- Prize(s) will be random kins or gold -
- Every 100+ pages (i.e.600,700,etc), I will do an RNG -
- RNG of 1-1000 will determine what page # the winner is in -
- Once we determine the page, the RNG 1-15 will determine the winning post -
WINNERS
- won by Marasoh on pg 20 -
- won by Amuleo on page 43 -
- won by Sapphiragurl88 on pg 68 -
- won by Dark_Maiden_Queen on pg 114 -
- won by Takahashi Haru on pg 209 -
- won by furiends on pg 303 -
- won by Nico-Selvatico on pg 413 -
- won by Katesmeowh on pg 460 -
- won by xxXFay-YuuiXxx on pg 513 -
- won by Sapphiragurl88 on pg 528 -
- won by Sapphiragurl88 on pg 601 -
- won by Dark_Maiden_Queen on pg 771 -
- won by Yamamoto Saya on pg 893 -
- won by Feralicity on pg 978 -
- won by I 0 0 4 on pg 414 -
Special Thanks:
SPECIAL THANKS TO THE MOD VALENAS FOR BEING AMAZING!
We are very grateful for all the help the community had given us. At first, we were unsure how the community will react to our ideas of holding a rent-a-kin and we were quite hesitant. During the first day of opening the thread, we were overwhelmed with the help and support and it easily qualm our worries. Thank you everyone for your support and helping hand. We will never forget the kindness and definitely, we are paying it forward.
If we forget your name, please rest assure it isn't intentional. We just get overwhelmed with lots of things. Please remind us to include you in here.
Pay it Forward : FUNDRAISING People are messaging me if this will be available in the future.
Unfortunately, I lack the funds and time to buy one currently.
Please, do not feel obligated to donate if you have not achieved your dream kin yet.
I will get it eventually and will be put up for rent. Thank you in advance.
The red-eyed woman moved through her home; unbothered by the lack of windows. Darkness had long since ceased to be an obstacle to her sight. Sure on her feet, she easily skirted the encroaching mounds of clutter. The place had been immaculate when she'd moved in, and like all new places, she'd sworn to keep it that way. It was amazing what a few centuries did to good intentions, wasn't it?
She paused beside a workbench overflowing with alchemy supplies, set down the basket she carried, and picked up a bell jar glowing with pale green light. Bare-handed, she picked up a hand-full of the uranium biscuits she'd made the previous night, and tucking them safely into her bustier. In the garden, none of her pockets would be safe. She picked out several more things from the pile, adding some to her pockets and many to her basket, and continued on.
The garden was set in the bottom of a deep courtyard, and acrid with the smell of burnt plants. That was a problem for later, though...her immediate attentions were given with the swarm that had materialized at her feet the moment she appeared. Fumbles and Bungleface, the pink-and-white Machia and Cria, begged shamelessly at her feet for the Dubble-Bubble she was unwrapping. The little fools technically would eat the gum as quickly as they would eat the wrapper, but they seemed to love it so and it hadn't hurt them yet. Meanwhile, various hues of Skulverine and Bunnykit were assaulting her legs; climbing relentlessly over each other to plumb her pockets for jellybeans and gumdrops. Experience had taught her there would be no defending herself from the assault, and it was better just to let them raid pocketfulls of candy and be done.
Once free, she moved through the garden, dispensing treats and snacks as needed, pausing to stoop beside a wooden dollhouse, with the outside one singed and sooty in several places. Inside, a miniature world of folded paper, with a black-and-white Kokeshi doll levelly meeting her stare.
"Good morning, Rin. How are you today?"
The small carved doll nodded her head gravely in response, and the red-eyed woman tapped a fingernail on the singed house meaningfully. "Has Lunk been bothering you?"
This time the small head turned sideways, briskly, before the kin hopped out to the front edge. Rin was more dignified than most of the others, but at the same time, she had been one of the very first of the collection, and she knew what she was due. Her voice was slightly high-pitched, due to her small size, but her calm and poise made up for that. "He only came to visit." A slight pause; a meaningful glance towards the origami garden scattered around outside the dollhouse, brightly-colored scraps of paper folded into flowers and fish and animals. "Do you have any more rice paper?"
