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On a hill in the highlands of eastern Kalimdor, there is a grove of trees whose leaves blossom blood-red all the year long. Nestled in their roots and shaded by their mighty branches is the clutch of the Aspect of the red dragonflight, Alexstrasza the Life-binder, Dragonqueen. She reaches out to caress her eggs with a slim hand modeled on the elves who have their kingdoms to the west. They will hatch soon, she knows.
dragon!revan in azeroth
Another whelp darts in and snatches the morsel out from between the teeth. It chirps happily as it flaps away.
She gives a little squeak of alarm and worry at her sibling! Sibling! Sibling, what! Those were sharp! You are small! What if you were squished by accident (the idea of being squished on purpose doesn't occur to her at all), what then? Then she would have a squished sibling and that would be awful. She does not want any squished siblings! She wants only perfectly whole and flapful siblings that can adorably follow along after her into—
—wait.
The little whelp lands carefully on the ground and folds her wings, and looks at the swarm of whelps around her. She tilts her head, and chirps at them inquisitively.
...
Yeah, okay, so, clearly: her siblings are idiots. They're her idiots, but they're idiots. Well. She'll just have to keep each and every one of them safe and happy. That is Her Responsibility As The One Smart One.
She considers possible safe activities for siblings of the not as smart as she is persuasion. Uh. She's done about four things in her life total. So let's do a review of them. Saying hi to Big Whelps: kinda boring, alarming closeness to sharps, not worth risk, avoid. Saying hi to bunnies: fun, but crowded, and demonstrably there were too many siblings to fit into a burrow, so, avoid because ick uncomfortable. Flying is fun, flying is a Sanctioned Activity, how about she leads them off to flap around safely instead of keeping them near the sharps. Yes, that, she does that.
Granted she doesn't have any kind of plan for... direction. Or anything. But she's sure she'll figure something like that out.
Flying! Flapflapflapflapflapflap.
After a little while, they are joined in their expedition by an extraordinarily big and beautiful dragon who feels just like her mother did.
!!!!!!
She squeaks in happy recognition at her mother!!! Hi mom! Gosh you're pretty, how are you so big, you were not so big before, wait now you're shaped like she is??? How'd you do that!!! It's so cool, her mom is so cool and so powerful and she's just going to flap over and land on one of her giant horns and coo lovingly at her because so great!!!!
The rest of the flock similarly finds purchase and Alexestrasza rumbles in happy contentment,soaring through the sky with her brood upon her back.
They circle back around to the base of the tree, where two dragonkin are tending a fire over which is roasting something that smells delicious.
Oooooooo.
That's for them, right? She hopes it's for them, it smells so good. She looks at her mother and chirps inquisitively, edging closer to the delicious smell on her perch.
Well then. Come, siblings! It is time to feast!!
The roast will fall before the unstoppable might of a swarm of hungry whelps.
Yes. Yes it will. Truly, there are no more fearsome forces in the (her limited experience of) the world than a swarm of hungry whelps.
There are probably more fearsome and unstoppable things than a swarm of hungry whelps, but that says more about the potential fearsomeness of things in a world with the likes of dragons and Mom in it than it does about the whelps' fearsomeness.
She eats her fill quickly and efficiently, then gets to monitoring her siblings. Siblings, are you playing nicely with each other? No biting, no fighting over food? You all followed your big sister's example and didn't mess with anyone else?
Good.
This assured, she finds an appropriate nook on Mom to snuggle in, and settles in for snuggling. She's feeling a bit lethargic after eating so much, and snuggling seems restful.
The days pass in a peaceful idyll, one after another. The whelps learn from their various experiences. Some, admittedly, more quickly than others. The big dragons show up and disappear according to some inscrutable whim or schedule, but the cast of dragonkin stay constant, and of course, Alexstrasza is always around to watch over her clutch. She spends more and more time talking to her whelps, waiting for the day when they begin talking back.
One of her whelps (rather predictably) takes to this faster than the others.
She listens with watchful eyes while her mother speaks, at first finding it an interesting thing to observe, and then a neat thing to mimic for the novelty. It's fun to squeak back as if she definitely understands why this is happening and what's going on, when she really has no idea at all. Mom seems to think it's rather important, for some reason. Eventually she figures out how to form distinct syllables instead of indistinct whelpish squeaking, and finds it wonderfully entertaining to repeat the noises her mother makes. Especially when her siblings echo her like little parrots, that's the best part.
Then she slowly starts to realize that sounds have meanings, and that sentences have patterns, and her babbling starts to have more of a purpose.
She's talking! Eeee! That means it's time for names!
Mom is Alexstrasza, and that big dragon is Tyranastrasz, and that one's Lirastrasza, and that's Belnistrasz. The dragonkin are Hylat and Mara and Kellit and Ryze.
She dutifully repeats these names, and even goes so far as to realize these names correspond to people! She even makes a game of flitting from name-bearer to name-bearer, chirping their names at them and watching them react. It's fun! She likes this game.
The whelp needs a name too.
"What about Ranaestrasza?" says Mom, poking her nose. "Are you Ranaestrasza?"
The little whelp blinks. She checks her surroundings for any hidden dragons anywhere (she has figured out by now that the 'strasz' part corresponds to the large and impressive dragons) and notes that there very definitely aren't any. Just... her. Huh.
"Ranaestrasza," she repeats thoughtfully, tasting the word more than electing to be called by it. So... she's a dragon? She'll get to be big and impressive?
She chirps in approval. "Ranaestrasza!"
She gives an affirmative (if somewhat sad) chirp. Then she can help with names! She can come up with many syllables that she's heard before, and put them together into different combinations to see if her siblings like them!
Now there's Neol, Amaet, Tarek, Kadhil, Herathe, Ulvern, Rova, Kolob, and many more. Everyone's happy to have a name! They all mill about chirping their name at each other.