Creative Corner

[center][b]Day 7[/b] [item=silk spool] [i]writing[/i][/center] As day dawned, the two dragons moved about their usual daily chores. They washed the blood off in the stream and then left Liana's camp to avoid the reminders of their nightly encounter. They spent most of the morning gathering plants and catching insects for food. And then after eating they sat down and thought about what they should do. "Maybe the curse isn't real," Liana said, her voice hopeful. Rosebud shook his head. "Did you feel it? Besides, how do you explain your change in appearance?" She settled her head down on her paws miserably. Rosebud looked at her. She really did look quite beautiful with the new colors, the swirls of gold along her arms and legs and the dark circle between her wings. It was strange that a curse could cause such a pleasing effect. "Why don't you look any different?" she was grumbling. "I don't understand." Rosebud shrugged. "I don't know how magic works. Ask a magician." At that, Liana's head shot up again. "Rosebud that's it!" "What's it?" "Ask a magician! We just need a mage or a witch or somebody who knows things about magic to help us out, then they can tell us how to lift the curse and that'll be that!" She shot up and started walking away. "We have no time to laze around, let's go." Rosebud sighed and stood, following her. "But Liana, we don't know any magicians. Where do you expect we'll find one, apart from living in the middle of the woods and hunting down random dragons who pass through their territory?" She faltered for just a second, and then kept walking. "We can go to the Tangled Wood and ask Pleasant B's clan if they have any mages. We don't know anyone there, so as long as we don't stay, they won't be at risk for being hurt by our curse, but they're on friendly terms with our clan so they'll help us." Rosebud almost had to stop in his tracks. The idea was so simple, but it felt so good to have a direction and a purpose that he was surprised they hadn't thought of it before. But then he frowned. "Do we know where they live?" he asked. "Well, the Tangled Wood is south of here, and we know they're pretty close to the border. So it'll be a bit of a search, but they're a bigger clan than us, they've got scouts and hunters and things, I'm sure we'll be able to find them. We just need to head south." Rosebud felt like arguing, but it was better than anything he could come up with, so he agreed. "Alright. There's just one thing." Liana turned to him quizzically. "What's that?" Rosebud turned to the phytocat, padding silently along next to them. "I'm sorry about this," he said, and then he grabbed it and leapt into the air in the way that was so exhausting. He heard the phytocat squeal in alarm as it wiggled, but it soon realized that making Rosebud drop it while flying would be a very bad idea, so it stood still. Soon Liana joined him in the air, and the two of them started winging their way south.

@Larkie

I love your writing style! Add me to the pinglist?

@Skyeset Sure! Thanks for stopping by!

