Read below for parenting style & relationship with kids...
Taimana and Hiriwa are awful dragons who definitely should not spawn any offspring under any circumstances.. Sadly, they do, and fairly often.
Taimana, the hulking Guardian dragon with his hide of glittering diamond, is almost completely ‘feral’. He doesn’t speak, communicating only with violence and aggression. He is the guardian of the clan’s gem vault and woe betide anyone who enters his cave. The only dragons he defers to are the clan matriarch Madrigal, and his mate Hiriwa.
Hiriwa is quite mysterious. Although she too acts brutish and horrible most of the time, it appears that she can speak and she seems to have quite the cunning mind. She guards the clan’s treasure hoard.
Both dragons are completely entranced and drawn to anything shiny and treasure-like, which is probably why they are a mated pair. Each seems to treat the other only as a glimmering trinket- they are each other’s ‘trophy mate’, so to speak. They don’t spend much time together, since their hoards are in separate areas. Hiriwa pretty much only comes to Taimana when she wants to mate. It’s unclear why exactly she wants to brood eggs so often, because once laid, they seem to mean nothing to her- half the time she simply abandons them where they lay. She seems to have no maternal instinct.
This is fortunate, because it provides Roshan, the hatchling Guardian, the chance to smuggle them away from Hiriwa. Roshan takes it upon himself to steal away any eggs that Hiriwa lays, and it is he and his mate Gabs that generally raise the resulting hatchlings.
Though he is usually able to steal the eggs without Hiriwa noticing, Roshan has come into some conflict with the silver guardian, and his hide is marked by scars that tell the painful story of these fights.
As the true parent of the hatchlings, Roshan is loving and kind, and raises the hatchlings admirably. He does his best to keep the hatchlings away from their real parents, even to the point where he tries not to mention them at all. This is probably not the best strategy, for inevitably the hatchlings will find out through some means or another, that they are the offspring of the feared ‘monsters’ of the clan- those brutish dragons who other clan members speak of only in hushed whispers. It’s probably the shame of this that has meant that so far, none of Taimana and Hiriwa’s offspring have stayed in the clan. All have either gone off to join other clans, or to fight for a deity. Perhaps they can regain some honour through this method.
Roshan will admit that his greatest regrets have been those few times where he has either missed the fact that Hiriwa has laid a clutch, or where he hasn’t been able to wrestle eggs off her, leaving the eggs to be ‘raised’ by their dam. This is incredibly dangerous for the eggs because, as mentioned, Hiriwa shows little maternal instinct, and frequently neglects her eggs. It is only when (or indeed, ‘if’) they hatch that she starts to pay them any attention. The most beautiful, glittering hatchlings immediately catch her eye and she takes them under her wing as though they are simply another treasure for her to hoard. Plainer hatchlings will be left to their own devices (and this is beneficial, for it is easier then for Roshan to steal them away).
The shiniest hatchlings (usually the triple/XXX, or cry/face) basically have to fend for themselves under Hiriwa’s ‘care’. She doesn’t go out of her way to feed them, so they will have to sneak scraps of food from her own meals. Once they start getting too large, noisy or argumentative, Hiriwa will chase them out of her lair to fend for themselves. Lucky ones will be found by a clan member and taken to Roshan. The unlucky ones may end up lost and wandering the wilds of Nature territory...
So there we go. If you ever buy a hatchling of theirs, feel free to incorporate this into their lore, if you like :)
