Marged

Long Form Poetry Trinkets An impressively long poem telling the legend of the First Four dragon gods. Generations have colored the tale to be more cynical and critical. 41 Smoky Quartz Minerals & Ores Dragons who stare deeply into this quartz may begin to discern meanings from the interplay of the dark and light flecks of quartz. 70 Sakura Moss Organics A soggy and slightly less romantic alternative to cherry blossoms. (Special thanks MrTeabiscuit.) 22 Ebon-Edged Spear Trinkets In Imperial circles, these are also referred to as 'toothpicks'. 23 Tiger Beetle Insect These predatory beetles may keep a lair free from other pests. 30 3 Long Form Poetry Trinkets An impressively long poem telling the legend of the First Four dragon gods. Generations have colored the tale to be more cynical and critical. 41 Smoky Quartz Minerals & Ores Dragons who stare deeply into this quartz may begin to discern meanings from the interplay of the dark and light flecks of quartz. 70

Marged, Clan Alchemist It was too bad she'd never gotten any formal training in alchemy. It would probably be a lot easier to get her wings on some proper safety gear. All she'd been able to, well--aquire--so far were her safety goggles, but that still left the rest of her body exposed to the potentially-dangerous, defnitely-magical liquids that messing with alchemy tended to produce. She'd already--and unintentionally--changed her Primary from the Current she'd been born with to this strange new "skink" pattern. She wasn't really keen on taking any more chances. Sure, the pink highlights were kind of nice, but who's to say that the next time she accidentally spilled the cauldron on herself, it wouldn't turn out to be scale-dissolving acid? Or toxic fumes? Or a potion that would permenantly de-age her or make her age rapidly? What if she got turned to stone, or her skin turned transparent? The point was, she needed to be more careful when she was brewing, because there was no telling what could possibly go wrong. Hopefully, the Surgestream coat she'd borrowed from Sloan would help protect her if the caulcron became unstable. It was well insulated, and covered most of her form. It was a good thing Sloan knew a spell to resize clothing, otherwise there was no way it would have fit her. Along wiht her wing wraps, tail binding, and hood, she was pretty much as covered as she could possibly be. Just as long as the live wires running along the outside of the coat didn't cause any problems, she would be fine. Probably.

Long Form Poetry Trinkets An impressively long poem telling the legend of the First Four dragon gods. Generations have colored the tale to be more cynical and critical. 41 Smoky Quartz Minerals & Ores Dragons who stare deeply into this quartz may begin to discern meanings from the interplay of the dark and light flecks of quartz. 70 Sakura Moss Organics A soggy and slightly less romantic alternative to cherry blossoms. (Special thanks MrTeabiscuit.) 22 Ebon-Edged Spear Trinkets In Imperial circles, these are also referred to as 'toothpicks'. 23 Tiger Beetle Insect These predatory beetles may keep a lair free from other pests. 30 3 Long Form Poetry Trinkets An impressively long poem telling the legend of the First Four dragon gods. Generations have colored the tale to be more cynical and critical. 41 Smoky Quartz Minerals & Ores Dragons who stare deeply into this quartz may begin to discern meanings from the interplay of the dark and light flecks of quartz. 70

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As it turns out, wearing a coat that has live wires running along the outside while practicing Alchemy is not the safest of ideas. Marged (once again) bumped into her cauldron by accident, and (once again) got splashed with its contents. Only this time, it wasn't her Primary gene that changed. No, this time, it was the solution that was altered, and not the alchemist. The electricity leapt from the splashed liquid and into the cauldron as though it had a mind of its own, and within seconds, the entire room was flooded with bolt-blue smoke that sent skitters of electricity over Marged's hide. Because apparently, introducing Lightning magic to what was supposed to be a stable mixture produced results that were highly unstable. It was only by sheer luck that the scales her familiar had shed had transmuted into silver muck instead of gold, but Marged wouldn't find out about this little tidbit until much later. While she coughed and gasped and desperately fanned her stubby wings to clear the smoke from her face--she was so glad she'd worn her goggles, though the purple tint in the blue smoke wasn't helping much at all--she wondered how she would explain this latest mess to Renyor. While the Matriarch didn't usually seem to mind her experiments, Marged knew the she would have to put her foot down if they proved to dangerous. And filling the room and surrounding tunnels with possibly-poisonous-gas was very dangerous. But she would focus on that later, after the smoke had cleared, so to speak, because something--something instinctive and hard to describe--was urging her towards the cauldron that was still sending some wayward little wisps of blue up into the air. She approached cautiously--remembering the time a frog had unexpectedly jumped out and just about scared the scales right off of her--and peered down into the suddenly empty cauldron. And she stared, her eyes widening in alarm and wonder and too many emotions to count properly in the space of a few seconds-- --For there, rocking gently on the wrought-iron as though stirred by an invisible wind, with tiny blue sparks darting along it shell every few seconds, lay what was, unmistakably, an egg.