[center][b]Day 8[/b] [item=Redblood Sapper] [i]10-20 matches[/i][/center] They flew until the phytocat started struggling again, which seemed like a good stopping point anyway. Rosebud had started to have doubts again about their ability to know where they were going, but...well, he could worry about the specifics once they reached the Tangled Wood. He'd never been there, although he'd heard stories. His own father, who had decided to go serve the Gladekeeper not long after he'd been hatched, had come from there. And then of course so had Brer, Arala, and so many other dragons in their clan. Rosebud himself had never felt much of an inclination to go - if so many dragons left there to come to live with them in the Viridian Labyrinth, then it must not be a great place to live. But then again, some of their own hatchlings had gone to live in the Tangled Wood. And, since they were going there anyway, Rosebud decided it couldn't hurt to be curious about it. They landed in a quiet looking patch of woodland, but, almost as soon as they started looking around for edible plants and insects, they discovered that this quiet patch of woodland was home to a parliament of owls. These owls were very unhappy about two invaders, and, after being chased out of the owls' home, Rosebud and Liana were forced to fight for their own defense. Rosebud was again surprised at how well Liana fought now, considering that when they'd started this journey she'd never so much as set foot in the Coliseum. Now, although she didn't have quite the strength he did, she kept up with him. When the last of the owls had finally left them alone, however, she didn't seem happy about it. Instead, she just moved to a couple that they had killed and started cleaning them up. They ate a quiet dinner that night, but once they were done eating Liana seemed to return to herself a little. "So," she said. "How do you feel about going to meet your idol's parents?" Rosebud scowled. "Brer is not my idol. I respect him as a leader of the clan and as a skilled fighter. There's nothing wrong with that." Liana rolled her eyes. "Yeah, sure." Then she hunched her shoulders and spoke in a comically deep voice. "Brer took me to the coliseum today, you should have seen him in action, it was amazing! Oh, we shouldn't do that, because Brer said not to. Brer says that we should pay attention the world around us, so I can't do my chores today, I just have to practice sitting and watching everything around me, except that I didn't notice you come up because I was too busy thinking about what Brer says..." Rosebud swatted at her, but she dodged away from him, laughing. "I do not sound like that. Besides, he has some good advice. Why wouldn't I listen to him?" She grinned. "You never quote Lysiae, who is as good at fighting and actually our founder, or Amala, who does more day to day running of the clan. Admit it, you've got a big hero worship thing for him." He huffed and decided that it was best to ignore her. And sure enough, after a few more jibes of, "Oooh, Brer, notice me, approve of what I'm doing. Are you going to tell him how you were so brave in fighting off all these beasts, protecting a little first timer like me?" Liana decided to finally settle down. "How much farther do you think it is to the Tangled Wood?" Rosebud asked after several minutes of quiet. "How should I know?" Liana asked. "I probably know as much as you did, from the story of the founding. They flew for days, although Brer changes how many every time he tells it, and they found the cave when they decided to stop by the spring for a drink. Even if we did know exactly where to go, those directions would be from the lair, not from the middle of the forest somewhere." "You're right." Rosebud was quiet for a moment again, and then he asked, "Do you think we'll make it?" "Of course we will. Why wouldn't we?" Rosebud sighed and closed his eyes, settling down for sleep. "You're right. Why wouldn't we?" ----- @Skyeset

[center][b]Day 9[/b] [item=Jar of Slime] [i]writing[/i][/center] For the most part, their journey through the forest was an uneventful one. They would forage for insects or leaves, occasionally scoring some meat, and flying above the treetops for as long as they could. Rosebud thought that it felt good to be going somewhere. Maybe they didn't know exactly where they were headed, but that didn't really matter. They had an idea, and they could sort of navigate, and hopefully they would reach their destination soon enough. Or at least, hopefully they would reach the Tangled Wood soon enough. Even Bambi the phytocat got more used to flying, especially when Liana made a sort of sling for him that she could fit around Rosebud's shoulders. Despite himself, Rosebud was growing quite attached to the little guy. They were also getting better at making camp, which Rosebud was especially happy about because it had started raining sometime the previous night and hadn't let up all day. They had dug out another little hollow under a tree with low-hanging branches, and supplemented their shelter with more branches and leaves woven in from the surrounding area. They'd had to do a little bit of patchwork when Bambi had woken them up because he was being dripped on, but apart from that the shelter was holding up quite well. "How much farther do you think it is to the Tangled Wood?" he asked. Liana shrugged. "Let's see. We've been flying south for what, three days? And some of the Shadow dragons who've come say it takes maybe a week to get to the lair, although sometimes they do have hatchlings with them. So if we assume that when we got lost we were just heading perpendicular to the main river, we'd be flying south for a total of four days, meaning we should get there pretty soon. Right?" "That sounds about right. So if we get there in the next day or two, then hopefully it won't take us that long to find the other lair..." Rosebud thought about what he'd heard of the Shadow clan they were going to see and their lair. He tried to think of Brer's descriptions most of all, because they'd need all the detail that they needed. "So there's the large river between the Viridian Labyrinth and the Tangled Wood, right? And if you follow one of the streams on their side that flows into the river, up through a canyon, then you'll end up in this valley and that's where the lair is. They basically followed one river down and another river up, and when they stopped at the spring they noticed the cave. And that's how our lair was chosen." Liana smiled lazily at him and flicked him with her tail. "Maybe all that hero worship is going to be useful after all." Rosebud glared at her, but it was true. He had a much better idea of what they were looking for than she did. "It's too bad we lost the stream again," he said. "Maybe we should have stuck with it." "It didn't seem like the right one anyway. It probably runs into some tepid pond and then we'd be extra lost and also we'd have wasted a lot of time." Liana yawned, even though it was only the middle of the afternoon. The gray light outside hadn't changed since that morning, and it was easy to lose track of time. "You're probably right." Rosebud scratched a little in the dirt. "I'm sorry." Liana settled her head down on her front paws and closed her eyes. "Sorry for what?" "For getting mad at you and flying ahead. For not turning back when I realized I didn't have time to make it back to you before it got dark. For bringing those spirals right to you, and for..." He stopped. He didn't like to think about how it had felt when the other dragon's neck had snapped in his grip. "For everything. We probably wouldn't be here if it wasn't for me, and we definitely wouldn't be cursed if it wasn't for me." Liana lifted her head again. "Rosebud, it's not your fault," she said, looking him evenly in the eyes to prove that she was really being serious. "I may think you were overreacting, but I know why you were mad. And you wouldn't have brought them to us if they hadn't been hunting you in the first place. I don't know who those dragons were or what they wanted, but we were only acting in self defense. You didn't ask to be cursed. You can't blame yourself for the actions of another." Rosebud hesitated for a second, but then he nodded. "You're right. They weren't exactly giving us much choice, were they?" She settled her head down again. "I'd rather be cursed than be alone out here. Or dead. Or whatever else they might have wanted with us." Rosebud looked up at the canopy above them, peering out into the steady rain. "Yeah, me too." ----- @Skyeset