"Not right now. I'm going out to town, after airing the dragons. I'll see what the marketplace has. In the meantime..." She reached down, offering the wrappers from the Dubble-Bubble and other candies she had given the more energetic kins, which she had carefully smoothed flat between her fingers while strolling. Rin reached up and took the wrappers gravely, giving her a bow of thanks. She left the kin to her hobby, and resumed strolling towards the smell of singed foliage. Her Vulcaris lay dozing in a blackened circle; a sooty dark Unicorn and a red-and-black Stagony were curled up with their backs to his sides as though he were a warm furnace...which wasn't so far from the truth. She set the basket down beside her feet and then gave a loud, exaggerated sigh. The blocky wedge-shaped head came up from the folded paws at once, and molten yellow-white eyes blinked open as the rockwyrm woke and stretched himself reflexively. At his sides, the other two woke as well, blinking their own sleepiness, but the affectionately named Lunk had already stood himself up and was padding over to the red-eyed woman, sniffing aggressively at her chest. She laughed, pushing his head away, then grabbed his red-glowing horns and tilted his face up, making him look her in the eye. He was taller than she was now; but she still remembered when he was just a pudgy Lunk, small enough for her to pick up and carry...or at least drag...around, even if it WAS like lugging a sack full of gravel. "You've been all over the garden," she accused him sternly. "Half my plants are withered and the other half blackened." He tried to pull his head away, but she held him fast. "I gave you that marvelous roomy aerie all to yourself, and you come in here instead and burn my plants." After a moment, she added, "EXPENSIVE plants."
Lunk snorted to let her know what he thought of the idea of an expensive plant, and tried to shake free of her hands again. After she had held onto him for a few more minutes, though, he made a grumbling noise deep in his throat and sat on his haunches, curling his tail around his feet and lowering his gaze. "Just went to see Rin." And then, with pride, "She let me have a fish! But it tasted like paper."
At that, the woman couldn't help herself, and she laughed, fishing in her bodice and pulling out one of the uranium cakes for Lunk to happily crunch on. "Rin's fish ARE paper," she reminded him, when she could speak again. "You KNOW that by now, surely. How many of them have you eaten?"
"Only the one fish!" he protested indignantly, although after she raised an eye brow for a few minutes, he scuffed one forepaw in the dirt, "But lots of frogs. And a brown hip...hippy...hippypottymouth. That one smelled a lot like chocolate," he added, vindicating himself.
"You!" The woman gave an exasperated huff, trying to hide more laughter and failing. She fed him another biscuit, then slapped his shoulder and tugged his head up. "Come on, let's get you back to your aerie."
"Dun wanna," he mumbled, lowering his head again. "S' lonely in there. Everyone is here, in the garden."
She sighed, again, this time completely without mirth, then leaned forwards and kissed between his horns. "Then stay on the gravel walkways, you great lunk," she chided him, then patted him back towards where Thea and Bathory were still watching, waiting for the walking furnace to come back. Even in summer, even in the sun and out of the wind that whistled above the courtyard walls, the altitude made it cool. Even though she recognized that Lunk had friends here in the garden, she still felt like more exposure to his own kind would be good for him. "I'll leave the rest of the biscuits in your aerie," she informed him, picking her loaded basket up again.
"Aw, ma," he whimpered, ducking his head and then hopefully wagging his tail a time or two, until she relented and tossed two more biscuits into his waiting paws.
And then it was time to visit the dragons.
