A week has gone by since Zariel found the baby dragons, he had finally come up with names for them, the blue one is called Nerreth, the red one is called Medreth, the white one is called Lyth, the rock one is called Vanlith and the black one is called Taevarth. They all ended in a 'th' sound so it was easier for him to remember and as far as he could tell Narreth and Lyth were the only females.
After a week of trying to communicate with the baby dragons Zariel had noticed they didn't respond because they didn't have normal vocal cords which he had hope they would have, so Zariel tried using other methods and after the week of effort and magic he finally figured out a way to communicate with them, he made the magic particles vibrate at the right times to sound like words and it went right into their heads, but finding a way to let them talk back was only the easy part, so far they had picked up on the language Zariel spoke.
He had invented it when he was bored about 3000 years ago and got into the habit of using it instead of English, it was a mix of all the languages he had ever learnt, the dominant language was Latin. Every day Zariel held 3 classes of Maths, Science and his new language
As he taught them they language he slowly figured out their personalities, he assumed right when he thought that they were more than just beasts, Vanlith was always sleepy and relaxed and he was good at Earth and Metal magic, Nerroth was a fast thinker and she was a classic day dreamer, she specialised in Water and Ice magic. Lyth was shy and quiet but very intelligent, she excelled at Air and Fume magic which was controlling gases and vapours, Zariel speculated she might be able to control poisonous gases too, Medreth was a temperamental guy who got angry at even the slightest provocation, he was superior in Fire magic and had even found out on his own he could control Magma.
Next was Taevarth, he could control Light and a new one even Zariel didn't know existed which is Darkness, he wasn't very interested in magic like his siblings, when Zariel taught them basic maths and science Taevarth always asked deep questions, after a while Zariel started taking him for private lessons and taught him high-school level maths and sometimes challenged him with university level, Taevarth learnt quickly and excelled at it.
Zariel plummeted down onto his rock bed, he was quite tired today, when he taught the sibling there was always at least 2 fights but today Medreth was extra temperamental and got mad at Taevarth for answering a question ahead of him, breaking up baby dragons who were rather adept at powerful magic was not easy so he made a stick out of the weird metal he had found, it turned out to be harder than a diamond and he hit them on the head if they were naughty. He thought he hit them rather lightly but they seemed scared and instantly stopped fighting whenever he brought it out,
"They might have gotten a childhood trauma from it" Zariel mused to himself, their scales were probably just as hard as diamonds but the stick still hurt them.
"Zariel!" He heard a voice call his name, it sounded like Lyth. He raced over to where they were which was out in the plains outside the cave, he made sure they stayed within a certain perimeter so they didn't get out of sight but as he ran to the source of the voice he was already far out of the perimeter.
"Zariel! Come quickly!"
He started to ran at his fastest pace and reached where Lyth and the others were, it was another cave in the mountain that was almost 20 kilometers from them, and in it was a floating grey sphere, it gave off no light but yet it glowed, Nerreth had her back to them and was staring at the glowing orb, Zariel walked over to her and was shocked. Her eyes were completely glazed over and looking into nothingness.
"Zariel, she has been like this for an hour, please help her!"
Lyth was panicking while Vanlith, Medreth and Taevarth were looking guilty and afraid.
"What happened?" The boys flinched as they heard the sternness in Zariels voice, he had noticed their looks of guilt.
"W-we walked out of the perimeter and we th-thought that we saw something run into the cave here, so we ran to catch it and we found the glowing orb thing here, it didn't do anything for an hour so we dared Nerreth to touch it an-and when she did she just froze" Vanlith explained while stuttering, the others nodded their heads trying to get their honesty to relieve them from the punishment that was likely to come
He could tell they were leaving something out of their story but didn't dig any deeper yet, his main concern was fixing Nerreth. She was still frozen and staring at the orb, Lyth was on the verge of tears and they boys were looking somehow guiltier which Zariel didn't think was possible at this point, because they all looked so pitiful he sighed and gave them a smile.
"Don't worry, I'll fix her! I just need to find out what that thing is"
Zariel was confused about the glowing orb just as much as they were, in the boys story they saw something running into the cave but they should really be the only things alive on this planet. At first Zariel tried what he always tried when meeting new things that might or have sentience.
