museboxofmuses | DRAGON AU

Prometheus hibernated a lot.

There wasn't much else to do, as a hermit-dragon. He couldn't venture out into the world in case some intrepid 'adventurer' wanted to slay him for bragging rights or his hide, he couldn't mingle with other dragons because he was one of Nidhogg's brood (a fact which was why he couldn't socialise with any Ishgardians because spears inevitably got involved in those conversations, he knew, he still had the scar on his hindquarters from his last naive attempt), and he knew absolutely no one else, knew nothing about the world or its new continents or civilisations, so hibernating it was.

But even then, sleeping got dull.

Prometheus sighed deeply, drawing his wings tighter about himself. Perhaps it was because he spent so much time sleeping, but his draconic body evolved to have furred wings - which was nice, it was very warm, even if they did shed some strange, fluffy black motes from time to time (he soon learned that these motes were highly toxic to mortals, probably from his subconscious desire to be left alone slipping into this body's maturing evolution). The downy undercoat of his wings was shed often and thickly enough that he even had a little nest, in a cave warmed by geothermic means, in the high mountains of Coethas. It was cosy, safe, and isolated.

It was also boring and devoid of anything. Prometheus came here... fuck, centuries? Or millennia? He couldn't remember. A long while, just after the war between Ishgard and the dragons kicked off in earnest. He flew here as a dragonnet, and slept and slept and slept, with miserable waking moments in between where he went to stretch his wings, eat a bear or something, and crawled back in his warm, soft cave to sleep some more.

He was avoiding reality, he knew. He didn't understand why he woke up in the form of a dragon - an alien species, not native to their star, how the hell did the reincarnation cycle mess up that badly!? - what happened to Amaurot, why the geography was completely different and... where Hades and Hythlodaeus were. He remembered, in the early days of his life, he would cry out through the Lifestream to hear nothing back, and was slowly accepting that, maybe, it was just him. Alone.

No Hades. No Hythlodaeus. Just him and his cave.

He exhaled heavily, flexing his claws as his body sluggishly roused from its latest bout of hibernation. His stomach was an empty pit of starvation, so he had to eat something calorie dense before dozing back off again. The only thing was, it took ages for his body to fully 'wake up'. Spending centuries practically in a coma made his limbs lock up, and it took a while for the aether flowing through his body to regain strength and feeling in them again. Not that he was in any rush...

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"And you got dragon slobber in his first," Hades said, leaning his face against his hand. "How the tables have turned."

"Aww, he doesn't like that," Hades said sweetly. "He'll be whatever he wants if he inherits a decent amount of utility of his Creation." Hades slid around to sit next to Prometheus. It was fun to watch Azeyma bully him, but that habit would be terrible once he was any bigger.

"You're chewing so much... Does it simply feel good, or are you teething...?" Hades risked a finger against his mouth, pushing his lip up to look at his teeth.

Aza stopped gnawing on Prometheus's hair when Hades probed at his mouth, though this meant he shifted targets to said finger, latching onto it. It felt like getting nibbled on by a puppy, the chewing not painful but clearly a risk for giving a nasty bite once his fangs sharpened up a bit more. He had a full set of teeth, but they weren't quite needle sharp just yet.

"Oi, no," Prometheus scolded, pausing his brushing and grabbing Aza's snout, forcing him off Hades's finger and keeping his mouth shit as he gave him a firm stare, "Do not bite people like that."

Aza whined, but when Prometheus let go of his snout, he didn't move to chew anything again. Instead he rested his chin on Prometheus's collarbone, heaving a loud, dramatic huff as he clearly sulked, doing the dragonet equivalent of a pout.

“Oh, poor baby... Your first day on the star and you’ve already been scolded twice,” Hades cooed, leaning in to kiss him between the eyes. He let his soul roll over Azeyma’s in soothing waves. He rested his arm over the two of them, cuddling close.

“Be a little kinder, mm? I know it comes from the right place, but...” Hades gazed into Azeyma’s eyes, becoming more lovestruck as the moments passed.

“Maybe you wouldn’t stick everything in your mouth if you had hands,” he mused as he touched his little paw pads.

"Maybe you should stop spoiling him so much," Prometheus said sarcastically, dragging the comb through Aza's thick fur along his back, "He's still a dragon, Hades. He can't go round biting anything that makes him curious willy nilly."

What happened if he bit Hythlodaeus really badly by accident and ended up with blood all over the place? It'd be traumatising for everyone involved! No, Prometheus would play stern parent if it meant mitigating those disastrous possibilities. Ugh, look what death and reincarnation had done to him. He was being responsible.

