whalesbone » Clan | Lair | Nesting Grounds

whalesbone's Clan

what is a bird? a delightful little pile of secrets

Ancient Lair

hidden in the

Foxfire Bramble

Clan Info

Secondary succession happens when a climax community
or intermediate community is impacted by a disturbance. This restarts the cycle of succession, but not back
to the beginning—soil and nutrients are still present. (x)

The brambles here are young and creep close to the ground; the trees are even younger, a hundred years away from fully obscuring the sky.

At a glance, there is nothing here.

Upon closer inspection, in fact, there is
nothing here at all.

There are no dragons, to be certain, though there are trace fossils that suggest a not-so-distant inhabitance: the clean-cut ends of felled trees scattered among the saplings; troughs in the soil demarcating once-neat squares of irrigated land; a pock-marked landscape of valleys and holes where some underground structure has begun to collapse. These traces alone could be taken simply as an abandoned lair, but it is not the absence of dragons that makes this area peculiar.

It is not dead. There is soil under short shrubs and woody shoots, but even the sweetest grasses grow free of predators, supporting little beyond dewdrops. There is no deafening insect song like that which permeates the old-growth bramble, only occasional chirps and the congregation of some hardier species along shallow pools of water. With no canopy, the open sky reveals birds overhead, but they do not stop to forage, for the paltry offering of moss and mosquitoes does little to entice them. It is not dead, no, but neither does it feel alive.

Were there blackened boughs and pinecones cracked open by heat, the evidence of a forest fire would be drawn in charcoal. Fresh ravines cracking the earth, a layer of water filling the burrows running below, even signs of battle are easy to interpret. Yet there are no such examples of environmental storytelling. There are no bones. Perhaps the dragons that were once here are as gone as the overarching thickets, the owls within them and the rodents scurrying below them, all consumed by the same unknown force of nature. Perhaps this landscape is dracogenic, drained of all its resources and abandoned for a fresh start, the straggling fauna long forgotten.

It doesn’t matter. To an observer, it's a mystery, a riddle, something that needs solving- something that has an answer, no matter how obscure. To the trees, it's what it always has been: a struggle for survival, sometimes won, sometimes lost. The thorns will regrow and the wildlife will return when the moonlight fades. Perhaps the rehabilitated landscape will bring the dragons back, too. Perhaps not. It doesn't matter.

The cycle will continue, same as it always has, same as it always will.

.........

ぼやけるな
孤立と孤独
不死である
天の川での
兆個の同士

boyakeruna
koritsu to kodoku
fushi de aru
ama no gawa de no
chouko no doushi

do not misconstrue
"isolated" as "alone,"
in the stars above
are a trillion and more
eternal companions

adapted from @/Youcal <3

hikaru [光]• 22 • he/him • english/日本語 • fr +3

workin towards my phd (pristine hib den)

my two interests are avian ecology and late 90's-early 00's high fantasy rpgs. i am happy to talk to anyone about anything but i cannot say that there is anything else in my brain but these two topics

steam friends :3?

art shop (quasi-retired)

Recent Comments

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EternalRamen said

November 14, 2019 03:51:04

Your lair is so cool!

dogma said

October 30, 2019 19:17:21

vulture gang rise!

Sunshine said

October 16, 2019 19:21:53

Hi!! Just want to say I love your vulture culture aesthetic and I love your art. Your crow skeletons are the perfect mix of anatomy with style. I adore them!