Dragons dream
Dec. 23rd, 2016 05:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI dreamt I got in a challenge fight because another dragon wanted my mate. And who could blame her, Captain Cold is quite the catch. But we were time travelling to a point in history where there was a terrible sustained assault on dragonkind and Britain had precisely one queen egg left and only a handful of viable adults, so I wouldn't take the challenge direct, because I didn't feel like tearing my rival apart or using my venoms on her. Instead our Champions would fight for us. And my Champion was Sara Lance, so, I was pretty confident of that outcome.
It was a whole complex dream which sort of worked through implications for a society where some members went into oestrus and forgot everything except mating, triggered some males to join them in mating fights, and generally had a stress atavism problem, with wings and tails.
Like, in the average A/B/O fic, people make couples A/O and the B gets ignored, as does everything else when the couple is in heat. But how does that even work with reproduction? They mate, they have kids, next cycle comes along and oops, sorry, hope kid could look after self for at least three days? So then Betas make sense as the ones who never forget the kids exist. And you'd need Betas you could really rely on. And in this dream the terminology didn't quite fit because standard genders ish, just dragony, but the same heat cycle problem applies: either you don't go into heat until the first kid is mature, or you need someone else to look after the kid.
Or actually both. Len had a kid, Michael, just about turning thirteen. This was the first time the whole cycle thing had happened, noticeably, with other dragons around, but it would explain a lot about how the kid got born in the first place. And Len had Mick, his absolutely loyal right hand guy, his Champion, and if anyone tried to hurt that kid behind Len's back, they would burn.
Mick was not a dragon, like Sara was not a dragon. They were just the most badass humans two dragons had formed a relationship with.
This puts the whole traditional connection between knights and dragons in a whole new light.
Dragons as necessarily polyship. Dragon nests with nurturers and defenders. Mating queens and the men trying to rise to be worthy of them.
The temporal local who set her eye on Len had unfortunately also caught the attention of Michael, who was mostly feeling awkward about all these new feelings, some of them bitey. Turning it into a challenge of two women for one man vastly reduced the chances of it becoming a fight of father versus son. But also distracted the available dragons so the kid kind of got left alone to deal with his tail popping for the first time. Which sounds like an obvious metaphor, but happened to the ladies too. Equal opportunity trouser snakes. They were the first visible sign of going dragon biological, of the way dragon instinct can overrule intellect, and along the path that led to full on mating flights. But only fully mature dragons could fully transform, ones that had outlived a human lifetime. Youngers were better at hiding as human. And they learned a way of tying a thong into a sort of tail holster to attach the awkward waving thing to their belt. Like a nice wide tail woggle.
... my dreams have the weirdest details.
Wings were advanced stuff. We would not need to worry about our teenager popping his wings. Most people were nearer fifty when their wings popped.
Len didn't pop a tail at all at all. Some people thought that was because he was so controlled, staying Cold. Others thought he was just one of those weird humans who respond to dragons, even breed with them, but aren't any sort of dragon themselves.
Then his wings popped so he could mantle them over our new egg.
Broody Len, with great big bat wings.
And of course his choice of other half makes great sense once the egg is there, because if anyone knows how to keep things warm it's Heatwave.
But he still didn't have a tail, and that was weirding some people out. But those of us who had seen a little more of him were feeling rather worse, and also absolutely furious, because it put a whole new spin on one of the scars he'd never talk about, one from when he was a kid.
If people can be dragons without knowing it, and yes, they can, if there aren't other dragons around to respond to, then they can end up married to humans and with little idea of the possibilities. And if dragons can also have body births with humans, as well as eggs with dragons, then there would be kids that seem perfectly ordinary. And that would explain the 'weird humans', they're part dragon. But if two 'weird humans' get together they could have a dragon with no dragon parents, having skipped a generation. And in a society with traditional prejudice against dragons that could go really really poorly.
... humanoids with bat wings, snake tails, and a whole set of violent instincts most humans can't dance with? There's prejudice.
