Tank

Nobody asks about what happened to Tank pre-Tempest Band. He’s an ice dragon, and he probably lived in a clan before this one- faes aren’t solitary creatures, after all- but everything else is a big question mark. Tank’s pretty polite as a rule, but he shuts down those questions as soon as anybody even thinks them (at least, it feels like that). Eventually you give up; it’s either pretty personal or pretty deep, right?

Well, the truth is that Tank was hatched a Guardian- went on a Search, same as the rest. He found a dragon by the name of Moonflight and she was his charge and he settled down and joined her and together they founded a clan. Mostly by accident, but it was a clan; they called it Mistycloud Clan, when somebody asked, because that sounded pretty.

One day the Shade rose up in Mistycloud and their world fell apart. Dragons turned on dragons, either possessed or twisted beyond recognition. Some of them escaped, but not for too long; the Shade caught right back up, and one of its servants- an Imperial by the name of Lyra- caught up, specifically, to Moonflight. Got her out to the woods, posed as a survivor- Tank’s not sure what happened there, because he wasn’t there, because he Failed, but Lyra waited until Moonflight was close enough and tore out her throat, just like that.

Probably died forgiving her, too, she was just that sort of dragon, wasn’t she?

And Tank hated the Failure, hated the way it pressed into him as bad as the grief, and he couldn’t hold it together enough so he gave up and magicked himself into a Fae with new genes and new clothes. It didn’t really help, but he managed to survive, and that’s what matters, right? That’s what she would’ve wanted.

That’s what Tank would tell you, if he were somehow inclined to (not that it would ever happen). The truth is this: Moonflight died with a heart full of anger and a need to purify the world of the Shade altogether, and somehow she didn’t quite die all the way. Somehow she ended up bones and teeth and all that anger from all those years at the surface. Tank doesn’t know; why would he? He spends as much time away from the forest as he can.

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