The Forgotten Pantheon...

Hatching: Umbra

Hatching Excerpt: Another white, this one a purple-marked female, looked up at Umbra with adoration somehow unmistakable in the yellow lights of her eyes. "Sorry I had to do that," she murmured, her voice gentle and soft. "I'm Tohala!"

Umbra looks from her bond to her human-form hand, which has been bandaged with a sort of adhesive thing which sticks to her dark skin. Having come from a more primitive planet, without much of the technology she has seen here, Umbra is hardly familiar with what some call "band-aids".

Umbra considers the sequence of events again. Tohala, her beautiful little bond, found it necessary to bond by blood to Umbra - her Wris'Talora heritage made it so. Thus, when the dragon Joyagi had told her to hold out a hand to the approaching hatchlings, Umbra had shifted to a human form to do so. Then, before she knew it, Tohala had bitten her, drawing two little pinpricks of blood on her finger.

"Soul-bonding," Tohala says. "It's not an especially nice thing, but it's quick!"

"I understand completely, Tohala," Umbra replies.

"There's something else, too. When I soul-bonded you, I actually got some of your abilities!" With this comment, she quickly shape-shifts, surprising Umbra. A small child, appearing to be no more than four years of age, stands next to her, bright fiery amber eyes staring up into hers.

"See?"

"Your head... it's not a skull."

"I know," she says, looking disappointed. "But my arms are still nice!"

Umbra looks at her human form. Tohala is human, of course, but with the most dazzling white skin. Her hair, which flows past her shoulders, is bold purple. She is dressed in purple, but on closer inspection, Umbra sees her purple markings have remained on her, and where purple fur once grew, her ankles are purple. Her hands are bone, none of the skin or flesh remaining, just like in her dragon form. Her eyes have pupils but blaze with the same fiery yellow light.

Umbra nods. "I'm impressed."

"Thank you," Tohala tells her, shifting back into her dragon form. "I like me like this better, though."

"You're perfect, Tohala." Umbra smiles, shifting into her draconic form to keep the dragonet company in her own form. "Perfect, and nothing can ever match up to you."