The sight of the glistening, rocky shores were a blessing for the old dragon to take in. Rawnak wasn't sure how long he'd been flying since he'd made the fateful decision to leave his homeland, but it was long enough to make his great wings ache with each gusty flap and his mind reel with fatigue. Now his golden eyes were set on the darkly colored beach ahead, watching as it slowly grew larger as he soared low over the crashing waves and drew ever closer to it.

Rawnak's approach, less than a quarter mile from Elticama, was a hard one to miss when the yellow and mossy green beast was almost one-hundred feet in length. The ages-old dragon would have noticed the bustling community himself if he hadn't been so fatigued. As it was, he let his wings drop to the ground almost immediately after he came to a heavy landing at the edge the water. His legs folded beneath him after that, and he went down with a massive sigh that sent a wave of heated air shimmering from his flared nostrils. Rawnak didn't care that the latter half of his body was laying in the water, with waves lapping against his scaly hide. He was simply relived that he was back on dry land where he could get in a good, long rest, and recoup all that energy he spent on the exhausting journey.

"What's got you so wired?" She ran her hand down the side of his dark neck which tensed with her touch. She mumbled a word in her native language, short and quietly authoritative, and he came to a stop before she slipped off his back. "We'll just rest then... how's that?" Perhaps an animal was following them to the village and the poor horse had sensed it first. He wasn’t known for being so agitated when around other animals, however. He was a horse that had gone through far too much to be tensed by whatever was out there. She adjusted the padding on his back, keeping him comfortable, but soon enough the panic that was streaming through him broke free. He reared, trotted, and tossed just as a huge dark shadow sailed across the trail and the wind of its passing caught her fair hair like a breeze.

Thalassa wasn't a warrior, or a hunter, or anything that could have prepared herself for the beast that had landed, shaking the earth beneath her feet. Her heart raced and her horse had stolen away down the path. She had only heard of them once when the travelers had come across her home island. They mumbled stories of great, soaring creatures in the northern parts of Usearous. She had been interested, without a doubt, but hadn’t they said that they lived far from the humans? She had felt so safe knowing they’d only be apart of her imagination.

She stumbled forward, however possible in her state of mind, and hid behind a tree to the best of her abilities. Her breath came quickly and she focused on slowing it down while her mind continued to race.

The shadow of a 90 foot wingspan quickly raced along the beach, occasionally flapping smoothly and gracefully. The landscape was a beautiful sight for the 600 year old Matriarch, but there was one thing she wasn't entirely sure about: the humans. She hadn't exactly had much of a chance to interact with this strange species, so she didn't know if they posed a threat or not. As the Green Brood Matriarch, she had a duty to protect her Brood. How could she do that without knowing anything about the possible danger she was protecting them from? Scouting was in order.

A thud to counter that of Rawnak shook the beach. Ajatar's bright orange eyes soon located another Green Brood dragon as she folded her massive wings. Holding herself in a dominant (but not haughty) posture, she slowly approached Rawnak. A chuff of greeting and query came from her nostrils, as if to get his attention. "I notice that you are a Green dragon, friend. I am Ajatar, Green Brood Matriarch. I can provide you with a home if you choose to live in my territory, and I can offer you protection if you wish to live here or elsewhere." She believed in making a good first impression, and considering that Rawnak was larger than her and three times her age, she showed the respect this elder deserved. He had made it this far in life, so he was definitely deserving of great respect.

Ajatar's head suddenly jerked up, her nostrils flaring. She smelled something; something she had never smelled before. Could it be a human? But there were two scents. One was eerily familiar, like a large ungulate. Her eyes scanned the beach, but she saw nothing. Still, she knew some sort of unfamiliar creature was here. Slowly and carefully, the Matriarch crept closer to the source of the scent, now just a short distance of the tree where Thalassa was hiding, and still moving ever closer...

