Ion

Ion is very fond of green.
It's his favorite color!

Thus, he is rather confused that his mate, Joria, is so very, overwhelmingly pink.

(She laughs at him a lot. She's just as green as he is! He points out that blue and white are practically green, angrily. She says she's perfectly happy being pink, thank-you-very-much, and no, that really doesn't count, Ion! These conversations tend to end with him scouring the hoard, searching in vain for more green apparel he can wear.)


"So." Joria poked Ion with the hand NOT holding her pearl. "Why did Shusheh laugh at me when I said you were carrying a box of fragile antlers larger than me?" She tilted her head to precisely the angle she'd decided was MOST inquisitive, looking up at the green-obsessed ridgeback. He didn't bother looking down to SEE her perfectly inquisitive head-tilt-angle, but she decided to forgive him. "Why do you even HAVE a box of fragile antlers?"

Ion shrugged. "The courier-dragons gave them to me," he said. "Apparently, we've joined a clan that is always being sent fragile antlers."

Joria frowned, considering this, as Ion kept walking. He was heading towards the hoard, where, undoubtedly, Aion the VERY INTIMIDATING fae and his mate the EVEN MORE INTIMIDATING guardian Winaiili would make the two younger dragons spend all day sorting pebbles. Or something. Joria's one meeting with that pair had left her very, very afraid of the hoard. She had never been back inside there, and wasn't entirely sure what actually went on.

"So... someone's playing a trick on us?" she asked, finally accepting that Ion wasn't going to STOP to talk to her. "A big, complicated, ineffable trick? Hazing?" This time, she stopped directly in front of Ion, raising herself up on her back claws and stretching her neck out, to ALMOST manage to meet his eyes.

"No, Joria," the ridgeback sighed, rolling his eyes. "I'm pretty sure the clan just needs lots of fragile antlers."

She stared at him.

He stared back.

"They are ENTIRELY USELESS!" the pearlcatcher pointed out, frustrated. "It has to be some kind of trick! Useless! Why would our clan collect so many of them?! And why would Shusheh laugh at me when I mentioned them?! And the couriers?! Why didn't THEY drop the item in the hoard, or give it directly to Aion or something? Why would they give it to NEW members of the clan?!"

"It's a big box," Ion objected. "I was the largest dragon around!"

Joria glared at him.

"It's true! They gave it to me, not to you. You weren't even there, Joria, so don't--"

"Fine! But don't come crying to me when it's a horrid trick! And--and--and--"

"Joria, it's okay," Ion said, when it seemed obvious that his friend needed an interruption. "I'm just going to go give this to Aion, and then we can--"

"No, he'll keep you there ALL DAY! Don't you remember his threats?!" Joria dropped down into a walking position again, her pearl carefully protected from the pink dirt.

"He didn't threaten anyone, Joria," Ion said as they started moving again. "He just said that if anyone makes a mess in the hoard, THEY have to make sure the sorting-spells do their work properly. That's not really a threat."

"It is if you're clumsy!"

"You're as clumsy as a Fae is large!"

"Well, you're huge!"

Ion didn't mention that Joria, despite her emphatic desire to avoid the hoard and its keepers at all cost, was coming with him. They bickered the entire way up to the carefully-hidden cave that housed the main part of the clan's hoard.

They were stopped at the entrance by a smiling Mirror. Well, not smiling. More like... cackling.

Ion had never actually SEEN a cackling Mirror before. It suddenly occurred to him that mirrors were actually quite intimidating. Joria stepped in front of him, which was... actually quite appreciated. She was of the Shadow flight, after all. He'd never ASKED, but he was pretty sure that, if necessary, she'd make them both vanish into the shadows and they could run away. This... probably wasn't the appropriate thought upon seeing the clan's leader, actually.

"Just leave the box here, you two." Tiaruyi said, after they'd been standing there staring at her, frozen in fear, for about a minute. "Aion's not letting anyone in the hoard. Again." She smiled, and Ion wondered what it was about Mirror teeth that made them so much scarier than his own, much larger, teeth. He carefully placed the box of antlers on the ground... and Tiaruyi dismissed the two younger dragons with a wave of one very blue wing.

---

"I still think it's a trick of some sort," Joria complained, a few minutes later, as they stopped by the clan's 'kitchen' for a snack. "It doesn't make any sense!"

"I might be starting to agree with you," Ion admitted. "But I also have NO desire to investigate!"

Joria made a face at him. "What kind of Arcane dragon ARE you?" she asked, disgusted. "Aren't you always supposed to be poking at things?"

"Yes. But I'd much rather poke at things that won't make a very scary mirror angry at me!"

Joria considered this for a few seconds, poking at her leafy food.

"Are we both afraid of the hoard, now?" she asked eventually.

"Yep."

Ion finds Joria near the edge of the lair, staring suspiciously at a sack. Very suspiciously, and very attentively. He looks at the sack for a moment; it isn't moving. It doesn't seem especially suspicious. Or dangerous. In fact, it looks like---

"It's more fragile antlers," Joria announces, poking the sack angrily with a stick. "Ion, WHY will no one explain the fragile antler thing?!"

Ion sighs, and folds himself up to sit next to the much smaller dragon, so the two of them can stare at the sack together. "I really don't know, Joria. But... why does this bother you so much? It's just a joke, probably."

"It just feels like we're being left out of it! If it IS a joke, it doesn't seem very funny!" She covers her pearl with her front claws, her fingers moving erratically over its surface. "You know, on the handful of times I've explored the hoard, I've never seen even a hint of these things?" She bats at the sack with her tail. "Not one! And yet--!"

Ion shrugs, his giant shoulder nearly knocking Joria over. "I think Aion and Winaiili keep them for themselves, for some reason," he says. He doesn't mention that, maybe, the reason no one's told them why the clan collects antlers has something to do with the way Joria avoids the fae and guardian who maintain, manage, and protect the hoard.

For some reason, Joria brightens. "You think it's not the CLAN collecting them?" she says eagerly. "You think it's just THEM?!"

Ion blinks, meeting Joria's suddenly delighted gaze with mounting trepidation. "Um... Maybe?" Joria smiles her most amazing and happy smile, the dangerous one, the one that means she's going to drag him into something that might get them into trouble. Again.

"I want more green apparel," Ion says, before Joria tells him what they're doing. "At least one more amazingly green thing to wear, bought with your own treasure, before I agree to ANYTHING!"

The pearlcatcher nods eagerly, and throws the sack of antlers to him, to carry back to the hoard.

And that's how the two of them end up hiding, deep in the hoard, trapped, for hours, as Aion and Winaiili build a map of the entire Focal Point, with accurate floating portions, out of fragile antlers.