And maybe there's kids taken away from parents suspected of being dragons? Maybe boarding schools, like several deliberate attempts to break up 'primitive' cultures. Or just an assumption that dragons are always going to be violent, even to their kids, eventually. Even though there's whole layers of dragon culture specifically designed to head that off.
Like the Champions.
And how dragons and humans are meant to get along, at their best.
... granted Mick and Len don't look like the best examples of a healthy relationship of any kind, especially given the solving problems with their fists phase, and Sara Lance as a typical Champion would make them a very very stabby sort, but in theory you could get people getting along quite well.
It's a weird sort of biology that can do eggs *and* live births. ... I quickly googled it, and the weird is 'reptiles'. Maybe. Different individuals in a species, anyways, " http://morgana249.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/5-modern-reptiles-that-give-birth-to.html The yellow-bellied three-toed skink can lay eggs, but individuals of the same species living in the colder mountain regions almost always give birth to live young. It seems that even though this species can lay eggs, they still retain their ability to produce with live birth and can switch back and forth." So, that's near enough what my dragons could do to be a fantasy world excuse. And if cold equals live young, sorted.
... yellow bellied three toes skinks are in Australia. well of course they are. that whole place does different.
Adders do live young but they grow in eggs inside the female? That seems awkward.
Huh, now I know more about reptile biology than I did when I woke up.
Dragons that need to make stable long term relationships with humans in order to have someone level headed around to look after the kids, now that big brains take longer to develop to independence than a single mating cycle. Dragons with Champions because their humans are so important to the success of their children that it's just as important to prove you've got a good one as it was to prove basic health with mating fights. Dragon mating fights being too hardcore, so the fewer dragons there are the less they want to risk it. Dragon women competing over the best men just as much as dragon men compete for women. Dragon nests forming from at least four people, two dragons and their Champions. Dragons switching from live births to egg laying depending on conditions.
And time travelling dragon Nests going back to the worst times in history, to save who they can.
Mick and Len and Sara and her dragon girlfriend as a travelling Nest, bringing newly teenage Michael Snart along, trying to keep him out of trouble.
Dragons.
:-)
Also, as plot bunny component, time travel through prayer, where you go to a suitably old holy place and ask for a miracle, and if your need is great enough, you walk out again somewhen else.
It was a whole complex dream which sort of worked through implications for a society where some members went into oestrus and forgot everything except mating, triggered some males to join them in mating fights, and generally had a stress atavism problem, with wings and tails.
Like, in the average A/B/O fic, people make couples A/O and the B gets ignored, as does everything else when the couple is in heat. But how does that even work with reproduction? They mate, they have kids, next cycle comes along and oops, sorry, hope kid could look after self for at least three days? So then Betas make sense as the ones who never forget the kids exist. And you'd need Betas you could really rely on. And in this dream the terminology didn't quite fit because standard genders ish, just dragony, but the same heat cycle problem applies: either you don't go into heat until the first kid is mature, or you need someone else to look after the kid.
Or actually both. Len had a kid, Michael, just about turning thirteen. This was the first time the whole cycle thing had happened, noticeably, with other dragons around, but it would explain a lot about how the kid got born in the first place. And Len had Mick, his absolutely loyal right hand guy, his Champion, and if anyone tried to hurt that kid behind Len's back, they would burn.
Mick was not a dragon, like Sara was not a dragon. They were just the most badass humans two dragons had formed a relationship with.
This puts the whole traditional connection between knights and dragons in a whole new light.
Dragons as necessarily polyship. Dragon nests with nurturers and defenders. Mating queens and the men trying to rise to be worthy of them.
The temporal local who set her eye on Len had unfortunately also caught the attention of Michael, who was mostly feeling awkward about all these new feelings, some of them bitey. Turning it into a challenge of two women for one man vastly reduced the chances of it becoming a fight of father versus son. But also distracted the available dragons so the kid kind of got left alone to deal with his tail popping for the first time. Which sounds like an obvious metaphor, but happened to the ladies too. Equal opportunity trouser snakes. They were the first visible sign of going dragon biological, of the way dragon instinct can overrule intellect, and along the path that led to full on mating flights. But only fully mature dragons could fully transform, ones that had outlived a human lifetime. Youngers were better at hiding as human. And they learned a way of tying a thong into a sort of tail holster to attach the awkward waving thing to their belt. Like a nice wide tail woggle.
