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Part 1

The hybrid's head ducked into the water and took a few deep mouthfuls. It was not the clearest of lakes, but feeling thirsty after a good meal of fish was to be expected. The half dragon didn't often eat fish because they were not that easy to catch in any real quantity. But having a hunting partner helped in driving them into the shallows where they panicked and were easy to pick off to fill your stomach.

Her head lifted out of the lake, dark brown beak dripping with water. The summer sun reflected off each drop as they tumbled back down into the surface sending chaotic waves dancing outwards. Her short ivory horns looking a little lost next to her larger furry brown ears and mane. She realised she was being watched.

"Are you yet again imagining mating with me?", she said trying to hide the smirk forming around her beak.

Yogoloth snapped out of his chain of thought. In honesty, he hadn't been thinking about sex at that moment, but the mention of it suddenly pushed the idea to the front of his mind. His eyes wandered across his new companion's brown scaly body and he felt a little warmer. Another hybrid, a female, he found her incredibly exotic and more than a little attractive.

"Can I not even innocently watch you drink without such baseless accusations?", Yogoloth exclaimed dramatically, feigning offense.

"No.", Lenela replied simply as she turned her side towards the feathery hybrid. "Not when you're looking under my tail again."

Yogoloth's eyes shot up to meet Lenela's own. "I... was... admiring your technique!"

"In drinking water from a lake? I'm sure you'll soon have mastered all kinds of water drinking, even from rivers; you were concentrating on my 'technique' with such focus.", the scaly brown hybrid said as she turned towards Yogoloth and padded closer.

Yogoloth stayed settled on his belly and grinned innocently. Lenela had told him in no uncertain terms that he would never get to mate with her. She just wasn't interested and would not humour his advances. He wasn't about to beg, so he had watched her instead. He really hoped she'd change her mind, but she was a stubborn creature and he wasn't about to pounce on her without invitation. Though he would certainly love to try.

Meeting someone like Lenela had been like a life's dream come true to the young hybrid. He'd always wondered about other hybrids. How similar would they be? Would they have magic? Be scaly, or feathery? Would they too have purple eyes and tongue? So many questions had buzzed around his head in the past, now some at least had finally been answered.

Lenela settled down in front of him and smiled pleasantly. Like a true gryphon, the pink flesh in and around her dark brown beak was perfectly expressive. She had lighter brown ears that were similar to the mid tones in Yogoloth's wings. She shook a bit of water from her face and her mane sprayed a few drops into his face.

Apart from that, her head was mostly dragon-like in shape and appearance. It was scaly with two short ivory horns pointing back. She settled on her belly scutes and her brown leathery wings folded against her scaly flanks. Although her body, tail and hind legs were exactly like a dragon's and her wings leathery, they were all brown like a gryphon's fur; not green as a dragon's scales should be. There wasn't a hint of green on her apart from her gryphon-like eyes.

She folded her dark brown talons on the ground between them both and curled her scaly tail around. Her wings settled properly against her flanks and the feathers that half covered the tops of the leathery membranes fluttered in the warm breeze.

"I don't really know where to start. I suppose how my mother came to be part of the gryphon colony where I grew up. She was a dragon like yours.", she began, a little unsure of how to start the story she'd never told anyone before. But Yogoloth had told her his story, so it was only fair. The differences in how they came to be were striking.

Yogoloth wasn't sure if he was more thrilled about a story about a fellow hybrid or the fact that he was hearing it from the hybrid herself. He tried not to look like an excited hatching as he listened intently.

"I guess it all started when my grandmother was killed by a rival female, leaving her hatchlings without anyone to raise them.", Lenela began.

Part 2

"Almost everything of what my mother knows about my grandmother is what the gryphons told her. She was so young when they found her...", Lenela stopped for a moment and looked down at the ground, regaining her composure. "Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself."

Yogoloth wasn't about to correct her use of the gryphon 'grandmother' when talking about her second mother. He felt sad for Lenela and even more so for her mother. To be a dragon without any of the dragon teachings seemed truly terrible in his mind. Dragons were defined by their age first, but then by their history second. To have neither...

