Shadow

(note - unfinished atm)

Shadow looked around at her surroundings, feeling a sense of calm wash over her. The familiar scenery brought back so many memories, some good, some bad. But there was no denying, as comfortable as the plague-lands had been the past few years, the shadows truly were her home.

Malice stopped in front of her, wings raised in a defensive position. Shadow slowed to stand beside her, and shot a glance at her mate. The mirror's eyes squinted, as she slowly turned to survey the path that led to the clan's original camp, not too far from the town they had built. ‘There are some.. unfamiliar scents and tracks..’ Malice slowly said. Shadow looked down, and those were definitely a dragon's footprints, at least 2 different species based on the differences. Her sense of smell was nowhere near the level of her mates, so she took her word on that part. She took a closer look at the tracks, and placed one of her claws next to one. A near identical match, so one of the mystery dragons had to be a spiral. And the other set, while she couldn't directly confirm it, looked to be similar to that of a nocturnes.

Maybe it was just a couple of dragons from a nearby clan who’d gone to investigate? But that didn’t seem right, Shadow herself set up enchantments with the help of Saryth to make the old camp impossible for almost anybody to find. Her ears flicked back as she murmured to Malice; ‘We should check to see who’s trespassing.’ Her mate shot her a mischievous grin, and leaned down slightly so that Shadow could climb up onto her. Shadow thumped her tail gently into her, signalling her to stalk forward.

Malice carefully stalked forward, both of their dark scales camouflaging with the shadowy foliage. A few moments later, they reached the entrance to the camp. The two carefully poked their heads out from the path, but there wasn't anybody there. Shadow untangled herself from around Malice, and carefully crept around, checking everything. There were more signs of these unknown dragons being here, but it seemed like they had been gone for at least a little while. Shadow’s eyes caught on what looked to be a shed scale, potentially from one of the perpetrators. She grabbed the coral scale, holding it between her claws to get a better look at it, when Malice suddenly let out a screech from behind her. She whipped around just in time to see a large maroon nocturne grappling the mirror. Malice snarled as she tried to throw her attacker off, but the nocturnes grip was strong. Shadow leapt over to try and help, but another figure slammed into her, causing her to crash. She looked up, about to get up and defend herself, when a trident was all but shoved in her face. She glared at the one holding the trident, a coral scaled spiral with piercing blue eyes. ‘What- how did you find this place?’ The spiral seemed confused, but quickly pulled themself together. ‘How dare you trespass on Kin territory!’ The spiral all but spat at Shadow.

“‘Kin territory?’” Shadow spat, ‘this camp belongs to no such clan!’ She willed her shadow energy into her shadowstrike, and used it to fling the trident away. Her assailant took a step back, and she used the chance to get back up. ‘This place should be hidden to those not of the Lair,’ she towers over the other spiral, ‘so I should be asking you how you found it.’
The coral spiral opens their mouth to respond, but is interrupted by their companions screech as Malice manages to fling them off of her.