She looked in first on Frostbite and Avalanche, the breeding pair. Even from the back of their aerie, the home's true location...near the top of Fafnir's Peak...could finally be seen. It was a magnificent view; but mostly, the Mistress was there because there was no better place to breed dragons than in the home of dragons. Avalanche had been admiring the view himself; or more correctly, keeping watch...when she entered via the back, he turned and gave her a chilly stare over one shoulder. In the nook to the side where the gold was piled, Frostbite raised her own head and gave her trainer a slightly less hostile glare, shifting her wings and tail. The woman took a few moments to study the body language before approaching. For pureblood Fafnirs, the pair were dimunitive...one might even go so far as to call Frostbite weedy, she was so undersized. But the red-eyed woman rubbed the blue nose affectionately, and scratched around Frostbite's horns, and pulled at her lips to inspect her teeth. The grooming put the dragoness into a benevolent mood, and Frostbite eventually shifted her weight again, sitting upright enough for the mistress to catch sight of a rusty-red egg tucked into the warm place between blue-scaled forepaws and the half-melted coins. The red-eyed woman cooed approvingly, and thumped the dragon several times on the shoulder encouragingly, then, emboldened, reached one hand towards the egg. Not touching, but defintely seeking permission...
Blue jaws snapped closed with a sound like shattering glass, half an inch from her fingers, and the blue-scaled bulk shifted again, drawing the egg back out of sight. Behind the Mistress, Avalanche gave a rough-edged growl.
"Yes, I suppose that was rather presumptious of me," the Mistress said, resignedly, and gave Frostbite's blue nose one final rub before turning and picking her way back out of the aerie. The dragons would guard the egg with their lives until it cracked open, but within a few hours of being pestered by a fluttering hatchling they'd be more than glad to let her take it away and put it in the nursery.
Pity that it was another red one, though. She was already over-run with the Ifrit coloration; she'd been hoping for some of the paler dusty-blue or maybe even the rich amythest-and-gold of the Ambitious patterning.
Trump was her second stop. He was her pride and joy; Lunk might be her favorite, but she was frankly PROUD of Trump. He'd been Avalanche and Frostbite's first offspring, and he'd more than justifed the Mistress's choices when she'd first spliced that particular pair. Coolly, the big amythest-scaled dragon looked over at her, then returned his attention to his own heap of coins, which he was carefully arranging in neat stacks.
"I'm hoping to go down to the forest today, with some of the hatchlings. Would you be so kind as to give us a ride?"
The violet-and-gold head turned back towards her, and the impassive draconic face nevertheless managed to give an impression of raised eyebrows. After a moment, though, Trump shook his head no, then resumed carefully arranging his coins.
"Ahh, yes, I can see you're busy," she replied, her own eyebrows narrowing only the tiniest fraction. She'd raised the vain creature up from the egg, and knew which buttons to push...starting with jealousy. "I'll ask Vulcaris instead."
A disgusted snort, as she turned to go, and she paused in the doorway.
"Well no, he might not be so good at flying with passengers, but he's an enthusiastic runner and the hatchlings don't mind. Besides, we'll be going right through the middle of the forest, and you know how those nasty vicious trees are about gold." A little tweak of greed...
She busily lay her hand on the doorknob, pulling the door open even as Trump sat and then stood upright, head almost banging against the aerie ceiling.
"Leave the Lunk," the big dragon growled, reaching one wing out and pushing the door closed again with the tip. "I will come and...protect you from the vicious trees."
"Oh no, I wouldn't want to bother you." She reached up, brushed the wingtip away and pulled the door open once more. "Vulcaris has been wanting to earn himself a hoard." He was interested in nothing of the sort, but he preferred the company of his old companions in the Garden to the other dragons in the aeries, so none of them knew of his complete disinterest in gold.
"LEAVE THE LUNK!" Trump roared, shaking the stone walls and bringing fine sifts of dust down from the ceiling. He folded his wings up fussily, sitting bolt upright and preening his foreclaws showily. "We depart in half an hour. Best you be ready to go by then."
"I'll probably be in the nursery feeding the hatchlings, but feel free to come in there and get me if you're in a hurry."
"We depart in an hour." Trump put his nose up in the air, then glanced back at his coins. "I suppose that gives me time to finish this tally."
Smirking to herself, the Mistress of Dragons picked up the basket full of finger-sized chunks of raw meat, and closed the door to Trump's lair behind herself, resuming her journey to the heat and noise and frenzied activity of the dragon nursery.