... my dreams have the weirdest details.
Wings were advanced stuff. We would not need to worry about our teenager popping his wings. Most people were nearer fifty when their wings popped.
Len didn't pop a tail at all at all. Some people thought that was because he was so controlled, staying Cold. Others thought he was just one of those weird humans who respond to dragons, even breed with them, but aren't any sort of dragon themselves.
Then his wings popped so he could mantle them over our new egg.
Broody Len, with great big bat wings.
And of course his choice of other half makes great sense once the egg is there, because if anyone knows how to keep things warm it's Heatwave.
But he still didn't have a tail, and that was weirding some people out. But those of us who had seen a little more of him were feeling rather worse, and also absolutely furious, because it put a whole new spin on one of the scars he'd never talk about, one from when he was a kid.
If people can be dragons without knowing it, and yes, they can, if there aren't other dragons around to respond to, then they can end up married to humans and with little idea of the possibilities. And if dragons can also have body births with humans, as well as eggs with dragons, then there would be kids that seem perfectly ordinary. And that would explain the 'weird humans', they're part dragon. But if two 'weird humans' get together they could have a dragon with no dragon parents, having skipped a generation. And in a society with traditional prejudice against dragons that could go really really poorly.
... humanoids with bat wings, snake tails, and a whole set of violent instincts most humans can't dance with? There's prejudice.
And maybe there's kids taken away from parents suspected of being dragons? Maybe boarding schools, like several deliberate attempts to break up 'primitive' cultures. Or just an assumption that dragons are always going to be violent, even to their kids, eventually. Even though there's whole layers of dragon culture specifically designed to head that off.
Like the Champions.
And how dragons and humans are meant to get along, at their best.
... granted Mick and Len don't look like the best examples of a healthy relationship of any kind, especially given the solving problems with their fists phase, and Sara Lance as a typical Champion would make them a very very stabby sort, but in theory you could get people getting along quite well.
It's a weird sort of biology that can do eggs *and* live births. ... I quickly googled it, and the weird is 'reptiles'. Maybe. Different individuals in a species, anyways, " http://morgana249.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/5-modern-reptiles-that-give-birth-to.html The yellow-bellied three-toed skink can lay eggs, but individuals of the same species living in the colder mountain regions almost always give birth to live young. It seems that even though this species can lay eggs, they still retain their ability to produce with live birth and can switch back and forth." So, that's near enough what my dragons could do to be a fantasy world excuse. And if cold equals live young, sorted.
... yellow bellied three toes skinks are in Australia. well of course they are. that whole place does different.
Adders do live young but they grow in eggs inside the female? That seems awkward.
Huh, now I know more about reptile biology than I did when I woke up.
Dragons that need to make stable long term relationships with humans in order to have someone level headed around to look after the kids, now that big brains take longer to develop to independence than a single mating cycle. Dragons with Champions because their humans are so important to the success of their children that it's just as important to prove you've got a good one as it was to prove basic health with mating fights. Dragon mating fights being too hardcore, so the fewer dragons there are the less they want to risk it. Dragon women competing over the best men just as much as dragon men compete for women. Dragon nests forming from at least four people, two dragons and their Champions. Dragons switching from live births to egg laying depending on conditions.
And time travelling dragon Nests going back to the worst times in history, to save who they can.
Mick and Len and Sara and her dragon girlfriend as a travelling Nest, bringing newly teenage Michael Snart along, trying to keep him out of trouble.
Dragons.
:-)
Also, as plot bunny component, time travel through prayer, where you go to a suitably old holy place and ask for a miracle, and if your need is great enough, you walk out again somewhen else.
no subject
Date: 2016-12-23 07:18 am (UTC)and specifically refers to things for a neckerchief
Turk's head knot is the generic