Birth. 

That’s how the noctua would describe it. The birth of a new empire. Though her opinion of humans was rather low, she had to hand it to the little bite sized creatures; they were incredibly industrious when motivated. What had once been a nondescript cave right next door to the middle of nowhere had been sowed and watered, blooming over the years into what she could describe as not just a town, but a city. Though Orabella had never been the biggest fan of laborious work, through the lens of a little… Pet project did she manage to cultivate a civilization all for herself. Seeing buildings grow and territory expand delighted the young adult greatly. It had only been a matter of time before a temple all her own had been erected in her honor as their new goddess of infinite wealth. 

A human kingdom all to herself… The massive gryphon sat lavishly upon a marble perch crafted atop her palace’s entrance with a catlike grin tugging the corners of her mouth to their very limits, allowing for the warm sun to warm her darkly colored saddle all the while. She found herself about halfway between lazed wakefulness and pleasant sleep, watching as her little minions milled about their little lives without her direct input. It was nice, having them humans be able to sustain themselves now that she’d done the heavy lifting for their society. Orasio, they had named their capital in reverence to her’s truly. Their provider, their protector, their master. 

She watched with tired eyes as they had made the motion to prepare for a festival in the coming days, decorating their abodes in the noctua’s favorite thing ever; gold, of course. Orabella thought herself to be a complex entity with complex interests, but she simply couldn’t help herself when it came to that rich shimmer of precious metal that reflected her own natural opulence. Though she asked her people for tithes and sacrifices, her pets did so with grace and poise. They took care of her in kind for her… Care of them. Truthfully she couldn’t care less about their well being, but with a bustling economy in the works, she kept them productive if only for her own gain. In the end, it all was always about her personal spoils, however which way they came to her. Sure, she could go out and conquer larger and more established kingdoms, reap from them what they had sowed long before her arrival, but that came with risks. Risks that at the time the Midaas simply didn’t see the benefit of. Sure, her greedy claws itched for more, always more, but within the walls of the timeless city… 

Patience was a virtue. 

Orabella had more than a lifetime to accrue for herself the largest lump sum of treasure imaginable, far succeeding even that which she already possessed. She wasn’t bothered by playing the long con so long as it meant she could have her midday naps. She had just curled her long and scaled tail around herself, her talons coming to grab ahold of it like a self made pillow when she felt it. A low rumble, a subtle shift in the earth. Odd… She flicked a periscoping ear to the sky, listening carefully to her surroundings despite her lackadaisical appearance. It was but a whisper of rolling sands that had the giant draconic beast rousing back into a seated position. Her rounded ears turned towards the source, her shining yellow eyes narrowing at whatever it was she was witnessing. Passed the outskirts of her golden city amongst the sweeping dunes she perceived, at first, a small dust cloud. She kept watch, seeing for herself as the trail slithered like a serpent beneath the sands, weaving a wave-like pattern down the side of the hill. The rumbling grew stronger, making Orabella stand fully then with a powerful tail lashing annoyedly behind her. 

Whatever it was, it was not slowing in the slightest. 

“Shoo, shoo! Out of my way!” She barked angrily, leaping from her throne with an earthly quake of her own upon landing. She briskly walked her way through the roads of her kingdom, taking little caution in the way of minding her simple subjects under foot. If they didn’t move out of her way, that was their problem. Orabella’s march picked up haste when she saw that the oncoming tidal wave of sand was encroaching upon her land now. She hissed viciously, spreading her wings wide within the heart of her self made oasis, crushing beneath her gilded talons a fanciful fountain of carved marble. Her little pets could build a new one. She lifted the broken structure within her claws, rearing up upon her hinds to make her presence that much larger. 

She loosed a mighty roar that sent her little civilization into a panic. “Reveal yourself, beast!” She demanded, winding her forelimb back and throwing the oversized rock directly into the oncoming wave. She had hit something, because the moment the projectile hit its mark, an opposing roar pierced the sky. From the sands crawled forth another large creature, its earthly toned, plated hide glistening in the sun’s blinding light. With two ivory horns pointing towards the sun itself, the opposing monster had fully revealed itself. A ridgewalker. Orabella thought their kind to be wiped off of this earth, so it came as a surprise when the armored drake quite literally burst into her city. He had breached her territory and suddenly bowled over one of her subject’s buildings with a powerful swing of his head, breaking the structure into hundreds of little pieces. 

“You foul—!” Her spitting insults were cut short when the mottled ridgewalker swung his pointed tail and toppled yet another white and gold temple brazenly before her very eyes. She scoffed indignantly, her feathers growing thoroughly ruffled by this reptile’s bold faced insolence. 