Continuation...
The nursery was a long, low room, curved into an S shape and with the ceiling lined with acoustic tiles and a thick carpeting of sand on the floor to further reduce echoing. Even so, the noise level was obscene. Hatchlings were loud, and there were currently twenty-four of them in residence, not counting the saint-bernard-sized creature that impacted the Mistress's shoulders from behind. Even with her own draconian strength and constitution, the woman stumbled heavily, going to one knee and dropping the basket to raise her arms up, covering her head from the battering orange wings. "Caldera!" she shouted; as much from anger as to be heard over the excited chirps and yowls of hatchlings that smelled fresh meat. "Caldera, damn your scales, are you trying to smash me flat?"
There was a spitting noise, and a spiky green shape went tumbling down her front side and landed with a splat in the basket. She picked up the scrawny runt, eyeing it with annoyance. If the creature ever grew into it's outsize scales, it might have some promise. Provided it didn't pick up Caldera's bad habits by association.
"You're going out today aren't you?" the red dragon was saying, shifting weight from paw to paw to paw where it balanced pecariously on her shoulder. "Take me and Arty with you!"
"Stop trying to turn my shoulder into hamburger and I'll consider it," the Mistress responded curtly; bringing her free hand up to shove hard at the underside of Caldera's jaw. Sometimes she thought the breeders who beat their hatchlings with chains to make them docile had the right idea, at least for SOME of the willful creatures. "Seriously," she added, when she'd finally managed to dislodge Caldera and dump her onto a handy perch. With her uninjured arm, she scooped Artichoke out of the meat-basket and set him beside Caldera. "Look at my shoulder. This much injury would kill any mortal, and most immortals for that matter. You're far to big to be doing the shoulder thing. And you know it!"
"But you're not a mortal," Caldera pointed out, reasonably enough. "And I'm not big enough to be walking around on the floor either, you might step on me." Caldera paused, then put her head down between her forepaws. "You don't have to take ME out, if you're that angry. But Arty needs to go out and get big and strong. The others keep bullying him because he's tiny." A pause, and then, "Even YOU named him after a vegetable."
The Mistress sighed, looked down at the spiky green hatchling beside Caldera. He'd managed to latch onto a piece of meat during his time in the basket; a chunk almost as big as he was, and he was industriously gnawing at it and watching her with hopeful pale-green eyes. With a sigh, she picked at his wings, spreading them out and looking at the conformation of the almost-transparently-thin tissue, the sharp dark points of the jutting scales, too big for the scrawny bones and flesh beneath to fill them out. He was a hatchling the size of a kitten, who could sit comfortably on the palm of her hand except for his puppy-sized scales poking out everywhere just like the leaves of his namesake vegetable.
"Fine," she sighed, scooping hatchling and meal up together and putting him onto her uninjured shoulder. "Caldera, you'll help me feed the others, and THEN I will decide if I'm taking you with me. And feed them ALL, not just your favorites."
The young red sulked for a few moments, but readily enough took the big tub of finely-chopped meat mixed in with bonemeal, and began portioning it out to the five infants, each in their own stone tub lined with either sand or straw as fit their elemental type, and large enough to mostly contain the enthusiastic but not terribly competent attempts at flying. While the new-hatched squealed and shrilled urgent hunger in an ear-shattering cacphony that would have deafened anyone foolish enough to not wear plugs, The Mistress walked farther along past a dozen empty tubs, depositing Arty and the meat he was still chewing on in one. The larger hatchlings, once they'd put on a few pounds and gained some control of their wings, lived around the first curve in wall alcoves surrounding a generous common area with a climbing gym and toys. The theory had been to encourage flight between the alcoves and the gym, and start the creatures socializing, at least with each other, early on. In practice, it really only encouraged feuding. Runts like Artichoke were bullied relentlessly, which was why she had left him and his premature meal out of sight. The red ones, learning about their fire breathing abilities, tended to set fire to anything flammable...especially the beds of the greens and blues who insisted on straw and not sand, or gravel, or metal flakes. Even when the Mistress brought fresh bedding every night, there were still fights about it during the day, and the mid-range hatchling area could best be described as a standing riot. The addition of food, if anything, only intensifed the chaos. Much like cats, all the hatchlings had to fight ever the same piece of meat...even if she'd laid out an entire cow for them to share, all twelve would fight over a single slice of liver.
