Taishairo

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Mate: Shiriko

Taishairo was drawn to the lands of the Edge of the Wyld Clan long ago just after the one who would be considered "The Mother of the Line" broke her shell and he waited patiently for her to grow up. He and Lilac got along very well and they enjoyed each other's company, but they both knew they weren't going to be together forever after Lilac had their first clutch. They raised their hatchlings and weaned them, teaching them the value of honor, nature, and caring for their people, but after the hatchlings left the nest he and Lilac never mated again to have any more children.

When the time came for a mate to be selected for their son, Taishairo let Lilac handle it while he trained quietly with the best warriors the Edge of the Wyld Clan had to offer. When his son's mate came to the Marodepths she brought with her a sense of inevitability. At first, Taishairo avoided Shiriko uncertain what he was sensing around her, but when his son vanished leaving just the Imperial with their three sons, he stepped in. To his surprise, Shiriko wasn't actually much younger than he was and the two slowly built a friendship that bloomed into something more. He kept his feelings quiet because he didn't have any desire to hurt Lilac who still meant a great deal to him.

A few days prior to being sent out as a guard on a trading mission, Lilac talked him into going out for a walk with her and they left the Marodepths quietly. Taishairo wondered at her motivations until they stopped at the very edge of the cliff that overlooked the Maren Trench. She settled on her haunches next to him and for the first time told him of a vision she had while tending to their first clutch. She told him that what they had between them was a beautiful thing, but soon it would be time for them to part ways. She informed him that she would always love him, but that things would be different when next they met.

After that night, Taishairo didn't see Lilac at all, she wasn't even present when he and Shiriko left the Marodepths with the ill-fated caravan.

After the attack left the caravan in pieces and he and Shiriko in chain, Taishairo didn't know what to do. Like Shiriko, he couldn't remember his life before the attack on the caravan--he couldn't even remember where the caravan originated or why soft purple wings would occasionally flutter through his dreams.

After they were rescued by Shoukyaku and Kyoko, Taishairo and Shiriko helped the emerging clan set themselves up and started their own family. For a time, he was content, but one day a sense of inevitability set in and he started watching shadows trying to figure out what was threatening the peace that he and Shiriko had found.

One night an explosion ripped through the lair and he and Shiriko rushed to try and save as many of their clan members as they could. However, only a few were able to be saved though they did manage to return the favor and rescue their rescuers from the long ago day in the Black Sand Annex.

It was a tattered and pitiful group that made their way across the treacherous landscape of the Ashfall Waste and stumbled into a dusty cavern on the edge of Dragonhome. After some investigation of the cavern it appeared that at one point it had been home to another clan of dragons, but nothing remained except some broken pottery and the hollowed out places where the dragons once slept.

They watched the cavern for several days before deciding that it was well and truly abandoned. Shoukyaku and Kyoko were still seriously injured and unable to take care of their duties as leaders and they placed Taishairo and Shiriko in charge. The two reluctantly took over and they began to build a new life in the rocky planes of their new home.

One day while they were working, they found an abandoned Earth Egg and Shiriko took it and nested with it as if it were her own. The Egg eventually hatched and a Tundra whom they named Gael emerged. They taught Gael all the things he needed to know to take over leadership of the clan when an unnamed something that dwelt in Taishairo and Shiriko's hearts would move them somewhere their beloved clan would not be able to follow.

For a long time, things went well, but then little things started going wrong in the cavern. Ceilings collapsing that were deemed stable. Foodstuff going bad or becoming unusable for no discernible reason. Arguments and strife kicking up between the members of the clan. Taishairo did his best to get things settled out, but one night he was drawn to a lookout point above the caverns the now called home and settled down on it. He was joined at the change of the guard by Shiriko and the two gazed to the east and were caught by the view of the Behemoth that marked the lands of the Nature Flight.

Lightning lit up the night slamming into the ground not too far from where the two dragons were resting and the ground shook and rumbled. Fear sent them both into action and they rushed back into their home to find it under attack by a swarm of dragons from various flights with vacant looks in their dull eyes.

They fought their way through the attackers, but the only other dragon they managed to find was Gael. They secured him, but realized that inevitably they would fall to the dragons that raided their lair and so while Taishairo did a sweep to find any other of their clan members, Shiriko took Gael and fled the lair for the last time.

Five days later, they met at the border of the Viridian Labyrinth and memories from before the caravan crashed over them. After a brief discussion, they decided that their best bet was to flee back to the lands of the Edge of the Wyld Clan and figure out what to do from there.

They know--even if they couldn't recall everything that they would find sanctuary within the Marodepths.

Their journey back to the Wyldwood was fraught was danger. They dodged vacant-eyed dragons and had to fight their way through various roadblocks put up by the Beastclans that were once friendly.

When they reached the outer edge of the Wyldwood they found the path they'd once used to travel to Marodepths blockaded by trees and they were forced around and into the Murkdepths where they ran into conflicts with the guardians of the area. They were caught in one of Muirlinn's traps and only narrowly avoided crushed in Shiichi's coils.

It was a young Fae by the name of Fen that proved their saving grace. She arrived on the scene and recognized Taishairo and Shiriko as two dragons her mother Kinya had told her stories about and how they'd vanished in one of the first forays of the Shadow Hunters into Edge of the Wyld Territory.

Fen immediately sent word and members of the Wyldwood Patrol were dispatched immediately to meet them at the edge of the Murkdepths. To his shock, Lilac was with the detachment, but she'd changed completely from his vague recollections of her.

Lilac greeted him and Shiriko warmly and welcomed them back home.

Taishairo discovered it had been eight generations since they first left the Marodepths when he was introduced to his many times great granddaughter Willow and her mate, Warden, who now ran the patrols in the Wyldwood. He learned also that like his homes in the lands of Fire and the lands of Earth, the clan here had also been hit hard by the vacant eyed dragons that said they served the "Shadow Hunters". Lilac told him that they were still looking for their guardian dragons forged by Fire and tempered in Earth.

Taishairo was surprised at how much his former clan had flourished in the aftermath of so many troubles and felt inordinately proud of them and idly wished that he'd been able to save the clans he'd dwelt with before coming back in the same way.

Lilac smiled at him and told him. "The clan you left will eventually rise again and they will flourish in their own ways, but your time there is done. You're back home now."

Taishairo reluctantly informed Lilac that he and Shiriko had entered into a permanent bond during their absence and begged her forgiveness for betraying her--even if he hadn't remembered her. Lilac just shook her head and said. "It is the way it's supposed to be now. She was always the one for you, I was just the way you found her."