Creative Corner

[center][size=5][color=orange][b]Journey Chronicles - Scene 14[/b][/size] [size=4][color=orange][b]Fulfills task for: Day 49 (May 22, 2017)[/b][/color][/size] [color=orange][b]Task completed on: June 25-26, 2017* Item of the Day:[/b][/color] [item=clay] [/center] [i](*Note: I wrote this section on my mini-road trip on June 25-26, but I'm just now getting around to posting it.)[/i] There was a well-worn dirt road leading off to the west of the Scarred Wasteland's marketplace. The four remaining members of Clan Ashfeather set out along that road, all their possessions and money in the bags they carried with them. Felicity had the portable forge. There were quite a few other dragons on the road for the first stretch, but fewer and fewer the further they got from the marketplace. When evening came, they stopped under the exposed, sun-bleached ribcage of some long-dead beast, which had been covered in canvas scraps by previous travelers. It was surrounded by other bones, boulders, and rocky outcroppings. Felicity knew that they probably weren't the only ones who would decide to stop in the area for the night, but she agreed to allow the clan to rest there, on the condition that they each took a watch during the night. They had unloaded all their gear and were in the process of getting something resembling a decent meal together when Felicity saw a flash of red-and-white-striped spines disappearing behind a boulder. "Who's there?" she said forcefully. There was no reply. There was certainly no one in her party who had spines like that. Felicity followed the flash of motion around the corner, every one of her senses on high alert. She smelled fish, heard footsteps and the faint swooshes of spines moving quickly through air. She had a good guess as to what kind of dragon she was dealing with. "I know you're there!" Felicity called out. "Whatever you just took from our camp, could we please have it back?" The running footsteps stopped abruptly. Felicity rounded a corner and stopped, finally seeing the stranger for the first time: a red, black, and white Ridgeback with one of Belladonna's Soylent Blues speared on the end of his nose. "How did you know to ask that?" he said. "Nobody ever asks me that." "I grew up with a Ridgeback in my birth clan," Felicity said. "She told me about borrowing." "Oh. Well, since you asked, here." The Ridgeback pulled the alchemical fish-cake off his nose and handed it back to Felicity. "Nobody ever asks you that, huh?" she said. "Do you borrow things from every traveler who comes through here?" "Pretty much. That's how I make my living out here. You're the first who's ever asked for anything back."

[center][size=5][color=orange][b]Journey Chronicles - Scene 15[/b][/size] [size=4][color=orange][b]Fulfills task for: Day 55 (May 28, 2017)[/b][/color][/size] [color=orange][b]Task completed on: June 25-26, 2017* Item of the Day:[/b][/color] [item=hematite] [/center] [i](Continued from the previous scene - same author's notes apply)[/i] "Am I?" [i]It must be very lonely out here, [/i] Felicity thought. "My name's Felicity, what's yours?" "Diego." "Would you like to come and have dinner with us? I know you just need to eat, too." Diego looked absolutely astonished. "I... Sure. Thank you very much." "You’re very welcome. We made all those Soylent Blues mostly to trade with, anyway. None of us [i]have[/i] to eat them." Diego followed Felicity back to the campsite, where her clanmates looked at the two of them in shock. "Looks like we're going to have a guest for dinner tonight, everyone," she said. "This is Diego. He tried to borrow one of your Soylent Blues, Belladonna. I went to ask for it back, but we talked, and we figured out that he needs it more than we do, so I invited him to stay and eat with us tonight." "That was very good of you, Felicity," Starbloom said. "Glad that stuff's being put to good use," said Belladonna. "You’re not going to eat that whole thing tonight, are you?" " 'Course not," said Diego. "These things are enough for, like, three days." "That's why I made so many Soylents. There's enough here to keep all of us going for a week, even if we didn't have any other food, which we do, and even if we didn't trade them for anything, which we were hoping to." "Sounds like you set yourself up for this journey pretty well." "I hope so." "Speaking of other food, dinner is ready," Kamien said. Clan Ashfeather got to know Diego over dinner that night. He had left the Tangled Wood as a young dragon when his birth clan had been decimated by an invading Serthis clan. He had made his living as a mercenary-for-hire since then, mostly defending dragon clans from Beastclans, but at the moment, he was without an employer and had been making his way toward Plague’s marketplace in search of a new one. Felicity told him how and why their group had set out on their grand journey from the Starfall Isles to the Ashfall Waste, and he was immediately interested. He was curious to see what both the Ashfall Waste and the Shifting Expanse were like, and the planned route for the journey would visit both. Both Belladonna and Starbloom raised their crest-fins at the same time, indicating their skepticism about where this conversation seemed to be heading. Felicity stepped in to explain what she had learned from Mopsy, the lone Ridgeback in Clan Adeptica, about how 'borrowing' worked among Ridgebacks. After some further discussion, the five of them all came to an agreement. Diego could travel with them as long as he remembered to ask before taking things from the other dragons in their clan, and if he ever forgot, the others would ask for their things back. The next morning, Diego packed up the small personal hoard of things he'd borrowed from other travelers, and set out on the journey as the newest member of Clan Ashfeather.

