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 @/Emanuele <3

no one's around to help.

hikaru [光]• 23 • he/him • english/日本語 • fr +3

"i'm a scientist" actually miscategorization. whalesbone, who spends 95% of his workweek not doing science, is an outlier and should not receive his phd

interest 1: avian ecology
interest 2: high fantasy RPGs released between 1997 to 2007
interest 3: slavic vampire folklore
interest 4: there is no interest 4.

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Recent Comments

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Wisdum said

December 18, 2024 10:23:08

Out of curiosity, with no dragons what do you do on this website?

WisteriaWild said

October 31, 2024 09:19:51

Your lair concept is so interesting!! I've never seen anything like it! I also appreciate the random bird link in your forum signature lol

fatui said

August 25, 2024 06:38:32

very fun lair and lore, 10/10

BucketoRandom said

August 21, 2024 08:40:15

I’m actually very amused by your lair. You told me nothing would be here, and I went and looked, anyway cx Still, it’s pretty fun as a concept. Well played!

Bowsham said

August 14, 2024 11:08:56

Familiar bonding mill...Its one dragon LMAO

Fledhyris said

May 31, 2024 15:16:14

Ketchup... oh no... what did you DO?

aurorabird666 said

May 19, 2024 10:05:03

Hey, may I ask if you're still looking for a forever home for Ketchup? I have a very scary totally-not-a-chicken permanent resident and I think he'd go pretty well with Ketchup :D
I'd like to train him into a coliseum lv 25 and he needs companions still!
Sorry if this is out of place or weird to massage out of nowhere...
https://www1.flightrising.com/dragon/94838097