#;;jurassic: of teeth and scales
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A pair of eustreptospondylus happen upon delectable feast of delicious carrion.
#dinosaur#Eustreptospondylus#flies#insect#organs#carcass#paleontology#paleoart#paleoillustration#Illustration#prehistoric#Jurassic#united kingdom#scale#scars#teeth#dinosaur art
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Shortly before noon on Aug. 19, 2023, a Russian cruise missile sliced past the golden onion domes and squat apartment blocks of the Chernihiv skyline in northern Ukraine. The Iskander-K missile slammed into its target: the city’s drama theater, which was hosting a meeting of drone manufacturers at the time of the attack. More than 140 people were injured and seven killed. The youngest, 6-year-old Sofia Golynska, had been playing in a nearby park.
Fragments of the missile recovered by the Ukrainian armed forces and analyzed by Ukrainian researchers found numerous components made by U.S. manufacturers in the missile’s onboard navigation system, which enabled it to reach its target with devastating precision. In December, Ukraine’s state anti-corruption agency released an online database of the thousands of foreign-made components recovered from Russian weapons so far.
Russia’s struggle to produce the advanced semiconductors, electrical components, and machine tools needed to fuel its defense industrial base predates the current war and has left it reliant on imports even amid its estrangement from the West. So when Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, major manufacturing countries from North America, Europe, and East Asia swiftly imposed export controls on a broad swath of items deemed critical for the Russian arms industry.
Russia quickly became the world’s most sanctioned country: Some 16,000 people and companies were subject to a patchwork of international sanctions and export control orders imposed by a coalition of 39 countries. Export restrictions were painted with such a broad brush that sunglasses, contact lenses, and false teeth were also swept up in the prohibitions. Even items manufactured overseas by foreign companies are prohibited from being sold to Russia if they are made with U.S. tools or software, under a regulation known as the foreign direct product rule.
But as the war reaches its two-year anniversary, export controls have failed to stem the flow of advanced electronics and machinery making their way into Russia as new and convoluted supply chains have been forged through third countries such as Kazakhstan, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates, which are not party to the export control efforts. An investigation by Nikkei Asia found a tenfold increase in the export of semiconductors from China and Hong Kong to Russia in the immediate aftermath of the war—the majority of them from U.S. manufacturers.
“Life finds a way,” said a senior U.S. intelligence official, quoting the movie Jurassic Park. The official spoke on background to discuss Russia’s evasion of export controls.
Some of the weapons and components analyzed by investigators were likely stockpiled before the war. But widely available Russian trade data reveals a brisk business in imports. More than $1 billion worth of advanced semiconductors from U.S. and European manufacturers made their way into the country last year, according to classified Russian customs service data obtained by Bloomberg. A recent report by the Kyiv School of Economics found that imports of components considered critical for the battlefield had dipped by just 10 percent during the first 10 months of 2023, compared with prewar levels.
This has created a Kafkaesque scenario, the report notes, in which the Ukrainian army is doing battle with Western weapons against a Russian arsenal that also runs on Western components.
It is an obvious problem, well documented by numerous think tank and media reports, but one without an easy solution. Tracking illicit trade in items such as semiconductors is an exponentially greater challenge than monitoring shipments of conventional weapons. Around 1 trillion chips are produced every year. Found in credit cards, toasters, tanks, missile systems, and much, much more, they power the global economy as well as the Russian military. Cutting Russia out of the global supply chain for semiconductors is easier said than done.
“Both Russia and China, and basically all militaries, are using a large number of consumer electronic components in their systems,” said Chris Miller, the author of Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology. “All of the world’s militaries rely on the same supply chain, which is the supply chain that primarily services consumer electronics.”
Export controls were once neatly tailored to keep specific items, such as nuclear technology, out of the hands of rogue states and terrorist groups. But as Washington vies for technological supremacy with Beijing while also seeking to contain Russia and Iran, it has increasingly used these trade restrictions to advance broader U.S. strategic objectives. For instance, the Biden administration has placed wide-ranging prohibitions on the export of advanced chips to China.
“At no point in history have export controls been more central to our collective security than right now,” Matthew Axelrod, the assistant secretary for export enforcement at the U.S. Commerce Department, said in a speech last September. U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has described export controls as “a new strategic asset in the U.S. and allied toolkit.”
Russia’s ability to defy these restrictions doesn’t just have implications for the war in Ukraine. It also raises significant questions about the challenge ahead vis-à-vis China.
“The technological question becomes a key part of this story and whether or not we can restrict it from our adversaries,” said James Byrne, the director of open-source intelligence and analysis at the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank.
In the Russian city of Izhevsk, home to the factory that manufactures Kalashnikov rifles, shopping malls are being converted into drone factories amid a surge in defense spending that has helped the country’s economy weather its Western estrangement. Arms manufacturers have been urged to work around the clock to feed the Russian war machine, while defense is set to account for one-third of the state budget this year.
“We have developed a concept to convert shopping centers—which, before the start of the SMO [special military operation], sold mainly the products of Western brands—to factories for assembly lines of types of domestic drones,” Alexander Zakharov, the chief designer of the Zala Aero drone company, said at a closed event in August 2022, according to the Russian business newspaper Vedomosti. “Special military operation” is what the Russian government calls its war on Ukraine. Zala Aero is a subsidiary of the Kalashnikov Concern that, along with Zakharov, was sanctioned by the United States last November.
Defense companies have bought at least three shopping malls in Izhevsk to be repurposed for the manufacture of drones, according to local media, including Lancet attack drones, which the British defense ministry described as one of the most effective new weapons that Russia introduced to the battlefield last year. Lancets, which cost about $35,000 to produce, wreaked havoc during Ukraine’s offensive last year and have been captured on video striking valuable Ukrainian tanks and parked MiG fighter jets.
Like a lot of Russia’s weapons systems, Lancets are filled with Western components. An analysis of images of the drones published in December by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security found that they contained several parts from U.S., Swiss, and Czech manufacturers, including image processing and analytical components that play a pivotal role in enabling the drones to reach their targets on the battlefield.
“The recurring appearance of these Western products in Russian drone systems shows a keen dependence on them for key capabilities in the drone systems,” the report notes. Lancets are not the only drones found to contain Western components. Almost all of the electronic components in the Iranian Shahed-136 drones, which Russia is now manufacturing with Iranian help to use in Ukraine, are of Western origin, a separate analysis published in November concluded.
Early in the war, the Royal United Services Institute analyzed 27 Russian military systems, including cruise missiles, electronic warfare complexes, and communications systems, and found that they contained at least 450 foreign-made components, revealing Russia’s dependence on imports.
One of the principal ways that Russia has evaded Western export controls has been through transshipment via third countries such as Turkey, the UAE, and neighboring states once part of the Soviet Union. Bloomberg reported last November that amid mounting Western pressure, the UAE had agreed to restrict the export of sensitive goods to Russia and that Turkey was considering a similar move. Kazakh officials announced a ban on the export of certain battlefield goods to Russia in October.
Suspected transshipment is often revealed by striking changes in trade patterns before and after the invasion. The Maldives, an island chain in the Indian Ocean that has no domestic semiconductor industry, shipped almost $54 million worth of U.S.-made semiconductors to Russia in the year after the invasion of Ukraine, Nikkei Asia reported last July.
Semiconductor supply chains often span several countries, with chips designed in one country and manufactured in another before being sold to a series of downstream distributors around the world. That makes it difficult for companies to know the ultimate end user of their products. This may seem odd—until you realize that this is the case for many everyday products that are sold around the world. “When Coca-Cola sells Coca-Cola, it doesn’t know where every bottle goes, and they don’t have systems to track where every bottle goes,” said Kevin Wolf, a former assistant secretary for export administration at the U.S. Commerce Department.
While a coalition of 39 countries, including the world’s major manufacturers of advanced electronics, imposed export restrictions on Russia, much of the rest of the world continues to trade freely with Moscow. Components manufactured in coalition countries will often begin their journey to Moscow’s weapons factories through a series of entirely legal transactions before ending up with a final distributor that takes them across the border into Russia. “It starts off as licit trade and ends up as illicit trade,” said a second senior U.S. intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The further items move down the supply chain, the less insight governments and companies have into their ultimate destination, although sudden changes in behavior of importers can offer a red flag. In his speech last September, Axelrod, the assistant secretary, used the example of a beauty salon that suddenly starts to import electronic components.
But the Grand Canyon of loopholes is China, which has stood by Moscow since the invasion. In the first days of the war, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo warned that Washington could shut down Chinese companies that ignored semiconductor export controls placed on Russia. Last October, 42 Chinese companies were added to export control lists—severely undercutting their ability to do business with U.S. companies—for supplying Russian defense manufacturers with U.S. chips.
But as the Biden administration carefully calibrates its China policy in a bid to keep a lid on escalating tensions, it has held off from taking Beijing to task. “I think the biggest issue is that we—the West—have been unwilling to put pressure on China that would get China to start enforcing some of these rules itself,” said Miller, the author of Chip Wars.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) said: “Due to the restrictions imposed by the United States and key allies and partners, Russia has been left with no choice but to spend more, lower its ambitions for high-tech weaponry, build alliances with other international pariah states, and develop nefarious trade networks to covertly obtain the technologies it needs.
“We are deeply concerned regarding [Chinese] support for Russia’s defense industrial base. BIS has acted to add over 100 [China]-based entities to the Entity List for supporting Russia’s military industrial base and related activities.”
Export controls have typically focused on keeping specific U.S.-made goods out of the hands of adversaries, while economic and financial sanctions have served broader foreign-policy objectives of isolating rogue states and cauterizing the financing of terrorist groups and drug cartels. The use of sanctions as a national security tool grew in wake of the 9/11 attacks; in the intervening decades, companies, government agencies, and financial institutions have built up a wealth of experience in sanctions compliance. By contrast, the use of export controls for strategic ends is relatively novel, and compliance expertise is still in its infancy.
“It used to be that people like me could keep export controls and sanctions in one person’s head. The level of complexity for each area of law is so intense. I don’t know anyone who is truly an export control and sanctions expert,” Wolf said.
Export controls, experts say, are at best speed bumps designed to make it harder for Russia’s defense industrial base to procure Western components. They create “extra friction and pressure on the Russian economy,” said Daniel Fried, who as the State Department coordinator for sanctions policy helped craft U.S. sanctions on Russia after its annexation of Crimea in 2014. Russia is now paying 80 percent more to import semiconductors than it did before the war, according to forthcoming research by Miller, and the components it is able to acquire are often of dubious quality.
But although it may be more cumbersome and expensive, it’s a cost that Moscow has been willing to bear in its war on Ukraine.
Western components—and lots of them—will continue to be found in the weapons Russia uses on Ukraine’s battlefields for the duration of the war. “This problem is as old as export controls are,” said Jasper Helder, an expert on export controls and sanctions with the law firm Akin Gump. But there are ways to further plug the gaps.
Steeper penalties could incentivize U.S. companies to take a more proactive role in ensuring their products don’t wind up in the hands of the Russian military, said Elina Ribakova, a nonresident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “At the moment, they’re not truly motivated,” she said.
Companies that run afoul of sanctions and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a U.S. federal law that prohibits the payment of bribes, have been fined billions of dollars. Settlements of export control violations are often an order of magnitude smaller, according to recently published research.
In a speech last month, Axelrod said the United States would begin issuing steeper penalties for export control violations. “Build one case against one of the companies extremely well, put out a multibillion-dollar fine negotiation, and watch everybody else fall in line,” Ribakova said.
And then there’s the question of resources. BIS has an annual budget of just $200 million. “That’s like the cost of a few fighter jets. Come on,” said Raimondo, speaking at the Reagan National Defense Forum last December.
The agency’s core budget for export control has, adjusted for inflation, remained flat since 2010, while its workload has surged. Between 2014 and 2022, the volume of U.S. exports subject to licensing scrutiny increased by 126 percent, according to an agency spokesperson. A 2022 study of export control enforcement by the Center for Strategic and International Studies recommended a budget increase of $45 million annually, describing it as “one of the best opportunities available anywhere in U.S. national security.”
When it comes to enforcement, the bureau has about 150 officers across the country who work with law enforcement and conduct outreach to companies. The Commerce Department has also established a task force with the Justice Department to keep advanced technologies out of the hands of Russia, China, and Iran. “The U.S. has the most robust export enforcement on the planet,” Wolf said.
But compared with other law enforcement and national security agencies, the bureau’s budgets have not kept pace with its expanding mission. The Department of Homeland Security has more investigators in the city of Tampa, Florida, than BIS does across the entire country, Axelrod noted in his January speech.
On the other side, you have Russia, which is extremely motivated to acquire the critical technologies it needs to continue to prosecute its war. The Kremlin has tasked its intelligence agencies with finding ways around sanctions and export controls, U.S. Treasury Undersecretary Brian Nelson said in a speech last year. “We are not talking about a profit-seeking firm looking for efficiencies,” the second senior U.S. intelligence official said. “There will be supply if there is sufficient demand.”
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hi again I hope you can do a Jurassic world au yandere raptor hybrid parents wolverine and storm [ animated series ] x baby raptor hybrid reader and how they react when their baby gets kidnapped and they go with Owen and Claire to get Maisie and their baby back.
Okay! So, in the Jurassic World AU, it isn't a crossover, so Owen and Claire and Maisie aren't in it. It's just the X-Men characters and Reader in this setting. I should have specified, so I'll do it now. But I CAN do raptor hybrid parents! Let's try this-
• Something wasn't right.
• The air was still, no birds or insects singing a low hum. The trees seemed too tall, too dark. The shade was too cold, biting and nipping at their skin and scales. Yet the problem seemed to be something else...
• Neither one could remember much of their before this place, with its humans and tasers and fences, but they didn't need to. They had a life here, with each other, and their own hatchling to take care of. Or it had been that way, before someone had taken them. The older male knew their enemies had caught their little while they were away, he could smell their blood and the stench of mammals clinging to their nest. His mate, a female with bright eyes and white scales, had ruthlessly torn through their territory, calling out for their child. Yet neither one could find the humans, only a trail to follow...
• Hunting down the ones who did this atrocity felt easy. It didn't take much to track them into their homes, to follow them on their hikes, to hunt then and chase them til they dropped and cried and pleaded for mercy. Yet none was given. The last thing they'd ever see was of claws racing towards them, or of sharp teeth closing around their head. It all lead to this moment, to a lone facility in freezing snow, holding their hatchling and the last of the monsters who took them...