[center][size=5][color=orange][b]Event Post #3[/b][/size] [size=4][color=orange][b]Fulfills task for: Day 38 (May 11, 2017)[/b][/color][/size] [color=orange][b]Task completed on: May 11, 2017 Item of the Day:[/b][/color] [item=bluemoon aviar] [/center] May 11 was the very first day I got a familiar from Pinkerton. I went out and bought a new dragon right away, but I saved this post until after I had written him into the story. Random.org gave me #5, so I bought this Ridgeback, whom I named Diego. [img]http://flightrising.com/rendern/350/326628/32662733_350.png[/img]

[center][size=5][color=orange][b]Coliseum Battle Post #8[/b][/size] [size=4][color=orange][b]Fulfills task for: Day 22 (April 25, 2017)[/b][/color][/size] [color=orange][b]Battles Completed: 40 Item of the Day:[/b][/color] [item=charcoal hopping mouse] [/center] This was Kessel and Mindor's first time being picked for the coli, and they both leveled up from Level 1 to Level 3 during this round. [b]Loot[/b] [item=river wiggler] x5 [item=strangling vine] x5 [item=strangler seeds] x5 [item=blooming vine] x5 [item=maple leaf] x4 [item=red maple leaf] x4 [item=daddy longlegs] x4 [item=vampire eel] x3 [item=Sakura Moss] x3 [item=blooming pods] x3 [item=Grouse Basilisk Field Notes] x2 [item=harvestman] x2 [item=venus flytrap] x1 [item=janustrap root] x1 [item=flycatcher] x1 [item=bolster] x1 [item=Sakura Owl] x1 [item=emerald ratsnake] x1 [item=Clown Charger Fin] x1 [item=herdbeast hoof] x1 [item=leafy pack] x1 [item=sakura owlet] x1 [item=highland dryleaf] x1

[center][size=5][color=orange][b]Coliseum Battle Post #9[/b][/size] [size=4][color=orange][b]Fulfills task for: Day 26 (April 29, 2017)[/b][/color][/size] [color=orange][b]Battles Completed: 31 Item of the Day:[/b][/color] [item=spineback slug] [/center] [b]Loot[/b] [item=blue honeycomb] x6 [item=carpenter wax] x6 [item=serrated beak] x4 [item=ruby brooch] x4 [item=display plumes] x3 [item=dwarf fawn] x2 [item=satin violets] x2 [item=triad moth] x2 [item=emerald brooch] x2 [item=micro deer] x2 [item=silverfish spectre] x2 [item=blue spot pygmy wrasse] x2 [item=dark-tufted featherduster] x2 [item=rosy similis] x1 [item=silken feathers] x1 [item=pale pink rose] x1 [item=worn pincushion] x1 [item=leafy pack] x1 [item=sweet songbird] x1 [item=sparrow skull] x1 [item=frosted violets] x1 [item=beeswax] x1 [item=ragepuff down] x1 [item=reverse silkworm moth] x1 [item=pollen] x1 [item=false leaf] x1 [item=chipskink tail] x1 [item=silverfish] x1 [item=firestarter] x1 [item=brightly painted bird toy] x1 [item=yellow-tinged featherduster] x1 [item=hardy antler] x1 [item=jagged beak] x1 [item=mustache moth] x1 [item=crunchy moth legs] x1 [item=ire tweet] x1 [item=bluelight chipskink tail] x1 [item=honeycomb fragment] x1