Yogoloth himself could tell stories and histories that went back six generations. From mother to hatching for nearly 2,000 years. The oldest civilised book would have long crumbled to dust over such time. Lenela looked back up, met his gaze and smiled.

"My birth colony, Valley-River-Run, has a good territory which provides plenty of hunting grounds to feed the gryphons who live there. It neighbours a dragon territory and the dragoness who lived there had as good a relationship with the colony as you could hope for."

"There was no competition, no aggression, they even talked on occasion when gryphon patrols or hunting parties spotted her in the distance and she flew in to investigate. The border between the two territories was so flexible that we still don't know where it truly lies. We expect she knew exactly but never saw the point in enforcing it strictly with us... well, the gryphons at the time. You know what I mean."

Yogoloth smiled. "Dragons often get along better with neighbouring gryphons than neighbouring dragons, it's just our way I suppose."

"You really do see yourself as more of a dragon than a gryphon, don't you? We seem as different as two creatures could be.", Lenela looked thoughtful for a second before continuing.

"Generations of gryphons we're born, raised families and died; all the while she just grew bigger and stronger. Even the oldest gryphons I know were not alive to remember her now. All my mother has is the description she was given as a hatching by the gryphons who adopted her... she cannot even remember her voice...", Lenela finished with a whisper.

The scaly hybrid shifted uncomfortably, swallowed and looked away again. Her eyes glistened as she took a deep wavering breath. "She pretends it doesn't bother her. But I can see it does. I hate to see her like that."

Yogoloth's heart sank. It was one thing to lose your family history, but to not even have a memory of the mother who gave you your blood, who carried you, who brooded over your egg, who hatched you; it must be more difficult than he knew. He reached out a fore paw and placed it on top of her dark talons. She stiffened briefly and looked down at the green clawed paw. A forced smile formed around her beak as she relaxed again.

"The gryphons heard the battle while out night hunting, something they used to do to test each other's skill; it's a male thing I guess. It sounded like a terrible thing. Fire lit up the night's sky, roars of anger and pain could be heard for miles. The following morning the Elders decided to send a group to see what happened. If she needed help then we'd be there to support her like she had once driven a young dragon from challenging our territory. She could do without bloodshed, that which would have otherwise ended in violence. She sounded like such a wise dragoness."

"They found her, not too far from the border. The challenging female dragon lay dead a little distance away and my grand mother was barely clinging to life herself. They said that they'd never seen so much blood nor injuries so severe. There had been no hope to save her. She recognised the gryphons though, and told them to seek out her lair. If they held any compassion towards her, they would do this for her. She didn't live much longer after that."

There was a pause as Lenela took a deep breath and shook her head.

"They returned to the colony and told the Elders what had happened. It was days before they agreed to send a group to seek out her lair. They knew roughly where it was, there weren't many hilly areas where caves could be hidden. By the time they got there, only one of her hatchings still clung to life. She was weak, clinging to her dead siblings, eyes wide at the gryphons who found her. If they'd sent a group earlier... if they'd not delayed..."

Yogoloth gripped her talon a little tighter. "No one can say what would have happened if things had gone differently. Your mother survived, you had the chance to live. Things happened just as they were meant to."

Lenela smiled and laid her head on top of Yogoloth's paw, trapping it between her beak and talons. "I'm not sure I believe in fate. But thank you anyway."

"They raised my mother as their own. It wasn't as similar to raising a gryphon as they'd first thought though.", she continued a little more positively and with a smirk.

Part 3

"The life of a dragon growing up on a gryphon colony wasn't easy. So many little things were different. My mother grew much slower than the young gryphons she called friends. Even as a hatchling, she saw smaller playmates grow up and out grow her. She even set fire to a forest when she accidentally breathed fire for the first time. How do you teach a dragon to control their fire when you've no idea how it works? The gryphons who cared for her also grew old and moved on.", Lenela sighed. "I cannot imagine what it's like, to have no permanent connections to the individual people where you live."

"Anyway, she grew up and found a decent enough cave a little way from the colony to call her own. She's still a daily part of colony life. She just has to watch gryphons come and go at a pace her dragon ways are not designed for. She helps teach magic to young gryphons, she watches over fledglings as they stumble in the skies. She broods over eggs to give other gryphons a break, so they could go hunt with their mates or what ever they wanted to do. She's often the centre of attention when stories are told, she has a wonderful voice and a near perfect memory."

