MIR, the sentient Wyvern.

A True Family

GRAAAAAHH said mom, releasing a live rabbit between the four of us.

Brother hadn't killed anything yet, nor my two sisters.

We were in a kind of nest like the birds but full of branches and hay and it was comfortable with mom brooding.

The body heat was pleasant and I let myself go to my instincts, as if to forget a traumatic past. In fact they were only memories that could be accurate if I concentrated but I was a wyvern, a dragon..and proud of it.

In a way I didn't know it, but I was lucky to have "gentle" parents because wyverns let their young "work it out" or "settle", basically the strongest newborn ate everything and let the weaker ones die or just devoured them.

But from the beginning, I protected my little brother, smaller than his 2 sisters.

And I made sure, under the amused eye of mom, that everyone had his share of meat. I shared and of course, they followed my lead.

Every meal was supposed to be festive and we ended with licking the hard to reach places.

Dad would bring in rabbits every day and I would scoop them out to leave only the good parts and collect the skins that way.

Mom was curious to see me dispose of the skins and eliminate the guts.

After 2 weeks, the feeding was finished, our teeth had grown and were like razors.

Brother and sisters were hopping and flapping their wings and trying to fly around the cave.

It was relatively large.

An opening in the side of a cliff with a promontory and a slope inward, downward.

The other caves were separate but joined inside in a kind of network.

The adult wyverns stayed at the opening, just out of the wind and rain, and the eggs were at the bottom, but it continued.

In my deeper cave, you could hear the clacking and squeaking of other hatchlings, other broods exploring deeper.

This is how I found myself face to face with other small wyverns but my impressive size had an effect on them and they quickly returned to the shelter of their nest.

By the third week, everything was getting organized in my head and I had started to make goals:

Communicate!!!

I had captured rats by practicing hitting them with rocks that I threw.

I had found a trick to do with my wyvern tail: like a Neanderthal "gas pedal", I would take a rock the size of a fist, and I would use the tip of the spear (in which the stinger was located) as a shovel, and I would whip forward and the rock would go like an arrow, destroying everything in its path. Finally, the rats had "exploded" parts.

So I approached brother "MIR" because I had decided to give myself a name. My parents "animals", probably incapable of such subtlety.

I thumped my chest as I took his paw hand and pressed it against my chest.

"MIR!"

Say it again!!!

He looked at the rat I was holding out and tried to catch it as much out of play as curiosity.

"NO!!! (NAH KAH) - I had difficulty speaking or pronouncing but I knew how to say MIR "

After about 30 tries, he succeeded in making MRRRGGHHH.... and I gave him the rat.

Father had gone hunting, mother stayed to watch us and the other wyverns.

Some of them would gather, often broods, to hunt in groups.