the first dragons I created, a more peaceful and beautiful version of Nightwings. I started keeping track of the hatchings after a few mutations created a whole other species of albino Night Furies, which were dubbed Light Furies by the humans and dragon community alike.