Rawnak hadn't the time to slip into a deep sleep before he felt the vibrations of something running across the ground. Being a dragon of considerable age and size, there weren't any predators that the Green was afraid of, but the clopping of the horse's hooves wasn't something he could easily ignore either, even if they were receding down the beach. Rawnak's golden eyes twitched irritably beneath closed lids as he attempted to nestle his head more soundly against the ground and let his mind sink back into sleep, only to be disturbed again. This time, it was the voice of another dragon.

Sure, he was happy that there were others here, but he was also bone tired and wishing for a good, long sleep. A gravelly rumble rolled through his throat as he opened his eyes and focused them with a look of annoyance on the Green that had landed near him... until she carried on and introduced herself as a Matriarch. His Matriarch. Rawn lifted his front end off the ground and inclined his broad head in respect, "Pardon an old dragon's temper, Matriarch." An apology had to be given for the sour look he'd initially greeted Ajatar with, and it was sincere despite the heavily spoken, almost flat tones of his voice. "I'm Rawnak, and I've only just arrived."

It wasn't until Ajatar moved her head suddenly that the old Green felt inclined to stand up fully, water cascading down from his lower legs and tail, where they'd previously been submerged in the water. Rawn inhaled deeply to catch the same scent that had his Matriarch so interested, "The creature is near. The smell is strong, and fresh." Golden eyes moved curiously along the beach, once or twice passing over the tree where Thalassa was hiding behind.

There was another wispy sound, quiet and controlled like the beat of a bird's wings. But it was too loud, too unnatural, and the second thud sent a chill crawling down the young woman who stood coiled into herself behind the tree. There was another one of them. A stuttering of her heart, a gasp, and her hand was at the side of her pants—yak's hide—where a knife was strapped. Her arrows and bow were on her horse, as well as her entire life, so the smooth stone was comforting against her fingers. It would hardly do any good against those creatures, however, but it was reassuring to know she had some sort of protection.

They began to make sounds and it took all of Thalassa's willpower to stop herself from fleeing openly from the scene. Guttural and snake like, they seemed to communicate with each other. It wasn't an enchanting sound, their rough hissing and growls, and as time passed unhurriedly those creatures... dragons, were becoming more monstrous and less like her imagination had created.

Her determination to stay behind this frail tree was gone. And nothing helped her disadvantage more than the crackle and roused steps of a dragon coming up behind her. Another stutter of her heart, and an outburst of the air she’d been holding in, and she had hurried forward away from the tree on light, almost calculated strides which was not what the state of her mind was in. She had returned to the path again, her knife ready in her rough palm, before she turned to face the creatures in a way that she had planned to be brief. It was not.

She turned and froze, her ragged clothes making her look frail and quiet, though to the dragons perhaps anyone was. She pointed her knife towards the nearest creature suddenly, as if it would help. "D-don't," she stuttered and she’d meant to back up and flee, but again she found that her feet had a mind of their own.

Mild curiosity blossomed into fascination at the spindly looking creature that was flushed out from the trees. "That's... a human, is it not?" He mused to Ajatar as his mind connected the upright, leggy beast to the mental imagery of the humans they'd been forbidden to interact with. Why, he didn't know, but it was a law laid down before his time, and it was a foolish one, if you asked Rawnak. "They're smaller than I'd imagined." His thick neck snaked forward a little as he flicked his tongue to gather more detailed odors than his nose could take in. The human reeked of fear, he found, and... what were all those other smells stuck to her? The horse, the yak clothing, the sharp ting of metal?

To his great surprise, the little creature stopped and turned back on them, brandishing something that glinted in the sun. Rawnak recognized a defensive posture when he saw one, but for a dragon as large as he, a single knife instilled no fear. No, it was fascination that awoke in the beast's massive eyes and drew him closer to her in heavy, almost waddling steps, until he was standing flush with Ajatar. "You're a human, yes?" And as if his close approach and heat-drenched breath would not riddle the poor woman with more fear, Rawnak spoke quizzically to Thalassa in the Common tongue. Though his words were quite heavy and faltering as he tried out the language for the first time, it was a decent attempt, and the words weren't too mangled by his rasping, gravelly tone.