Fila

Fila was always a nomad. Rather than remembering being born, Fila remembers waking up--curled up in a crevasse, her belly full and her heart aching. She carried her confusion and emptiness around, day after day as she wandered, until with each flap of her wings, it hurt less and less. Instead, she was filled with wonder at the world around her. Its creatures, its intelligence, its wildness. Inside everything, living and nonliving, was a passion and determination to exist. These were the lessons that shaped her into the fierce, decisive dragon she became.

She encountered other dragons and clans on her travels, but she couldn't rest in the permanence some offered. Fila understood them the least, and while polite, never seemed to be able to fit.

Then one day, after a brief visit with a clan of Guardians, one of them followed her away. He called himself Grathe, and he didn't say much, except he too, wanted to travel. She didn't realize at the time that he had seen, in her, his Charge, and his heart. She also didn't realize, for a while, that she loved him as much as he loved her.

They traveled for many years, and those years were full of adventure and close bonding, until Fila became suddenly, violently sick. Weaving in and out of consciousness, she could only mumble in Grathe's ear about a legend she heard once, long ago: an underground meadow, full of hanging moss and flowers that needed no sun, full of a potent healing magic, somewhere in the lands that belonged to Earthflight. Grathe, despairing, was to distraught to believe in such a thing, but he listened to the constant murmurs of encouragement Fila fed into his ear, from her place nestled in between his wings, and he moved forward, as she would have done.

Fila once more woke up, curled in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar smells; but this time, she looked into her mate's face and knew she had finally found the place she could rest.

(She didn't expect the motley crew of adopted hatchlings that soon shared their space, but she had never backed down from a challenge yet. Besides, as long as something had the passion and determination to live, she felt the kinship, and she would raise them well.)