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She didn't know what to do. She couldn't pick the egg up in her mouth--the cauldron was too small for her to reach in. And she didn't want to touch it with her magic. Electricity was still dancing along its edges, and she was afraid of what would happen if her Earth element touched the Lightning. Would it cancel it out? What would happen to the child then? What if she undid whatever magic was holding it together?

She stood still, staring from the egg towards the entrance to the tunnel, trying to decide if making a run for the nearest populated cavern would be safer than waiting for someone to notice all of the blue smoke.

There was no telling what would happen to the egg if she left it alone, but what would staying accomplish? If it suddenly decided to unravel or explode, there wasn't really anything she could do to stop it without making matters worse.

Eventually, agonizingly, she decided to make a run for it.

She left the room at the fastest run she could manage, and hoped that the egg would still be there by the time she got back.

---

When she finally managed to return to the alchemy cavern with Aqua, the egg was still right where she had left it, still rocking gently on its own. But she'd been gone over an hour. The alchemy room was isolated purposefully--if something went wrong, the rest of the cave system would be relatively undamaged, and the clan would be safe. But Snappers weren't designed for running, and especially not in enclosed spaces like underground tunnels. Though they were tall and wide enough to permit the easy passage of even Imperials, making the turns at top speed was almost impossible, and she'd been forced to slow to an almost-walk just to avoid crashing into the walls. She'd known when she joined the Enclave that things wouldn't be easy for her. Those parts of the territory that weren't underground were underwater. Which wasn't a problem for most of her other clanmates, because while some of them hadn't been born to the Tidelord, they could still swim, and there was magic that allowed them to breathe underwater. But Snappers couldn't swim. They didn't even float. She would sink like a rock if she ever ventures out one of the water-doors. She had accepted all of this, because the opportunity to learn from other breeds in a way other Snappers never would was too good to pass up. She had accepted her limitations, and she'd been happy. But that was before she'd been given cause for fear, and that was before her clumsiness had caused not one, but two permanent and accidental changes to the world as she knew it. First it had been her Primary. She could live with it. It had shocked her the first few times she'd caught sight of her reflection, and it was strange looking at her tail and seeing pink of all things, but it was something she could live with, even something she could grow to enjoy. But now she'd done something insane, something she wasn't prepared for, something that affected someone else. She'd created an egg. She'd created a child. And there was no telling if it would be okay, if it would even be able to survive. She had never seen an egg like this before. No one had ever seen an egg like this before. It almost--almost--resembled that of a Nocturne, but that was only the barest shade of resemblance. And the last time she'd checked, Nocturnes didn't go around dropping eggs into cauldrons. And for stone's sake, she couldn't even pick it up. She had to go and find someone else to make sure that it was okay, that it was alive. She'd created this child, and she couldn't even take care of it. Aqua, with her pearl slung carefully over her shoulder in a net, and her hands glowing softly with blue light, reached into the cauldron and gently, gently, pulled the strange egg out. Humming became audible, and the sparks dancing around the egg grew brighter, snapping quietly against Aqua's hands, but in a way that reminded Marged of a purring phytocat. It was as Aqua gently examined the egg--turning it in her hands and holding it up to her ear to listen for a heartbeat--that Marged suddenly came to a decision. Something needed to change. She wanted to be able to care for this egg, and the child residing inside. She couldn't do that if her only way of holding it required conjuring magical, Earth-aligned hands. She made her decision right then and there. She was going to become a Pearlcatcher.