• Waiting in the cell made you feel icky. All cold and tired and bruised, like every drop of warmth was sucked out of you. The humans prattled on and on, talking about numbers and people who wanted them, who wanted a pet or monster or stuffed tropy... It made you cry, hearing all of this. You shied away from any who came near, tucking your tail in your hands and hiding in the shadows. It all changed when a loud wail echoed in the room, red lights flashing sharply through the darkness.
• It was then the humans began panicking. Running and racing around, screaming and crying, talking about specimen breaches and other raptors- That made you perk up. Could it be Mom and Dad? Did they come back for you? They didn't abandon you?
• It appeared not. You could hear their angry screeches, their claws clicking on metal floors, their feet pounding down the halls as they came closer to finding you. Only a few humans remained, a frazzled doctor and a couple of guards, and then-
• Your parents were there, mad and angry and screaming. You looked away as you heard the humans wail and beg, you covered your ears and shut your eyes. The scent of copper was thick, the acrid scent of death soon following. But then, the bars were torn apart, and in a flash, you were in the arms of your parents, each chirping up a frenzy as they looked over you.
• You chirped up happily, only getting anxious when you asked about the humans, but you were shushed, told not to look, and soon you all were leaving. Your mom kept humming, tickling your cheeks and belly, while your dad kissed your head and stroked your back. You couldn't help but nuzzle into their warm embrace, so safe from the carnage surrounding you...
#honeycomb thoughts#platonic yandere marvel#yandere platonic marvel#platonic yandere xmen#yandere x-men#platonic yandere marvel x reader#platonic yandere xmen evolution#platonic yandere xmen: the animated series#🦖jurassic world au
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𓎟 ̊ names and prns for a green dino plushie (masc)𓈒
requested by anon
Charlie﹐ Daemon﹐ Rex﹐ Draco﹐ Spike﹐ Rocky﹐ Ty﹐ Eddie﹐ Finn﹐ Archie﹐ Oscar﹐ Max﹐ Scout﹐ Bailey﹐ Ziggy﹐ Bronto﹐ Thumper﹐ Tank﹐ Eli﹐ Barney﹐ Leo﹐ Rhino﹐ Theodore﹐ Bowser
he him﹐ teeth teeths﹐ dino dinos﹐ scale scales﹐ plush plushy﹐ roar roars﹐ rawr rawrs , claw claws﹐ fossil fossils﹐ hy hym﹐ jur jurassic﹐ thy thym﹐ fluff fluffs﹐ don dons﹐ spino spinos﹐ raptor raptors
[ PT: Names and pronouns for a green dinosaur plushie (masc preference)
requested by anon!
Names: Charlie, Daemon, Rex, Draco, Spike, Rocky, Ty, Eddie, Finn, Archie, Oscar, Max, Scout, Bailey, Ziggy, Bronto, Thumper, Tank, Eli, Barney, Leo, Rhino, Theodore, Bowser
Pronouns: he/him, teeth/teeths, dino/dinos, scale/scales, plush/plushy, roar/roars, rawr/rawrs, claw/claws, fossil/fossils, hy/hym, jur/jurassic, thy/thym, fluff/fluffs, don/dons, spino/spinos, raptor/raptors
/end PT ]
#✚𓈒 ― np lists#✚𓈒 ― requests# #mogai safe#liom safe#mogai#name ideas#neopronoun suggestions#name suggestions#neopronoun ideas#neopronouns#dinosaur#dinosaur plushie#npt list#npt suggestions#npt
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That Hermitcraft hero AU list I promised
yeah. here you go (:
edit: no art for y’all lol if you saw the original post congrats, but if you happened to have aphantasia or are just not good at visualizing, sorry! no art, it doesn’t go over well lmao
happy reading!
Impulse: SV
powers: electricity + thunder
info: he’s really good with press lol he usually goes on missions with kids because they all love him- during the day, the iDimpy factory ‘bought’ the Hermit Compound and ‘converted it to a chocolate factory’ and Impulse runs it lol (dw it’s still for superheroes, the bottom couple levels were just edited a bit HE MAKES REALLY GOOD CANDY)
appearance: MR. IMPULSE AS WILLY WONKA MY BELOVED (his super suit is metal like Iron Man and has a glowing yellow i in the middle)
Zed: Worm Man
powers: sheep [: (NO HIS NAME DOESN’T MAKE SENSE IT’S FOR THE MEME)
info: fs a mad scientist- he teaches middle school science during the day XD
appearance: blond, blue eyes, ram horns that he tells his students is just a headband, lab coat + goggles even when not in the lab lol- his super suit is just. Worm Man. you know
Tango: Blaze
powers: fire + can change back and forth between super form and civilian
info: he’s super funny lol
appearance: yellow hair that looks like fire (it is actually on fire in super form), red eyes, sharp teeth in super form, if you’ve seen @lunarcrown ‘s Tango art that’s the fit style I’m thinking for the super suit
Keralis: Cyclopes
powers: siren Keralis my beloved
info: he loves kids but has kind of a spooky look to him- don’t worry, they warm up to him eventually and even call him Papa K!!
appearance: larger than average eyes but is otherwise basically normal lol his super fit is just like Aquaman style yk lots of scales
Bdubs: Apollo
powers: photokinesis
info: shreepy boi, moss hoodie, short (don’t tell him)
appearance: floofy brown hair held back w/ a red bandana, Latino, super fit is just a Greek chiton lol (he’s glowing bright enough you can’t even see him most of the time)
Ren: Red King
powers: werewolf
info: he can control which form and how he acts in said forms pretty much always- scary wolf hulk for bad guys and fluffy puppy for kids
appearance: in human form he has ears and a tail :DD
• Doc: 77
powers: let’s imagine a cross between the Hulk, the Winter Soldier, and a creeper
info: he is very good at fighting (: he’s cyborg and has green in super form
appearance: literally like seven feet tall
Scar: the Wizard
powers: telekinesis, magic
info: he is actually disabled, he just uses telekinesis to walk around as a super lol (HE HAS A MASSIVE MAGIC CAT THAT HE DISGUISES AS A NORMAL ONE DURING THE DAY)
appearance: covered in scars (obvi), bright green eyes, suit is Hot Guy fit
Cub: Bear
powers: Vex wings, skulk
info: he’s very friendly, but his super state is, uh… possessed. by the Deep Dark. I’m sure it’s fine
appearance: dark curly hair, galaxy eyes in super form but otherwise normal blue, super fit is just him covered in skulk- I’m thinking Venom vibes (SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS CONCEPT)
Grian: Evo
powers: BIGASS PARROT WINGS (and advanced sight)
info: pesky bird boy lmao he does the Jurassic Park claw tap thing when he’s hunting + on stealth missions
appearance: yeah he’s got bird feet lol he doesn’t leave the compound very much bc he can’t really disguise or lie about that
Pearl: Moth
powers: moth wings + antennae
info: she is in fact an alien but it’s okay she’s very nice unless she’s hunting with her dogs
appearance: again wings and antennae, brown hair with lighter streaks, purple eyes, super fit is like Storm/ Starfire
Gem: Dawn
powers: fire but in sunset yellow/ orange/ red/ purple colors lol
info: she’s actually descended from Gaelic royalty lmao
appearance: deer horns, orange hair which in super form turns to a fire ombré like Starfire, suit has pink honeycomb patterns
• Cleo: Medusa
powers: necromancy and turning people to stone (:
info: she died in Ancient Greece and rose as a zombie after Hades, who fell in love with her, granted her “life”. she is immortal
appearance: a zombie lol (but a hot one I promise you) with orange snakes for hair
Stress: Monster
powers: flower queennn
info: she doesn’t like dark/ stealth missions as much, but she’s all for patrol whenever
appearance: always has a flower crown for some reason?? eyes glow pink when she uses her powers and the suit is like that one fanart of Isabella from Encanto as Spider-Man
Iskall: Doom
powers: lmao they’re just a cyborg
info: a very nice person, they just can’t seem to say hello correctly
appearance: brown hair, cyber eye, tol, they pretty much wear the suit everywhere and tells people it’s cosplay and they’re their own biggest fan
Etho: Kitsune
powers: snow/ ice/ illusion mist
info: he may have accidentally adopted the New York Governer lmao whoops (he hates kids except for this one)
appearance: white hair, mask to cover scars, one red eye damaged by redstone, really tall, white fox ears and nine tails in super form
xB: Crafted
powers: Black Widow style with a big white wolf (he and Jellie get along I promise)
info: we love him but he’s an antisocial dork
appearance: black hair, blue eyes, literally just. a guy. he’s a guy. he wears fins behind his ears so people think he’s more dangerous lol
Hypno: Memorizd
powers: memory wipe + telepathy
info: he’s the main one who deals with civilians lol especially if they saw something they weren’t supposed to
appearance: aaaalways wears the black bandana over their hair, tol, emo /j- the suit is like a ninja
Wels: the Knight
powers: lmao he’s a knight idk what to tell you
info: he’s a knight with standard knight principles, but he’s chill about it. he likes theater but makes fun of the fact that he likes theater lol
appearance: blond, blue eyes, tol, he fights in a modern-looking suit of armor that keeps most of its medieval design
• Jevin: Slimer
powers: slime boi (like Frozone x Honey Lemon but slime yk)
info: he’s in the same boat as Grian- there’s really no disguising being made entirely of slime
appearance: teal slime lol (it runs in the family) supposedly he’s got a way to turn more human-looking but he hasn’t quite figured it out yet
Xisuma: Void
powers: time, space, and interdimensional portals!!
info: he and his twin are the leaders of their own groups, and they’re actually from another dimension and can’t breathe oxygen
appearance: that’s why he always wears a helmet! it’s his bones suit :DD
False
powers: superstrength, but she doesn’t use it very often
info: she’s like the Hermits’ resident suit maker that’s what she does lol
appearance: blonde choppy hair held back with welding goggles, brown eyes, covered in freckles
Mumbo
powers: none unless you count exceptional redstone skills
info: tech guy!! when someone busts something, they go straight to Mumbo
appearance: black hair, mustache (because of course), tol??, suit. always. Mumbo what
Joe
powers: none
info: the medic, because lord knows they need one
appearance: green hair lol
Beef
powers: none, but he’s really good with knives
info: he makes the food and potions, but the Hermits keep telling him not to wear that bloodstained apron around everywhere. it’s suspicious
appearance: again with the apron, and he’s scarily buff. kids are scared of him but he’s very nice really
~~~~~
Impulse had known for a very long time that he wasn’t exactly… normal.
Which isn’t a bad thing! But, the static shock people got when they touched him while he didn’t feel a thing, storms brewing when he had less-than-ideal days, and really mostly the fact that his phone never died when he held it- the charge almost seemed to be going up- all that did not seem ordinary.
So when he was recruited for a hero team because everyone at his school had apparently reported his strangeness, he wasn’t exactly surprised. But he was definitely ready to make a difference.
~
So Zed was some kind of sheep/ human hybrid. Did that make life a lot more difficult? In some ways, yes, but mostly no.
See, he had really good hearing. And he never had to worry about riding his skateboard, because his balance was always perfect and his skull was uncrackable. Plus he can jump like five feet on solid ground, which is pretty sick.
But people still thought he was weird. They all knew he’d grow up to be a hero… or a villain. So there was always a thin line of separation from the rest of the world, like they wanted to treat him like a fragile thing that could potentially attempt to end the world in the near future.
He would never, of course. But the only place he could really find contentment was with the Hermits.
~
Tango had discovered his powers in a… less pleasant manner.
Basically all he remembered was yelling. It was scary, he was seven years old, and… something just broke.
Then there was fire.
His parents, as far from that title as they were, did not make it out. Somehow, he managed to escape unscathed. Physically, anyways.
Foster care was pretty lame, but it was better than his old home life. Still, the only people he views as family are his team.
~
Keralis had loved singing for as long as he could remember. Especially because everyone loved to listen!
His mother had come from the sea, and his father was a fisherman. Keralis liked that his parents were sort of like a fairy tale. His mother taught him how to sing when he was young, but especially to control what he sang. She said he could really hurt people, and while at the time he didn’t know what that meant, he went along with it.
Until one day at a summer camp, they had a screaming contest (they were middle schoolers, don’t question it). Every window in the camp shattered, and six kids had to go home with ruptured eardrums.
He was immediately handed over to the American Hero Monitoring compound. There, he met X and Bdubs, and they didn’t mind his voice. Plus his parents visited on weekends! The only thing he loves more than singing is being a hero.
~
Bdubs and his brother had learned early on that not everyone likes heroes.
Maybe they shouldn’t have shown people that the two of them could play catch with a ball made of actual light, because they were then immediately accused of witchcraft. Witchcraft, really? Is this the sixteenth century?
Their family was forced to move to New York, and the AHM got ahold of both boys not long after. Because they bragged once, to a bunch of classmates in a small-town school that they’d been going to their entire lives. Bdubs opted to be a hero; show people that he can be good, but Puncenge wasn’t quite ready to forgive them all. He promised he wouldn’t ever use his powers for bad, but when he broke out of the compound with X’s twin, Bdubs didn’t go with.
The rest of the Hermits would probably kill him if they found out he was still in contact with one of America’s biggest supervillains.
~
There was a famous werewolf cryptid in Britain, and a lot of people were after him.
The original Hermit Initiative Program, with only Keralis, Xisuma, Tango, and Bdubs- well, their first mission was to capture him. Luckily, it wasn’t all that difficult.
See, Ren was not a monster. Most of the time he lived in town and was just… a normal dude. On the days where he was too sore or lazy to put a hat on and hide his tail somewhere inconvenient, he just let people believe he was a furry, because he couldn’t give less of a fuck.
So tracking down a guy with literal wolf ears and a tail wasn’t difficult, especially when he wasn’t doing much to hide. Ren was more than happy to get away from the hunters and to a place where he could just live and be normal.
~
Doc was the result of several government experiments- none of them good.
When scientists had discovered a new species of what looked like furry green things that walked on three legs and looked sad all the time, they figured whatever it was should be kept hidden from the public.
Especially after one of them blew a crater in the side of a mountain and killed three people.
A recently convicted scientist himself was selected to be, uh… tested on. It was a lot of blood and pain, but hey, that’s not a bad exchange for immortality and infinite explosive material.
~
Scar lost mobility in his legs thanks to a particularly risky mission in his rookie days- he got every civilian out, but there was definitely a cost.
It’s okay though!! His telekinesis allows him to move freely when he’s super-ing, and he has a big magical cat to keep him company at home. He was more than thrilled when there was an offer extended to him to be a Hermit, although he found it funny that it took them so long to locate him (a disabled person could never be a hero! *cough* Daredevil haters *cough*)
~
Cub was a scientist who… may have flown a little too close to the sun. See, he wanted powers, and he was successfully able to give himself wings! Unfortunately for him, he was too curious to stop there.
