Arataki

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It’s easy to find the Skydancer among incense and silk, dressed in expensive jewelry and beautiful tattoos. Her kind is known for their grace and awe-striking appearance, but she is a diamond in the rough compared to them. Her fur-like feathers glisten from careful preening. She looks peaceful in a nest that seems constructed just for her. The moment your claws click in her direction, her eyes are open.

Such beauty can’t come from the Plaguelands, can it?

”Indeed, it can.”

She beckons you forward, invites you to sit. She knows what you want before you even have to ask. She fixes her garments, cleans her beak, and when her eyes meet yours, the gem in her forehead glows a bloody, bloody red.

She doesn’t tell you her story. She shows it to you.

She was born amid a clutch of Mirrors, siblings that looked nothing like her. They were fighters, she was not. They loved to kill, she did not. She was convinced that the clan of scavengers had stolen her egg from an unsuspecting nest, but she could never have found the truth on her own. Such imputence would have gotten her killed on the spot-- so true to her Plague nature, she adapted. Jumbles of memories from a cast-aside hatchling inspire feelings of alienation, inadequacy. She was not the kind of rough-cut survivor her clan wanted, and thus, she was unneeded. But she stayed, she learned, and she made herself useful. The least she could do was try.

In her efforts to try, she became strong. She learned finesse as she fought, turning war into an art. She showed her clan of scavengers that they could still thrive and survive, that they could enhance both culture and standard of life. She did her best to be accepted, and even had hope.

She should’ve known they would chase her out. Jealous dragons never change.

Her training let her survive alone for a long, long time. She fought her own battles and found her own food. She searched for places to stay, dragons to befriend, somewhere to belong, but it was fruitless. The Scarred Wasteland didn’t want someone like her, so she left. Or at least, she tried to to leave-- but she had never made such a decision, never had a choice. Her clan and instincts had dictated everything up until that point, but her mind? Her heart? Never. She stayed at the edge of the Windswept Plateau for days until she finally turned her back to the sweet, rolling green.

“Hey, you!” A voice rang in your head, a familiar voice. “Yeah, you. Down here.” A Fae whose memory inspires gratitude and affection looked up into your eyes-- Arataki’s eyes-- and looked at her inquisitively. He seemed grumpy, snippy, but nonthreatening. He asked where you-- she-- had come from, why she had been sitting there for days on end. When she explained, the Fae’s fins softened sympathetically. He told her of a Ridgeback not far from there, one that would take her and accept her-- one that would want her to stay.

His monotone voice spoke of Paradise, Arataki says silently. Her impossibly quiet tone betrays how emotional this scene is, as fresh as the day it happened no matter when she relives it. She wipes a tear from her feathers but she smiles as she shows what happened next.

She was shown the way through the Reedcleft Ascent to the heart of Sin’s field, placed in front of the Ridgeback only moments before she found herself wrapped in giant white and blue wings that pressed her towards a massive, scaled chest. Arataki had been so shocked that she nearly lashed out, almost struggled to get away. But a lovely purr stopped her panic and she sheathed her claws, a purr that sounded like a mother’s coo.

“Hello, princess.” Sin said warmly. “Welcome home.”

And just like that, Arataki can only show the mess of tears that broke the dam a hatchling built.

She shows a collage of other memories, some recent and some old, all of them depicting times that have made her more and more fond of the clan she’d found herself a part of. Being treated like a princess by Sin, helping Vyrsil put Xayron together, playing with a young baby Poya, trying the odd remedies Truffle occasionally offers. Her memories are oddly cool when thoughts of the mercenaries pass, but she is very, very warm when she thinks about her family, and especially Sin.

She retreats from your mind after that, her body language communicating vulnerability despite the strength that pulses through her veins. She leaves you in silence to process, to understand. and when you look back at her, she smiles gently.

“I may have been born in the Plaguelands, but my heart belongs here.” She says, her voice odd now that it’s not in your head. “And wherever mother goes, we all will follow.”

She dismisses you with a bow and waves farewell, but you’re struck by a different sort of beauty as you leave-- the beauty and strength of a loyal warrior; a samurai princess.

Now you understand why she lives up to her name.

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Writing by Saphelle