[center][size=5][color=orange][b]Journey Chronicles - Scene 16[/b][/size] [size=4][color=orange][b]Fulfills task for: Day 56 (May 29, 2017)[/b][/color][/size] [color=orange][b]Task completed on: July 10, 2017 Item of the Day:[/b][/color] [item=sanded ash plank] [/center] Clan Ashfeather, now with five members once again, journeyed onward along the dusty road through the Wandering Contagion. One day, they reached the point where the road forked into two. A wooden signpost stood there, with an arrow-shaped sign pointing down each road. The signs had no words on them, only the sigils of the Shadow and Water Flights. Diego cocked his head to the left, toward the road leading to Shadow. "So, what's the plan?" he said. Starbloom consulted the map she, Ember, and Felicity had made together back in Arcane. "We marked this intersection on our map," she said. "Our plan is to visit the Sea of a Thousand Currents next." "Is visiting the Tangled Wood part of the plan?" "Yes, it is." Starbloom hovered in front of the Ridgeback, holding the map. "Our route takes us along the edge of the Sea for some distance, then into the Tangled Wood." "Sounds great! I'd like to see my old home again, but you know what sounds even better right about now? Fresh seafood, not just dried fish or Soylent Blue! No offense, Belladonna." "None taken," said Belladonna. "I know it's not the tastiest food in the world." Diego turned quickly toward the road on the right, forcing Starbloom to dodge hastily out of his way, and took off at a trot. "Hey, wait!" Felicity called out, laughing, and followed him. She was only a little smaller than he, but they were the two largest members of their clan, and there was no way Belladonna or Kamien could keep up with them, let alone Starbloom. Even in flight, she could only go so far, so fast. After only a short distance, Diego slowed to a stop. "I wouldn't really leave a clanmate behind," he said to Felicity. "I just got a little excited." Felicity smiled. "I understand. I could use a change of scenery myself." "You grew up by the ocean, didn't you?" "Yes. I grew up in a lair way, way up by the top of the tallest mountain around. You could see the ocean forever." "Do you fish?" "I can. And yes, I'll be happy to do it for you." "Oh, you know about the water thing, too!" "Of course. Mopsy was always one of the biggest homebodies in the clan. She told me about disliking water, too." "It must have been pretty tough for her, being the only Ridgeback in the clan." "It wasn't easy being a dark-colored Pearlie forbidden child whose grandmother was an outcast from the clan. I tended to make friends with the other oddballs and loners, because I figured we all had to stick together." "You are a remarkable dragon," Diego said fondly. "Thank you," said Felicity. Belladonna and Kamien came trotting up to them, Starbloom hitching a ride on Belladonna's neck. "What was that about?" Belladonna said. "Sorry," said Diego. "I wasn't trying to ditch you; I just got a little excited. I'll slow down." "Thanks," Belladonna said. "We'll get where we're going in good time."