Yogoloth angrily rumbled in his chest. "It sounds like they're using her."

"No. No. They love her. They really do, every gryphon on the colony grew up with her there. Even the Elders remember her either teaching them magic or helping them fly or hunt. Or breaking up fights, she can paralyse any two gryphons with a thought, no matter how powerful they are. They respect her so much, she's been an Elder longer than any other member of the colony. She connects with the colony itself, but tries not to get too close to any specific gryphons."

"She sounds a little... lonely.", Yogoloth said quietly. Lenela smiled slightly and looked at the ground between them. One of her talons turned and curled up against one of his claws and he flexed them not knowing what else to do.

"She was... until I came along.", she said almost bitterly.

"Don't get me wrong, there weren't many, but she made some very close friends over the decades. I don't just mean males, but yes, there were those too.", she chuckled to herself. "They saw through her scales and she through their feathers. It didn't matter that they were so different on the outside when they shared so many values on the inside. But the gryphons soon either found a gryphoness mate or flew the colony to find their own place in the world... or grew old and..."

"At some point a young male dragon had moved into her mother's old territory. He wasn't hostile to the colony but nor did he seem to have any other interest in it either. They hardly ever saw him, he didn't seem to venture anywhere near the borders for some reason."

Yogoloth added quietly. "Males tend not to hold large territories unless they're the nesting sort; maybe a tenth or so. The borders probably shrank without you even knowing."

"Well, one day his roars could be heard across the colony. Like nothing anyone had heard before. There was talk that maybe he was challenging another male, or perhaps he was preparing to threaten the colony for its territory. But my mother knew instinctively what it was. He was calling for a mate. She felt a draw inside of her, a need to go and size him up. So she did."

"My mother didn't tell me exactly what happened, but I know she just couldn't do it. It wasn't that he wasn't strong enough, old enough or attractive enough. But she had spent over 200 years living with gryphons, taking a few of them into her nest. She just... I don't know..."

"She came back to the colony and she never said anything and no one asked her about it. Everyone knew why she had gone to meet him and when she grew heavy with eggs, they all assumed they were his. After all the years she had mated with gryphons, it had been the meeting with this male dragon that had somehow caused her to become pregnant by a gryphon. It was as though just hearing his call or meeting him in person had triggered something inside of her."

Yogoloth's eyes widened and a smile on his snout grew. "It was... the same with my mother!", he said slightly energetically. "But she hadn't long known my father when the drake came along. Maybe dragonesses need a male around to produce eggs at all? I know gryphons don't work that way."

"She knew the three eggs that she brooded over where not the dragon's, it just wasn't possible, but she told no one. For nearly nine moons she brooded those eggs. Throughout that time the gryphons of the colony brought her food, helped brood the eggs for her, anything to help. They began to hatch and... they were..."

Lenela gripped Yogoloth's paw tightly and let out a wavering breath. Her emotions threatening to overwhelm her again. The other gryphons had told her about what had happened, once she had grown old enough. She'd even spoken to her mother about it. But the look on her mother's face as she told it, had made the young hybrid regret bringing it up right away. But her mother had forced the story out, despite how much it hurt her. So the least she could do was to finish this story for Yogoloth.

"But you hatched right, Lenela!", he encouraged.

"No. No I didn't."

Part 4

Yogoloth lifted his head and cast his gaze over the hybrid before him. Her strong leathery wings, her scaly brown flanks, her attractive beak and bright eyes looked fine and healthy. She'd flown wonderfully and conversation, although a little awkward at times, was intelligent and enjoyable. The scaly half-gryphon hadn't hatched wrong, she was being foolish.

"It took me a while to accept what I was too. Other dragons and gryphons didn't exactly-", he began, but Lenela interrupted.

"No, that's not what I mean. I did hatch wrong. I was dying.", she began as Yogoloth settled down again.

"Like I said, there were three eggs. One was already dead, the other two tried to hatch themselves; me and my sister, Brenela. She had to be helped out. But we were both just wrong, just... she didn't live long. I don't remember her of course. I was dying too, I couldn't feed, would never have flown, my hind legs had hardly any bones in them.", she lifted one of her fore legs up between herself and Yogoloth and slowly wiggled her dark talons. "Even these were all fused together."