See, he’d found something called skulk deep, deep underground, in a buried city he and his team were excavating. Something big and very, very loud kept killing them whenever they took more than a few steps in, though, so the site was declared off-limits to everyone.
But Cub snuck in by himself, all the way to the center of the city. There was a portal there, and when he stepped through it… well, he either met God or Satan. Either way, now he’s basically Venom but with a much better color scheme, and he can no longer die! The only catch is that he’s a little bit possessed when using his powers, but the Hermits are there to look out for him.
~
Grian learned how to hunt very quickly and very suddenly, on the day superheroes were made illegal around the world.
Because, well, the best of the best were after him.
A bird boy! And a pesky one at that! Who used to be a hero! Everyone wanted to get their hands on Evo, and unfortunately, Grian was forced into hiding. Not that it was difficult- he had wings and razor sharp talons, so it wasn’t like anyone non-super could really get to him, but that didn’t stop people from trying.
He’s all for staying in the Hermit compound all day. It means he can lay out pranks while all the normal people are at work.
~
So maybe Pearl was born in Area 51. That didn’t exactly make her an alien. Maybe. Probably.
Listen. She has wings and antennae, plus a big pretty spaceship DNA-encoded to her, but did that mean she wasn’t from Earth? Of course not! There are plenty of weird people there. Plus, her ancestors were worshiped by the people of Sanctuary. It’s like… fine.
She’s happy to be a hero, of course. When she got an in on the most prestigious hero group in America (Australia was totally dominated by some clown who looked like a gingerbread man), she was absolutely all in. Hermits are better than some lazer beam, anyways.
~
When Gem transitioned, she didn’t think it would come with fire powers. But hey, bonus.
She kept her antlers, but she actually liked that part. Her people didn’t see her as any less of a princess or priestess, if anything they loved her more for bringing that kind of power to their city, Dawn, which she took for her hero alias.
She had two groups she was a part of, actually, plus with the business of being Gaelic royalty to a group of people previously thought to be extinct, she had a full schedule. But she of course wouldn’t trade it for the world.
~
Cleo lived in Locri, Italy, way back in Ancient Greek times. She loved her patron goddess, Persephone, and didn’t actually mind Hades. She worked in the city’s mausoleum and crypt, so she got used to death pretty quick.
Well, Hades took a particular interest in her. Not that he could do anything, of course, she was a priestess of both him and his wife. But he harbored a crush of sorts all the way through her life.
She did die. She was mortal, after all. But she was so gorgeous, Hades couldn’t bear that loss, so… he granted her eternal ‘life’. She was green and missing a few pieces and was messily sewn together, plus her fiery orange hair had turned to snakes like Medusa’s, but she walked the earth again.
She never died again. She can’t, which makes her the ideal hero, although she won’t hesitate to paralyze you for a comment about her hourglass shape-
~
Honestly, Stress didn’t even want to be a hero, mostly. She owned a flower shop and she’d gotten there with the help of exactly zero men, and she didn’t have an interest in changing the world or anything.
Only problem- she had superpowers, and they were sort of hard to contain. Whenever she got antsy, cacti started to grow out of her carpet under her feet, and after getting those stupid invisible thorns stuck between her toes one too many times, she decided to get out and do things with her powers.
The Hermits were happy to have her, and she’s happy to report that she and the other girls are almost their own little team within the big group- and they’re fine-tuned to perfection.
~
Iskall’s modifications were actually their choice. There was an offer by some mysterious guy in a suit to be rich and powerful beyond belief, and since they were sick of living on the street, they took it.
So they ripped an arm and an eye out. Was it worth it? Definitely.
No one makes fun of them anymore, for being NB or anything else, and they did pay them a lot. The only catch was singing onto a government sanctioned hero organization, and they were happy to go with their girlfriend to the Hermits. She slapped them for being an idiot and allowing themself to be experimented on, but she was happy to have them along.
~
If you don’t know what a Kitsune is, it’s a Japanese mythical creature that has two forms: fox and human (usually female). They’re kind of like sirens, and they’re absolutely stunning, but very manipulative and usually malicious.
Etho picked the name for the fact that he’s like half fox lol not that he’s evil; his ears and nine tails match the color of his hair. He is in fact immortal, but he doesn’t find that out until someone tries to off him and it just… doesn’t work. He can scar and be wounded, yeah, but death can never catch him.
~
There are a number of ways to become an assassin. Maybe you were raised since you were a kid. Maybe you were drafted by the government to cut back your sentence Suicide Squad-style. xB signed on in high school for extra credit.
Yeah, his history teacher was secretly a hitman, and students could sign a contract of silence to go on missions for extra credit. Sounds sketch, but it wasn’t terrible. He learned how to kill a man in over a hundred ways just with his hands and didn’t have to learn a thing about the Cold War through all of high school.
He decided just killing people was sort of immoral… although mostly that if he got good enough heroes would start to notice him. He figured if he couldn’t outrun them, he’d better join. And it was a good thing he did- he got his car-sized dog because of it.
~
Hypno was the most popular kid in his school for one reason: he had control over people’s memories. When someone asked him to make their teacher forget a due date, it magically happened. If an admin found out and tried to stop him, he wiped that as well.
Maybe he got a little carried away. He panicked one day and used it on his parents, only he put in too much effort in his lack of control, and… next thing he knew they were asking who he was and why he was in their house.
He hid from the AHM for as long as he could, thinking he’d be arrested. When they finally did track him down, they agreed to not throw him in a cell on one condition: join the Hermits. Honestly, not a bad deal.
~
In high school, Wels was… a huge nerd.
Yeah, he was on the varsity football team. But all his real passion went into theater and larping.
He and his twin brother, who was in the same boat, were exploring an abandoned excavation site behind their house one night, when the floor caved and they fell into the depths of what looked like an old buried building.
There were voices. The boys were knighted by ghosts and gifted unbreakable suits of armor. They left that site and had to pretend like everything was normal and fine with their lives. It came with a dope sword though, so who’s complaining?
~
Being made entirely of slime was cool because you couldn’t really be injured, but not as great because of how plain weird that made you.
Jevin and his cousin Charlie, who was also a hero, were in fact made of slime, as is their whole family. It’s just a weird gene that no one will specify on, but Jev doesn’t really mind.
The thing is, he’s resistant/ immune to pretty much everything. Extreme temperatures just sort of make him slower, and everything else goes through him or gets stuck in him. Not all that convenient, but it’s a nice perk when saving people. He doesn’t have to worry about himself.
~
Xisuma and his twin are the most powerful beings to ever exist.
Both of them can open portals through space, time, and other dimensions. They’re the only recorded people with that kind of power, ever. It makes them good leaders, but when one is constantly trying to destroy the world while the other is always trying to stop that from happening, scales balance out. If they were on the same side, there would be zero crime anywhere. Ever.
~
False started her business building little robots to make people’s lives easier, like a Roomba modified for carpet or a drone that pathfinds from your fridge to your living room to deliver drinks, and then it evolved from there.
When it started to get a bit too big to handle, that’s when she conveniently met Mumbo.
The two of them had been working on something highly illegal- a weaponized drone in the shape of a person to be piloted around like a dummy hero- when Evo and Medusa fell right through their warehouse roof, singed around the edges and badly hurt.
Mumbo and False’s service was so highly rated, the Hermits decided to officially adopt them into their team.
~
Joe and Beef share a kitchen/ lab, which is a good thing, because they’re kind of in the same field. Beef makes potions and food, and Joe is the healer. They’ve always been Hermits, as in assigned by the AHM always.
When various Hermits come in to steal food Beef usually throws either the nearest piece of fruit or a knife, whichever is closest to his hand. Everyone knows you don’t touch the cookies until you have express permission.
And Joe has patched up so many burns, bullet wounds, and stabs, that stitches are literally a no-brainer and he can be watching a movie in the background without a problem. It’s much more fun when heroes are made legal again so he can actually repair real damage made by supervillains.
The Hermits love them, don’t worry, no matter how many needles or knives are pointed their way.
~~~~~
so! there you go! please, PLEASE ask me to write stuff for this au, because I’m more than happy to do any hero scenario you can think of! if you want a villain list I’m sure that can be achieved, and although they’re mostly just Helsmits, it’s a fun concept.
so you know, think up a mission and send it my way. I’m so ready. what did you think?
#Hermitcraft#hero au#impulsesv#zedaph#tango tek#keralis#bdubs#docm77#rendog#GTWS#goodtimeswithscar#cubfan#grian#pearlescentmoon#geminitay#zombiecleo#stressmonster#iskall#etho#xbcrafted#hypnotizd#welsknight#ijevin#xisumavoid#xisuma#falsesymmetry#mumbo jumbo#joehills#vintagebeef
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Hey! If you’re taking requests for the ice dragon!mc, how about the dorm leaders or vice dorm leaders(especially Lilia)react to MC “fighting” with their siblings? But it’s not actually fighting—ice dragon fae just have really hard times shedding scales because the cold temperatures of their scales make some old scales stick to their skin underneath so they “fight” with claws and teeth like in an actual battle in dragon form to help the scales fall out? And MC was having a SUPER hard time shedding (like so hard it’s painful to move because old scales aren’t falling out and are digging into their skin) so they asked their siblings to help? (It’d be in a flashback like the Skywing fight—I’m from Quotev btw and I’ve read all the chapters!)
There’s claws and teeth as the two younger siblings (all in dragon form the whole memory) attack MC viscously, clawing at their neck and jumping on and off their scaly body as they whirl and snap at their younger siblings to help them shed as well(I imagine something like the Jurassic fight with the Indominous Rex when they jump on MC’s back) they bite at each others tails and they push each other into trees(that are then torn from the ground) they claw and scratch at MC’s neck like they’re trying to finish them off(when that’s where a medium amount of the unshed scales are stuck) and it looks like a full on death match.
I bet some would think it’s an actual fight (Ruggie, Riddle, Trey)
And others would wonder why the siblings are attacking each other (everyone)
Some would try to stop the fight but obviously fail (Kalim, Ortho)
Others are too dumbfounded to process what’s actually going on (Maybe Vil, Riddle, Idia)
Some are confused and concerned because they see what’s happening but they feel like there’s something more to it (Azul, Jamil, Malleus, Rook)
Some are trying to figure out what’s going on (Lilia never really had to deal with shedding problems with Malleus because he fixed the problem before it could escalate, Jamil is using his big brain, Ortho is trying to look it up, Leona knows MC doesn’t just fight without reason)
Some have only on inkling of what’s going on and are slowly connecting the dots(Malleus, Lilia, Jade, Rook, Leona)
By the end of the memory there’s a plethora of scales on the ground and MC and their siblings walk back inside the cave like nothing happened.
Malleus and Ortho end up realizing(or getting internet answers) first and explain what they just saw to everyone else. Some are like “ooooooooh” (the calmer ones like Leona and Lilia, Rook, Jade)while others are going “THATS JUST A PLAYFIGHT?!—IT LOOKED LIKE THEY WERE AT EACH OTHERS THROATS!!!” (Ruggie, Trey, Riddle, Vil, Idia, Jamil, Kalim, Azul)
Hope I included everyone 😅 anyways don’t feel rushed to answer! Take your time! 💝💝💝
Hi! First ever request on Tumblr so I fawned and panicked for a moment, oof. Anyway! Nice to know you're all the way from Quotev. I can totally do this as long as you're good with waiting a bit. On summer vacation rn and don't have as much writing time as I'd like to. I love this idea and can do so much with it!! I'm so excited for when I get to this! Thx for the request!!
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Little Muse Facts (Ava Edition).
Repost. Don't reblog.
1) What does your muse smell like?:
Ava doesn't really use things like perfume or other things that might give her a distinct scent, but her feathers, when clean, do have their own smell, like fresh linen.
2) How often does your muse bathe/shower?:
Every morning. As a harpy, she doesn't use water to clean herself, but takes special dust baths instead, which help remove dirt from her feathers and keeps them soft.
3) Does your muse have any tattoos or piercings?:
Nope.
4) Any body movement quirks? (EX: tapping heel, shaking knee)
Ava has a tendency to fidget when anxious, most notably with the large sickle claws on her feet, which tap audibly on the ground when nervous. She's also prone to wringing her hands, twitching her ears, and, when excited, flapping her wings and hopping around instead of just walking.
5) What do they sleep in?:
Usually just her Jurassic Park tank top and some short shorts. Very cozy.
6) What’s their favorite piece of clothing?:
Her hat! She takes it just about everywhere she goes, especially when it comes to work. It's sturdy and protects her from the sun when out in the field.
7) What do they do when they wake up?:
Ava does her best to maintain a fairly strict morning schedule of taking a dust bath, brushing her teeth, getting a small breakfast, and getting ready for work or school. She only really deviates from her schedule on weekends or when having a particularly bad day.
8) How do they sleep? Position?:
Ava tends to curl up pretty tight when asleep, assuming she's not having a restless night where she constantly changes positions and flails around under the sheets.
9) What do their hands feel like?:
Surprisingly smooth and soft, despite being covered in scales. The palm side of her hand has a little bit of squish to it, especially compared to the rest.
Tagged: @pxrtaliisms
Tagging: @fantasycorrupted @oflostinfound @oculusxcaro @ripcreel @deercursed @3-n-a and anyone else who wants to!
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Megalosaurus Comparison
ALT TEXT: Two Megalosaurus; One drawn by a palaeontologist, another is a 3D Artist rendition of the Megalosaurus in the game 'Paleo Pines'. On the left, the megalo is scaled in browns and dark greens. On the right, Paleo Pines' megalo is a bit chunkier, mostly blues, and is standing in the middle of a forest environment.
Our resident Paleontologist, Natalia Jagielska is back again - this time giving us some insider information about the Megalosaurus
The Bare Bone Basics:
A bulky carnivore with a large head, an apex predator haunting small islands that once made up Middle-Jurassic British Isles. It was a far cry from carnivorous giants of the Cretaceous, but already showcasing the ferocity of theropods and foreshadowing things to come. The animal grew up surrounded by flying pterosaurs and long-necked sauropods.
An Interesting Story:
Megalosaurus wasn't the largest or most nefarious of theropod dinosaurs, but it was among the more important regarding its role in palaeontological history. Its fossils were recovered as far back as 1699, before people knew what dinosaur bone was, with one leg bone being famously labelled as a petrified human body part! It was the first extinct dinosaur to be properly described and named, and illustrated by Mary Morland in the early 19th century. Thanks to it we've got the word Dinosaurs!