[center][size=5][color=orange][b]Journey Chronicles - Scene 17[/b][/size] [size=4][color=orange][b]Fulfills task for: Day 62 (June 4, 2017)[/b][/color][/size] [color=orange][b]Task completed on: July 11, 2017 Item of the Day:[/b][/color] [item=redwood kindling] [/center] The road they were on led them to a pair of towers built out of driftwood, their roofs tiled with seashells. Between the towers were wooden gates, which stood open. On the other side of each tower, a high wooden wall made of logs driven into the earth extended into the distance. There was a Mirror standing guard before one tower, and a Guardian before the other. They were both wearing official sashes bearing the sigils of the Plague and Water Flights, respectively. "Who goes there?" the Guardian said as they approached. "I am Felicity of Clan Ashfeather. We are a new clan traveling to see the world." "In what territory did you register your clan?" "Plague's." "Eturil? Do you have them on the registry?" the Guardian asked. "I shall check," answered the Mirror. He turned and disappeared through a door at the base of his tower. "This must be the border," Kamien said. "That's right," said Diego. "I've been here many times before." "You have," said the Guardian. "Where are you off to this time?" "We're going to travel along the beach for a bit, then go see the Tangled Wood and some other lands, and eventually end up in the Ashfall Waste." "Very well. I hope you enjoy your stay." "You know this guy?" Felicity said. "I've been traveling for most of my life," said Diego. "Felicity, this is Joral. Joral, this is Felicity. I just officially joined her clan." "Oh, really? Never thought I would hear that from you." "We make a great team." The Mirror, Eturil, came back out of the tower. "Yes, I have a copy of Clan Ashfeather's registration form right here," he said. "Where is Ember?" "She died," said Felicity, looking down. "We had a funeral for her a little way outside of the Plague Marketplace." "Oh. I'm sorry to hear it." "You can replace her name with mine," said Diego. "I'm Diego, and the clan accepted me a few days ago." "They said they were going to stay in Water territory for a little while," Joral said. "I can transfer your registration over to Water Flight, and add your name to the list in Ember's place when I do. All right?" "All right." "But what about Plaguebringer?" Kamien piped up. "Isn't she going to be mad at us?" "Not if you don't join in any battles against her," Eturil said. "We'll keep our copy of your clan registration in the archives. Should you ever wish to return to our lands, simply find an Exalted official and announce yourselves. You should be allowed back in." "Oh. Okay." Eturil handed the parchment form to Joral, who took it into his own tower and made a copy of it. He brought both copies back out, gave the original back to Eturil, and said, "Members of Clan Ashfeather, before you are granted entry to the Sea of a Thousand Currents, you must affirm that you will take no hostile action against the Tidelord or any of his servants or interest for as long as you remain here. Do you so affirm?" "I do so affirm," Felicity said. The others each said the same, in turn. "One moment while I verify the truth of your words," Joral said. He closed his deep blue eyes for a few moments, then opened them again. "You have spoken the truth," he said. "I see no hostility toward our people in your future." He waved a claw over the parchment he held, and a glowing Water Flight sigil appeared at the bottom of it. "Welcome to the Sea of a Thousand Currents, Clan Ashfeather. You may pass." "Thank you very much, sir," said Felicity. She and her clanmates strode through the open gates and into the new land.