The best solution was to take a big, smelly, impressive looking chunk of something gristly and resillient...like a big flap of tripe, or a leg bone with lots of cartilage and tendons...and wave it around in the air in the middle of the common area until everyone was totally involved in trying to rip pieces off of it, and shrieking outrage at the others who were also trying to rip bites out. Then, the Mistress hung the tripe she was using today from an overhead hook she'd bolted to the ceiling for that exact purpose, and went about filling up the food bowls in the individual alcoves. Once all the food bowls were filled, she methodically moved between the alcoves and the flapping frenzy hanging in the middle of the common area, peeling hatchlings off the bait one at a time and taking them to their alcoves, where she pushed their noses into their individual bowls (Again, much like cats...) until they started eating. Even when Caldera came to help, the process still took better than half an hour, and the Mistress took one disgusted look at the shredded remains of tripe and decided it wasn't worth trying to re-use for the evening feeding. Still, for the moment, the middle area was populated primarily by tails hanging down the rock face, and the noises of ripping and chewing and gulping. It was just about as close as the area ever got to being 'peaceful'.
The near-adolescents were beyond the second curve; only a little younger than Caldera, their pudgy round baby bellies were starting to sleek over with hard muscle. Sometimes she brought them live rats and rabbits; even domesticated, dragons were still predators. Most of them, anyway. A pale powder-blue individual fluttered neatly to a perch just to one side of her, shortly followed by the others. Much like the mid-ranges, the pre-adolescents had their own alcoves...larger this time...and shared a common area that included a climbing rack and play zone. Instead of balls and fuzzy stuffed animals on springs, though, the toys here were stone chess and checkers sets, and there was a half-shredded bale of straw beside a bushel basket of metal shavings and several buckets of river stones. A red and a black hatchling were poring intently through the buckets of stones, occasionally chirping and showing their finds to each other; the red carefully carted his selections back to his alcove before joining the others on the perches. Stone beds apparently required an inordinate amount of upkeep; every rock had to be carefully evaluated for color and shape as well as weight and size, while apparently merely making something that resembled a birds-nest was acceptable for straw or metal shavings.
Since the pale blue had appeared first, the Mistress let her go first and pick the topic, nodding and making a gesture with one hand while she dug in her basket with the other. The blue folded her wings to her back very tightly, sitting bolt upright. "Good day, Mistress Dame. My name is Cassiopeia. May I ask what happened to your shoulder?"
"Good day, Cassiopeia." The Mistress gravely unwrapped a bushy package of choy-sum, and handed the leafy vegetable to Cassie, who took it with a grave nod and a bow. "One of the adolescents in the hallway was rather rambunctious." With that, she turned to the next to arrive, a green of somewhat darker coloring than Artichoke.
"Good day, Mis'ress Dame. I am Tia." There was a pause as Tia blinked at the damage to the Mistress's shoulder, attempting to come up with a comment on it, and then opted for, "Did you scold the...who did that to you?"
"Good day, Tia. Yes, I most certainly did scold the one who mauled me." Cassie, having decided early on she liked greenery and vegetables somewhat more than meat, was rather unusual. Tia recieved a rabbit; and not being much for the ritual of 'conversation with meals', she hopped away to her alcove to eat in peace.
"Good day, Mistress Dame. My name is Ashe." A momentary pause, and then, "Does it hurt very much?"
"Good day, Ashe. No, it does not hurt so much anymore. I will be healed very soon. But I am still rather angry about it."
