Ella was a stunning dragon, and I never deserved her kindness, much less her affection. She’d send me clouds of mist that would fog up my eyes, which would freeze to snow in my surprise. Once, I tried to make her a sculpture… Alas, I was never good with my claws. What was supposed to be her visage reminded me more of a nochnyr, strange, patched together, and unnerving. In my frustration, I got both my horns stuck in the abomination, and had to wait for one of our clan mates to free me. Unfortunately, before rescue, Ella arrived. I had always questioned whether or not she had Foresight like her watery bretherin, but she would always tell me it made no matter. She laughed in my face, and I spoke to her bitterly until she could calm me down. I was stuck in the face of my failure, but at least I wasn’t alone. Alone is a feeling I’ve since become rather familiar with.
Our clan was small, but affluent. As such, our coffers allowed Ella and me travel permissions. Of course, before that we had to conquer the Twisting Crescendo and let free our handmade kites. Mine was purple with a light blue tail, and hers a blinding white with a tail of the deepest blue. Clutching our kites in one pair of claws, and pearls in the other, we flew towards up and forwards, seeking the eye of the storm. When we finally reached the center, our ascent upwards was like a dream. Nearing the highest we could fly, I discovered the wonky shape of my kite. I knew it wouldn’t be able to fly. Noticing my trouble, Ella, madwoman that she was, asked me to dance. Dance? Here?! I shouted. She nodded and started to move in ways I had only studied, performing The Dance of Acceptance. She was intending to marry me. Clutching my pearl, I rode the winds the best I could, we both still winding steadily up towards our limits. Our dance was short, and debris started to fly into my eyes, but we were Bonded. Ella deftly grabbed my kite and worked it into hers, letting the joint kite fly towards the floating city. “Problem solved.” she told me.
The Shattered Plain, the Shifting Expanse, even down into the Sea of a Thousand Currents, our travels bore much fruit. We both were aspiring scholars, she with an interest in the earliest dragons, and I the dubious nature of the Shade. My work eventually brought us both to the Hewn City, where it was theorized that the most resilient strains of the defeated entity resided. Ella's sleep was disturbed, and I often woke up in the night to find her watching me intently with a far off stare. Weeks passed, and I started to feel a dryness in my throat, and Ella oft seemed lost in a distant world. How I should have noticed the signs and retreated.
It was strange that we never came across any other dragons after we hit the field in the Hewn City. Occasionally helpful Longneck and a young, but rather small Serthis clan, sure, but no established dragons. The necklaces we wore began to look foreign; they may as well have been trinkets we found in the grime rather than the markings of respected clan members. When we did encounter a dragon though...
Ella was ahead of me, lucid, when we both heard a long screech like a nocturne's. Up against a crumbled wall was indeed a small red and green nocturne, spots covering its wings and scales. It couldn't have been more than a few months old, and its pink eyes were bright an alert. He had said a small hello before continuing to scuffle along the wall. Without consulting my mate, I began to walk toward the small dragon, then she took to the sky and bowled me over. The nocturne screamed and a dark purple wave of... something engulfed us all. My insides scorched, and I barely spotted the small noctune clumsily taking flight, smashing headlong into the wall and rolling away. The the strangely dark light subsided, Ella was still with me, but only in body. Her eyes were wide open and her pearl was shattered. My burning in my scales intensified as my mind cleared enough to realize her passing.
I don't know what I was thinking next. I had left her body where it lay, and started to run. Not fly, but run, pearl in one of my hind feet, dragging me down. A voice that sounded like mine told me to drop it, for what good is a soul when its other half has shattered? I hung on tighter and started to fly. I flew only as high as I dared, the burning in my scales growing hotter and hotter with every inch I gained. I eventually found the Halls of Home when my heart was screaming, my body numb, and my ears less ringing as they were hammering. I took my pearl in my claws and expelled out my mouth everything I had experienced. The mucous was like thick sludge, bubbling as it slithered out through my teeth. Smoothing it out best I could, something disturbing started to happen. My pearl was drying pink. I looked at my claws, my palms. Bright pink and purple. I scratched at my pearl, desperate to remove the taint, but it was unyielding. Running my claws through the dirt, a surefire way to remove dried lacquer from my claws, made no difference. My head felt like it was going to explode, and I fell unconscious.
My denial caused me to hurt. To be awake was to hurt. I found the temporary camp Ella and I held when I could handle the pain. I brought my well worn wolf pelts and her depin hides back to the Halls of Home. The hides still held her scent. It helped the pain for a while, but eventually to lie on them only made it worse, like the most frigid air had blown directly into my nose. I never did find her body. And whether it be shame, duty, or the dark powers of the City itself, but I have not found myself able to stray too far away from this place.
Months passed before I learned to work with the new energy within me. It surged when I did, and responded well to my bitterness and hatred, and in those early days, the hatred was the only thing to stop the hurt and the voices that did not sound like mine. It feels good to not keep it hidden. Nonetheless, it, and the increase in my natural magic, need to be channeled, even if it means spending hours to myself. This task is proving more difficult now that there are more dragons in the Halls of Home.
Adara... The Shining One. She glowed in the eyes I had made, and made my heart brighten the moment I saw her. The words poured out of my mouth and I... remembered a feeling I had not felt since before Ella's death.
Penn. Now he was familiar. I need not tell you how the hatred flowed forth. In him was Pain and Hurt and Burning and Power and Death.
Gabriel. Gabriel... When they slid off of His back... I thought to have saw the ghost of my world. They looked like Ella. They smelled like Ella. Gabriel was not Ella. A different kind of pain entered my heart. Regret. Loss. Loneliness. As Gabriel recovered, they looked less and less like Ella. The eyes I made saw something else too, something with four keen eyes...
Which brings us back to the second spiral, Blaize. Daughter of The Light and The Bringer of Pain. When that bright purple flash happened, Penn bolted, and I saw an emotion I had only seen once past on his face: Terror. All the warmth was sapped out of me as the aftershocks, benign, waved through the air. All semblance of power I felt I had disappeared. It felt like the remnants of the first dark purple wave had left in sight of this new creation. Then it returned.
Funny, how Blaize has started to show glowing scales like mine. What started out a soft purple has now turned into a blazing orange, looking to burst forth at any minute, unlike mine, which stayed the same colour and are like veins.
I am quite unsure what the future holds, but at this point I can confidently say we are not the strongest beings in this place.
Day 22:
(Wild card: Writing)
Well... this was a lot longer than expected. So there's Rastus! I originally was dead set on having him be from the Southern Icefeilds, and I will still say he IS, but I couldn't imagine Ella living there or in the Shifting Expanse, plus I didn't want ol Razmataz to be from a Light clan, so I got to use a bit of my Wind headcanons!
@HuntingAlpha @DigDog @SpaceSnake @SilentWiccan @Mistycloud @Digimon11
Oh. Uh. Maybe. My mom was a traveler and dad was a scout so… Maybe they expected me to stray sometimes.
Mom! 
Thanks for the weaving, Rastus, it's a big help. He said, pushing the basket of plants towards the large pearlcatcher. A small collection of seaberries rested on top.
Oh gods! Oh, mother! Ohhhhhhhhh LightweaverandIcewardencombined PLEASE! Let me gooooo!
