Slithering was for only the lowest of creatures, for the poor things whose lack of long legs left them with their noses in the dirt. It was a filthy word, a slimy word- and as our gentleman, who, as usual, was dressed handsomely in his impossibly dark attire that still glimmered a sickly green, snaked his way from the forest, he managed to embody every connotation that the word "slither" was meant to convey.

At this particular moment, he threaded through the loose tangle of the forest, his knobby, scaly paws kneading ruthlessly into the soft, moist dirt of the forest. The vigor of the impending storm crackled through the air, and he was filled with its energy. His wide, battered, leathery wings rustled with excitement as he moved, his sleek, sensual body slipping away from the cover of the trees as the rain falls harder, faster, pelting his body like a thousand tiny silver whips urging him forward. The strong curve of his neck bent to better see behind him as the thunder echoed, echoed in each ripped and tattered ear. As his head turned, the dying light of the sun under the cloud’s siege flashed on the smooth length of his serpentine body. Something else entirely flashed in his eyes, brown and tumultuous and fierce. With joy and something darker, fiercer, his tail snaps as he calls-

His voice is nothing but a deep purr, a cry that mocked the power that the thunder boasted with something smoother, sweeter. The velvety sound that parted from his toothy lips sounded as though it did not belong to a creature so vile, so broken, so powerful. His legs pushed him above the overhang as the storm continued. The promise of the storm fueled him almost as much as lounging among the gems in his hoard did.

The adrenalines, he found, was addicting.

Savas was not attracted to the storm in the same way. He had watched while it darkened the sky, rolling in with wind that smelled like rain and distant places. It reminded him of home. The bitter anger he kept leashed in his heart of hearts fought its way to the surface, barbed with memories of a life he'd left behind. Thunder rolled over the land, soft and loud all at once, issuing a challenge that Savas trembled to answer.

He would have, once. Flying among the stormclouds had been a fun but dangerous pastime for him and his dragons. When he'd had dragons he knew well enough to call his own. It was the next rumble of not-thunder, peculiar as it was, that jarred Savas out of his bitter memories. Sharp and sweet; like honey and teeth. He went tense by the campfire, drawing startled looks from the others who shared the small cave with him.

Savas had been masquerading as a human when the storm came out of nowhere. His interest in the two leggers was more for his Brood than for himself; he found their chatter difficult to stomach for long periods of time. But they were a force of power on Eltica, and Savas's first duty was to the red dragons who had survived.

He couldn't have said what led him to the cave in the first place, beyond a need for shelter. The humans were uneasy around him at best, and for good reason. Though Savas passed for one of them in the dark, the flickering firelight reflected off his scaly red hide. And his eyes were not like theirs in size, shape, or color.

He was more alien to them than whoever was singing in the rain. His mind made up, Savas burst from the cover of the cave, shapeshifting with disregard for the startled humans he left behind. His spine twisted and cracked, wings blossomed, and suddenly a hulking beast of a dragon was where a man had stood. Distantly, Savas heard a woman scream.

Huffing out a snort, the Red Patriarch stretched into the rain. He did not fear it nor the lightning that flashed over the clouds. As he walked nearer to the overhang that made a waterfall, attracted by the hulking shadow on top, he rumbled a decent imitation of the thunder brought by the storm. When he reached the overhang, Savas settled onto his haunches and lifted his regal head high. Rain splattered against it, causing him to keep his eyes closed to slits. That and the darkness made it impossible to tell the color of the dragon he had come across.

"Greetings, wing-brother," he rumbled. "Was it you I heard singing?" Thunder interrupted him, forcing Savas to remain silent for several moments. "I think I prefer it to the storm." It was lonely business, being the Patriarch of a dying brood. Savas enjoyed intelligent conversation wherever he could find it.

The Crow sat on his haunches as he sang, trilling and snarling with the pattern of the thunderstorm, as it filled him with a vitality that weaker forces would not lend him. As though they still retained the powers of flight, his bat-like wings, destroyed to an awful degree, stretched to their full length, opening him to the sly, curling joy that the secrets of the shadows and the power of the thunder offered. Like old drapes that had suffered too much abuse over the years, the thin, dark membrane that should have stretched seamlessly from bone to bone was left torn and hanging, some places with holes, other places with rips and tears. When the lightening flashed, the light shot through his broken wings and reflected off of his dark, scaly body. Unless it was broad daylight, it was almost impossible to tell he was of the Green Brood- so dark were his scales.

So enraptured was the Crow in the song the storm sang him that he did not notice the giant of a Red approach him. Normally observant to an almost obsessive degree, it irked our hero that he was unaware of the dragon's presence until he spoke. Although his wings remained outspread, the Crow lowered himself to all fours, coiling closer to the mammoth of a beast- longing to press himself in a soft caress against the heat that radiated from the bloody scales.

it was indeed my call, my call!

--he crowed jubilantly, preening under the compliments of Savas. Idly his eyes wandered over the springs and the rocks and the red dragon, embracing the landscape with a gaze that suggested ownership. He frowned ponderously for a moment-

though, I think the storm is much more likely to enthrall...

Even the Crow was not so narcissistic to believe his empowered cries rivaled that of the storm.