Oscillator's Clan

[clan journal]
[07.05.18] It was all very silly, really.

Vim's irritated fidgeting was visible even from Moss's distant column perch. Her posture screamed annoyance, even anger, enough ire to keep just about the entire clan away - but Moss knew better. She was just... confused.

Perhaps it was time to step in.

The leafy tundra leapt down and landed heavily on the sands that held their territory's great pillars, feeling his very bones creak in protest. He slowly lumbered along in his approach towards his first-born, thinking deeply of how to address what he knew to be bothering her... and barely containing his glee.

"Vim," he called, coming up beside her at the edge of the small, drying pond that marked the boundaries of the nearby Beastclans. He sat on his haunches, mirroring her pose before speaking next. "What on Sornieth could have my strongest daughter troubled so?"

His eldest didn't acknowledge the compliment, didn't acknowledge his presence at all, though it secretly warmed her, just a bit. She dug her claws into the muddy ground at her feet, snorting unhappily instead of answering. Her father almost laughed.

"Vim," he chastised, firm though obviously fond. She sighed.

"I'm..." she began, shifting her weight from one side to the other. She huffed out another breath. "I don't know," and Lightweaver, did he just hear his eldest whine at him?

Moss laughed aloud this time. "Confused?" he offered knowingly, watching for her reaction.

Oh, the side-eye was strong. "Bothered is more like it," she growled, a warning to her meddlesome father. He wasn't phased.

Moss shook his head, allowing his hood to fall backwards off of the glorious mane of tundran hair he usually hid. There was no special reason for hiding it away, like some of his adopted children seemed to think - it would easily bleach and thin in the bright lights of the Promenade, is all, and he quite liked it the way it was.

This caught Vim's attention, as he knew it would, and he took the opportunity to meet her gaze as seriously as he could. No need to hedge any longer. "It's quite all right to fall in love, you know."

Vim's jaw dropped. She blinked hard even as her body relaxed in surprise. After a moment, when she'd composed herself, she protested, "I'm not..." before her voice trailed away. Then her expression hardened.

The young tundra's tufted tail swept roughly across the ground, dragging up dust and debris with the force of its flat swing. "I have to protect the clan."

"You already do."

"I have to be responsible!"

"Only to yourself," the older dragon shot back. He took a deep, steadying breath.

While it made him endlessly happy to know she was bonding, he also knew it was not so easy from her point of view. He knew full well just how hard this was.

She'd always taken being the oldest of her siblings very seriously, and had adopted the brave traits of her guardian mother and undertaken the role of protector even before she was allowed to leave the safety of her parents' sight. She'd never really understood that she didn't have to do anything. Both of her parents had always been - and always would be - so very proud.

He sidled just close enough to rest his head atop hers before speaking again in hushed tones. "My little one," he told her, nibbling lightly at one stubborn tuft, "you have always protected us, and I do believe you always will." He felt her nuzzle up into his soft, furry chin, so he continued. "That doesn't mean you have to be alone."

Vim hummed thoughtfully and slowly pulled away, looking out into the distance with an unreadable expression. She would figure it out, he knew. It would just take some time.

As he retreated back to the broken columns he often watched, he caught the briefest glimpse of a purple-furred tundra speeding away from behind the mismatched ruins just before the drying pond.

He smiled.

[10.16.15] It was difficult to see scars on her child.

The marks were new, still healing—long, thick, angry-pink lines all along her flank and thighs. They were a sign of Vim's strength and selflessness, Kiin knew, but the Kelp Beds had almost proved too much for her ferocious daughters, and her eldest's scars had almost been graves in the Promenade, instead.

Vim's leg had been a mess of blood and mangled fur. Knowing how strong she was didn't make it any easier.

[8.15.15] They were gone.

Kiin tore through the Sundial like a monster. Her claws ripped through earth and ivory alike, teeth rending monuments from their place and tossing them aside like they were nothing.

They were nothing.

She wanted them back.

"Kiin! Kiin!" Moss cried, tearing into the terrace with his hood back and his boughs askew. Zott and Chives followed close behind.

The amount of destruction the guardian had already caused made Moss's heart clench in rare fear. "Kiin," he tried again, gentling his voice in an attempt to reach through to his mate—it seemed to work, if only just, as Kiin's motions began to slow with the dissipation of her fury. Eventually, everything stopped. She stood, very still, in the risen dust.

The largest of them took a single, halting step. "Lura and Pabu are gone," Chives told her. He looked to his father-in-law, who nodded. "Along with Teya and Shae."

Kiin didn't turn to face them. "After the hatchlings?" she asked.

"We think so," said Moss.

There was a heavy silence.

Six hatchlings were missing, and four of the clan's youngest had disappeared to find them. Three from Kiin's nest, three from Zott's, and two each from the clutch before.

Children, grandchildren.

Ten young. Ten.

Gone.

They'd woken to their empty nests with no sign of a struggle. The lair had felt strangely empty, too, but Kiin had been too full of rage to seek out more than the whereabouts of their newborns.

She'd gone berserk when she couldn't find so much as a trail.

"Mother?" Zott finally spoke, voice shaking with something she couldn't name.

She heard the question her daughter wasn't asking.

There was no way to know what happened. Nowhere to look, nowhere to even start. There was nothing they could do.

Kiin shook her head.

Zott allowed herself to stumble back. Her legs buckled beneath her and she collapsed, slow and silent, folding limb by limb to the dusted ground below. Her body grew limp. Slack-jawed, in grief, she wept.

Silently, heavily, Chives knelt and draped his entire body over hers, careful to align his fins between her wings. He covered her back with his broad belly, embracing her shoulders with his forelegs and unfolding his own wings along their ribs. He craned his head forward, pressing their necks together, and rested his head by her cheek, gently touching, letting her tears wet his face. He entwined his tail with hers. He felt every wretched sob beneath him as though it were wrenched from his own chest.

Moss and Kiin picked painfully through the ruins, putting broken columns and slabs back in their place.

The barred guardian closed his eyes to grief.

[07.21.15] The progenitors' third clutch hatched at last in the early morn. Five sets of tiny claws began to break free, their father's soft, painted nose nudging the children gently from their shells as the clan watched, silent, reverent and awed.

Four new guardians and, to Moss's delight, one small tundra. The Lightweaver had been listening.

Kiin and Moss now guard the new clutch together, watching them sleep and whispering to each other, quarreling lovingly about what names would fit the best.

[07.20.15] Kiin was the first to notice the change in her daughter's scales. "Rohara," she called her, brow furrowed in thought. "Are those spots on your hide?"

Rohara's heart swelled with a mix of strange sensations she couldn't name. Without an answer, her mighty wings pulled into flight and she soared over the edge of the terrace, floating until she landed in the waters surrounding their domain.

She looked down at her reflection and, indeed, her long-awaited freckles had just barely begun to show. Her wings slowly folded against her back.

The moonlight danced on the water and made her image glisten like crystal. It was beautiful, mysterious, and wavering. She frowned.