Chapter Text
“Pom! Bud, you’ve got mud on you again.” Lazuli noted, moving over to the small Rainwing with an amused expression on her face. Pomegranate looked up at her from where he was searching for bugs, his talons up to his elbows were plastered with mud.
“How do you get so much on yourself each time?” Entropy rhetorically questioned, the Nightwing following behind Lazuli not to help out but simply to watch instead.
“But I want to find beetles!” Pomegranate whined as the Seawing picked him up by the scruff of his neck, twisting back and forth in an attempt to break free from her jaws. Scales shifting to red seeping across the yellow usually making up the scales coating his face, a clear show of his annoyance at being stopped.
“You can find more later when you're not coated in mud.” Lazuli announced once she could speak again after having dropped him in the center of their den, using her long finned tail to keep him in place when he tried to leave. “For now bud; you need to be cleaned.”
“Nooo!” The Rainwing cried, clawing at the rock beneath him to try to get purchase, escape was the only thing on his mind. Lazuli knew that Pomegranate had no problems with being clean, but instead hated being groomed, something about it not being common in his tribe.
After a moment of only her fighting the small dragonet, Scorch joined her to help keep him in place. The large Sandwing hybrid pinned the Rainwing down by proceeding to lay partly on top of him, squeezing more annoyed sounds out of Pomegranate. Lazuli could hear Entropy laughing outside, though unlike the nightwing, Boulder was ignoring them in favor of scratching out notes on a scroll.
“Boulder, you should join as well.” Scorch declared, eyeing the Mudwing, a determined look fitting itself onto his face. Knowing exactly what he had to do to lure the other over and get him to take a break from his work.
He could lure the other over through making it seem like he was helping someone else by being there. The Mudwing would never join them solely for his own gain, so it was perfect then that he could use Pomegranate as bait in his plan. Seeing as how Boulder had a soft spot for the dragonet, though he could be rather indulgent when he wanted to be for the others.
“Why would I want to join you idiots?” The Mudwing asked, turning a helmeted muzzle his way to presumably judge him for his actions. Though the metal hooked behind his horns with only a small slit for sight didn’t help Scorch with figuring out Boulder’s expression.
“Because Lazuli needs help cleaning Pomegranate, and I cannot.” He answered, gesturing to the Rainwing and Seawing that he was sat next too, still partly holding down Pom. While Lazuli ignored their conversation in favor of continuing with her self appointed job, most likely thinking of dunking the Rainwing into the nearby river.
“Fine. Since you all seem incompetent.” The Mudwing begrudged, hauling himself onto his talons to trudge over to the small pile they had formed.
Pomegranate’s pet scavenger, Gorgamungar, was watching them from its place leaning on the wall; he often kept an eye on the Rainwing no matter what was happening. Pointy stick at the ready if he thought it was necessary.
They settled into a small circle in silence, Pomegranate trapped in the middle of it of course. Having finally been calmed down by Lazuli and had at that point stopped fighting for freedom, given in to his necessary cleaning.
The sight was quite funny to Entropy, still just looking on from the cave’s entrance. With the rainwing half the size of the others being bapped in the face by a wide mudwing tongue. Since Seawings and Mudwings were very communal creatures it wasn’t that surprising that they gravitated towards the youngest among them.
Pomegranate suffered the consequences of his size and age on a daily basis, mostly that he wasn’t allowed to go off on his own most of the time. Though the others didn’t do much better with their respective pains either. Lazuli was always the first to be given any water rations they had, and no one would allow her to go too long without proper hydration. Boulder as a Mudwing was forced to be kept warm, usually being put at the bottom of sleeping piles because of that. Scorch mostly got off scott free, though that was not always the case since at times like Boulder he was kept as warm as possible to keep him comfortable. Entropy; since he was a Nightwing, did not have any specific needs, everyone treated him with love regardless.
All together they made a very weird group, all of them from different clans with one of them being a hybrid. But as they were, with no words needing to be conveyed to show how well they got along, it worked quite well for them.