Gross.

"Here, be a darling and hold his tail would you?" Prometheus said, wagging his brush pointedly, "I don't have enough hands."

“Maybe if he has a sibling, I won’t be able to,” he said matter-of-factly. But he knew Prometheus was right at a certain point. He had sort of a miserable track record when it came to raising children. Well, his grandson. He had a hand in all of it. He could have perhaps achieved his goals without creating such a fracture between them. It was too late now. He shook those thoughts from his head, they were useless to him right now.

“Where did he get all this tail?” he asked with a chuckle. He brought his tail across, holding it like a newborn in one arm. He conjured another comb, gently brushing out micro bits of eggshell and debris at the point furthest from Prometheus.

“We will draft an article of rules we adhere to while raising him, then,” he said, not intending to create such a daunting task. He didn’t bother mentioning that he did have experience raising children, it would only prod a raw spot.

“Azeyma,” he said, prodding his soul as he said the name. “Can you say your own name?”

"Of course you'd want to have some sort of contract on child-rearing..." Prometheus muttered under his breath. Hades always had been rather keen on documentation and legal papers back in the day, probably due to his office but stars, did Prometheus hate it. Maybe they could compromise by doing what Mentor Metis used to do: the gold star chart. Good behaviour meant a gold star, and enough would culminate in a prize, bad behaviour would retract one...

As Prometheus fished through his foggy childhood memories for childhood rearing tips from Mentor Metis, Aza had stopped sulking. He was instead watching Hades brush out his tail with heavy-lidded, sleepy eyes, his soul feeling somewhat groggy.

"Zeee...?" Aza mumbled, sticking his tongue briefly as he stumbled over the word, "Zeeeya... Zee... ya ya..."

“... I heard that,” Hades said with a frown. “I suppose that is too stuffy, isn’t it? I just don’t want us to give him a personality disorder. I mean, we’re lucky. We can talk to him...”

Hades perked up and delighted at little Azeyma’s attempt. “Very good, clever boy. I’ll say it slower... Ahhh... zeeeeyyy...maaah.” Hades looked silly, over emphasizing his sounds and mouth movements.

He held one of his cute little feet in his hand as he spoke. “Now you try, my son.”

"He won't get a personality disorder. We have Hyth, who is, admittedly, the most emotionally stable of us three," Prometheus said, though he wondered what it said about them, that they had to lean on a third person to ensure their child was raised well-adjusted. Pft, it'll be fine. Aza's a dragon! Dragon are... robust. Mentally and physically!

(He very much did not think about Nidhogg and Hraesvelgr, who were both in no way shape or form well-adjusted dragons)

"Zee... mm..." Aza made a rude, raspberry sounded noise, wrinkling his snout in clear frustration, "Ahh... ass... ass! Ass!"

"Pft!" Prometheus coughed over a poorly suppressed laugh, "Um! No, it's, it's Az-"

"Ass!"

Oh dear.

"Oh, dear."

Hades chuckled with a hand laid flat on Azeyma's back.

"Not quite, my son," he says, massaging slow, comforting circles into his fur.

"I'm not really sure that Hyth is more stable than we're unstable, if I'm being honest. And is that fair to him? Well, besides the fact that he wouldn't be doing anything better, anyway..."

A bit rude, but it could have been more untrue, too...

Prometheus slanted Hades an unreadable look, "Rude. Hyth would be an exemplary parent."

Mentor Metis did earmark him to become a Mentor himself, one day - an honour Hyth had continuously denied because he was also incredibly lazy. Either that or he found it draining enough to babysit and referee Prometheus and Hades's daily dramatics. Add another three children onto that... Hyth would've expired from stress alone.

"Or, is an exemplary parent, since this is our group project," he added after a pause, poking Aza on his pink little nose. The dragonet had gotten bored of saying 'ass' and was now blowing bubbles. Oh, to have the short, easily amused attention span of a baby... life would be so much simpler.

"Aza," Prometheus crooned, "Can you say 'Hades'? 'Hay-de-ez'?"

Aza ignored him.

"Ah," Prometheus slouched a little, "Guess I'm boring..."

“Group project... He isn’t just some woven creation.” But he almost may as well be. All this care, attention, love...

“But he is a good parent. I wonder if we can coax him into making a couple of his own.” It seemed like Hades couldn’t leave the agrmates thing alone.

“Oh, let him be. I doubt I could even get his attention right now,” Hades said, stroking his soaked fur. Underwater it felt a bit like seaweed, but softer. “Isn’t that right, Azeyma?”

DRAGON AU

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