"How did you...?", Yogoloth began to ask, slightly confused at how Lenela could ever have been like that.

"I told you, they love her.", she smiled and put her talons down on top of Yogoloth's paws, trapping them between both fore legs. "My mother just totally broke down, they'd never seen her cry before. They just assumed dragons couldn't cry. Many of the gryphons had seen her as a little distant maybe. The dragoness who kept to herself most of the time but had taught them how to hunt or told them stories around a fire at night. They just... hadn't expected any of this. They just couldn't bare to see her like that."

"A group of them agreed that they'd do anything to help her, anything. So they just... gave themselves to her. All the magic they had, as much life force as they could spare. They wouldn't give their lives, but they would allow her as much as they could spare. They trusted her that much."

"My mother was a dragon of great power. I don't know how powerful she was compared to other dragons, but she could do things that she hadn't even been taught. With the power leant to her, she fixed me. It took days, weeks, months to put everything right. She needed someone who... who she wasn't going to out live...", Lenela ground her beak a little. "I failed her."

Yogoloth swallowed involuntarily, he'd had a feeling this was what must have happened. Blood magic. But here, this far to the east, the laws were different. The dragons and gryphons here knew of the Scarlet Feathers, but it hadn't affected them directly. Using another's life force, with their permission, was allowed. But his instinct was to recoil from Lenela, to pull away from this creature born of blood magic.

"What's wrong?", she asked, realising something was bothering Yogoloth. But he forced himself to smile, she was just a hybrid like him. The love that had allowed Lenela to survive and prosper was no different from the love that had allowed him to live. Suffering had been prevented, life had been saved and a dragoness had raised her hatchling. All was just as it should be.

"Nothing, just me being stupid. Tell your story please."

"My mother out lives generation after generation of gryphons. But she would never leave the colony just to save herself from that. She loves the colony as much as the gryphons in the colony love her. She tries not to have any close relations, but it happens, and she watches them grow old and die. She thought I would be like her, a constant, someone that wouldn't die on her. But I age like a gryphon. It's why when I felt the urge to fly the nest, I just did."

There was a pause and Yogoloth felt he should say something. "So she wouldn't have to watch you grow old and die too."

Lenela nodded. "It was hard at first. But the instinct was strong and I just gave in to it. I miss the colony, but I couldn't ever go back now."

Part 5

Yogoloth had never really thought about the way he lived his life year by year much before. He hunted, he slept, he explored. Even with his mate Natanii around he never felt the need to settle and she was often busy with her civilized stuff anyway. It worked for them and he felt like he had a good life. Listening to Lenela talk about having to abandon her home, made him suddenly think about the uncertain, ever shifting future.

He had the luxury of a long life, centuries lay ahead of him. It didn't matter that he had no direction, he had time to find one. But his fellow hybrid didn't have that sort of time. Yogoloth glanced over Lenela's sparse feathers and fur, trying to judge her age. He wasn't an expert on gryphons, but Lenela was still fairly young, maybe thirty or forty years old. If she was aging like a true gryphon, that gave her another forty or fifty years at least.

"So you've been travelling for... maybe fifteen years?", he asked.

"Closer to twenty. I've had a few scrapes over that time, but nothing I couldn't fight off or out run.", she smiled will a little pride.

"Couldn't you have stayed and made her a second mother?", Yogoloth noticed the look of confusion on Lenela's face. "I mean... erm, grand mother?"

"The gryphons on the colony... well... they never really accepted me. My mother is a pure dragon, that's perfectly natural. But I'm something else, hatched wrong... I never really made any friends. I never felt the urge either and no males showed any interest anyway."

Yogoloth's ears perked up and it did not go unnoticed by the female hybrid. Lenela laughed and gripped his paws tightly in her talons. He made her laugh and she hadn't had such a long conversation in many years. It felt good to relax, with a belly full of fish and share conversation with someone who uniquely had something in common with her. His story was so unlike hers and yet she did feel a connection forming between them. He wasn't unpleasant to look at and it would be a shame to watch him fly away.