And thus, the ritual went. Once everyone had been given food, the Mistress bowed shallowly to the group. "I'm afraid I cannot stay for the entire meal, today. I'm going out in just a few minutes, and need to collect the ones I'm taking with me."
"I can come?" Tia's head, in her alcove, shot upwards.
"Not today, I'm afraid," the Mistress shook her head. "Maybe if I make an evening trip. Right now, I need Cassie to come." She extended her uninjured arm, and the poodle-sized pale blue, gripping her half-eaten choy sum in both foreclaws, carefully leapt from her perch onto the Mistress's forearm and balanced there with wings spread until she could scamper up to the shoulder and crouch there, crunching her lunch busily. The Mistress scooped up a gray-scaled hatchling almost at random from the midsize room; on the grounds that it had finished eating and was calmly watching the others and grooming itself instead of trying to steal food or attacking the hanging tripe, as a few of the other quick eaters were doing. A quick glance at the underside of the hatchling's feet...the paw-pads of males were rounded, where females had indented paw-pads even as infants...and she'd identified the gray as Anthracite. Back at the tubs, she picked up Artichoke, and gave Caldera a cool nod to follow on foot. With a hatchling in each hand, a pre-adolescent on one shoulder, an adolescent padding along behind on foot, and an adult who hopefully had not gotten tired of waiting and flown away by himself, the Dame had to admit, it wasn't too hard to figure out what she did for a living.
~~~~~~
Trump had bad grace about being forced to land at the outskirts of the forest; although he was quick enough to wander over to the nearby lake and preen himself in the sparkling water. Around the edge, Cassie finished her vegetarian meal while Artichoke and Anthracite romped and snapped at willow and pixie croaks. Once the two young ones had collapsed exhausted on the Mistress's shoulders, snoozing, she whistled Trump up out of the water and led the two adolescents deeper into the forest. They would be free to hunt as they pleased among the other forest denziens, as long as the Mistress kept an eye on Trump and Trump kept his eyes on the trees.
And, since that was how adolescents were treated and why they squabbled and argued over whose turn it was to go out, for every kin they romped over, both Caldera and Cassiopeia claiimed a shiny copper coin for each limp body they dragged up to the Mistress and offered her. Back among the little community in the hatchling hall, or even the smaller caverns the adolescents like Caldera had, such coins were considered the seeds of a hoard such as an adult dragon was supposed to collect, and jealously guarded. When Anthracite woke up from his nap and saw Cassie counting out her coins in a siny spot of sunlight, he scrambled down to go watch her in fascanation.
– Watermeat (Available: 4) | - List here -
- The Tyrant Ambitious | - List here -
- The Tyrant Starlit | - List here - 
- The Tyrant Bahamut | - List here -
- The Tyrant Ifrit (Available: 2) | - List here -
- The Tyrant Tiamat | - List here -
- The Unpredictable Tyrant | - List here -
- The Tyrant Fafnir (Available: 2) | - List here -
- Ember the Spirited Fox (Available: 2) | - List here -
- Sandman Rose | - List here -
- Pegacorn Fluff | - List here -
- Candy Corn Skulverine (Available: 3) | - List here -
- Pumperilla (Available: 4) | - List here -
- Lustrous Pumperilla | - List here -
- Darcy | Prancer | - List here -
- Bran | Oats the Goose (Available: 2) | - List here -
- Hamish | Hedgevil (Available: 2) | - List here -
- Wukong | - List here -
- Bara Diedrich | - List here -
- Jack Sprout | - List here -
- Rybapi | - List here -
- Carnelion (Available: 2) | - List here -
– Filligris (Available: 6) | - List here -
- Kitsuko the Golden Kitsune (Available: 2) | - List here -
– Shadow Grunny (Available : 3) | - List here -
- Vulcarus (Available: 2)- List here -
– Ghost Lapinkin (Available: 2) | - List here -
– Ghost Sonare | - List here -
- Chocolate Cow (Available: 2) | - List here -
- Soldier Mouse (Available: 2) | - List here -
- Fafnir Hatchling x2 | - List here -