[center][size=5][color=orange][b]Journey Chronicles - Scene 18[/b][/size] [size=4][color=orange][b]Fulfills task for: Day 63 (June 5, 2017)[/b][/color][/size] [color=orange][b]Task completed on: July 11, 2017 Item of the Day:[/b][/color] [item=onyx] [/center] On the other side of the border gateway was a stretch of scrubby, sandy ground that ended in a sea cliff. The Sea of a Thousand Currents stretched away into the distance, and the road they were on narrowed and became a trail that twisted and wound its way down the face of the cliff, doubling back on itself every so often. The group stopped at the edge of the cliff. "Wow," Kamien said. "Do you remember what the oceans looked like in the Starfall Isles?" Starbloom asked. "No, but I do remember what they smelled like. This place smells like home." Belladonna scurried ahead of the group excitedly. She hadn't had the chance to indulge her impulse to hide in and sneak through the underbrush since the very beginning of their journey. There wasn't really any brush to speak of in the Scarred Wasteland, but here on the seacliffs, there was. The bushes here had stiff little leaves that scratched her back, but it felt good; she couldn't reach most of it herself, after all. Once she had gotten up to speed, she was so busy trying to admire the view of the ocean while keeping one eye on the path down the cliff that she nearly tripped over something fleshy, thick, and muscular. Recovering her balance, she looked down at her feet. [i]Uh-oh.[/i] She had stumbled upon the prone, coiled body of a Spiral whose red-and-white coloration contrasted sharply with the pale gray-brown and green colors of the environment. His eyes were closed, his breathing shallow. Belladonna stepped around him carefully and realized that he had one wing and a leg trapped under a fallen rock. "Felicity?" she called out. "Are you here?" She made her way out of the bushes and back onto the narrow path. Her friends were still a little way up the path from where she was. "Felicity!" she called out. "Come quickly! I found someone who needs our help!" Felicity increased her pace a little. "I'm coming as fast as I can without falling!" she answered. When she got there and Belladonna showed her the injured Spiral, Felicity immediately began putting together a plan of action. "I can't be of much use with all this stuff on me," she said, "so I'm going to fly down and drop off some of the heaviest pieces, like the portable forge, and then come back up here. You and the others can try to get those rocks off of him, if you can do it without hurting yourselves. When I come back, I'll help you if need be, and then I'll take him down to the bottom of the cliff." "Sounds like a plan," Belladonna said. Diego and Kamien were only too happy to help move the fallen rocks aside. They were far too heavy for the Spiral, but to a Ridgeback, they were only a bit of a challenge to roll and lever into a better position. When Felicity returned, she had a healing potion and some white linen bandages ready to go. The clan used them to get the Spiral into decent-enough shape that he could be tied to Felicity's back and flown to the bottom of the cliff without any further injury. The thought of sneaking through the brush forgotten, Belladonna glided down through the warm sea air with the others. They formed a spiraling column as they descended to the sandy cove where Felicity had left the portable forge. Taking shelter there, they got together some fresh water and some beetles for the Spiral, who was now awake enough to accept them gratefully. There was an unspoken agreement within the clan that they would stay here until the Spiral had fully recovered. When the Spiral was feeling well enough to say more than a few words at a time, the clan learned that his name was Rythorn and that, like Belladonna, he had been enjoying himself, slithering through the bushes along the path that led down the cliff, when part of the cliff above him had given way with no warning and fallen onto him. He had been trapped there for a full day and a night, waiting for someone to come along. Belladonna had been the first to find him. By the time Rythorn was up and around, the clan had already begun to think of him as one of their own. When he was asked if he wanted to join the clan officially, he eagerly accepted.

[center][size=5][color=orange][b]Event Post #4[/b][/size] [size=4][color=orange][b]Fulfills task for: Day 44 (May 17, 2017)[/b][/color][/size] [color=orange][b]Task completed on: May 17, 2017 Item of the Day:[/b][/color] [item=construction mith] [/center] I was very pleasantly surprised to get another familiar only six days after my first one. The second time, Random.org gave me #7. I do like Spirals. :) [img]http://flightrising.com/rendern/350/323355/32335425_350.png[/img]

