Prelude

Sub-Leader with Foreward.

Prelude established herself as a big player in the clan immediately upon her arrival. When the usual posturing-for-the-newcomer stances were taken, she jumped to let the rest of them know that she was not going to be pushed around by them for any length of time. Her fire and spark immediately caught Foreward's eye. For a while afterward she was aggressive, constantly falling into dominance posturing with the other members, and likely to lash out at all. She was not adjusting well to her new home. The only other that she seemed to get on well with was the only other Plague dragon in the lair, at the time, a female pearlcatcher by the name of RaspberryIce. They talked of their old home, and she brought the pearlcatcher the interesting new gossip, what there was of it.

Upon finally learning that she was not expected to go all doe-eyed for Overture, whom she had obviously been recruited to breed with, she settled down immensely, and started to mend some of the adversity that had arisen between her and the rest of the clan. She didn't get on particularly well with most of them, but things settled down and she could stand being within five feet of most of the others. She always avoided the hatchlings to a rule, and the spirals for the most part, but occasionally settled in to listen to and tell stories with the rest of the clan in the main cavern as she became more comfortable.

Just when she thought that everything was going to settle in, a new twist came her way. The black guardian that had been becoming more chatty with her for a while suddenly decided to try and get closer. She kept suggesting that they go out foraging together, making sure they ended up next to each other in the main cavern, and even shifting her sleeping location slowly closer. At first it was strange, but she slowly warmed up to the insistent guardian. Maybe it was the Nature dragon's seeming odd affinity for Plague, maybe it was her insistence, or the way she always knew when to be quiet, and when to fill the silence with idle musings. Maybe it was all of these things whipped together, but Prelude found herself liking this guardian more and more, despite the breed difference.

There came a day when Foreward finally came clean and admitted that she was more than fond of Prelude. Prelude retreated to consider this new information, wandering alone in the Starwood Strand for two days. When she returned on the evening of the second day she found Foreward curled near the entrance to the lair, deep asleep. It was unusual for anyone to sleep in the very mouth of the cave, but she skirted around the big guardian nevertheless. Overture was waiting further in, looking a little more tired than usual.

"She's been waiting up there for you. She finally passed out in the early hours of this morning. I sat with her last night, because I was worried about her. She thought she'd scared you away," he murmured quietly to the smaller mirror. Prelude looked back at the guardian, gargantuan in comparison to them both.

"I'm sorry. I needed to get away to think," Prelude stated flatly. She almost never had an inflection to her tone, unless it was anger. Her eyes belied just how bad she actually felt, though.

"That's perfectly fine, Prelude. Just... Be gentle with her?" Overture suggested, gesturing vaguely with his wings in an inadvertent mimicry of the fae manner of speaking, a habit he fell into occasionally. Prelude did not respond to the clan patriarch, simply turned around and quietly padded up to Foreward.

The guardian was so deeply asleep that she had absolutely no trouble slipping under her drooping wing to sidle right up to her. There was room enough to push herself under the massive dragon's arm up to her wingjoint, leaving her forelegs and neck to curl between the guardian's front legs, while she rested her chin on one massive paw. Overture crept quietly away to leave his ladies alone, glad that they had found partners in one another.

Prelude awoke the next morning when the guardian started to shift, shuffling her forelegs and sweeping her frilled neck back and forth as she started to stretch. Prelude had to duck quickly to avoid being clocked in the head with one of those bony protrusions, and let out a loud chirp to alert the much larger dragon to her presence. Foreward froze immediately, lifting her head to look around in confusion. It took Prelude wiggling and shuffling her wings to draw Foreward's attention down, causing the guardian to snort loudly in surprise at finding the mirror wedged against her. Foreward's excited roar roused the sleeping members of the clan, and many curious faces slowly poked themselves out to peer at the roiling mass of black coils. Most retreated once more to sleep for a while longer, grumbling about the noise, while the rest went back to their morning activities.

The new pair was quickly allowed to dig themselves a new cave away from the main lair, enlisting the help of the clan's only Ridgeback in order to put his digging energy to good use. They chose the spire that Overture's cave was in, although they placed themselves on the opposite side of it, and chose a point far below his so that neither cave would intrude on the other.

Their choice of location caused the rest of the dragons in the lair to begin to call the spire of crystal "The Dark Spire". Not for its hue, which was of course just as bright and shimmery magenta as the spires of crystal around it, but for the deep black dragons that headed their clan, and called it home.