deadlitebulb's Clan

I will pay you treasure for white rooks and black-capped chickadees I think I'm obsessed

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A clan of cowards, they were.

When the forgemasters cut off all but the most elite smiths, they turned to idle freelance. They could sustain themselves on jobs away from home, bounty of the hunt, and on the other, amateur trades their brethren possessed.

When the sea boiled by Flamecaller's hand, they watched from the Annex without a stance. Their workshop worked just fine by the residual heat that poured onto their coast.

When the conflict began, they retreated into dormancy. They lost the fight in them after the great dominance push against Plague many years ago, and felt it best to wait out the storm.

And when they emerged, they found they had been judged allies of the side that had cast them out in the first place.

In the industrious cliffside of the Blacksand Annex, those loyal to the guild's ways remained. The hours were longer, the conditions harsher, and nepotism was law. What little work they found offered no relief in the way of stability, and more and more they found themselves eating into the vaults to survive.

But across the waves the Rebuke shone bright. Mother's triumph against the sea; defying the relentless waves that wore down on it and growing ever greater with each eruption. And across the sea, the rebels they had once declined to aid in favour of neutrality still fought for their worth.

There was hardly anything there, they knew. But there was only toil and scraps for them on the Annex, and aloof Forgemasters who wouldn't even see the worth in their sibling's firstborn.

So the clan set out to migrate, urging all they knew to join them. And when the Guild heard of a venerable lair abandoning their post, the clan was chased out instead.

When they arrived, they found a barren, desolate rock, with only the first signs of shrubbery carefully nurtured by the rebels. Food was scarce, water was salty, and their new home was no more luxurious than a hole with a roof. But something here that the assembly line of the Annex lacked, they found in spades.

For the first time in their lives, they found plentiful, unbridled, solidarity.