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It didn't take long to make the change. She had enough treasure hoarded to buy the scroll herself, without even having to cut into the clan's treasury. It took a few days before she could actually find a scroll to purchase, and during that time, Aqua looked after the egg for her. With some help from the rest of the clan, of course. Everyone was curious and excited, and there was no shortage of help when it came to making sure the egg was kept warm. And when the coliseum team returned home one day with an Ice egg in tow--they'd found it being guarded by a Mistwatch Shellion, as though fate itself were guiding the clan--it was unanimously decided that the two eggs would be hatched together. With all neccesary precautions in place, of course. No one was sure what would hatch out of Marged's egg (and it had been decided that it was, of course, her egg), and the memory of what had happened to Bodhi and Macalia's cluthc was still fresh in everyone's minds. The hatchlings would be carefully watched, and sepparated if need be. But if her child appeared to pose no special threat, it would be treated like any other member of the clan. No one even bothered to mention that what hatched out of it might not even be a dragon. The idea was so ludicrous that, the second it occured to Marged, she dismissed it immediately. Only dragons were blessed by the gods themselves, and there was no question that the Stormcatcher had played a hand in her child's creation. The moment she got her--magical--hands on the scroll, she sequestered herself away with Andvaman, and began the transformation while Renyor herself looked after her egg. She was half-expecting there to be pain, but there was none. She focused all of her magic on the scroll infront of her, and closed her eyes. She was distantly aware of the sensation of her bones shrinking and changing, of her wings growing, of her toes lengthening and turning into fingers, but there wasn't any pain. She felt the change in her magic, though. Once, it had been condensed into her thick hide and bones. Now it felt lighter, or at least, as light as Earth magic could get. It seemed to shimmer in the air around her, rather than draping across her like a second skin. She wanted to test it, but there would be time for experimentation later. She opened her eyes, and saw that the world was in sharper focus than she was used to. She blinked a few times, trying to get used to it. But it didn't really help, and she turned her head from side to side, watching in confused facisnation as the walls around her seemed to curve unnaturally. She'd been warned about the new eyes, though, and tried her best to ignore the way everything looked weird, and lifted one of her feet--no, now they were hands--to her face. She wiggled her fingers, and laughed in delight at how easy the movement was. It suddenly occured to her that she would have to start making her pearl soon, before her memories started to fade--but she had no idea how. Pearlcatcher hatchlings ate their egg shells, and then regurgitated them. She didn't have an egg to eat, and it wasn't like there was anything left of her old body to use instead. Maybe she should have read the instructions on the scroll more carefully before she actually began the transformation... She shrugged internally, and beamed at her mate. She would figure it out eventually, and for now, she had more important things to do. Like holding her mysterious egg for the first time since she'd created it. At Andvaman's goading, she joined him in a race to the nursery. He won, naturally, since she was still getting used to her new limbs and the shape of the world around her, but for once, she wasn't far behind.

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With orphaned--or in this case, magial--eggs, you could never be too sure how far into incubation they were.

You just had to keep them close, and wait.

There always came a moment, a sudden instant of clarity, of understanding. The magic within the child would reach out, the affects different for every element, but the meaning always the same.

I am ready.

When snowflakes began forming in the air of the nursery cave and drifted down to rest, unmelting, on her wings, that was the signal that the child residing within the ice egg was ready to shed its shell and begin its journey through the world.

No one was sure what type of signal her egg would give them, but when bright blue bubbles began forming and popping on its surface barely a few seconds after the snowflakes began to fall, she knew it was time.

It was easy to reach out with her magical hands to ring the bell that hung on the door to the nursery. Ever since she had made the transformation from Snapper to Pearlcatcher, her magical range had doubled, if not trippled.

No longer was her magic contained to things within her immediate proximity. Now it was free to expand, like the wings that could now lift her into the air if she so chose.

The bell did not make any noise that normal ears could hear, but she felt the fleeting pressure of it against her magic, her mind.

Mouse had designed it. They needed a way to spread information from the nursery to the rest of the clan without having to send messengers or visions. Every new member who joined the clan gifted a small seed of their magic to the bell, forging a connection.

When the bell was rung, all would hear it, the magical sound imbued with the emotions and thougths of the one that rang it.

Urgency and fear could be broadcast, and in those cases, the healers of the clan would know to come running.

But Marged was not afraid. She was excited, and...maybe a little worried. But everything with the egg had gone normally so far, except, of course, for its origin.

Aqua would come, and so would Andvaman. Renyor, Valkhuna, perhapse Curie as well.

All others would be kept away, if only for the moment. The hatchlings would need time to adjust, time to get used to their bodies, before they were bombarded by strange faces and towering heights of some of the more massive clan members.

When Aqua stepped through the door with her mate Lanata behind her, Marged was suddenly rememinded that not only was the other Pearlcatcher an accomplished healer, but bot h she and her mate were the level 25, the highest rank that a warrior of the gods could be bestowed.

This was a time for joy, yes, for peace.

But they all remembered what had happened to Bodhi and Macalia's last clutch, and they had vowed never to let it happen again.

Marged looked down at the bubling egg cradled in her arms, and prayed to the Earth shaker and Tidelord alike that the presence of the clan's strongest warrior wouldn't be nessesary.

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Living Children:

Sukar

Ice

Light