The Known Unknowns:
We don't have the full skeleton of the Megalosaurus, so our understanding of its anatomy and size comes from filling in the gaps and extrapolation using fossils of other similarly sized and anatomically analogous dinosaurs from other formations and locations. This is the case for much of the known species of dinosaurs, as the fossil record rarely preserves full-in-tact well-preserved skeletons. It also means we sometimes might get things wrong and that even long-known dinosaurs still hold many mysteries.
How did our own in-game Megalosaurus rate?
Natalia gives our chonker a 4/5. "Teeth definitively smaller, more numerous, and likely covered by lips; love the plantigrade stance."
Wishlist Paleo Pines to find your own Megas in the wild!
News Alert!!! Be sure to catch Natalia tonight in our Discord for an AMA. They'll be talking all things dinos so start prepping your questions now...
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Sharks
Temporal range: Early Jurassic – Present
Clockwise from top left: spiny dogfish, Australian angelshark, whale shark, great white shark, horn shark, frilled shark, scalloped hammerhead and Japanese sawshark representing the orders Squaliformes, Squatiniformes, Orectolobiformes, Lamniformes, Heterodontiformes, Hexanchiformes, Carcharhiniformes and Pristiophoriformes respectively.
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Chondrichthyes
Infraclass: Euselachii
Clade: Neoselachii
Subdivision: Selachimorpha
Orders
Galeomorphii
Carcharhiniformes
Heterodontiformes
Orectolobiformes
Lamniformes
Squalomorphii
Hexanchiformes
Pristiophoriformes
Squaliformes
Squatiniformes
Synonyms
Pleurotremata
Selachii
Sharks are a group of elasmobranch fish characterized by a cartilaginous skeleton, five to seven gill slits on the sides of the head, and pectoral fins that are not fused to the head. Modern sharks are classified within the clade Selachimorpha (or Selachii) and are the sister group to the Batoidea (rays and kin). Some sources extend the term "shark" as an informal category including extinct members of Chondrichthyes (cartilaginous fish) with a shark-like morphology, such as hybodonts. Shark-like chondrichthyans such as Cladoselache and Doliodus first appeared in the Devonian Period (419–359 million years), though some fossilized chondrichthyan-like scales are as old as the Late Ordovician (458–444 million years ago). The oldest modern sharks (selachimorphs) are known from the Early Jurassic, about 200 million years ago.[citation needed]
Sharks range in size from the small dwarf lanternshark (Etmopterus perryi), a deep sea species that is only 17 centimetres (6.7 in) in length, to the whale shark (Rhincodon typus), the largest fish in the world, which reaches approximately 12 metres (40 ft) in length. They are found in all seas and are common to depths up to 2,000 metres (6,600 ft). They generally do not live in freshwater, although there are a few known exceptions, such as the bull shark and the river shark, which can be found in both seawater and freshwater. Sharks have a covering of dermal denticles that protects their skin from damage and parasites in addition to improving their fluid dynamics. They have numerous sets of replaceable teeth.
Several species are apex predators, which are organisms that are at the top of their food chain. Select examples include the tiger shark, blue shark, great white shark, mako shark, thresher shark, and hammerhead shark.
Sharks are caught by humans for shark meat or shark fin soup. Many shark populations are threatened by human activities. Since 1970, shark populations have been reduced by 71%, mostly from overfishing. Sharks are spread across 512 described and 23 undescribed species in eight orders. The families and genera within the orders are listed in alphabetical order.
I LOVE YOU THANK YOU /P
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*another fight!*
Welcome. To Jurassic Death.
The Big One info:
Height: 6 foot
Weight: 330lbs
Weapons: Tooth and Claw
Strengths: Was the alpha female of her Velociraptor pack and the first antagonistic Dinosaur of the Jurassic Park series, Extreme strength (As a Velociraptor the Big One possesses strength far above that of a human, Can effortlessly tear humans apart, Can dent metal), Extreme durability (Despite being an extremely lightweight Dinosaur the Big One possesses a high level of durability, Was unharmed from ramming her head into a metal cabinet at full speed, Survived several seconds of being bitten by Rexy), Extreme speed (As a Velociraptor Blue can reach running speeds easily exceeding 50 mph, Dodged multiple bullets at full sprint), High intellect (Understands the concept of killing for sport rather than food and seems to enjoy it, Outsmarted several highly trained Soldiers), To this day she is still one of the most memorable Dinosaurs of the entire Jurassic series.
Weaknesses: Her sadistic nature and urge to kill can be used against her e.g. can cause her to be led into traps.
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Eightie info.
Height:never said but Alex has recorded its taller then a horse. But..he never specified. So best shot 5ft 10in to 6ft 5in
Weight:400lbs
Weapons:claws teeth tail.
Strengths:thanks to a underground cave systems in another earth the Dinosaurs have survived and evolved in a new land but also thanks to a chunk of radioactive uranium being under its nest while it was a egg it became a predator that according to Alpha and Sunblood "is more a unnatural freak then a natural predator" extreme Strength (often killed volcaorapters with one bite to the neck or head. The doctor claims she can easily kill goats while Alex put down she killed a sabertooth tiger with ease. When it's body is dissected alpha says it's bones and muscles are more compact and bigger then a Dinosaur it's size should be.) Extreme durability (Alex could barely faze it with his base gear which includes a knife a slingshot with steel balls that can badly damage dogs and easily break bones was apparently more mad then hurt when a pipe was brought down on its tail.) Extreme speed (Could keep up with a bike going 60mph Alex using a Dinosaur form that temporarily gave him quote 'the speed of the pack hunters this thing was pretending to be.' And Eightie still outran him. With a running start could jump over 25ft.) High intelligence (it's smart enough to tell if humans are trying to play possum to avoid it. Is aware of the ideas of killing for sport. Outsmarts and tricks various people to hunt them down. Always ambushes its prey it's always careful and seems to understand the concepts of guns electric fences and adapted quickly to getting out of its habit and hunting in a city when someone stupidly thought it was a good idea to make it a weapon.) Thanks to the radiation it has extra teeth like it has an extra set of teeth. bigger vital organs 4 VERY sharp claws on each arm small spikes up it's spine and a pair of bone petruteutions on the end of its tail. His eyes are sunken in to help it better in the dark. Alex thinks it can sense body heat or bio electricity as it attacked a man in stealth gear. Might have poison resistance as it LOVES frog meat most of which evolved minor poisons to deter birds.
Weaknesses:it got its name because it has some scales that are dark brown in color that are the shapes of figure eights on its sides and tail...the rest of its body is green. It is cannollicly dead as Alex killed it with a two shots from a shotgun but to be fair the model was strong enough to cripple other Dinosaurs and had also killed bigger in one to two shots.
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New Jurassic World Dino Trackers Toys Revealed
(All images Courtesy of CollectJurassic on Twitter)
The Dino Tracker Toyline has been slowly trickling in to store shelves and I'm really enjoying it so far, the mix of really strange and unique species with a focus on striking and naturalistic paintjobs is a winning combination. The “story” behind the line is that the dinosaurs have completely integrated into our ecosystems after the events of Dominion, and so the color schemes are themed around biomes like deserts and mountains and the accessories are from people using tracking devices and cameras to observe them.
Irritator
A completely new sculpt from their last go at the species, the new anatomy is much more in line with the real animal and gives it a really unique profile. The mustard yellow on the head and neck is a weird choice and the face and teeth are almost skeletal, but overall a really nice figure in my eyes.
Orkoraptor
Mattel’s second go at a Megaraptoran and they hit it out of the park again. I love this thing, from the naturalist colors to the shaggy, bear-like feathers to the cartoonishly big claws on those stumpy little arms. This thing is right up my alley.
Regaliceratops
Probably my least favorite of the bunch, unfortunately. The sculpt is nice but the paint job is so garish, bright yellow is not a good base especially if you’re going to skimp out on painting the toenails and beak.
Bistahieversor
Part of the larger assortment, it comes with tracking gear accessories and an extra gimmick where the quills on the tail can fold in or pop out. Like the Orkoraptor, this is fantastic looking. I love the colors and the speculative features as well as the more natural proportions compared to some of the earlier releases that can border on chibis.
Tyrannosaurus
Can’t have a JP toyline without a T. rex. This one is interesting because it’s one of only two adult T. rex toys made by Mattel for the JW toyline that isn’t meant to be Rexy herself. I hope we get more, Big and Little Eatie one day please? Whoever decided to put a headset on a Tyrannosaur is braver than I am.
Elasmosaurus
This one I am extremely excited for, I'm so happy we’re getting another large marine reptile and the sculpt and color scheme are fantastic. I love the light white wash that make it look like light coming through the water surface.
Triceratops
This may be the one I'm most hyped for. Sure it’s a Triceratops, we’ve gotten over a dozen of these released over the years, but none have been in scale. They’ve all been so disappointedly tiny, dwarfed by the toyline’s T. rex despite being famous for being rivals. Finally they listened and we’re getting a Trike toy around 17 inches long! It’ll look perfect squaring up to all your plastic carnivores, Triceratops finally gets the love it deserved from the start.
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DINOVEMBER DAY 7: 260MYA, CAPITANIAN STAGE; SOUTH AFRICA
(Yeah no I'm not getting day 8 done tonight. Looks like another double installment tomorrow. Well. Today. It's 4am)
The Karoo supergroup of South Africa will have one of the best terrestrial fossil records in the world for the time period that it represents, starting in the middle Permian and ending in the early Jurassic. The sediments being laid down on the floodplain at the moment will, in modern times, become the older strata in the supergroup. For now, however, this is a battleground.
It is the Moschops' breeding season, and this 1-tonne bull is extra aggressive due to his raised testosterone levels. He stamps his powerful forelimbs and shakes his head at the target of his challenge, bellowing all the while, in an attempt to scare them off. Unfortunately, he has focused his effort on an unsuspecting Pristerognathoides, who has just removed her head from a Cistecephalus burrow with the burrow-owner clamped firmly between her jaws. All of these animals are synapsids, specifically, they are part of a group called the therapsids who have radiated out to fill a variety of ecological niches. There are three main groups of therapsid; the dinocepahlians, big barrel-chested, thick-headed animals, some of whom are bearlike omnivores, while others like Moschops are more specialised herbivores; the anomodonts, like Cistecephalus, squat pig-lizard-like animals with tusks and beaks; and the theriodonts, a group of more specialised carnivores like Pristerognathoides, generally small bodied at this time, but more active than the big dinocephalian predators.
The Pristerognathoides will flee as soon as she can, and soon the bull Moschops will be back to rutting, throwing his weight against other males and battering them with his thick skull. As the Pristerognathoides feeds on her anomodont prize, you might notice her enlarged, distinctly mammal-like, canine teeth. This is one of numerous ways she is more mammalian than her compatriots; she is also more endothermic, and her scales are beginning to become fur. Sure enough, theriodonts like her will eventually, after another 30-40 million years, give way to true mammals.
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REASONS WHY I LOVE THE JURASSIC WORLD LIVE TOUR, dumped here because I feel like sharing (guess why):
1. The dino props are really really really cool. Yes, the raptors and probably Jeanie are all off-scale and too big, but Rexy is deliberately in-scale, I think Trike and Stego are Close Enough.
2. The cheesiness works pretty well, especially the fourth time through. Trust me. It’s a stage show. The voice-acting is not on-par with Camp Cretaceous and pretty much any cartoon, but it works (honestly, my biggest criticism isn’t the acting itself, but the fact that Oscar and Riley’s voices are too similar and aren’t Extemely Different, the same for Reave and Doctor Bordoff).
3. The Kate Walker vs Reave fight is BRUTAL and very well-choreographed. But mostly brutal. Like, when you get down to it and think about it, it’s, like...really brrutal.
4. The choreography is 10/10 all around. Or at least 9/10. I watched Oscar during one of the fights, and he ducks a riot-shield swing that looks like it should strriaght-up decapitate him. I know it’s a stunt show, but it’s great.
5. This won’t be the last of it, but the woman whose hand gets ripped off by a Velociraptor and then panic-runs away into the teeth of another Velocriraptor and gets mauled to death. You might not notice it, but it’s there, and it’s brutal, aand it’s great.
6. How smoothly they work Bumpy into the show. I don’t CARE how much it conflates with the canon, the dialogue works, and it’s believable, also, I’m just glad to see Camp C getting the nod.
7. I love the Jeep. Blue stripes, Number 93, clearly Oscar’s pet project retooled as a vintage car and kept in a private garage that the kids never found...precious baby.
8. There’s a glowing purple Stegosaurus and a baby. It blew my mind the first time, and I love seeing it every time, it’s Pure Lore.
9. The Dino Decoder plotline--which is, really, the whole show’s plotline--is all foreshadowing for the mind-control plotline in Camp Cretaceous. The whole reason why Jurassic World existed in the first place was because a bunch of power-hungry scientists were interested in making mind-control devices and needed test subjects outside of ethical restrictions and within their own designs. This is the link between it all. And stooges like Owen Grady and Kate Walker were convinced that “ohhhh this is just for EMOTIONAL connections and BEHAVIORAL studies, we’re just here to make FRIENDS” those SAPS didn’t realize that this was all intended for BRAINWASHING.
10. Jeannie and Blue have a bond because they’re the two smartest creatures on the island. Blue watched over Jeannie’s eggs and kept them wam and safe. Possibly. They’re not friends but they are girlfriends, it’s complicated.
11. It’s all about the Kid Reactions. And the kids love it.
12. The music is just...*chef’s kiss*....used perfectly throughout. There’s touches of The Lost World, the original majectic JP theme, some good “Owen and the Raptors” music, and BY GOLLY, they USE THE JURASSC WORLD MAIN THEME THAT NOTHING ELSE USES, DESPITE IT BEING ON-PAR WITH THE ORIGINAL JURASSIC PARK THEME, MICHAEL GIACCHINO GAVE US GOLD AND PEOPLE SHOVED IT ASIDE LIKE THEY WERE THUNDERCATS (NO ONE WILL GET THAT) JUST SO THEY COULD FEED ON NOSTALGIA, THEY ARE TWO VERY DISTINCT THEMES THAT CONVEY DIFFERENT EMOTIONS AND THE WORLD THEME IS FAR BETTER IN MODERN CONTEX
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Dangerous Liaisons with the Indoraptor
As a renowned paleontologist, you had always been fascinated by dinosaurs. You had spent your life studying their bones and learning everything you could about these magnificent creatures. So when you were offered the chance to work at Jurassic World, you jumped at the opportunity.
It was there that you met Ripper, the infamous Indoraptor. He was unlike any dinosaur you had ever seen, with his sleek black scales and razor-sharp claws. You had heard stories about him, how he was the most dangerous creature on the island. But as you looked into his golden eyes, you saw something else. Something that stirred within you a sense of curiosity and attraction.