"Oh Yogoloth, your ears betray your feelings more than your tongue does!", Lenela laughed again as his ears drooped back down.

"I wasn't suggesting...", Yogoloth trailed off, feeling a little self conscious.

He wasn't going to try to mate Lenela, he didn't even feel like that about her now. She felt more like a new friend than a potential mate. He found himself beginning to care for her and wished there was more he could do to make her burdens feel lighter. It seemed like she had been through a lot in her short life, just like he had, and it didn't seem quite fair. She was half way through her life already and her future didn't seem as bright as she deserved. Lenela smiled and it warmed him through.

"I'm really glad I decided to fly over to the gryphon who tipped his wing to me in the distance. I'm glad he was you."

"I'm glad I tipped my wing to the shape that I couldn't quite make out through the glare of the sun!", Yogoloth chuckled as he suddenly made his mind up about something. "Here I have something for you to take with you."

Yogoloth reluctantly pulled himself away from the female hybrid and sat on his rump. Lenela let him go and sat up also, her ears flicked a little at some flies that dared to fly too close. He tensed his nesting bladder carefully as he had done many times before. The expression on her face was one of confusion and intrigue. He felt the familiar feeling in his throat as the small leather pouch rose up and he spat it out onto the ground. It was an odd feeling, one that he'd never quite gotten used to.

"Oh, a pouch covered in dragon spit, how thoughtful."

Yogoloth smirked at the comment as he carefully opened up the pouch with the tips of his claws. The contents of the pouch consisted of civilised coins, some semi precious stones, a small piece of metal and a flint. The hybrid had decided he quite liked the idea of being able to make a fire without magic. He quickly found what he was looking for in the pouch, even if fishing it out was a little tricky with his claws. The pouch was small and not designed with dragon paws in mind.

"You told me that you never developed any magic of your own. So here, this is for you.", Yogoloth smiled as he held out an unusually cut fire opal. "It doesn't mean we're engaged or anything,", he chuckled at a memory. "I just figured you'd find it more useful than I."

Part 6

The scaly hybrid took the small stone and stared at it for a moment. What did this mean? She didn't need money or anything for trade. Why did this have anything to do with magic? Her ears twisted slightly in confusion, it was a rather pretty gem. She forced a smile and looked back up meet his gaze.

"Thank you... it's...", Lenela began hoping the words would come to her, but they didn't.

Yogoloth had wondered if she would know anything about channel stones. His mother had taught him, after all, she had one to show to him. But they were very rare and without all the centuries of history, she might not even know they exist. His old friend Marrus, who had been the stone's previous owner, had the advantage of basic dragonic training and knowledge. He'd identified it fairly quickly after a gentle prod.

"It's called a channel stone. You can use its magic instead of needing your own.", he tried not to smirk; he didn't want her to feel bad about not knowing what it was.

"Oooh...", she breathed in slight relief as she realised it was a practical gift. "Oh!", she suddenly exclaimed as she then realised what he had said. "You mean...?"

Yogoloth busied himself by tightly fastening the leather pouch up while her eyes were drawn back to the stone. It had a strange triangular cut and was a fair bit smaller than a chicken egg. Quite valuable in its own right, but otherwise unremarkable. She turned it over in her dark dexterous talons and it glimmered in the light.

It had been a while since she had last wielded magic. Without a pool of her own, she relied on others to share their magic with her. She'd never heard of objects being able to contain magic before, just magic being placed in things. But that magic would only work once and couldn't be recycled into anything else. She reached out her magical senses and studied the stone for a moment, it shone brightly in her mind's eye. The amount paled in comparison to her mother's pool, but it was about the same as the average gryphon.

"Yogoloth...", she gasped. "It's... wonderful!", she felt an uncontrollable grin form around her beak as she reached inside the stone and tugged gently at the power within. It flowed easily and she wove some into a simple shape she hadn't been able to make since she left the colony behind. She placed it into her beak and quickly took a couple of steps back.

"Watch this!", Lenela spoke with hatchling-like excitement. Without waiting to see if Yogoloth was watching she turned towards the lake and looked out over the peaceful waters. She opened her beak, took a deep breath and let loose a burst of dragon fire out across the water. Calls of alarm rang out from the trees as birds scattered at the sudden inferno. The surface rippled at the rush of air that accompanied the intense heat.

