SALAMANDER HATCHING -- New Salamander Acquisition Thread

[SkylerKarashi]

Tiptoe awoke with a start. The egg flopped against her side and startled her. She perked her head up, smiling as she watched with fascination. She watched the egg wiggle, then begin to crack, then a tail! Popping out of one of the cracks, a bright red tail poked out and she looked thrilled. Thrill turned to great confusion when out popped another tail, this one in a yellow color. Two? Not unheard of, but certainly not expected. The egg cracked further and, in one fell swoop, split in twoand two salamander babies fell apart from each other. Tiptoe blinked, then beamed a bright smile, proud of her two babies and amazed by how different they were. One a bright firey red color, the other a bright yellow, both so dear to her already. She pulled them closed and snuggled the squirming salamanders, thrilled that she was able to help them hatch.

[wander]

A Voice from Deep Below had recently taken up tea-drinking, finding the right plants for the right brew was incredible, and with that, he decided that he wanted a salamander to call his own. What's better than brewing your own drink at home, without needing to find a friendly wild one.

It was just his luck that he had found an egg on one of his walks by the riverside to listen to the voice that hums from deep within the water, almost like a gift from the deep one, and so, he had worked hard on making a cozy little temporary home to try and hatch the little thing. It would be best for a fire salamander, he knew, but with how close it had been to the waterside, he would have to wait and see if luck was on his side - he had made the nest soft, warm and dry, like he had been told before.

Patience, he knew, was needed, and so, he started hunkering down in his cozy little spot, ready to defend this little egg with whatever he could do.

[wander]

(Rolling)

[wander]

1. A bird flies down and tries to make off with your egg; fend it off before it does too much damage.
6. A crane with its sharp beak considers you its sworn enemy. Fend it off!
8. A smack of jellyfish float through your nest. Slight electrical pulses run through their long reaching tendrils.
18. You stay up watchful all night and start seeing things. Or are those spectrals?
8. A smack of jellyfish float through your nest. Slight electrical pulses run through their long reaching tendrils.

If anything, Voice had chosen a rather nice day to take on such a grand quest, the wind was nice and the motion of the riverside left a calming burble invade his space, leaving him the perfect opportunity to just rest and day dream. As the sun crossed the sky, he quietly assumed that the rest of the day would be like this, calm and without anything to report, but he was dead wrong.

From somewhere above, the soft chirrups of a passing bird started echoing around him, slightly dissonant from the babbling water, but not horribly so. Lifting his head to peer at it, he was surprised by the fluster of feathers, the little avian diving fast past his face. Frozen for a split-second, it barely dawned on him that the bird was after his egg, and in a quick moment, he leaned down, snapping at the air it had just occupied, teeth clattering as he tried to catch it.

This was his egg!

You can't have it!

With another bared-teeth look, he leaned up, snapping at the general location of the bird, trying to scare it off, only barely, the offender fleeing into a brush. Snorting through his nostrils, as if to say good riddance, he relished in his easy win for a moment, before the brush burst open again, scaring the buck onto his hooves.

With honks of indignation, a much larger enemy stood before him in the form of an angry swan, likely disrupted by the zipping of the smaller bird, wings open and ready for a fight. What it likely did not expect was the high pitched shrieking of a fully grown kimeti buck, standing on the tips of his hooves.

Both sides stopped at a stand-still for a moment, catching their respected breaths, before the swan seemed to just shuffle back into neutral position and side stepping the still very panicking buck. Watching it wander through the brush again, he couldn't help but pause and stare at it's exit. Did it just diss him? Was he really that frightful that it saw no challenge?

Rude.

After about ten minutes of pacing around the nest, he finally felt comfortable enough to shuffle down again and rest next to the egg, checking for any damage, which the egg seemed fortunate to escape from.

Heaving a long sigh, he laid his head down and let the time pass him, as long as nothing else popped up. Completely unaware of the movement of the sun, Voice dozed off quietly next to his little clutch, letting the warmth of the sunlight bake him a little.

Things seemed to be slow and easy going until the night time started to fall, in which he was woken up abruptly by a little shock hit him on the side, waking him suddenly with a little jump.

Oh.

That was, like, a lot of jellyfish. He kind of deserved this, didn't he, being so close to the waterway. Ducking his head into nest, he tried to make himself as small a possible, less space for tendrils to hit. He was. . . . fortunate enough to have experience around water-based creatures, living so close to the water himself.

After a moment, the little shocks slowed down into nothingness, and after a moment, he lifted his head again, peering around. The coast seemed generally clear, except for a small haze near the waters. What was it, he wondered, squinting into the darkness. Some kind of spectral or ghost?

No.

More jellyfish. AUGH.

Ducking down again, he let the second round of the smack to pass him, and with the resulting silence that came after, he warily curled up further, trying to see if he could sleep off the rest of the night.

[wander]

Opening his eyes to the start of morning, he let a content sigh escape his mouth, turning down to egg. To his great surprise, it had already pipped and watched as the little lizard break at the shell that it had been confined to. Two little beady eyes opened to look around it's new grand home, and with a little quiet squeal, Voice felt a rush of pride.

It was like being a father all over again.

His new child was just very, very small.