Over time, you began to spend more time with Ripper, observing him in his enclosure and learning about his behavior. You were fascinated by his intelligence, how he seemed to understand everything you said to him. And as you spent more time with him, you began to develop feelings for him.
It was a forbidden love, you knew that. You could never tell anyone about your feelings for Ripper, for fear of being ridiculed or worse. But the more time you spent with him, the more you realized that you couldn't deny your feelings any longer.
One night, as you were working late in the lab, you heard a rustling outside. You cautiously peered out the window, and to your surprise, you saw Ripper standing outside.
You hesitated for a moment, wondering if you should approach him. But something within you urged you forward, and you stepped outside to meet him.
As you approached him, he snarled and bared his teeth. But you could see something else in his eyes, a flicker of curiosity and interest.
You held out your hand, offering it to him. To your surprise, he nuzzled his snout against your palm, a low growl emanating from his throat.
You felt a sense of connection between the two of you, a bond that went beyond words. You stroked his scales, feeling the rough texture beneath your fingers.
And then, in a moment of wild abandon, you leaned forward and kissed him. It was a dangerous move, one that could have ended in disaster. But to your surprise, Ripper responded, his tongue flicking against yours in a dance of passion.
From that moment on, the two of you were inseparable. You would sneak out to visit him in his enclosure, and he would wait for you at the edge of the jungle, his eyes gleaming in the moonlight.
It was a forbidden love, but you didn't care. You loved Ripper, and he loved you. And as you stood together, beneath the stars, you knew that your love was worth any risk.
As time went on, you knew that you could never keep your relationship a secret forever. But for now, in this moment, you were content to stand with Ripper, basking in the glow of your forbidden love.
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Hiii, let me tell you about velociraptors! They are some of the most incredible creatures to have ever roamed the Earth. Just the thought of them gets me all pumped up with excitement!
First off, velociraptors were small to medium-sized dinosaurs belonging to the family Dromaeosauridae. They lived during the Late Cretaceous period, approximately 75 to 71 million years ago, crazy right? These dinosaurs were found in what is now Mongolia, China, and parts of the United States.
One of the most fascinating aspects of velociraptors is their physical features. They were about 6 feet long, with a height of about 2 feet at the hip. Picture that for a moment—a sleek, agile predator with a fierce hunting instinct. 🥴 They had long, curved claws on their hind limbs, and the second toe had an especially large sickle-shaped claw. Can you imagine how lethal that must have been for catching prey?
Now, let's talk about their intelligence. Velociraptors were incredibly smart for dinosaurs. In fact, they had one of the largest brain-to-body ratios among non-avian dinosaurs. This suggests they had a high level of cognitive ability, which is just mind-blowing! They were likely capable of complex social behaviors, coordination, and maybe even problem-solving.
Another fascinating fact is that velociraptors were covered in feathers. Yes, feathers! Slay!!! These ferocious hunters were not scaly like the movies often depict them. Instead, they had a combination of feathers and scales, with feathers likely covering their body and forming wings on their forelimbs. It's incredible to think of velociraptors as feathery creatures, isn't it?
Now, onto their hunting techniques. Velociraptors were believed to be pack hunters, which means they worked together in groups to bring down larger prey. They were incredibly fast and agile, capable of reaching speeds of up to 40 miles per hour. They could use their sharp teeth and claws to inflict lethal damage, especially with that impressive sickle-shaped claw.
But here's a mind-blowing fact: Velociraptors weren't as big as they are often portrayed in like movies or so. In reality, they were closer in size to a turkey than the massive creatures shown in movies like jurassic Park. However, don't let their size fool you! Velociraptors were fierce and deadly predators, and their small size probably made them even more agile and cunning. Short kings omg
The evidence is conclusive, clearly we should let velociraptors run the government
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the thing about dragons - chapter three
in which a dragon is claimed and Otto Hightower gets bullied.
*HTTYD theme starts playing*
Dialogues in quotation marks are in Common Westron, in angle brackets in High Valyrian, in square brackets for other. Thoughts, emotions and emphasis are in italics.
Cross-posted on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43121373/chapters/108369012
◄○○○►
Read the Summary, Tags & Warnings as linked on the page to know what to expect.
warnings: Daemon Targaryen as a POV character, blood, dragon-on-dragon cannibalism (mentioned), life-threatening stunts
wordcount: 10,827
Read the chapter under the cut.
Daemon stays behind, even though it’s obvious that he really wants to follow. But he can’t, because this is something Lyra must do on her own. A Targaryen rite of passage, almost, years before Rhaenyra and her bad decisions and bastards and that stupid egg-in-cradle tradition. (Did they really expect the eggs to not hatch when the mother is the source of Targaryen dragon-blood?) So instead, he chooses to wear a hole in the grass with his pacing at a distance great enough that Lyra would barely hear him if he yelled. It’s still a bit of a long walk from the keep, and with her short legs it takes a good few minutes, but she gets there.
The Cannibal dragon only looks worse up closer, with jagged teeth and bright, slit-pupiled eyes, and black scales. Like all the tense scenes in Jurassic Park, the original one, that she watched when she was probably too young to, all put into one giant fire-breathing lizard with its gaze trained on her, unblinking. Except this one is real, and not animatronic or CGI.
It’s a wicked kind of beast, all black like tar or a starless night, with eyes glowing acid-green, alert and intelligent but half-crazed, and horns curving about its skeletally wolfish head scarred in a way only another dragon unwilling to become prey without a fight could maim while thrashing between its teeth. It’s utterly crowned with horns; two curling forward, in tandem with its muzzle, and the rest curved backwards, uneven, jagged, and all black. She could walk on each; she could lay down on each, with room to spare.
This, Lyra imagines, is how the Devil must look like.
Actually, now that she’s looking at it, it’s looking a whole lot like Black Dragons from Dungeons and Dragons, in shape and colour both; especially with its head, though not quite as sunken and skull-like.
She’s not very tall, being seven and all, but her whole body is about the size of the teeth she can see clearly now, as the dragon curls its lips back in a wordless snarl. Still, she’s almost vibrating, excitement and adrenaline and giddiness swirling in her head. It takes a lot of effort to not squeal, and to walk instead of skipping. She may have memories of having lived thirty years before this, but she is biologically seven with all the emotional control that implies.
Which is little on a good day and almost none in the face of something like this. She’s only good at pretending she has her shit together.
The dragon rears back, bares its teeth again, hisses. Opens its maw as its throat glows green with something that looks like the not-yet-invented wildfire. Lyra feels the heat hit her as the green glow builds up slowly, threateningly, but without hostility. She would know if it was hostility, because if it was it wouldn’t be waiting, watching, seeing what she’s going to do about the situation. She’s be a pile of ash at best already, if it really aimed to hurt, killed like every other fool that tried to approach.
A loud, clear ‘daor’ is enough to make it slam its maw shut with a loud clack and a puff of green fire.
She finds herself oddly unimpressed at the threatening display; she doesn’t even flinch. Instead, it gives her the same kind of exasperation as when she found Rascal chewing on her shoes, again, the little orange runt living up to his name every day, even as he grew old and slow.
(Gods, she misses her cat so much still. He was with her for most of her life.)
The dragon cocks its head at her, bright eyes not leaving her for a moment. It’s coiled, she notices, tense in a way Caraxes is just before he takes to the skies.
It’s excited, too, she realizes belatedly, maybe because she only feels it now; faint at first and stronger with every step, emotions that respond to hers but that aren’t hers. The dragon’s—its—his. Every moment is new information, constantly more, constantly clearer. Curious, wary, alert, hopeful—not-food, not-prey, not enemy, friend? pack?
Mine?
It’s both too much and almost nothing at all, her young human mind against his ancient, wild one. It threatens to sweep her away—would have, if she really were seven.
But she has thirty-two more years (and probably divine providence) to fall back on.
As it is, she holds on only barely, but she does. She might actually be able to do this.
<Hello,> she says and reaches out. The Cannibal doesn’t rear back this time, curious, enthralled by the promise of a bond, letting her press her hand on his snout. It dwarfs her, everything about this creature. She could set up a tent on his horned head with room to spare.
He lets out a rumble. It almost sounds like a purr.
Happy? Happy. Mine? Pack?
It’s disjointed, not at all a voice; feelings and images, all abstract, but she understands, like a weird dream that doesn’t fade after you wake up.
Like acid-eyed shadows chasing bloodstained linoleum away.
She smiles and presses bodily against his head in a bastardized hug before stepping back. <Yeah, pack. Pack works.>
The Cannibal shoves against her with his head, picking her up with the motion. Lyra squeals and holds on the scales and smaller horns until she can slide down. She laughs, and pats his head again, wondering if he can even feel that. He seems to hear and understand her, even though she’s not really raising her voice, so… Maybe?
She’s just following Daemon’s lead here, really. He doesn’t yell at Caraxes, he just says things loud and clear, and even in the air Caraxes hears and understands. He told her, once; if your dragon is truly yours, they will know what you want them to do. They hear you.
(But whether they choose to listen to you is another matter entirely. They are winged fire-breathing cats on a good day, and most often half as cuddly and twice as capricious.)
She needs a name for him, Lyra realizes, before anything else. The Cannibal is a moniker; like calling Caraxes the Blood Wyrm, or Vermithor the Bronze Fury. But a moniker is not a name. Her dragon, first of all, deserves a proper name; deserves for his first flight to be with a name.
And there is only one name that is worthy of him, she thinks. And ever since Balerion and Shrykos visited her in a dream, and foreshadowed her dragon, she knew exactly what it would be.
An inherited name, from worlds away. She almost spoke it, when she first saw him perched on that hill waiting for her, because that was exactly what the image brought to her mind; Satan was only second. A name from another story, easily one she loved more than the one she is living now. A story full of magic and hope, with some dragons sprinkled on top as it struggled time and time again against evil or uncaring gods and demon lords.
<I ought to name you, when no other has, don’t I,> she asks, though it’s not a question. The Cannibal tilts his head towards her, listening closer. Lyra smiles. <I have a perfect one. I hope you don’t mind it being a legacy name, though; I name you in honour of someone else, and in hope that this name will guide you, too.>
Cannibal purrs, though it’s more of a rumble with his size, and feelings of happiness and a sense of finality press against her mind, but also impatience.
Give me that damn name already. Mine. Mine-mine-minemine.
<From today onwards, you shall be known as the greatest of all winged dragons; Ancalagon.>
Sorry GRRM, she thinks privately and not sorry at all, but I’ve always been a Tolkien girl.
And this world doesn’t have a Eärendil on a flying ship, or pretty but ultimately worthless gems to commit kinslayings over. Instead, it has rampant greed and senseless violent cruelty, but without Vhagar or Vermithor, those things aren’t enough to kill this Ancalagon.
And might he grow big enough to level three mountains one day, really. All the power to him.
Pack, an emotion close to elation all but slams into her. Together. Not alone.
<Not alone,> Lyra agrees, and thinks of Daemon; turns around, spots a tiny white-red-and-black figure still wearing out a hole in the patch of grass by the stone bridge. Looks back to Ancalagon. <I’m not alone, and now neither are you.>
And it snaps together, just like that, and she feels something take root in her very soul. It’s warm and comforting in a way few other things are, and it makes her feel like she could fly.
Lyra looks at Ancalagon. Ancalagon looks at Lyra.
They both look up.
<Yeah,> she says. <There’s one more thing to do. Very important thing.>
Sky, Ancalagon agrees. Fly. Fly-free-fly-wind-cloud-blue. Together.
<You don’t have a saddle,> Lyra points out, and sighs. <Oh, this will be borderline suicidal, but I’m not backing down now for some small inconvenience!>
Though she probably shouldn’t call a potential fall to the death a minor inconvenience. Oh well.
(If Targaryens weren’t born pale-haired Daemon would surely be greying because of her by now.)
It’s difficult to ride without a saddle, but it’s perfectly doable, Daemon told her when she proclaimed she’ll have a dragon soon. The placement is up higher, on the neck. The catch is, you need to bodily lay down on the dragon for it to be somewhat safe, lodge yourself between all these spikes, hold onto them. Ideally, tie yourself down. When it’s flying upwards, you have to hold on like your life depends on it, because it does, but once the flight evens out, you can sit up.
Lyra doesn’t have a rope, but she smuggled three leather belts out in her pockets in anticipation, and they will have to do.
She puts her hands on her hips, taps her foot on the ground a bit, as she studies Ancalagon’s neck critically. She could try to climb it, with all the jagged spines, if she only was able to reach them, but they only start halfway up his neck and that’s much too high for her to reach. Beneath, it’s just smooth scale she has no hope of climbing.
She could try clamouring up his wings, but they likewise have no purchase. They’d make a good slide, while she needs to go up.
She looks back at his head, horned, ridged, and perfectly within reach.
It will do.
<I’m going to have to excuse you for a moment,> she says, putting her riding gloves on, and unceremoniously vaults herself on Ancalagon’s horn, the one curved to the front in line with his maw. She stands up on it, barely keeping her balance as the dragon rumbles in confusion, and walks up, hopping onto his head when she gets close enough. She finds purchase on smaller horns, easily dragging herself up when she slips. From there, she just walks down his neck until she reaches its base.
It does take her a moment, with unknown, uneven, constantly moving terrain under her feet not aiding her at all. She almost trips a few times when she’s not careful enough in her excitement, but soon enough she’s there, sitting down on the scales and wrapping the leather belts around the ridges, and herself down with them. She has just enough to tie herself down semi-securely.
She fixes up her leather jacket, pulls her gloves firmly down to fit better, and then lays flat on Ancalagon’s scaly back, gripping both the ridges and the belts lightly, for now just enough to hold them. No need to waste grip strength yet.
She’s not sure if it’s her that’s vibrating so hard, or the dragon, but that doesn’t matter.
Right now, nothing else matters.
<Fly!> she commands, and Ancalagon roars, bodily moving for the first time since uncoiling. Takes one step, then another, and another, each faster than the other.
Lyra can’t see the ground darting underfoot where she is but she feels the earthquakes of his steps as he gains speed on all fours, and then on just hind legs as he spreads his wings and, with few mighty flaps, they’re going up, and higher still. Lyra doesn’t chance a look behind her, at Dragonstone, her grip on the belts and the ridges tightening, strong with adrenaline and the very real fear of falling as Ancalagon rises higher and higher into the sky with massive flaps of his wings that displace the air with a sound that’s almost thunder.
It’s so wildly different from flying Caraxes with Daemon. This is dangerous. This is fun.
She doesn’t even try fighting a manic grin that she feels almost split her face in two, uncaring of the wind. Ancalagon roars, and she feels it more than she hears it, and she screams back with something like joy but more.