Yogoloth found himself a little in awe. He hadn't seen a dragon breathe fire in over thirty years and that had been his mother. In fact, he hadn't seen any other creature breathe fire at all... well, not successfully anyway. He'd sabotaged that older male's. But you didn't need magic to breathe fire, so why the sudden excitement?

"That's amazing, but surely you can do that without magic?"

"I can.", the scaly female replied, wide eyed and slightly giddy. "But it melts my beak. I have to have magic to stop that happening.", she explained with a chuckle. She always liked breathing fire. Her mother complained that it made her mouth feel and taste disgusting for hours if not days after, but Lenela never noticed anything like that. She all but pounced on Yogoloth and wrapped him in her talons and wings.

"Thank you Yogoloth! You've no idea how much this... means to me...", she said feeling suddenly quite emotional. She smirked before adding. "This still doesn't mean you get to mate me."

"I gave you the stone because you'll get more use out of it than I do.", he replied, hugging back happily. The feel of a scaly female against his hide brought back happy memories from when he was just a fledgling. He felt both happy and sad at the memories. He grudgingly pulled back and added, "Be my Sky Sister."

Lenela looked him in the face and frowned, her ears twisted in confusion yet again. She had no idea what he meant and it showed plain as the beak on her face. Yogoloth was ready though, she might not understand the term, but he wasn't averse to teach her the things that she missed.

"We don't have any siblings anymore, we don't have any Nest Brothers or Sisters. So... would you be my Sky Sister instead? And I'll be your Sky Brother, if you'll have me.", he said resting his paws on her shoulders. "It's a dragon tradition. We can choose who our siblings are and treat them just the same. For a dragon, the bond between brothers and sisters can be just as strong as the bond between a mother and her clutch."

Lenela soaked up the words like the earth after heavy rains. She knew nothing of dragon history or tradition and this appealed to her. She was lonely at times, having grown up on the colony, surrounded by gryphons. To have a brother would be amazing. But was it as simple as that? To call someone your brother and that's that? She smiled.

"How does it work?", she asked, both nervous and a little excited.

"Just do what I do.", Yogoloth smiled broadly.

The feathery hybrid lifted his wings out either side of his body and Lenela did the same. He moved his forward until his tips touched hers and then moved his snout down to the base of her neck and gently placed his jaws around.

"W- what are you doing?", she asked, resisting the urge to pull away. She trusted him enough to know he want going to bite her, but was still confused. He pulled back just enough to speak.

"It's a sign of trust. That we hold each other's lives in our jaws... or beak.", she smirked up at her before adding, "We will support each other in our wings...".

His jaws gently gripped her scaly neck once more and she did the same to him. It wasn't quite so easy for her though. Although he was a little smaller than she was, her beak didn't open as wide. But she curved her neck around his and mouthed the scutes at the base of his throat. Then he opened himself and offered his unique signature to her.

She was briefly surprised and then dismayed. She had no magic to share her- Yes! Yes she did! She grinned around her beak and quickly used the channel stone to share her shape with him while committing his to memory. Then his wings stretched a little wider, encircled hers and he was hugging her. She hugged back, both delighted and little overwhelmed. She was still trying to get her mind round it all, it felt both very alien and very comforting at the same time. Yogoloth pulled away with a grin on his snout.

"The hug isn't technically part of the tradition, but it's a nice way to finish off I think.", he said as he settled on his rump and scratched an itch on his flank with hind paw.

"So, brother! Where are we headed now?", Lenela beamed at him. His fluffy ears perked up.

"You... want to come with me?"

"Of course I do.", she laughed, quickly realising he wasn't unsure about the idea, just surprised that she suggested it. "What kind of sister would I be if I let you go off in search of your father without a guide to the local area?"

"I... didn't think you would.", his smile grew and he moved forward and nuzzled her neck. She nuzzled back happily. "To the east. Two more days of travel and I'll send out another trace."

Lenela spread her wings ready, Yogoloth grinned and spread his own. Even if he didn't find his father by the end of his journey, at least he'd now found a sister.