[center][b]Day 10[/b] [item=Solidscale Chest Guard] [i]breed two dragons - Liana's breeding cooldown is not yet up, so I'll just keep writing[/i][/center] Rosebud felt like he had never been so tired. He didn't usually spend so much of his time flying, let alone carrying something as large as a phytocat, and he found himself eating more and falling asleep almost immediately when they settled down for it. But that day there was a surprise waiting for them. They flew over the treetops, as usual, but in the distance Rosebud thought he saw the trees suddenly...end. He didn't know what could make that happen, and for a moment he felt nervous. They were flying into a cool breeze, and he had to hold Bambi's harness to make sure it didn't shift around too much and make flying difficult for him, or make Bambi unhappy with being so high up in the air. Soon they were approaching the strange end to the trees, and they both had to land to take in the sight ahead of them. They had reached enormous cliffs, where the land apparently just dropped off into a huge river. They landed on top of these cliffs to stare out. "I knew there was a river," Rosebud said. "But I never imagined it would be this big." Liana nodded. "Yeah. I don't think I've ever seen this much water in one place." He looked back and forth, completely ignoring the other side for the moment as he just stared at the mass of water, all moving lazily forward. "Imagine what the Sea of a Thousand Currents is like." "I thought I could picture it, but now I'm not so sure. This is just a river, Rosebud." She looked up at him. "It makes our little spring seem tiny." Rosebud just nodded, turning his gaze to the other side. There were more trees there, but somehow that forest felt forbidding, dangerous. He'd rather spend weeks more in the lonely forest they'd been traveling through than go to the one across the river. "So that must be the Tangled Wood," he said. "Yeah. I guess I didn't expect it to be so...dark." Liana shuffled her feet awkwardly. "I know that sounds silly, since it's the Shadow realm, but I still had no idea..." "Well, we have to go in there, but first we have to find the delta. There's supposed to be a place where a bunch of smaller rivers and streams flow into this one, and that's where we start heading inland." Rosebud had repeated the oral map to himself so many times he felt sure he could find it without a problem. "So we can fly along this side until we see it, and then we can cross." "I don't have any problem with that." For someone so eager to leave the lair, Liana seemed strangely reluctant to cross the river and leave the Nature realm for the first time. "But for now, let's take a break." So they stopped for a while on the cliffs, scrounging up some more plants and insects as a snack. Rosebud chewed on some dandelions, looking at the river below. He swallowed. "Do you think we could fish in the river?" Liana looked up from her failed attempt to catch a grasshopper. "It's been so long since I've had fish! I'd love to give it a try." "Maybe when we reach the delta. I don't see any kind of beach, or even many rocks we could perch on down there." Rosebud stepped back from the edge and stretched. "Which way do you think we should go?" Liana looked left, and then right, but the cliffs and the dark forest on the other side stretched as far as they could see. "Let's let Bambi decide," she said. So they turned to Bambi, who was snacking on a mouse that he had caught. Rosebud felt a pang of jealousy that the phytocat was a better hunter than him, but he pushed it back. Bambi had been nothing but help for them, even if he was kind of heavy. "Bambi," Liana was saying. "Should we go left or right along the cliffs?" She pointed, just to make sure he understood. Bambi stared at her. Rosebud waited for a minute, but then sighed. "Come on, let's just pick a direction. I don't think he's going to move without us." "Give him a minute! He's smarter than you give him credit for." Liana shot a glare at Rosebud, and then turned back to Bambi. "Come on Bambi. Left or right?" Bambi stared for a minute more, but then he turned and started heading left. Liana gave Rosebud a smug smile and started following him. Rosebud merely sighed and lumbered after them.