Ancalagon’s flight stabilizes eventually, only the occasional wingbeats rocking the dragon, and Lyra carefully sits up, still holding onto the spikes for dear life, but not as desperately. She looks around, takes a deep breath—she’s not sure how long the ascent took really, but they’re above the sea of clouds and it’s probably the most beautiful view Lyra has ever seen.
It’s sunset; the clouds are dark, violet and pink, and the sky is bathed in bright yellow and orange as the last golden of today’s sun light it up. The sun itself is right before them, about to dip beneath the clouds, and Lyra has to shield her eyes from its brightness when it shines between Ancalagon’s horns.
The dragon snorts and roars, and Lyra feels a laugh bubbling up in her throat, and soon enough, she’s laughing with glee, throwing one hand up. The part of her that’s thirty-two and fully aware that they’re very fucking high up keeps her other hand firmly grasping the leather belt wound around a horn.
The air is thin and cold up here, and the wind is hitting her face and whipping her hair about, but it’s amazing. Different from riding Caraxes with Daemon. Her own. Better.
She can feel the low thrum of Ancalagon’s consciousness, its tendrils reaching out for hers, and then, like the last puzzle piece slotting into the image, their minds slot together, and everything makes sense—
She sees. She feels.
She’s content and calm, happy in a way she’s never been before.
She’s so free—
Wind under her wings, sun on her scales, content hum of a bond forged—
She snaps awake and it’s like surfacing from a pool of water, breathing heavily. She tightens her grip on the belt, doesn’t let herself slip again when she sees it coming, and it overwhelms her again, like a wave crashing over and all around her.
She’s Lyra the girl, not Ancalagon the dragon.
She takes a step back. The wave crashes forward.
She’s Lyra the girl.
Something grabs her ankle, pulls her down.
She’s—
She feels Ancalagon land more than actually perceives it. She undoes the belts holding her down mechanically, and then slides down his wing without much graze at all, or, at least she thinks she does, because the next thing she knows she’s back on the ground.
Ancalagon’s presence in her mind is receding, though he doesn’t quite know how to step back, and after the bond fell in place it leaves Lyra with a hollow feeling in her chest. She almost pulls his mind forward on instinct, but stops herself. He’s doing it for her. He’s doing what he can not to overwhelm her, because he knows, understands, that she almost lost it—lost herself.
She wipes her mouth when she feels it’s wet, and it comes red. Blood. But she doesn’t feel particularly strained, it’s like—
She sways on her feet, faint all of a sudden, feeling a little rattled.
So, she didn’t come out of it unscathed, it would seem.
Bonding a dragon includes opening your mind to your dragon, and them to you. Two beings, not quite becoming one but becoming linked, with the connection rooting itself deeply within their very soul, letting their minds overlap, more or less. It really depends on each specific pair how deep it goes. Valyrians grow into it, usually claiming dragons young and malleable. Young dragons do the same, figuring everything as they go. Old dragons, who have had riders before, simply know what to do.
But Ancalagon is an old wild dragon who has never been bonded. He has lived a long life wild, developed a strong personality all on his own, and he has no idea what he’s doing any more than Lyra.
If she truly were seven, Lyra would’ve been swept away, her ego erased and left a husk, dead or overridden with something distinctly inhuman. Anchoring herself in the thirty-two years she lived before was the only way she could resurface, but it would seem her psyche took a beating from the merge anyway, now that the adrenaline high was wearing off and she was actually feeling it.
But she lived. She pulled through, successfully bonded Ancalagon. The gods wouldn’t have sent her to get him if they weren’t sure she could do it. She hopes.
It was a near thing still, she realizes as she sways and falls on her knees. Ancalagon makes an inquisitive sound, sniffing at her, and let credit be given where due, he did retract back into his mind when she started fracturing—at least, as much as he could. She can only hear him as if through water now, only gets strong feelings.
She knows that if they open their minds again, she will just be swept.
The bond is in place, but she’s not out of the danger yet. It will take a bit.
She can’t move. She can’t feel her legs, either, she realizes. She’s exhausted in a way that goes beyond physical. She can’t make herself move, more than her body having no strength to do so. But she has to, she realizes. She has to go to Daemon, or worry will eat him from the inside. He might try to approach Ancalagon himself if he worries enough, and that, she cannot allow. He’d die. Her dragon would kill him, she doesn’t doubt that. Ancalagon is too wild, completely unsocialized. Maybe one day he will be approachable by others but not now. Not today.
Not without Lyra able to keep him calm while someone else approaches right now, and she can sense, hazy as it is, that he’s nervous and protective. In the state she’s in, everyone is a threat.
She must go.
She physically cannot.
Colourful spots start dancing in front of her eyes, her ears start to ring. She feels faint, from the fatigue and the blood loss. She’s about to faint. She can’t go anywhere, she—
Green-eyed shadows. Bloodstained linoleum.
Something like a knock on the door, and she lets it in, this distinctly not-Targaryen thing. It’s nothing like the bond, unfamiliar, alien—cold.
She thinks she feels surprise that’s not hers because she’s too tired, and then determination.
The world sharpens and she drops, her body suddenly not hers at all. But her body moves. Like a puppet on strings, with strength not her own, one hand on the grass, then the other. Drops of blood splatter on her hands as her body pushes itself up, one leg under her, then the other, and she slowly rises, and sways only a little. It’s hazy, but her weakness is in the fatigue of her mind, not her body.
Walk, Ancalagon wills at her, sharing his own fortitude for the lack of her own.
Walk.
And she does.
○
Daemon is whiter than milk, and a little ashen, when he sees her. Breaks into a sprint and snatches her off the ground with an alarmed shout she’s too exhausted to decipher.
All the will that pushed her forward is there still one blink, and gone the next.
She thinks she tries to say something, but can’t know for sure. She’s gone too fast.
○
He’s stupid. Idiot, moron, dimwit—how could he forget, how could he not realize—
Bonding a dragon was forging a connection between two minds, the rider and the dragon connected in a way that anyone outside the loop was simply unable to understand. It let them know each-other, work with each-other seamlessly.
Some bonds were stronger, some weaker, but there was always a bond there; whether it was a slight, barely-there thing where only the strongest of emotions came though, or so strong and comprehensive that you couldn’t be sure where dragon ended and person began, or something somewhere in-between, a bond would always be forged.
It was simple, if the dragon was young. A young dragon and a young Targaryen were on equal footing; neither knew what they were doing, each had ego on comparable level, and they meet each-other midway. It was trickier with older dragons, because their egos, their personalities, their very souls continued to develop as long as they lived, but if they had experience with riders, they could easily accommodate for a new one, barely overwhelm it a little.
But if the rider was young and inexperienced, but the dragon was old and inexperienced—
Erasure of the rider’s very ego, their personality, their soul, swallowed by the dragon’s own, was all but certain.
Lyra was seven. The Cannibal dragon was, if the stories were to be believed, nearing its second century. The Cannibal dragon was also never ridden before.
Daemon realizes it about when the Cannibal dragon takes off with his daughter on its back (did she—did she just get on this beast without a saddle? Does she not know how dangerous that is—) and by then it’s far too late to even try to stop her. All he can do is pray that she will somehow survive this.
The idea of Lyra not coming back makes his stomach twist uncomfortably. He feels faint, and cold, and jittery, and he’s watching for a great black shape in the sky almost obsessively, spotting it above the clouds and between them, circling the island.
When the dragon lands, he starts walking towards it, quick paces, nervous. The dragon will kill him, a logical part of him whispers, but he ignores it.
He’s terrified, but not of anything; he’s terrified for something. Someone.
He cannot lose Lyra. He cannot—
His legs almost buckle under him from relief when he sees her walking down the hill, but that relief is short-lived, because she’s walking all wrong—as if she’s not used to walking on two legs at all.
And her face is covered in blood.
And her eyes are a shining, sinister green, slit-pupiled, vibrant, and wild.
He breaks into a sprint, sweeps her off her feet, presses her against his chest and begs—
<’m fine…> she slurs weakly as her eyes flash back to their original dark purple and Daemon almost falls to his knees with the sheer relief, only for his panic to flare for the third time when she goes limp in his arms nearly immediately after. But she’s breathing, and she’s warm. Alive.
His eyes are wet. His cheeks are wet. His throat is uncomfortably warm and tight.
He’s crying, he realizes, with terror and relief both.
<You’ll be the death of me,> he whispers in barely audible, shaking voice, and kisses her forehead. <I’m so glad you’re alive.>
○
Consciousness flowing to and from.
Snippets of conversation above her; frantic father and someone else, shocked.
“Then how did—"
“Green eyes, like the dragon—"
“First Men blood— Her mother—"
“A skinchanger—”
“—warged into the dragon—”
“Never seen anything like—!”
Huh. So maybe she did get something more than neglect from her mother after all.
○
Green-eyed shadows instead of bloodstained linoleum. Black ocean that is the mind of an ancient beast.
Her alone among calm waters, floating on her back. It’s warm. It’s boundless.
Something calling from the depths, fish-memories darting beneath her fingers, not her own.
This time, she doesn’t sink. This time, his mind doesn’t try to drown her.
It takes all of her to stay afloat, all collective thirty-nine years, but she does.
And it takes all of him, all delicate subtlety he can scrounge together to not to sink her, but he does.
Together, but not as one. Together, but each their own.
Slowly, it solidifies. Soon, it will be instinctual, ebbing and flowing together and around each-other.
They have found their balance.
○
She wakes up slowly, unwilling to open her eyes just yet if only for the pain pulsing behind her eyelids with every heartbeat and breath. It’s not bad, not a migraine at all, but it’s there, and it’s persistent. It’s the kind that stays for hours, even days on end, not bad enough to be debilitating but bad enough to be a constant chore to withstand.
Fuck, this world doesn’t have Ibuprofen.
She groans and curls up, only briefly hindered by the arm slung over her.
Daemon predictably stirs at the motion, the hitch in his breath signifying the switch between sleep and bleary wakefulness.
<Lyra?> he whispers, quiet and uncertain. Lyra winces, and this time not because of pain.
<Yeah?> she asks. He doesn’t answer. Instead, he wraps his arms around her and presses her tighter to his chest. Soon enough a purr rolls through his chest, and Lyra sighs, pressing her forehead against his collarbone as the frequency takes off the worst pressure of the headache. She would respond in kind, but she doesn’t think she can right now.
She thinks she drifts back to sleep, because the next time she wakes, her head hurts less, and Daemon isn’t in bed with her being a glorified teddy bear. Instead, he’s sitting on the side of the bed, poking her in the cheek.
She swats his hand away and burrows deeper into the blankets, but he doesn’t relent.
<Come on Lyra, you need to drink some water.>
<I need to sleep,> she grumbles, no doubt muffled by all the covers.
<You will sleep more when you had a drink. Come on, I have milk of the poppy too if you want.>
They don’t have Ibuprofen but they do have straight-up drugs. Thanks, but no thanks.
<No poppymilk,> she complains and forces herself to slowly crawl out of her nest. She flops back on the pillows, and slowly opens her eyes. The room is bathed in bright sunlight that makes her wince. Her head may hurt less, but it still hurts. Now that she thinks about it, she is quite parched, and her tongue feels like sandpaper and sponge. <How long was I out for?>
<Two days. It’s a little past noon.>
Daemon helps her sit up, propped on the pillows and the bedframe, and then helps her drink some cool water. She needed that.
She takes a deep breath. She feels rather faint, probably from the nosebleed. It was rather profuse.
<How are you feeling?> Daemon asks, putting his hand against her forehead. His hand feels cool—cold, almost.
<Like I’m about to come down with a cold,> she answers after a moment, because in all honesty, the symptoms match. It’s probably not it, but it sure feels like it.
<I doubt you are,> Daemon says. <You are running a bit of a fever, but it’s probably just the bond.>
<Mm. Sorry for worrying you.>
Daemon shakes his head. <You’re alive. That’s what matters.>
<But you were worried.>
<Oh, horribly. But I couldn’t have stopped it, could I?>
<No. And it wouldn’t really have been fair.>
<Still, I was worried. Terrified, really. I cannot lose you; I refuse. I lost enough family.>
Lyra blinks slowly, looks up at Daemon. Unguarded, open, honest. He’s twenty-four, barely an adult, and his life is already falling apart around him. His parents dead, his brother constantly against him. Maybe he feels like she is all he has.
She reaches forward, puts her hand on his.
<I’m too stubborn to leave you,> she says, and she means it. <I will eventually go may way once I’m grown… But I will never leave you forever. Yeah?>
Daemon takes a shaky breath. He reaches out, drags her into his lap, and curls around her.
<Look at you. You almost just died, and here you are, comforting me,> he says, voice shivering. <I’m rather a lousy father, aren’t I?>
<You’re doing your best, and I see that. It’s enough. Besides, you’re taking it harder than I am, so why shouldn’t I comfort you?>
He lets out a wet chuckle, his arms tightening around her. Lyra sighs and closes her eyes, resting her head comfortably on his collarbone.
<I’m so glad you’re alive. Don’t be so flippant about dying.>
<Me too, dad. I love you.>
<I love you, too.>
They stay like that for a good while, until Lyra’s stomach decides to remind her she was out of it for two days. Daemon laughs at her, and she pokes him in the side, as they call for a meal.
○
Seeing Daemon like that shakes her up, Lyra will admit. Especially since if she were a real seven-year-old, she would have been dead.
It’s a bit late, but she decides that she might as well just tell him the truth, outlandish as it is.
○
<It’s not like you to be this picky when eating.>
<I know. But right now, I don’t think I can stomach anything other than meat. Do you think it’s the bond?>
<Likely, yes.>
<Hmm. Well, on the good side I can actually eat liver without retching right now!>
<You seem awfully happy about that.>
<Well, I did lose some blood. Liver is good for replenishing that.>
<Huh. I did not know that.>
<Now you do.>
○
<What did you name your dragon?>
<Ancalagon.>
<Ancalagon? Odd name.>
<Mmm. From a story I heard before.>
<Oh?>
<Maybe I’ll tell you it one day.>
<Maybe. Must be great story, to name your dragon after.>
<Mhm. The best, really.>
○
It’s the evening when she decides to just rip off the band-aid. So, she looks at her father, and says:
<I died once before.>
Daemon has never looked more like a deer caught in the headlights than at this moment. He takes a sharp breath and looks at her for a moment, unblinking. She holds his gaze.
<This. This is not a very funny joke, little flame.>
<It’s not a joke. Will you listen?>
He looks at her, and takes a deep breath. <Of course.>
<Are you in any way familiar with reincarnation, re-embodiment, or rebirth?>
He isn’t, because Valyrian Religion only has an afterlife, and he really can’t be bothered with other religions. She explains it to him.