“This is no longer your domain, owl bitch,” The drake spoke, slapping his flat tail down onto the sand and kicking up dust in his threatening display, “I’ll give you one chance to surrender this pretty little city to me before I level it completely!” The tawny male growled loud enough to rattle the sands, his massive claws crushing several people beneath his immense weight as he dared to crawl further into Orabella’s space. The gryphon’s chest swelled within seconds, her anger boiling over at this stranger’s audacity! She charged up a quick attack, dousing the invader in a crust of gold to halt his further intrusion. And for a moment it worked, the ridgewalker’s front feet had begun to sink into the sands in their petrified state. But the effect only lasted for a moment, for her flexed his claws and broke through the metal casing with a newfound aggression ripping a vicious snarl from his oversized throat.

“Alright, little lady, I see we’re gonna have to do this the hard way!” He bellowed, throwing his weight into another several structures and quickly dispatching several farms in a tantrum of raking claws digging up once viable crops. The noctua had seen more than enough, lifting herself into the sky and charging her enemy with a screech. She pounced upon the heavier demigod, digging her golden talons up and beneath whatever scales she could grapple onto. She scraped her metallic claws against the rock-like hide all the while the crowned drake tried to shake her off. He threw himself to the ground, slamming both of them into more and more of her kingdom and demolishing all in their wake. He rolled over her, crushing the noctua down into the sand before he suddenly dove beneath the surface of the land. What structural damage she was already left with was only worsened by the effective sinkhole that bastard had created, the death trap of a hole swallowing everything up into the white sand like a whirlpool. 

Orabella had to fight to not get caught up within its pull, lest she too become buried in the chaos. She shook herself free of stray sand and debris, snarling loudly as she searched for her attacker’s position. The cascading sands revealed his tunneling path, uprooting what looked to be a whole district of her once budding kingdom in the roll of his digging. More damage, more loss, Orabella was at her wits end. 

She ran towards the path of destruction and dug her claws into the sand, grasping blindly at whatever she could reach through the rubble and detritus. She grabbed a hold of something and pulled back harshly, plucking her cocky foe up from his cover by his horn. She bit down upon his snout, her dewlaps inflating to frame his head as she readied another blast of her breath. At such close proximity, she doused the ridgewalker in gold relentlessly. She refused to release him even as her own claws became welded to his head as the reach of her attack locked her own limbs in place to his horn. 

And she would have kept going had it not been for his violent thrashing bucking her off of him completely. She landed with a heavy thud against the sand, her fused hands failing to catch her fall. She broke through her own luster with a loud grunt, but not before coming head to head with a gold capped head she had created. The clash of metal against metal sent dizzying rattles through her skull. She rolled onto her back, which the ridgewalker took his opportunity to try and pin her. She kicked against his stomach the moment he hopped upon her, knocking him aside before he could fully hold her down. 

She sprayed him down in several short bursts, locking joints where she could before she caught him stuck upon his back like a pathetic turtle. She dug her nails into his windpipe, the deadly points of her talons finally biting through his rocky exterior to draw blood beneath raised plates. She snarled loudly, splaying her wings in triumph as she had captured her opposition. 

“Who dares to try and thieve from the likes of Orabella Midaas?” She ordered, her grip tightening when he didn’t immediately yield to her will. 

“Y—ou’ll…”

“Speak up,” She snapped, shaking him by his throat, “Unless you wish me to gut you like the lowly lizard you are—“

“You’ll see me around, neighbor,” The drake grinned wickedly, swiping her feet out from beneath her the moment his tail broke free of its gilded prison. He ducked back into the sands, quickly swimming up the nearest dune to create distance between the two. He breached at its crest with a shaky laugh despite his loss. 

“The name’s Mojave! Mojave Clayton, and I’ll be seeing you real soon, missy~” Mojave finally introduced himself, the name Clayton ringing off a distant bell within her dazed mind as he disappeared once more into the sands, retreating like a true coward. Orabella peeled herself off of the ground, panting heavily, yet keeping a close watch in the direction Mojave had disappeared. She had been left with a partially broken city to rebuild, but she had fought for what was rightfully hers. Protected what she could, even if in the end she too had lost quite a lot from the brief altercation. At least she had been able to salvage a fair chunk of her precious Orasio yet. 

Humans were industrious… They could rebuild what had fallen that much stronger. Orabella would only have to worry about what Mojave had meant by neighbor. But that would come later. For now, she would lick her wounds and recover what she had lost. She’d been battered and bruised, sure, but what shook her most had been his foreboding promise; an eventual return. She paid the cascading dunes one final sordid glare before turning up her beak with a haughty huff. She held her head high, for the time being parading her way through what remained of her domain and relishing in the choir of coos her noble actions had elicited from her subjects; even if she too had caused quite a fair amount of damage herself.