[center][b]Day 11[/b] [item=Banded Olivine] [i]writing[/i][/center] They followed Bambi for a day, and made camp a little ways back from the cliff, right over a spot where there were some large rocks from an ancient rockfall sticking up out of the water. That night they perched on those rocks, diving in and out of the water for fish. Rosebud had never been a big fisher, but Liara was laughing and paddling around. She only caught a few more than him, but she seemed relieved to be in the water again. "Are you sure you don't want to go to the Sea of a Thousand Currents and just live there?" he teased as she floated past him, drifting lazily on her back, wings spread out in the water. She spat some water at him. "No, one current is enough. This river is pretty strong, especially further out. We can keep looking for the delta, and then we can at least get some advice from someone before we decide what we want to do." "Alright, if you insist." Rosebud suddenly saw what looked like a larger fish swimming against the current, and he slipped into the water to go after it. He dove under, holding his breath and keeping his gaze fixed on his prize as he approached. It seemed to be sitting still, even though it looked like it was swimming hard, and right as he got close to it, it darted away. Rosebud felt the tug of the current then, and he decided to resurface. He saw Liana, much further away than he expected, but he was quickly being swept past the rocks that he could climb out on. He paddled frantically, striking out with long, powerful strokes, but he was nothing against the might of the river. That was when Rosebud started to panic. The water was getting sort of rough, and he didn't want to go over rapids. He felt his body strike a rock, but it was slimy with algae and had been worn smooth over the long years of the water carving at it, and his claws merely slipped off. Then he went over a little drop and submerged. Everything was swirling water, and Rosebud felt the air he had slipping out of him in his distress and confusion. He couldn't tell which way was up, but he clawed at the water, and suddenly his head broke again - just in time to go over a small waterfall. Once more Rosebud was submerged, the water pounding down on top of him, but at least he knew from its pummeling which way he needed to go. He struggled to get out from underneath the intense water pressure first, and once he didn't feel it pushing him down anymore he swam desperately for the surface. His head broke and he coughed, gasping for air and looking around him. There, in front of him, he saw that the cliffs on one side were lower down, and instead there appeared to be a sandy beach. He swam for it, pulling himself gratefully out onto the damp sand. There was a little trickle of a creek running into the river at his feet, and he decided that he wanted to stick with smaller streams from now on. Then a thought struck him and he lifted his head. There was another creek flowing in just a short ways away, and another, and a branch of a larger one beyond that. He had reached the delta. ----- @Skyeset I'm sorry I forgot to ping you yesterday!

@Larkie

Ah, it's totally fine!

