Iceborn

In the wake of the shattering of the Pillar and the birth of the Dragon race, there were those who were determined to learn from history and avoid past mistakes by maintaining harmony between the Flights, no matter how difficult the task might seem. While unable to prevent the constant small conflicts that arise due to the often inimical natures of the Elemental Flights, these peacekeepers have managed to prevent conflicts from turning into all out wars that might jeopardize the safety of the very world. They are remarkable both for their devotion to their Flight and Element, as well as their willingness to leave it and live as an impartial observer and occasional judge in a distant and often hostile realm. The rare individuals chosen are unequaled in loyalty and must possess numerous skills in areas as varied as military, diplomacy, magic, history and reason, just to name a few. While not all individuals possess all such skills in equal measure, they each have something that sets them apart. These are the individuals chosen to watch over the Nature Flight, and all that dwell within its comforting branches.

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If you were to ask this Fae where he came from his answer would be ‘south’ and if you were to ask of his family the only real answer he can give is that his colony consists of upwards of a thousand individuals. Coming from the farthest south Fae colony, this dragon is no stranger to hardship. From the moment he hatched, one of six hatchlings in the communal nesting chamber shared by his colony, he was aware that he had a place in life. Due to the inhospitable land his colony inhabited every pair of hands and set of wings was needed and was tasked with a specific job. Still wet from the egg, he learned that he was going to be a builder, tasked with repairing and adding to the roost they all inhabited. So that he would learn his purpose well he was given to the other builders to raise. This was nothing strange to him, for it was all he knew, even if it meant that he rarely got to interact with other dragons his own age since they had all been assigned elsewhere. Harsh as the conditions were, few eggs were hatched and there was little need for many builders to help increase the size of the roost.

He quickly became skilled at sculpting ice and shell into walls and carving out tunnels in the glacier that his colony lived in. To catch the light during the months the sun was out the builders constructed great spires of magically hardened ice and fragments of iridescent shell and it was in these towers that he spent most of his time. The towers had to serve their purpose, but they also had to be beautiful and they were formed in the shapes of things that he had never seen before. Brilliant bits of shell were arranged in specific ways, to catch the light and reflect it down, but also to resemble the leaves of trees that only the oldest members of the colony had ever seen for themselves. When he had time to himself, which was often given the seasonal nature of his task and how rarely it was necessary to expand the living quarters, he would talk to the elders about trees and leaves and flowers, seeking to learn as much as he could so that he was better able to replicate them in the ice spires.

During the long night of winter he would watch the lights of the aurora, striving to memorize their colors and shapes, especially the color green, so different from the blues and grays of the glacier he lived in. When the sun returned he would rush to gather as many suitable shells as he could to replace those that had fallen away or broken. He also sought out hardy mosses and lichens to better recreate the forest that he had never seen. Despite his best efforts he knew that with only stories of memories to work with even his best efforts would fall short. The elders of the colony praised him for his accuracy, but without having seen a tree or a leaf for himself he was plagued with doubt. Eventually he made a decision, one of the hardest of his young life, to leave his home and seek out a true forest. After having made his choice he still had to wait, for traveling alone would have been impossible and his colony could not spare anyone to act as a traveling companion. It would take two summers, but the time did come when a wandering band of Snappers passed his colony. He chose to travel with them out of the Icefield and after that they parted company as he continued to press farther and farther northward until he found a forest with trees even taller than the ice spires that his colony made. There, in the Viridian Labyrinth, he began his research.

Collecting as many samples of leaves and flowers as possible, he preserves them in amber sap so that they can survive the long journey south. Few couriers travel that far south, but that doesn’t deter him, he knows that if he sends enough at least some of them will return to his home, and recently his persistence has been rewarded. Sitting in a place of pride in his lair at the top of a massive tree, is a piece of shell encased in a chunk of magical ice that will never melt, a token sent to him by the colony that he left behind. It pleases him greatly to have a piece of the home that he left even as he sends his colony pieces of his new home to lend comfort to their cold existence. Perhaps someday he will return, but until then he knows that he serves his purpose as well in the endless, abundant greenery of the Viridian Labyrinth as he did in the ice and cold of his first home.