Hear me roar [Solo]

[NightSister]

Crack.

In a second, Mara's head snapped up, eyes watchful and alert. Her gaze rested on the large, scaly egg in the corner of the room - and the small, but prominent, jagged line running down the top.

She'd been sitting there waiting for the egg to hatch ever since she snatched it from an abandoned Arkanian diamond mine with the help of a fellow explorer five days ago. After nestling it in an incubating layer of blankets and laying the bundled egg in a warm corner, Mara had grabbed a chair and a stack of books and had been reading away the wait ever since.

But not anymore.

Crack. Crack. Crack. The lines severing the egg grew longer and deeper as Mara watched with bated breath, until she saw a claw, small but razor sharp, sticking out at the top. Then a leg. Then a pine-green head, proud and majestic even as small as the creature was. Finally, the scaled exterior of the egg gave way, and fell in shattered pieces as a dragon stood where its home had been moments earlier.

 

[NightSister]

Mara hardly dared breathe as she crouched beside the dragon, meeting its proud black eyes with her luminous brown ones. She was good in general with animals - they were so much easier to understand than humans - but this dragon would be different. She was aiming not to domesticate it, for she knew that even if she was to succeed, she was not so cruel as to take a warrior and turn it into a foolish pet that sat on her lap contentedly and breathed out small flames to impress guests. What Mara wanted was for the dragon to be her companion, her equal, her friend even.

And so she held eye contact with the dragon for as long as she could, refusing to blink even as her eyes watered, her head lowered in a show of respect but her eyes communicating that she would not fully bow to the creature. After hours - less than a minute in reality, but not to Mara - the dragon closed its eyes and bent at the knee just slightly, equally unwilling to assume such a submissive position.

"Oh, you're just beautiful," Mara whispered, the awe and excitement clear in her voice. "You're - you're going to need a name, you know." Hesitant to touch it, Mara once again made eye contact and reached out with her mind - the dragon was a girl. "Alright, that's good...got it. Your name is Zhanna."

Zhanna grunted in agreement.

 

[NightSister]

With Zhanna perched contentedly on her shoulder - which sounded nice, but the little dragon was heavier than she appeared and did nothing to prevent Mara's unruly brown waves from tangling - Mara set off across the meadow surrounding her house. Zhanna had hatched a fortnight ago, and since then the dragon had not misbehaved, but hardly made life easy for Mara. She had refused to eat anything but meat, cooked until it was crisp and blackened, had insisted on curling up on Mara's chest to sleep, which for a light sleeper who tossed and turned made life very difficult, and was rigid and stiff whenever Mara tried to bond with her but unbelievably hyperactive whenever the witch had something to do. Still, the little creature was affectionate in her own way, and Mara was confident that with some coercion the dragon would warm to her.

As they neared a pretty clearing with a small waterfall dancing merrily, Mara crouched down in the grass and pulled Zhanna off her shoulder. The dragon dug its claws insistently into her robe, but eventually lost the battle and was set firmly down on the plain. The clearing was where Mara went to train, to meditate, and to scream into the nothingness when the world got to be too much.

"Alright, Zhanna," she said, lowering her head to meet the dragon's eye level. "Hi, I'm Mara. I've been pretty nice to you..." despite the fact that you've been a bloody nuisance, she just kept herself from adding, "...so if you'd like to, I don't know, breathe fire? Even just some sparks?" The dragon stared at her, stubbornly unblinking, and Mara sighed. She hadn't expected that to work - time for an alternate approach.

This time, she stared into her eyes, trying to reach past the dragon's stubborn defence. Zhanna blinked slowly at her, as if to say, and what do you think you're doing? Refusing to be put off, Mara reached out with her mind, tried to really look at the dragon - and for the first time, Zhanna looked back. Like there were invisible beams of energy bouncing between the two, like they were on neutral ground with neither in a position of dominance. Mara felt Zhanna communicating with her, sensed feelings of wonder and confusion - never fear, never once fear - a mild interest in the witch dominated by the more base desire to be fed and sheltered until she could do so herself.

After a few long minutes, Mara stood up, and the connection broke but the bond remained. Zhanna flapped her wings, but only made it a few inches off the ground, and began hissing at Mara, small sparks flying from her nostrils as she did. Sparks.
Mara picked up the dragon, a small smile on her face.