[center][b]Day 12[/b] [item=Ashspine Widow] [i]number generated: 12. buy the cheapest coatl in the auction house[/i][/center] Rosebud looked up as Liara landed next to him, a worried look on her face. "Are you alright? You just disappeared." He nodded. "The current was a little stronger than I expected. It was a bit of an adventure, but here we are." He gave her a smile. "And we found it. This is the next marker on the map. Do you think we should camp out here on the beach tonight?" Liara looked back at the cliffs. "I'd have to go get Bambi. But I suppose we could camp down here. There is less chance of falling off a cliff if you roll over in your sleep, after all." Just then they heard a piercing cry, coming from just within the woods. Both their heads shot up, but at a second cry, they silently decided to go investigate. The sound was coming from just inside the woods, and Rosebud had to try hard to avoid making any noise as they stepped into the forest, coated in dead twigs and dry needles. It didn't take long for them to see the source of the cry. There was a tiny coatl hatchling curled up on the ground, with an enormous, spiky spider standing over it. Rosebud hunched down, ready to pounce, but then he paused. The spider was shoving dead insects at the coatl, who was crying and wailing and refusing to eat them. Was it...taking care of the little dragon? Liana crawled forward, and the spider immediately turned towards her. It reared up, mandibles clicking menacingly. Rosebud decided that now was the time for him to come out too. He had no idea how to fight spiders, but he was at least a lot bigger than it and hopefully that counted for something. Liana kept her gaze focused on the spider. "He can't eat that," she said, pointing at the fish. The spider didn't approach, but it didn't back down either. There was a pause. "Rosebud," Liana said, not taking her eyes off the spider. "Go down to the river and catch a fish. Fast as you can. But don't get swept away this time." Rosebud realized that she was right. Coatls only ate seafood, no wonder the hatchling was crying so much. He was hungry. So Rosebud hurried down to the river and dipped his head in, scanning under the waves for any fish. This time he had much better luck than the last. He saw a dark movement in the water and was on it like a flash, clenching it in his jaws. Then he was hurrying back through the forest. The scene hadn't changed at all from when he'd left. Liana was staring the spider down, and the coatl hatchling was crying as the spider stood over it. The cries stopped when it saw the fish though. On tiny baby legs, it wobbled over towards him, and he dropped the fish in front of it. He was amazed at how fast the hatchling devoured the fish, soon it was no longer crying and had started falling asleep in the remains of its dinner. The menacing spider finally seemed to relax. Rosebud looked at Liana. "What do we do?" he asked. "Well, I'll go back and get Bambi. I guess we have to take him with us to the Shadow clan. Maybe they can take care of him." Liana glanced at the spider, eyeing it warily. "Keep an eye on that thing. And maybe start making another pouch. We'll need to catch a lot of fish and carry them with us if we want to keep that little guy fed." Then she was off, flying back towards the cliffs. Rosebud did as he was told, finding some long, tough grasses and beginning to weave a bag out of them. The spider was eating the insects it had been trying to feed to the coatl, and he tried not to think of it eating the little hatchling. Spiders didn't care about fattening up their prey, after all. Didn't they? But soon Liana was back, and they were setting up camp on the rough sand of the beach. The baby coatl woke up and stared in fascination at the fire that they built, and Rosebud kept weaving as Liana caught fish to put in his new bag. By the time she'd created a sizable pile, Rosebud had some thoughts he needed to speak aloud. "I've noticed something strange," he said. "What's that?" Liana asked, curling close to the fire to dry herself and warm up. "His eyes. This dragon isn't from the Shadow flight. He's from lightning." Even with the light of the flames reflecting in them, the hatchling's eyes were clearly a bright electric blue. "And why would the spider take care of him?" Liana shrugged. "Maybe his clan was traveling through and he got lost. Or maybe he was kidnapped. Who knows? But the spider probably got attached to him somehow. The same way Bambi took care of us, even though we'd just killed all of his family and friends." Rosebud shot a guilty look at the sleeping phytocat. "Yeah. I guess so." "So I suppose we'll never know. At least, not until he starts talking." She settled her head down and closed her eyes. "For now, let's just go to sleep and worry about it later, okay?" Rosebud nodded, but he didn't settle down for sleep. He wanted to keep an eye on this little dragon, for as long as he could keep his eyes open. ----- @Skyeset