And then she explains to him everything else; her past life, her death, the gods and their plan, the mission she was sent on. Of how she always had flashes of her past life, which made her an abnormal child and in hindsight explained so much about her behaviour, and how she remembered everything after turning seven, after weeks of nightmares that left them both haunted.
How she remembers, in vivid detail, her first death, and how her dreaming of Ancalagon helped push these memories from her dreams and the forefront of her mind.
He listens to her, enraptured and horrified both.
<I want to think this is just some elaborate cruel prank,> he tells her when she’s done. <But you would never do that. And… It makes too much sense. Between how you act, and your ability to bond with the Cannni—Ancalagon, if you were a normal child, you—>
<My mind would’ve been erased,> she finishes. Daemon closes his eyes and puts his hand over them, letting out a hollow chuckle. He refuses to think about it to deeply, she can see. Because it’s the kind of person he is; angry that he wasn’t there for her, worlds away.
<But you are Lyra, aren’t you?>
<Yes. From birth to now and going onwards, it’s always been just me.>
<Then that’s all that matters to me. I’m sorry you died, but I’m glad to have you.>
<Mmm. If I’m being honest, I’d say dying has actually been worth it so far.>
<How?>
<Because I got you. And yes, I do miss the creature comforts of my past life, because it was a thousand years ahead of this world socially and technologically, but… I can work with this, I think.>
<Because of me?>
<Well, it’s my first time having a parent that actually loves me without me having to conform exactly to what they think I should be, so. Yeah. Because of you.>
He wraps his arms around her, and she wraps her arms around his neck as they press their foreheads together.
<I’m really happy you think that.>
<Well, I’ really happy you’re my dad.>
<So… Ancalagon, is he from a story from that other world?>
She looks up at him with sparkling eyes. The dam’s open, now she won’t be able to shut up about Tolkien’s works until she gets it out of her system.
<Yeah! It’s my favourite story ever!>
Daemon sees her excitement and smiles. For the first time today it’s just a smile, unburdened by worry and the revelations.
<Will you tell me?>
<Of course!>
○
Once they’ve calmed down and Daemon processed the bombshell Lyra just threw in his face, they get ready for bed. But this time, instead of Daemon regaling her with Valyrian mythos, it’s Lyra retelling him Silmarillion, in as much detail as she can recall, starting with Ainulindalë.
Given that she re-read Silmarillion roughly once a year since she turned sixteen, it’s actually a lot of detail, and soon enough Daemon understands just why Middle Earth entranced her so, and finds himself similarly enamoured.
He very quickly decides that Fëanor is a pompous fool, and refuses to listen when Lyra points out that their arrogance and compulsiveness are almost mirrors, and asks if he isn’t simply hating what he perceives as his traits. He admits that maybe he is, but if he had seven sons, he’d surely cherish them, rather than drag them on a fool’s voyage across the world and get the mall killed.
Certainly not over some shiny rocks.
Maybe she should write it down, before she forgets details. And she supposes it says something about her; that she’d be loath to lose Tolkien’s works, while she doesn’t quite care for Fire and Blood or House of the Dragon that much, despite living these stories right now.
Part of it, she’s sure, is wanting to make this story uniquely her own.
(That doesn’t mean she won’t try to prevent the potential deaths of her loved ones if she’s able, of course. Daemon certainly won’t be dying above God’s Eye.)
○
<You claiming Ancalagon, do you think it has something to do with the gods?>
<How so?>
<Well, they send you in with explicit orders to save dragons, and then the one dragon killing others ends up being yours, putting you in a perfect position to rein him in.>
<I have no idea but I really wouldn’t put it past them. Or it was luck. Whichever way, I’m not going to question things that make my job easier.>
○
<Wait, does this mean that you’re actually an adult?>
<Hm? Not at all. I’m very much a child—do you know how children mature as they age into adults?>
<Yes.>
<Big part of it is processes in the body. Emotional control, reasoning, impulse control. All that is in the body, not the mind. So I am, right now, a child with memories of an adult. Doesn’t mean I have a much better impulse control, though!>
<But it is somewhat better, isn’t it? Compared to other children?>
<Only because I understand consequences, and even then, it’s really difficult. Child thoughts want instant gratification. I almost let go of the belts when I was flying Ancalagon for example, because it was really fun.>
<But you didn’t want to plummet from cloud level to the sea.>
<Exactly.>
<Well I will tell you now, it hardly gets better!>
<Nah, that’s just you, dad.>
<What was that?>
<Nothing. Love you.>
He tickles her for that.
○
Maybe it is a bit early, and she does still feel a bit faint, but the next morning after she wakes up, Lyra decides to go to Ancalagon. Daemon makes a face at it, the master that was begrudgingly allowed to exist in Dragonstone harrumphs, and the smallfolk healer woman looks at her with disapproval.
So, Lyra gives them an ultimatum; either she’s allowed to go see Ancalagon, or she will sneak out to go and see Ancalagon. She has a stare-down with Daemon that lasts maybe three seconds before he huffs, shakes his head, and asks a maid to prepare her some clothes.
Not riding leathers, he makes sure to point out, because Lyra will not be going flying again until she’s fully recovered; ideally, after the dragon is saddled.
Lyra just shrugs, grabs her guitar, and tells him that they do, in fact, need to figure something out about the saddle because riding a beast this big without one was difficult. And then she’s off.
○
Ancalagon is where she left him, curled into a gigantic ball of indistinct scales and wings. Apparently, she’s been told, he’s been curled like that, asleep, all this time. Some braver stableboys approached him yesterday out of curiosity, only to sprint right back when Ancalagon took offense to their approach and made it known by poking his head from under his wings and hissing at them.
Lyra giggles at the mental image, though she has enough first-hand experience to know for a fact that it would have been a rather terrifying sight.
He uncoils, somewhat, at her approach, but only really enough for her to duck under his wings into the leathery tent. The weather outside left a lot to be desired today, being a misty, rainy, cold, wet, and overall unpleasant, but the space underneath Ancalagon’s wings was dry and warm. The darkness didn’t quite bother Lyra, as usual, with her eyes adapted more to low light than bright light.
<Hello!> she says cheerfully, patting the dragon’s massive snout before clamouring onto his front-curving horns and making herself comfortable there. Something presses against her mind, skittish and uncertain, and she lets it. <It’s alright. We figured it out, didn’t we?>
Worry, hurt, confusion, fragile-fragile-fragile, careful.
Are you okay?
<Yes. Thank you for worrying.>
Remorse, regret, shame.
I’m sorry.
<It’s alright. I expected it would happen. Sorry for scaring you.>
Determination.
I’ll be better.
<Mhm. Me too.>
She spends the next hour playing the soundtrack of How to Train Your Dragon to Ancalagon, and it feels both incredibly appropriate and like a horrible awful pun. Ancalagon really likes it, though, especially when she feeds him some half-remembered clips from the movie through the bond.
That, he sends back. Want.
<Me too, buddy. So, let’s work for it together, okay?>
Together. Mine. Yours. Pack.
She likes the sound of that.
○
“No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“No means no, my Prince. We will consider saddling the Cannibal only if your daughter demonstrates enough of a control over him to prevent him butchering the Dragonkeepers. No sooner. Not with how dangerous of a beast it is.”
“And if she can control him well enough?”
“With all due respect to the young lady, I sincerely doubt it. She’s seven, and this beast is, if the stories are right, near two centuries old. It would be miraculous if she could command him this effortlessly.”
“…we shall see, Keeper.”
○
<Okay but you really do need a saddle.>
Her answer is hisses and growls.
<Buddy, look, you can sound like a grumpy crocodile all you want, but nothing’s going to change. For me to be able to fly with you, you need a saddle.>
Weh.
<Hey now, don’t give me that attitude! Do you not want to fly with me?>
Weh.
But he does move.
○
It only takes half-an-hour of a seemingly one-sided argument for Ancalagon to huffily crawl into the workshop with a smug-looking Lyra sitting cross-legged on his head.
Daemon for his part also feels very smug, looking at the slack-jawed Keeper.
“How,” the man demands, disbelieving, as the other keepers warily but efficiently take measurements for the saddle. If they’re lucky, they’ll be able to use one of the models made for Vhagar, or even Balerion, with only minimal adjustments. There are several backup saddles in good condition.
“My daughter just is like that,” Daemon tells the man with a gleeful glint in his violet eyes. “Horrible for my blood pressure, but she works her miracles anyway.”
“Is it true then?”
“What is?”
“That she can handle any dragon?”
“So far, yes. Every dragon she approached was friendly to her, even when the rider wasn’t. I found her napping against Dreamfyre few times when we still stayed in King’s Landing.”
So, he may be bragging a bit. Bite him.
“Remarkable. Truly, a blessing from the Fourteen!”
“Truly,” Daemon agrees.
○
One of Balerion’s unused saddles is deemed fit, and then subjected to a whole week of alterations, because Lyra wants this and that and doesn’t want all the ornate ornamental addons. Ancalagon grumbles and groans and hisses, but Lyra reminds him that he promised, and he can’t go back on that, and soon enough the mighty beast has a befitting saddle bolted to his back, equipped with a rope ladder to climb up and down.
Though he does snap his teeth at a Keeper who comes too close to his head, and slams his tail into the ground once or twice for no other reason than to scare the workers for fun, nobody gets singed or even maimed, let alone killed. By the standards he’s set throughout his life, he’s outstandingly well-behaved.
It takes some adjustments between several test flights until both Lyra and Ancalagon are fully satisfied with the result—it’s too shaky for her here, it’s pinching him there, can they add some more bags for long-flight resources? She will be going to Essos sometime—but they get there. The saddle is sleek, a washed-out brown of hardened leather, not very ornate but embedded with a dragon motif. Lyra accessorizes it with black fabric and white furs that can be easily repurposed into equipment.
There’s enough space for two to fly and then some, but Lyra doesn’t know when, or if, she’ll put that to use. Ancalagon may have tolerated all the workers putting a saddle on him, but that’s about his limit of human interaction for next several decades, bar her. Despite Lyra’s best efforts, Ancalagon isn’t very fond of her father, or of Caraxes, either. He’s quickly learned to tolerate their general existence due to Lyra’s insistence, but that’s about the effort he’s willing to make. And if that’s how he is towards those she cherishes the most, she doesn’t think she wants to know how he’ll react to others.
She’ll have to work on socializing him more.
But the saddle is good, high quality and hardened leather, made with the almost-lost ways of saddlemakers of Old Valyria. It will last long, unless Ancalagon outgrows it, and he likely won’t anytime soon. And when Lyra climbs the ladder to it, and secures herself in place with the belts and they take off to the sky, all is right in the world.
Well, almost. The weather is horrible. It’s foggy and wet and windy, and she thanks Daemon in her thoughts for throwing a woollen scarf at her.
She really needs flying googles. And a mask. And a hood attached to her riding jacket.
Are there any glass-workers on Dragonstone?
○
There’s fair few Gold Cloaks on Dragonstone with them, Lyra notices after a while. They apparently came by the ship when she was busy harassing the Keepers about the saddle. Not Corren or Harwin—Daemon specifically told them to stay and hold the fort in King’s Landing, but familiar faces still.
Then again, with how much time she’s spent in the barracks, almost every Gold Cloak is a familiar face, and she can put names to a lot of faces. And they know her too; enough that nobody bats an eye when she waltzes into the training yard and demands to be taught anymore, odd as a girl learning martial arts is in this cultural climate was.
○
It’s a misty, gloomy day in a consecutive series of misty, gloomy days when Otto Hightower comes to Dragonstone with his little entourage to harass Daemon about the dragon egg.
(It sure takes people time to get around in this world, Lyra can’t help but notice, on all the ships and carriages, and entirely dependent on the weather, which on Dragonstone is not ideal on a good day. Not everyone has Nuclear Lizard Airlines either. But this time, it’s probably the fog covering the island.)
Daemon looks at Lyra. Lyra looks at Daemon.
They both grin.
<Go get your dragon,> he tells her. <Join us when you hear Caraxes roaring, or if I whistle, whichever comes first.>
<Will do!>
<Can you get close enough to hear it?>
<Easily, if this fog keeps up.>
And she’s off, barely pulling her shoes on before she breaks into a run to where Ancalagon is perched. Daemon chuckles and reaches into the flames of the fireplace, picking the egg up. He gently pats the wood ash off it.
Shame it didn’t hatch before they came to get it. With whatever that’s wrong in Dragonpit, now it may never, once Cunttower takes it back.
Maybe he should chuck it in the volcano. With Ancalagon now under Lyra’s heel, the hatchling would do well fending for itself. The other dragons on Dragonstone weren’t very aggressive, after all, at least towards each-other. It would grow, maybe even thrive, and in fifteen, maybe twenty years, there would be another dragon ripe for claiming.
○
Ancalagon raises his head and lets out an inquisitive chuff when Lyra skids to a stop next to him, out of breath after a long run uphill. She leans on his horn until she catches her breath.
<Aight buddy, this is very important. How sneaky can you be?>
He snorts.
Foggy, windy, dark. Obscured. Prey. Stalk. Good.
In this weather? Nothing will see him coming.
Lyra grins. <Perfect!>
○
The fog does keep up.
Just to be sure, Lyra has Ancalagon perch in the fog on the side the setting sun is shining from, further obscuring the visibility of them.
○
He meets them halfway, Otto and his, as Lyra called them, ‘goonies’. Daemon has his own, several Gold Cloaks who refused to let him go alone, or with the Dragonstone guards they didn’t quite trust. Daemon didn’t quite trust them either; he didn’t know any of them and he wasn’t sure they had much loyalty for him. Not in the way the Gold Cloaks did. They were loyal to the Targaryens, true, but Daemon was more comfortable with people loyal to him specifically. Safer.
“Welcome to Dragonstone, Otto,” Daemon says, as emotionlessly as he can make himself. He plays with the egg a little, throwing it from hand to hand nonchalantly, because he’s not nervous.
He’s not.
“Your occupation of this island is at an end,” Otto tells him, and Daemon fights the urge to roll his eyes. “You’re to relinquish the dragon’s egg, disband your army, and leave Dragonstone by order of his grace, king Visery—”
For fuck’s sake, that pompous shit. At least he didn’t say anything demeaning about Lyra, or Daemon would be stabbing him already.
Also banish his army? It wasn’t his army—Gold Cloaks were meant to protect King’s Landing! It was never his army. Like most things, it was all for Viserys. It wasn’t Daemon’s fault that several of them were loyal enough to follow him into exile.
“Where’s the king?” he asks instead, cutting Otto off. “I don’t see him.”
