Bren

It forages the warm ground for heat-loving seeds and insects, and it keeps its crest-flame alive by nibbling embers from cooling lava, a diet that would kill most things and merely feeds this one. Startled, it flares the whole crest into a brief brilliant torch, more warning than weapon, and skitters for the cover of a warm rock. It huddles at night in a communal scrape with its clutch-mates, a dozen little flames banked low, and at dawn it is first up, cheeping the others awake with the tireless enthusiasm of the very young.