Flussgeist

The biggest question, she supposed, was how to quell the conflict between the needs of the body and the urges of the soul; the want for freedom and the obligation of duty.

Flussgeist had always been dutiful. Part of it was how she was raised, hailing from the Mirrorlight Promenade, taught about the importance of order since she could comprehend anything. And she did comprehend, for order was beautiful - she saw it in the light reflecting off the surface of rivers, the intricate structures of the pillars of her home.

But the pillars crumbled with age, with how ancient they were, with how little care was given them. It was a travesty. But then again, architecture itself was a travesty - order doomed to fall into chaos with the passing of years. Flussgeist could not stand it.

Perhaps there does exist a perfect order, she mused. Something beyond time, beyond passing. Something that will not wither, something that will stay perfect always.

And so she left her home, and travelled Sornieth; and her journeys led her to the coldest clouds of the Icefield. In flight, she looked below - and saw endless white. She was flying too high for any sound to register; a perfect silence above a perfect landscape. Still, undisturbed. Raw.

Like an uncut crystal, it was beautiful. The perfect order, the perfect cycle - snow from the skies to the mountaintops, melting in spring, rushing down to sustain rivers... Unbroken.

And Flussgeist was found.

On the edge of the perfect cold - as close to the Fortress of Ends as one could get without freezing - she discovered a mountain called Rakraēt where other dragons lived. It was protected; it was where she rested. But it was not her home, oh no – her home was the endless sky of the Icefield.

For the sake of the others, she called her ever-lasting flights sentry duty so that the Rakraēti would see her as one of their own. See that she was useful, dutiful, doing her part. She did, of course - but she felt uneasy that her duty came as a collateral to what she loved. She did not feel that what she needed and what she had to do could be fulfilled by the same thing. Order demanded sacrifice, or so she had thought.

If she could have one wish granted, she would wish for just this – the ability to stay in the air forever, to never have to touch the ground, one with the air and the sky, the endless expanse of the clouds.