"I'm not even poisonous, you know." He said. The last of the blooms, the last of the flowers... The least deadly - and the most bitter seeming. In the presence of the elder siblings, Disporum felt out of place. With his flowery family, he was the low branch on the tree.

So he sought out something new. He walked along the forest path to the north of the facility they all lived at. It wasn't nearly hilly enough for his liking. Maybe he could move away, find a place to just set up and live alone?

But... he didn't want to be alone.

You do not have to be, bespoke Uteneth. I knew my rider before she became visible to me, perhaps there is a dragon out there for you. One who will appreciate your presence the way you think your family does not.

Disporum glanced at the glowing green dragoness. "Maybe. But I want a place first, and I think that up there is it." He pointed to a sharp jutting stone, which stood apart from the woods that surrounded it. "That's as good a place as any for me, right?"

Perhaps it is. Go there, and I shall remember to fetch you. They will ask about you. What will I tell them?

"That I'm not bitter enough to make someone throw up, but enough to keep someone from biting again." He said. "That I'll see them when I see them."

Then that is what I will say. Uteneth left, but Henshuth was to replace her shortly.

You think that you are not good enough? Or, should I say, bad enough?

"I know I'm not going to like where this conversation is headed."

Then just know this. You are an unknown, a quantity that can't be counted - will you poison someone, or only make them wish they paid more attention? You can't be judged. Just remember that. Henshuth flew off, leaving the young plant-virus-clone to his own thoughts.

He would later find a way to get to Cy Dragonstake. They were having another of their big clutches, and Uteneth insisted that he go. Like he could argue? He couldn't even kill anything like his siblings...

Disporum sulked around the Dragonstake, but was cheered up occasionally by being told that he was cute, or that he was weird, anything out of the ordinary was good for him. So when at long last he and the others were summoned to the egg chamber, he had a bit of a smile on his face.

It faded when he realized that something sinister was going on nearby, but ... what of it? His father and mother probably would have encouraged it.

Did he want to continue to try impressing them? Or what? Did he have to?

Confused, annoyed, Disporum watched the hatching. There were some pretty cool and dangerous looking hatchlings coming from their large soft eggs. But... abruptly there were two green colored dragons pacing around him, taking swipes at each other and snarling.

He overheard something in his head, and while one part of him grew elated, the other sank like a stone.

He is mine! Get away from him! Snarled one of the greens with her teeth bared.

No way, you sap! I'm here to help assist him to be evil! You will just get in the way!

I like him just the way he is!

He sucks the way he is!

Does not!

Does too!

"Hey, Eliarori," said Disporum to the first green. "And Ethul, can't we settle this later?" Eliarori was female and Ethul was male... this was bound to cause problems.

Fine, growled Ethul. But I'll make you evil later....

Disporum sighed. This... would certainly be difficult. Fun, maybe. In fact, he could say now that he was exactly as he was before - only more so. And he'd bonded two dragons. Most of his family had barely gotten one to their side, so... So there!