"Hello, my name is Zariel and i was wondering whether you could stop whatever you are doing to Nerreth"
After a few seconds of silence it suddenly spoke to everyone's surprise
"I Am Hungry" It said in a monotonous tone
"Are you planning on eating her?" Zariel said, concern was evident in his voice
"I Am Thirsty" It once again responded
"What are your intentions with the child?" Zariel had grown fond of the dragons over the past year, he had broken his rule of not caring but he thought of them as his own children now, he was prepared to fight this thing.
"I Am Alone" It's tone was now less monotonous, it sounded like it might cry. Even Lyth felt she wanted to just hug it but after what she saw happen to Nerreth she chose the better alternative of staying put.
"How are you alone? Who are you?" Zariel felt he was progressing with it, maybe if he could help it would release Nerreth.
"I Am The Last Of My Kind, I Am Ragnarok, My Planet Is Gone, I Am Alone"
Zariel almost laughed, he felt guilty but when it mentioned its kind he thought of a planet with floating balls everywhere and they had hats on, he didn't knowwhether the hat thing came from but it was still funny to him. And who wouldn't laugh at hats on balls? He pushed down the laughter and inquired further while it seemed to answer his questions willingly
"What are you doing to Nerreth?"
"I Am Speaking, I Am Befriending"
He was concerned on what that meant to a seemingly alien being but he relaxed slightly. The very next second Nerreth seemed to come out of her trance and yelled out "Don't Hurt him!"
Everyone was surprised at her sudden outburst, who knows how the orb felt, it didn't really have a face. Zariel rushed up to Nerreth and checked to see if she was okay, her long body was curled around the orb now and she looked like she was using her body to protect it and maybe even hug it. She was fine but she was acting extremely protective of it.
"I won't hurt it but are you okay? Did it do anything to you?"
"No! He just wanted to talk! He's lonely, his planet Tereq was destroyed by an opposing alien race and he was the only one that could run away in time, he was a warrior there."
"How do you know so much Nerreth?" Lyth chimed in, she was glad her sister was okay and felt awkward that there was nothing she could do right now.
"We talked in our heads, like what Zariel showed us except he could make it so no one could hear us, he also learnt out language from me, I learnt about him and I told him about us, but Zariel he's so kind and he is just alone can we keep him? pretty please?"
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Zariel smiled, he was just happy that Nerreth was back and being on a developing planet can get pretty boring so the more the merrier.
"Of course we can keep him but I think he's a person not a pet Nerreth"
Nerreth smiled, of course she just seemed like she was smiling but dragon faces always have a wide mouth, as they walked out of the cave Ragnarok just kept hovering and moving, Nerreth was still wrapped around him and she basically had a free ride, Zariel had a feeling that she was going to use him as transport from now on.
The next day he woke up to the usual scene of 5 dragons laying around him like dogs, they were actually the size of large dogs already and had similar characteristics when behaving, they wagged their tail when happy and were constantly begging to be patted, he smiled fondly at their sleeping figures and looked around the cave, it was a complete mess with pebbles and rock shards everywhere and his makeshift workbench and lab where he passed his time, on top his workbench today however was Ragnarok, they all decided to call him Rag for short, Nerreth sometimes called him Raggy as they seemed better acquainted anybody else, he looked powered down like a machine right now with his glow turned off and he was no longer hovering.
He got up as the dragons stirred, his bed was enlarged to be even bigger than a king size, in fact it was probably two king sizes put together that's how wide it was, he had remodeled the cave so it had rooms for each of the dragons but they didn't use them much to his dismay. He was still more advanced and had a higher energy capacity than them so he always did all the work even when they could easily contribute, he thought about when they were older they won't want to cuddle with him later.
As he started to sink into a hole of depression that most parents fall into when their children are infants and they think about the future he was awoken out of his delusions of the children not talking or snuggling him anymore by Ragnarok powering up, he started glowing again and rose off the table, he looked around and saw that everyone except Zariel was asleep still.
Outside the cave they could see the blue sun rising, a white planet with orange rings could be seen in the distant space.
Surprisingly Ragnarok was the first to speak.
"Who Are You?" He inquired, Zariel wondered why Rag asked this because he should already know.