[center][size=5][color=orange][b]Journey Chronicles - Scene 19[/b][/size] [size=4][color=orange][b]Fulfills task for: Day 65 (June 7, 2017)[/b][/color][/size] [color=orange][b]Task completed on: July 15, 2017 Item of the Day:[/b][/color] [item=janustrap root] [/center] [i](OOC: Trigger warning for references to character death, and for massive survivor's guilt.)[/i] While Rythorn was in the process of recuperating from his injuries, one of Felicity's daily chores was to fish and gather sea-life from the shallows and the tidepools. One day, while engaged in this work, she came across something she hadn't been looking for. [item=crystal quartz] The moment she picked it up, she was overcome by a vision. An explosion whited out the horizon, coming closer and closer to Felicity - or rather, to her kindred spirit in this mysterious, other universe where the vision was taking place - as she walked on a beach, toward the water. She was half-carrying, half-dragging a male companion, and when he could go no farther, they sat down together in the sand. They had both just come from the fight of their lives, and they had accepted that they could not escape from the explosion, but they faced the end together and happy. They knew that they had succeeded in striking an important blow for their side, which meant that ultimately, they had won. With this knowledge in their hearts, they embraced each other, savoring those last few precious moments. The white wall of energy overcame Felicity's senses and snapped her out of the vision, back to the everyday reality of Sornieth. She found herself sitting in the sand, her feet in the water, staring blankly out to sea. It wasn't the first time she had had a vision like this; however, she'd never before known of her kindred spirit's death, or how she had died. [i]And here I still am,[/i] Felicity thought, [i]and one of my best friends is dead. I helped cremate her. Why am I still here? It should have been me. I should have been the one in the Coliseum that day.[/i] Tears sprang to her eyes, and she curled into a ball, holding her pearl and the crystal quartz tightly against her chest. She barely heard the sound of someone calling her name from behind her. When she realized it was Diego, she dragged herself a little way further inland, so that he wouldn't have to get his feet wet. "What is it?" he asked her. "What's wrong?" She couldn't find the words to express the heaviness in her heart. Instead, she held the crystal quartz she had found out for Diego to see. Diego's eyes widened in shock. For a minute or so, he stared, transfixed, out toward the ocean, just as Felicity had a few minutes ago. When he recovered from it, he sat down next to Felicity, speechless. "Did you just... have a vision?" she asked tentatively. "How did you know?" he asked. "I did. It was a beach like this one, and something was blowing up the world... or at least part of the world. I - I mean, the... other me, was going to die in the explosion, but he had won. We had won. Some battle, of some kind. And his sister-in-arms was there, too." "I..." Felicity couldn't believe it. "That's the exact same vision that I just had. I'm the kindred spirit to that 'sister-in-arms' you saw. I'm as certain of it as anything. I saw the vision from her point of view." "'Kindred spirit,'" Diego mused. "I like that." "That's what we called them in Clan Adeptica. There were quite a few of us oddballs there - dragons who sometimes got visions and memories that were ours, and yet not. Mental images of things that happened to other beings, in other places. We can't [i]quite[/i] explain where they come from, or why they happen, but they were always an accepted part of life there." "Wow. I... I thought I was the only one." "You're not. Not at all. I never thought I'd meet another dragon who had a kindred spirit like mine. I thought it was just our clan." "Is that why you were crying? Because your kindred spirit had to die that way?" "Yes, but it's not just that. Ember is dead, and I'm not. Why am I special, and not Ember? It could just as well have been me that day in the Battledome. It should have been me, instead of her..." Felicity broke down into sobs again. "Felicity!" said Diego. "Don't talk about yourself that way! You are worth so much more than you think you are. Your clan cares about you. [i]I[/i] care about you. We're glad you're still alive." "But... I don't deserve it. There's no reason I should get to live longer than my kindred spirit did." "Felicity, listen to me. Whoever our kindred spirits were, we're not them. We are here, right now. We're still alive, and we have each other. I don't see any explosions on the horizon, do you?" Felicity looked around. It was a perfectly calm spring day. A stream of brightly-colored bubbles jetted up from the surface of the ocean just beyond the waves, the bubbles popping in the clear air. "No," Felicity said softly. "I don't see any danger here." "Neither do I," said Diego. "And we don't have to be doomed to face the same kind of danger that they did. We may have visions of other lives, but that doesn't mean they have to control [i]our[/i] lives. We can take off in a different direction than our kindred spirits did. Our destinies are for us to decide." Felicity gazed into Diego's purple eyes and saw no subterfuge or trickery, only truth - a more profound, wonderful truth than she had been able to imagine just a few moments before. She leaned heavily into his chest, new tears falling. "Yes. We can. And we will." The two were silent for a moment. "Thank you," Felicity said, finally. "You've brought me hope again." "And you've made me feel less alone than I ever have in my life," Diego answered. "Will you be my mate?" "Yes. Absolutely."