Rethandral's Clan

A small amount of years have slipped by, small in the eyes of dragons.

Rethandral drifted upon the winds above the once more frozen winter Tundra, the peaks of the Cloudscrape Crags far on the horizon. Each wingbeat held him aloft, each adjustment of feathers kept him in place as cold, sharp white eyes examine a much closer range of mountains.

His home.

Once thought lost to a great natural catastrophe as the sleeping volcano erupted into violent activity those years ago. It almost looked normal again with a blanketing of snow.

If you ignored the gaping crater atop the main mountain with a haze covered lake filling the center, and a nearby ridge fissured and pitted, that is.

Some short distance away from him drifted his ever present mate, Aestiaeda, ever a fierce dragon and supporter of his ideas. She too had taken on the graceful flying form of a Skydancer amongst their travels and many a stranger was taken aback by such a hot-tempered dragon. As always, she had also returned to their home of old to survey the land and see if it was recoverable.

Time healed all things of course, and they were not lazy either. With enough work and dedication, anything could be achieved under the watchful gaze of the Icewarden.

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It started with complaints of the workers in the mine shafts. They weren’t getting enough mining done with the foul airs coming up out of the rocks. It choked dragons and killed their smaller familiars working besides them hauling ore. For the safety of the Clan, Rethandral halted the ore mining operations and blocked off the entrances.

Days passed with no other sign of trouble though the foul airs did not stop seeping up from the ground, and even some of the deeper icy cracks that had been appearing up the sides of Icewind Peak were venting foul, warm, steam.

Despite not having been raised within the volcanic landscape most fire dragons call their home, Tamura approached the leader of their clan and advised Rethandral that their clan home had been built upon an old volcano. It was the reason why their deeper tunnels stayed warm throughout the harshest of winters and their warm bathing pools that came from natural hot springs.

The sharp black rock that was pulled up from the ground as well as various layers of porous rock were also indicators of what Tamura was certain of their home. For the many long years, Icewind Peak was stirring and it was not for the good of their clan to stay.

“How much time?” Rethandral looked to his efficient Ridgeback miner, clearly knowledgeable in what was going on. There were many dragons and far too many supplies that needed to be moved. Not all of the clan members were capable of flying due to having hatched.

“Hours… days… weeks. The fire mountains all behave differently depending where in Sornieth they are made, or how old they are. We can move elsewhere in the Icefields, or leave them entirely. I know that your faith with the Icefather is strong, and I shall leave the decision of how far we move to you. But move we must.”

After the discussion, Rethandral spread broad feathery wings and ascended to the top of Icewind Peak, to see for himself what his beloved mountain was doing. There had always been a snow-capped crown to it, and as the biting cold winds pushed him higher and higher, all his glacial eyes saw was a sky-blue lake never seen before with steam coming up from yellowed cracks in the newly uncovered crater.

He had built his home within the shadow of a fire mountain.

It took many days to convince the Clan of the dangers that they were in, the ground rumbling beneath their pads incentivized dragons that were usually lazy to hurry up and get things packed, or stored away deep within caves and sealed should they wish to return. Many of the larger dragons were pushed into service for uprooting great trees, breaking branches and working with smaller clan members to make sea-worthy barges that would carry equipment, food and those that could not fly or swim in the icy currents. Other dragons simply… left the clan if they did not have much of an attachment or loyalty for their Skydancer leader to seek out safer lands for a new home.

Dark clouds now billowed from the peak, obscuring it entirely on some days and thick clumps of false snow Tamara called “ash” was floating down from those clouds. Their time was running out.

One by one, the log barges were pushed away from the coastal ice-shelf weighed down by supplies and the wingless. All dragons that could bore harnesses that strapped the lighter supplies and even many of the more vitally important supplies not to be risked by the ocean.

A thunderous noise shattered the air as several miles inland, Icewind Peak exploded as well as a second smaller peak neighboring it. Blossoms of red chased after unknown volumes of dark rock as earth was hurled skyward in an unbelievable amount of force. The eruption continued with great energy as few dragons now stayed to watch, turning their backs to the mountain and pumping their tired wings as quickly as they could manage to flee the fiery terror behind them.

Streaking boulders of hot rock began to fall through the sky, screaming almost as lava steamed in the frigid air, falling close and far from the erupting volcano to become deadly projectiles one must keep an eye out for or risk getting hit and falling to the ground below.

It would be a long while before any dragon dared go against their fear of the frozen fire mountain to see what has become of their home. Many dragons were lost by exhaustion over the suddenly rough seas and the changing weather patterns due to the eruption and ash. Others hunkered down farther down the coastline thinking that distance was to keep them safe but expired breathing in too much of the powdery ash that constantly fell down across the land. Those that were strong and hardy enough to fly above the roiling clouds of ash bore the weight of smaller dragons who couldn’t keep up as they fled, seeking any new shelter that would not be accosted by the ash fallout. No one in the Clan were quite sure as to what has happened to all those that were floating upon the frigid seas, terrified and alone hoping that they would find friendly lands.

~ ~ ~

Weeks pass and with letters written on the wing Rethandral had sent out his fastest flyers to seek out the few friends he has made during his long and strange life seeking safer lands to his wandering Clan. A single response had come stating that the island they inhabited was large enough to home a second Clan. They would have to learn to fish, which some were already well capable of doing, and others would have to tend to the wild growths that were untamed in the center, or they could even spread out through the smaller islands should they chose to.

Some of the barges were able to be found, scattered along territories of the southern mainland mass of Sornieth. They were advised to either seek out the large island that was northwest of the territories guarded by the Behemoth tree, or they were released to seek out new lives of their own considering the distance that had to be traveled.

Uncountable dragons were lost in the devastating eruption of Icewind Peak and many simply never rejoined the clan up north. It would take time, patience and much planning to get things back on track. To assimilate with a new clan side-by-side and settle back into the routines of living, not merely surviving.

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The Southern Icefields are a cold and desolate broken land, where only the tough, resourcefull and creative could eek out a life. Seasons come and go but Winter wraps its sharp and icy claws upon the lands for the longest portion of the year as the land resides upon the bottom of the world.

Meat is hard to come by, and plants are harder still to find unburried by snow. The only bounty visits the lands during the spring thaw and the ever shorter summer months of the lower mountain steps and coastal tundra. Life becomes a flurry of activity, plants flowering and wild beasts bringing new life in the time span of plentiful food.

For the daring and sturdy few, fish are a plentiful resource as well as the meat from predators that eat those same fish. Hidden beneath the dense ice hides a secret bounty but few dragons are born with the skill or tenacity to harvest it.

On the snow covered, rocky, Icewind Peak resides a small meagre clan of dragons scratching through crevices and canyons, valleys and open tundra. What will their fates be? Will they appease the Icewarden and recieve his blessings to continue surviving upon the frozen land? Or will the hardened magical ice claim more dragons to be viewed by others as a very real warning...