Yuina

Apparel: Alabaster things, filigree sword, white breeches


Yuina started out her life as any other dragon. She started out with a family, a plethora of annoying siblings, and a dream.
She wanted to be a warrior. She wanted to fight to defend her Clan, to find one who would take her and value her as much as she did them. She wanted all the world had to offer and more. So, when her parents learned of this, they decided to fly her to a skilled warrior maiden who was now too old to continue. But perhaps, thought her father, she would agree to teach their ambitious little daughter.
When they found Amphitrite, as the warrior maiden was called, she agreed after putting Yuina through a few tests to analyze how quick, clever, and strong-willed she was.
To Yuina's delight, she passed.
To Yuina's dismay, her parents left days later.


---


When Joshe wandered into the Nature flight, treading over petals that exploded with fragrance where his paws crushed their delicate membranes, he was not expecting an enormous, appallingly pink blur to leap out of the bushes, screeching incoherently.
Joshe leaped backwards, wings lifting in affronted shock.
The culprit- an obnoxiously magenta snapper- whipped to face him, his eyes round and enormous and staring, with dots for pupils. Surely that wide pair couldn't be real.
He was a brilliant shade of magenta with shimmering waves of rainbow swirling across his blocky body. Rainbow silks hung from his wings, his nails were eyewateringly yellow, a thick pink bow was tied around his large neck, and a gaudy, wide-brimmed witch's hat sat jauntily on his head.
He was the oddest fellow Josh had ever seen.
"Did I scare you?" he asked, grinning, and Joshe gazed at him uncertainly. He took a step backwards, wondering vaguely if he should be flying as fast and as far as he could.
The snapper advanced, his wide grin broadening eagerly. "Did I?"
"Er," said Joshe at last, when it seemed that the stranger would not leave without an answer. "Erm, yes, a little."
The magenta monstrosity's grin widened and he broke into loud guffaws, his rocky, blocky body shaking with the force of his uproarious laughter.
Just as Joshe was taking another few steps backward, just to be on the safe side, another voice floated through the copious foliage.
"Sebastian? Where are you-? Oh-"
A nocturne slipped out of the bushes, blue-eyed and striped brown and blue. A thick white stripe cut down her underbelly and the crown of brown spikes around her pointed head raised curiously as she set her eyes on him.
"Hello," he said, hoping she was relatively sane. "Is this snapper your, um, comrade?"
The nocturne's lips twitched. "Yes, he is. Did he jump out-"
"I scared him," Sebastian volunteered, grinning, huge tail wiggling. "He admitted it, Yuina. Ought we to clap him in irons and take him to Shadow?"
"What?" asked Joshe nervously, just as Yuina said firmly, "No."
"Yuina?" asked a new voice, this one deep and male. "Where did you-? Oh. Hello."
A new dragon parted the bushes, chinks of deep blue visible before the huge guardian emerged, towering so high he cast his shadow on Joshe. The skydancer blinked, shifting uncertainly, and glanced warily at Sebastian. He'd had his fill of crazy dragons.
On the other hand, these were Nature dragons, if not by birth then obviously by niche. They hid themselves well- even the centaurs hadn't been able to give him an exact location of a Nature lair.
"Hello," said Joshe belatedly, realizing the guardian was watching him expectantly. "I'm Joshe. Er, I was just talking to your friend here-" He inclined his head to the pink snapper, who grinned at him. Joshe resisted the urge to back away again.
Yuina flicked her tail, amusement crossing her elegant features, and said, "Yeah, he's an acquired taste."
"I am fabulous-"
"What are you doing here?" Yuina interrupted Sebastian, rolling her blue eyes at him.
"I'm an explorer and a scholar," Josh explained humbly, with crystal-clear honesty. "I was hoping to join a Nature lair for a few weeks and discover your way of life."
Yuina blinked, then glanced at the huge guardian at her side. He shrugged at her, which Joshe took to be...not as bad of a reaction as it could have been.
"Well, I'm sure Shadow'd let you visit," she answered at last, turning and parting a bush with her claws. "Would you like to come meet our queen?"
Joshe's eyes wandered from Sebastian's wide grin, to the guardian's mild, friendly eyes, to Yuina's expectant expression.
He stepped after her. "Yes. I should like that very much."

Shadow turned out to an enormous, battle-scarred black guardian with steely wings and an even steelier gaze from under a ghostly hood. Joshe stood to attention, to Yuina's amusement, but after Shadow heard his humble request, she granted his plea after consulting the trio of dragons that found him and a sharp-eyed mirror at her side.
"Why don't you stay with me?" asked Yuina, her blue eyes kind, as Joshe looked around at the dispersing crowd. A few had come to greet him, but most had hung back with curious expressions on their features.
He turned to her gratefully and dipped his muzzle low, "Thank you."

So he did.
The Nature flight was a riot of color, a tangle of thriving life that wriggled and raged and whispered, a mother hawk with a wing draped protectively over the green life that fought for life. There were trees thicker than him from his nose to his plumy tail. There were dryads peeking at him from brush and multi-colored birds circling in the sunny canopies. There were all manner of succulent fruits and tender plant insides to munch on, but he quickly learned that unless one knew what they were doing, they would soon find themselves dead with poison thrumming in their system.
Thankfully, Yuina stayed at his side for most of the trip, helping him catalog particularly interesting information and even teaching him a few battle moves the tricky nocturne breed was known for. Yuina, he learned, was a warrior as much as the guide she now served as. She was quick-witted, quiet, and unassuming. Occasionally, sarcasm would edge her words, but she was always there to offer a paw if he happened to stumble. And she noticed everything, her dark cobalt eyes never missing a moment of the events swirling around her, from the words he spoke to the ants marching in a line over the soil at their claws.
He'd never met anyone quite like her.
Neither, apparently, had anyone else in the lair where they resided. She was a stranger to most, a soft-spoken shadow whose ferocity in battle met that of the tiger's stripes she wore so proudly. He hunted and talked and slept by her side, and did so gladly. He explored the lofty trees with vines creeping up their barked sides, fought with swirling clouds of magic when they were ambushed by spear-wielding centaurs, and made her laugh every moment that he could as they lay curled closely in the dusty evening.
He knew it couldn't last, and so did she, and it was then that he was most tempted to give up his quest. But as he looked into those dark eyes, he knew she was not enough. He knew that she knew it, too.
It didn't stop them from clinging to their time together for all they were worth.
When the time came to say goodbye, neither said a word, because Joshe knew if he did, Yuina would leave her home, and because Yuina knew if she did, Joshe would stay.
And they knew this was not the time nor the place for such a thing to occur.
So Joshe set out the same way he'd come in- alone but for the vivid memories of all that had occurred, and that was not enough. Nothing ever was.