[center][b]Day 13[/b] [item=Red Emperor Tulip] [i]10-20 matches[/i][/center] Rosebud had drifted off to sleep, but he awoke suddenly when he heard the snap of a twig at the edge of the forest. He lifted his head, expecting Liara to be coming back with some plants for breakfast, but instead he saw the hostile eyes of a moss-covered golem staring at him from the trees. He reached over and nudged Liana, keeping an eye on the creature. Slowly, it began to advance, and more appeared through the trees. "What? Oh no..." Liana stood up next to him, shaking some of the sand from her sides. "I guess we don't have much of a choice, do we?" "Don't we?" Rosebud asked, standing up next to her but somewhat less determined. "Well, we could run, I guess, but we need to explore this delta if we're going to make it to the next step of our journey, so unless you feel like finding another way..." Rosebud gulped and nodded. "Come on, we can't let them get close to that hatchling." So they advanced up the sand, towards the menacing golems, until the first golem broke into a run and attacked them. Rosebud had started to feel rather confident in his abilities as a fighter, but this knocked him down a peg. It was nearly impossible to gouge clawmarks into the stone, and each golem was just as fast as the two dragons. And when one fell, another stepped right back into its place. But Rosebud was determined not to let the golems reach the hatchling, and Liana was right. They couldn't afford to back down from such an important spot. Finally there was only one golem left, and the two dragons turned on it, ready for the final burst of energy it would need to win this fight. But, to Rosebud's surprise, the golem lay down on the sand and lowered its head, seemingly accepting of its fate. He paused and looked at Liana. "We can't kill it, can we?" he asked. "We can," she replied, and then looked at the submissive creature once more. "But it would be unfair. They fought well." She went over and tapped the back of the golem's head. "Get up. We won't kill you." It looked up at her, but when it became clear that the dragons weren't going to hurt it, it stood, uneasily. Rosebud flapped a claw at it. "Go on," he said. "Get out of here." But it just stood there, staring at the two of them. Rosebud sighed and started heading back to camp. "Great," he said. "I can't carry that one while flying. We're going to have to walk from here on out." Liana laughed at him and followed him back to their camp, where the hatchling was crawling around the sooty remains of the fire, apparently unaware of the fight that had taken place just up the beach. He looked up at them expectantly, and Liana gave him one of the fish that she'd caught the night before. "What are we going to call him?" she asked. Rosebud shrugged. "How should I know?" She sighed and shook her head. "Well, we've got to figure something out. Come on. Let's get moving. What's the next thing we should be looking for?" Rosebud thought for a minute. "A gorge," he said. "Brer said they flew over a huge gorge and then the stream from the gorge joined others in the delta." Liana nodded. "Maybe one of us should scout ahead while the other stays behind. Since you're so sure of the directions, would you like to do it?" "Give me a minute," Rosebud said. "I can't go on a long scouting mission right after a fight." "Then I'll do it," she said, flapping her wings a couple times to make sure there wasn't some injury that was going to stop her flight. Then she was off, wheeling up into the air and scanning the ground below. Rosebud settled down to wait. It took her all morning, which gave him more time to fish, just in case the stream they were following didn't have many fish for the coatl. He'd scrounged up quite a store when Liana returned. "We have a problem," she said as she landed. Rosebud felt his heart sink. "You didn't find it?" "Oh no, I found a gorge," she said. "It was hard to spot because of how narrow it was, and it's easy for the ferns and trees to hide it from above. But I did find it. The problem is that you said we would be walking from now on, correct?" Rosebud nodded. "I can't carry everything, and I doubt we could between the two of us either." Liana sighed. "The way I found it was that I heard it. At the back of the canyon is an immense waterfall. We'll have to find some way to climb up." Rosebud didn't know how to react to that, but he decided that they could worry about it later. "Well," he said. "We can figure it out. For now, let's start walking." They gathered up the fish into the makeshift bag that Rosebud had made, and started up the delta, Liana leading the way to the correct stream that she then followed into the woods. ----- @Skyeset