“His grace would never lower himself to entertain such a mummer’s farce,” Otto says, and his smug face is making it harder by the minute not to punch him. The few seconds of silence that ensue are uncomfortable, so Daemon zones on something else; the Dornish whelp of a knight that unhorsed him during the tourney, now kilted out in Kingsguard armour. It stings, that he gets to wear it. Reminds Daemon all about his loss in the tourney, and he doesn’t much like it.
What was his name again? Cretin? No. Crispy? Crispin?
“Ser Crispin, isn’t it?”
“Ser Criston Cole, my prince,” the whelp says, almost beatifically. He’s an annoying one.
“Ah, yes, apologies, I couldn’t recall.” More like I couldn’t be fucked to but alas.
“Perhaps my prince recalls when I knocked him off his horse.”
Oh. The audacity of this bitch. Daemon chuckles at the provocation. “Very good.”
“This is a truly pathetic show, Daemon,” Otto cuts in, because of course he does. “Are you so desperate for king’s attention that you resorted to skulking about like a common cutpurse?”
“I’m simply keeping with the traditions of my house, the same as my brother did for his heir,” he says.
“And yet here you stand, egg unhatched and your daughter nowhere in sight. And if no other egg has hatched for her, then surely one meant for her cousin wouldn’t either.”
“You’re not to be the judge of that,” Daemon says, an edge to his voice. “And so will my daughter, whether or not her dragon is in the egg—"
“This is a mummer’s farce. With every breath you soil your name, your house, and your brother’s reign. To resort to common thievery for what you call a birthright is beyond pathetic, Daemon. Are you certain this is the legacy you wish for your daughter?”
“My daughter is perfectly fine with her legacy,” Daemon says tersely. How dare that cunt imply—
“And what of you, men of the city watch? Aiding a prince in his treason?”
Clearly, Otto wouldn’t know loyalty if it bit him in his shrivelled arse.
And Daemon is tired of this. It’s a curious skill that Otto has; tiring Daemon through merely existing. But Daemon was never fond of snakes, pathetic, legless, yet venomous.
All he did was take the egg, and just like Daemon expected, Otto took the bait and has gone completely rabid on traces of what might be treason if you bend the definition really hard. And sideways.
“And what of Lady Daelyra?” Otto pushes. “What would happen to her, should you face the consequences of your actions?”
Oh. Oh, he fucking did not.
“The king made me their commander, they are loyal to me,” he snaps, and holds the egg out. “You’ve come for the egg. Here it is. It is of no more use to me.”
Otto looks at him incredulously. “Are you mad? You’d never survive this.”
Mad. For getting upset for that piece of shit insinuating things about his daughter?
Fine. He’ll take mad. He puts his hand on Dark Sister’s pommel.
“I’ll be the judge of that.” He’d take his chances, he thinks, with Caraxes well within reach and Ancalagon in the mist.
“To choose violence is to declare war against your king.”
“Wonderful,” Daemon says tersely. Tell me something I don’t know, he thinks.
“Even if it ends in the death of your daughter—”
Daemon sees white. He doesn’t even fully register it, but then he’s holding Dark Sister, her blade of folded steel pointed straight at Otto, as unsheathed steel sings around him.
“You will not threaten my daughter,” he says with calmness that surprises even him. It makes Otto flinch.
Inside, he feels an inferno build in his chest. It sings at him to kill. To protect his daughter at all cost, and damned be Otto, and damned be Viserys too.
He’ll kill them all, if it’s for her. Then he’ll be king, and Daelyra will be queen after him.
He thinks he likes the sound of that.
Caraxes, attuned to him as always, crawls from behind the rocks in answer to his stress and rage, the dragon’s long neck twisting, his red scales glimmering in the fog and sunlight. He lets out a broken roar, more of a shriek, but paints a terrifying picture nonetheless.
Daemon holds Otto’s gaze for what feels like forever, and then Otto gives a small shrug and a nod, and a “all of you, sheathe the fucking steel.”
Oh look. Even Otto knows better sometimes. Wonder of wonders.
And then something snarls in the mist beneath, and Daemon’s smile grows from a slight smirk into a grin that shows teeth, as loud, methodical thumping sounds closer, and closer, as something huge moves in the mist. Otto’s goonies look to their right, where the sound comes from, uneasily, and Otto himself looks progressively more frantically between Daemon and the mist.
Then, a massive jagged head bursts out of the mist, followed by a long scaly neck as a gigantic black beast emerges from the valley, clamouring onto the rocks uncomfortably close to the bridge full of people. Daemon delights in watching Otto’s men turn whiter than fresh cotton sheets. Someone screams, someone almost falls over the other side of the bridge in their effort to get away, someone pisses himself from what Daemon sees, as Ancalagon stands tall enough to cast shadow over them all.
He's close enough that one more step of the massive beast and he would be able to devour them all; and they’re certainly well within the range of dragonfire.
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything important!” Lyra yells out cheekily, casually walking up Ancalagon’s neck and then down his head until she stands on his snout, between his eyes. She puts her hands on her hips and grins, letting Otto and his goonies take in her obviously windswept look, and Ancalagon pointedly turns to show off his brand-new saddle. Proof, as good as any, that this isn’t a one-off, that this isn’t Lyra temporarily taming a wild dragon like she’s done so many times.
Just in case.
Standing on top of her dragon, with the sun behind her, even a small girl like her cuts an incredibly imposing figure; moreso that they all need to look up to look at her. This is someone who will be listened to, and pride wells in Daemon’s chest, chasing his frustration away.
“Not at all, perzītsos. Lord Hand was already leaving.”
She nods and turns to Otto.
“Good to see you again, Lord Hand,” she says, her cheer so obviously fake that Daemon wants to laugh. “Are you here for the egg? You can very well take it—we scarcely need it anymore.”
She squats down, pointedly patting Ancalagon’s snout. The beast snorts, the gust of wind strong enough to shove some unprepared people around.
“I…” Otto says, swallowing. He looks like someone just made him drink the shit-filled seawater of King’s Landing, while being whiter than chalk at the same time. “I can see that, my lady,” he grits out.
She claps her hands. “I do hope my father was most gracious, even for the short while. Last few days were quite busy, so do forgive him if he was short with you.”
Her smile is absolutely beatific, and entirely fake.
Ancalagon shifts and growls. Caraxes barks at him, and Ancalagon hisses, his lips curling to reveal long, sharp teeth. One of Otto’s goonies faints.
The Gold Cloaks, who at least saw Ancalagon in passing before, fare a bit better.
“You father…” Otto says, somewhat dazed. “…has not been the most gracious host.”
“Why?” Lyra asks, eyes wide, fake cluelessness exacerbated by her tilting her head to the side. Otto grits his teeth, and for a moment Daemon is sure he’s going to call her out on making a fool out of him.
And then Syrax bursts through the clouds. Lyra shakes her head and stands up, running back to grab onto Ancalagon’s horns just as he rears his head up to snap his massive jaws at the yellow dragon barely the size of his head. Syrax screeches in terror, wings flapping to get her as far away from what undoubtedly is her hatchling-hood nightmare as possible, and Rhaenyra lets out an alarmed shout.
Daemon delights in Otto’s face contorting into an easily-readable ‘oh fuck’, what colour he regained fading away again.
“Anca, kelīs! Syrax ipradā daor!” Lyra commands loudly, and with one last snarl, he does stop. Lyra looks to the side, and Daemon notices her holding Rhaenyra’s wide, spooked gaze. She looks like a terrified kitten as she forces her dragon to perch on the bridge behind Otto and his goonies.
Syrax, predictably, wants to be nowhere near Ancalagon. She didn’t survive twenty-odd years on Dragonstone under the constant threat of him to now be led right into his jaws. She makes an alarmed noise when Rhaenyra slides off the saddle anyway and pushes through the people to get to the front of the procession, trying to move forward on the stone railing barely supporting her weight as is.
Ancalagon growls at her, and for a moment she’s very conflicted on whether she actually wants to be worried about Rhaenyra or should self-preservation win.
One more warning growl and self-preservation wins, and Syrax stays put.
Rhaenyra, daemon notices, looks confused and fearful, glancing at Ancalagon as she walks forward, any bravado she might’ve had flying here, gone. Clearly, she’s been expecting Caraxes at most. One reasonably-sized dragon versus another reasonably-sized dragon. In all honesty, it was a safe assumption. She had no way of knowing what kind of beast waited for Lyra here, and Daemon didn’t send any word out.
Not like it would’ve reached them in time, in this weather.
But she does walk forward, and that’s admirable enough.
“What are you doing here, princess?” Otto asks, nervous of the dragon above them all.
“Preventing bloodshed,” Rhaenyra says, voice only a little shaken.
“I’ve already done that, cousin!” Lyra calls. “Would you be so kind as to collect uncle’s lickspittles and herd them away? Ancalagon doesn’t like crowds very much. He gets anxious.”
Rhaenyra looks at her incredulously, and Lyra only smiles.
“What monstrosity is this?” the princess asks.
“My dragon!” Lyra chirps. Rhaenyra huffs. It’s shaky, Daemon says, but she tries to smirk.
“That’s a nightmare on wings,” she says, and Lyra cackles.
“I know! I love him a lot!”
She’s pale, but whether she’s forming a rapport with Lyra instinctively or consciously, Daemon can’t help but commend her for it. She knows he’s fond of his daughter, and she just bolstered her odds exponentially.
Rhaenyra looks between her and Daemon, and Daemon just smiles. Shocked and wary, she still walks forward. If it’s bravery or bravado, Daemon doesn’t much care; he finds it admirable enough regardless.
<My father named me the Princess of Dragonstone,> Rhaenyra tells him, instead of further discussing Ancalagon. <That’s my castle you’re living in, uncle.>
<Not until you come of age.>
<You’ve angered your king.>
<I don’t see why. My daughter is older, the egg was supposed to be hers.>
<She has a dragon now.>
<But she didn’t before.>
Rhaenyra clicks her tongue, the brat. <And that required you to steal my brother’s egg?>
<The egg was meant to be Daelyra’s. I could argue you stole it.>
Which. Is true, to a degree. Daemon has been waiting for a chance to have Lyra try to bond a dragon ever since she expressed no more interest in Dreamfyre than an occasional nap under her wing; so, when the she-dragon laid a clutch, and only one was viable, he did plan on asking for Lyra to try hatching the egg.
Hells, he did ask.
But Rhaenyra snatched it first, just as Viserys was about to agree, claiming that it was for Baelon.
(Now he knows that it wasn’t Lyra’s dragon, but few weeks back, he didn’t.)
Rhaenyra looks at him, and sighs.
“I’m right here, uncle,” she says, and Daemon blinks in surprise. “The object of your ire. The reason that you were disinherited. If you wish to be restored as heir, you’ll need to kill me.”
That’s. Objectively incorrect. He was banished because he called Viserys a murderer, and toasted Baelon as a heir for a day, and Otto spun it the way that would anger Viserys most. He never wanted to be the heir, and he sure as all hells wouldn’t want to be restored. All he ever wanted was to stay by Viserys’ side, like father told him he should.
He glances at Lyra. She shrugs and shakes her head.
Yes, that’s about how he feels right now.
“So do it,” Rhaneyra continues. “And be done with all this bother.”
Otto is a bother. Daemon doesn’t think he cares that much, not about the throne, or really his brother. Not after he’s done some soul-searching and realized that he doesn’t want his life defined by Viserys. Not when he has his daughter and his dragon (and maybe his daughter’s grumpy dragon, too) by his side.
And yes, power is nice to have. He wants it. The prestige, the respect, the money. But he’ll manage on his own just fine, he thinks. He doesn’t need to scuttle in Viserys’ shadow.
He doesn’t want to, after what happened.
Daemon chuckles, and throws the egg to Rhaenyra, as she scrambles to catch it without much grace.
“If this is what this whole situation is about, then you know even less about me than I thought, niece.”
Rhaenyra looks at him with wide eyes.
<Daughter!> he says loudly, snapping his head to the side. <Turn your beast around, lest it decides little Syrax would make for a fine meal after all!>
Lyra laughs, and with few sharp commands, Ancalagon turns around and crawls back into the misty valley below, only to burst upwards, flying deeper into the island.
He turns around and walks back to the keep, not interested in watching Rhaenyra and Otto go. Fatigue seeps into his bones with every step, but it wasn’t bad. More importantly, it was rather fun, seeing Otto almost piss himself. He will surely re-evaluate his stance, now that Lyra rides the second largest dragon alive. He will consider them even more of a threat than before.
But it wasn’t bad.
He’s certain that Syrax will be rather cross with Rhaenyra for almost flying her right into Ancalagon’s jaws, too.
○
He barely sits down and throws his gloves on the table when Lyra bursts into the room, cackling maniacally.
<Dad, dad, did you see Otto’s face?> she squeals, all but throwing herself on his lap. He barely catches her. <Oh, he looked so constipated, it was amazing!>
<I know,> he chuckles and leans back as she only now unwinds the scarf from her neck, and throws it with her gloves next to his on the table. Her braids held very well in this windy weather, he notices, pleased. He spent all morning on them. <It was tiring, though. Dealing with Otto always is. I didn’t expect Rhaenyra to come, though.>
<Yeah, not the best move. It was very dangerous with just Caraxes alone.>
<Mhm. I think I will take a nap, now. I’m exhausted.>
<Food first. I think I’ll go look around the island later, see if I can find the other dragons.>
<Alright, but be careful. The volcanic ground is unstable, and the air is full of ash, especially near the summit.>
<I’ll keep that in mind.>
○
It’s scarcely a week later—Lyra barely seen Grey Ghost twice, but the dragon seemed healthy at least, but all the dragons are accounted for, yet-unnamed pony-sized Sunfyre included—that Daemon bursts into the room with a letter in his hand. She can see teal wax seal with a seahorse stamp, broken in half.
<Pack up, we’re going to Driftmark. Corlys wants to speak with me, and we’re not welcome here anymore, apparently. It’s the next island over, so be quick and we’ll be there before dinner.>
She gathers her notes and shoves them into a leather bag for safekeeping.
<Aight!>
Finally, Stepstones.
Maybe she’ll get to stay with the Velaryons for its duration. It would certainly be nice.
(She wheedled a recipe for a healing salve for dragons from one of the Keepers. It would be nice if she could rope Laena into patching up Vhagar’s wings a bit.)
#hotd#house of the dragon#hotd fanfiction#house of the dragon fanfiction#targaryen oc#daemon targaryen#the cannibal dragon#caraxes#otto hightower#rhaeynra targaryen#the thign about dragons#ttad#isekai#reincarnation#original targaryen character#tolkien references
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