"I am Zariel, I raise these children and educate them, you should know that from Nerreth when yo-"
"Do Not Play Games, You Are Not From This Planet And You Are Older Than Me, I Have Lived For A Long Time But You Are The First I Have Met Who Outdates Me By The Millions" Rag interjected
Zariel frowned, he wondered how Rag had figured that out.
"I am Zariel and that is all you need to know, what I need to know is how do you know I am not from here?"
Rag paused, like he was pondering and then suddenly his spherical form started to warp, he slowly morphed into a male human shape, he now looked like a man in his late 40's with grey hair, a grey beard that was trimmed and grey eyes, he had black clothes on that looked like a ninja suit but armoured plates were visible underneath it, he also had a black cloak wrapped around him. He truly did look like a warrior with the scars on his face and hands, they were the only skin visible but Zariel knew that there was more scars underneath his clothes. Rag now just looked like a really mean uncle or grandfather as his scars added age to him.
"I Have Chips Implanted Into Me, They Allow Me To Compress My Body Into An Orb And See The Profile Of Someone, They Have Other Purposes But They Are Not Necessary To Explain Right Now"
"How do you see my profile? We have never met before so you shouldn't have any data on me"
"It Analyses Your Body And Predicts Your Stats. If A Man Has Hardened Skin On His Hand And Calluses Then The System Will Predict Whether It Is From Swinging An Axe Or Sword, I Can Tell That Those Children Are A Year Old And Were Born From This Planet "
"Don't you mean 'on' instead of 'from'?" Zariel enquired, he had always thought that perhaps the goddess had sent the eggs to the lava pits for them to hatch, warm temperatures was the proper climate for reptile eggs and he could only imagine what temperature a dragon egg would need.
"The Planet Seems To Have A Consciousness, It Is Faint And Based Off Basic Instinct But It Is There, It Has Set Tasks To Do And Creating Those Dragonlings Was The First"
Zariel processed this new information, he wondered if this meant he could talk to the planet...
"What about me then, what does it say for me?"
"Age: 6 405 912 000
Name: Unavailable
Birth Place: Earth
I Repeat My Question Earlier 'Zariel', Who Are You?"
"It's a long story, and I will tell you when I finally trust you but for now I will tell you this, I am the man that will destroy you if you dare harm the children and since you are stuck with us for about a couple million or billion years I expect you to contribute, ok? And stop talking so weirdly"
"Do You mean For Me to Talk Like this?" Rag's voice was now less monotonous but still sounded disjointed but the more he talked the more normal he sounded
"Close enough, I have to ask and I know that it is unlikely but, can you make clothes?" He looked down and the clothes he had now, they were torn and ruined and rotting, that's what 12 000 years can do to it but he never had any resources to fix it or make new ones. He also had been growing a beard but learnt to cut it with rocks he made that were sharper than a sword.
"I Have a Chip That Allows me to Form fabrics into clothes, do you have a fabric or string?"
Zariel sighed but suddenly remembered what he had discovered with Dark magic a week ago with Taevarth, he could form a string that was as strong as rope but in all his years of life he had never learnt sewing or weaving thus making it unuseable to him but now was the perfect opportunity.
"I do!"
For the next four hours the two men worked on clothes for Zariel, he insisted on new suits, he made Ragnarok work like a slave, mass producing suits custom made for Zariel. Unknown to them they bonded over those four hours, Zariel trusted Ragnarok more and visa versa.
And then the dragons woke up to see Zariel in his new suits and clean shaven face, their shock was extremely amusing to him, but they broke out of their shock because almost as if one cue their whole cave system started to collapse, and all they can do is dodge as the rocks started to fall from the ceiling.
"Get outside" cried Zariel, and they ran.
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HAHAHA, Have fun with that cliffhanger, also I just found a paralysis tick on my cat, but don't worry I acted like a responsible adult! And cried and called my parents to help, in hindsight I should have called a vet first but it is okay because she is all better now! And after that shock I brought her a special gift to cheer her up which was SNUGGLES. My dogs got very jealous.
Ps: Yes I am a lonely animal person, I have 2 adorable dogs and an adorable cat, if you have a cute pet talk about them in the comments and I'll tell you in every possible way that mine are cuter!