Taylor

Belongs to Leaf

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Taylor is as down-to-Sorneith as her color scheme could ever imply. However, as levelheaded and sweet as the nocturne is, she is remarkably silent. Most of her clanmates don’t know why for sure--it is not because she is too silent to talk about it, but rather too embarrassed. Many assume it is just part of her nature, but this is far from the case; in fact, it is quite the contrary.

If you hear it from her, you’re a very trusted friend: It all started when Taylor lived with her original clan in The Windswept Plateau. Her lairmates were energetic, enthusiastic, and passionate—naturally, she grew up to emulate them, especially due to her species’ tendencies to mimic. She grew up to be quite the reader. Due to her early love for reading and extracting information, she became the go-to chart girl—she could tell you about the weather, past, current, sometimes future, as well as just about anything else regarding The Plateau.

For a while, she kept to her books and graphs. But soon enough, after she saw more and more of her clanmates fooling about the land, she could not resist partaking in their little fun group. As she continued to grow into an adult, she mimicked more qualities of her trouble-making friends. She became sassy, rough, and even a little mischievous. Much to her parents’ discontent, it wasn’t too long until she had a reputation for pranks and unnecessary horseplay. More quickly than it took for Taylor to adopt her more negative qualities, her parents and other guardians shunned her behavior and stressed firmly how a dragon such as herself should behave. She was constantly reminded how she was to be an important individual one day- a navigator for the clan’s massive kites.

But Taylor didn’t want to be a navigator. It’s true, she was amazing at studying weather patterns. But she didn’t want to be in charge of navigation, just, y’know, making the charts and have someone else read them! She did not like the idea at all of an old kite being destroyed due to a mistake on her judgement. Yes, she enjoyed analyzing weather patterns form her data, but it was sincerely a hobby and always disclaimed that everything she said was to be taken with a grain of salt. But her parents still insisted that she’d get more accurate one day, that she has plenty of time, and that she can do it.

Taylor eventually begrudgingly accepted her fate, not just because she did not have a better job in mind, but mainly because she did not want to be shunned again. She tried to remain composed in terms of behavior, but as the time passed, and it came closer to the time for her to begin her work, she needed an outlet for the stress that approached with her new job. She sneakily began hanging out with her old friends, arguably with even more wanton behavior. Somehow, the smart girl never managed to be caught, even though she aroused suspicion. However, over time, her friends’ guardians also condemned their behaviors—allowing Taylor’s parents to become more relaxed with them hanging out. After her parents started letting her hang out with her old friends, she lost her secretive edge and simply couldn’t resist pulling an occasional prank or two in the public…

This did not at all work in her favor--or anyone’s for that matter--on the first day of the last Mistral Jamboree especially. The clan had decided to attach their oldest, largest kites to almost every structure in the village to celebrate the wind festival. Taylor had predicted perfect weather, which contented the clan. She was usually quite spot-on with her weather-related assessments, but today she was very, very off, perhaps due to her distraction from her friends. Late into that evening, she slowly observed strange patterns in the sky. What she began to sense was rather grave, but she was extremely confused and unsure. She kept looking upwards to try and ascertain her hunches, and so naturally her friends poked at her, asking her what was up. “It’s almost like The Twisting Crescendo is shifting.” She uttered to them awkwardly. Her friends made nothing serious of it, telling her The Crescendo never shifts in place and that she’s just being silly, reminding her of her earlier prediction. She was genuinely conflicted. To ease her nerves, Taylor’s friends suggested they go out and have some fun. Though still concerned, she agreed, letting her unknowledgeable peers get the best of her.

As they crept through the village looking for trouble in the late festival afternoon, they came across her non-blood uncle, the one mainly in charge of the kites. Her friends sharply elbowed her, prompting her to “warn” him about The Crescendo. She would have chickened out if not for her uncle catching sight of their little scene. He quickly flew over to them, with a look of indignation as he crossed his arms. “What’s the trouble?” The large nocturne boomed. “T-the Crescendo is coming towards the village! We have to look out!” Taylor cried out, half-seriously, her confused distress sounding more like jest than anything. The other nocturne’s eyes narrowed. “Is that true?” He said, giving her the benefit of the doubt. A brief, extremely awkward silence stilled the group. Her friends did nothing but stare at her-wide-eyed. They didn’t play along for some reason, so soon Taylor gave up, “admitting” to her uncle that it was just a “practical joke”. He was not happy about this. He only offered an elongated nod ‘no’ in response, as he flew away slowly to inform her parents, and other higher-ups, of her problematic behavior.

In that moment, she had never been more flustered. She and her friends began to argue for several minutes over how unfunny the “prank” was, with fingers pointing at whose fault it was that made it go so poorly. Taylor was in the middle of yelling at them for getting her in trouble when suddenly, the winds became a lot more audible…

The Crescendo was indeed approaching. Despite its erratic nature, it approached very slowly—however, it certainly seemed very fast to anyone in the village at that time. Speaking of the village, its structures were very sound—not a single square of siding flew off as the twister approached. However, the kites only drew closer and closer. To keep them from ever flying away, extremely resilient cords and methods of attachment were used . This was normally a very useful aspect, but this time, it would be the doom of the village. As everything unfolded so quickly, Taylor screamed after her uncle, and all the others, but he was too busy reporting her behavior to come and detach the kites in time. The rooftops of houses began to crack as the kites were sucked with more and more force. It was at this point Taylor, her friends, and everyone outdoors flew away as fast as they could. Any of the holiday merriment faded almost instantly. The entire infrastructure of buildings were ripped from the ground as The Crescendo slowly circled a side of the village. The powerful winds never came more than a few hundred feet from the town, but its forces were still relentless. Chaos continued to ensue for about half an hour. Every kite was ripped away, almost every building was gone with the wind. The dragons who were not able to escape in time were sucked away to the eye of the storm, never to be seen at least by Taylor again.

Most everyone Taylor truly cared about was gone, all because she did not speak up with the right thing. She would have faced punishment if it were not for the fact her parents and family were gone from sight. Mortified beyond words, Taylor abandoned her remnants of a village, somehow not looking back. She couldn’t at all believe what had happened--her worst nightmare finally came true, and in just about the worst way possible as well.

Taylor joined a small group of dragons, now known as the Taimi Perhe, as they travelled away from their old home to look for a new one because of a sickness that had destroyed their clan.

-Fabulous Lore written by the awesome Sharksickle