Borealis

Accents I want to purchase someday:


Borealis' parents were so similar they might have shared a soul. Both came from a long pedigree of pure white coatls, and they hatched in neighboring spires in the Starfall Isles. Both earned crowns of prestige and authority, his father's from the flight of the Arcanist, and his mother's from the flight of the Plaguebringer. When they met, they knew at once they were made for each other, and even changed their names to Kindred so their bond would be known to all.

They chose to make their home in the land of their ancestors, in the Ancient Lair of the Trickster God, and imposing structure towering over the Fortress of Ends in the Southern Icefield. There they hatched numerous children, each as pure white as they were. The two Kindred had high expectations of their children.

Born into such a legacy, Borealis seemed destined for the same greatness as his parents, but it soon became clear that his greatness would be of a very different kind. One day, as he was gliding among the spires of the Fortress of Ends, when he spied a strange depression in one of the towers. He swooped in for a closer look.

Borealis found an ice cell, but its inhabitant was much more lively than the typical frozen prisoner. Flying past, he watched it beat its wispy wings furiously at the face of the ice spire. With each wingbeat, a hot gust of steam blew out from a small hole it had managed to make, and widened it almost imperceptibly. Fascinated, Borealis pulled up and flapped in place, causing the creature to stop and poke its head through the hole.

"Are you friend or foe?" it squawked suspiciously.
"Friend, if you will have me. What are you doing?"
"Trying to escape, what does it look like!"
"Why? Do you not like it here?"
"You must have hatched yesterday if you think a steam gyre is happy anywhere but the Great Furnace."
Borealis' fine feathered tail twitched. "Great Furnace? What is that?"
"My home. It feeds me with its heat and gives me form with its steam."
"Then why are you here?"
"I was bottled centuries ago and trapped here by a servant of the Icewarden. They thought I was destroyed by the cold, so they never finished sealing me. But I heard the Flamecaller's summons, and now I am almost able to answer it. So, 'friend', will you help me escape?"

Borealis didn't hesitate for a moment. He had been warned about the dangers of freeing the Icewarden's prisoners, but he had no intention of letting the opportunity to learn more about the Great Furnace slip by. He twirled in midair and smashed the remaining ice with his tail, freeing the gyre.
"Many thanks, little one," trilled the gyre, more ethereal now because of the dispersed vapor.
"May I come with you to see the Great Furnace?"
"Of course. I'd have been at that for days more if it weren't for you. I'll fly low to the ground so you can see me, but keep close."

And so they flew off, without any warning to Borealis' clan or parents, to the Ashfall Waste. Borealis saw many wonderful things on his journey with the gyre, but the most marvelous was the Flameforger's Festival. He blew glass, smelted swords, and ate blackened dishes that made his forked tongue burn. Most memorable of all, he discovered his talent for calling the flames, and danced all night with the Will O' the Ember. Soon enough, his stricken parents followed his trail to the festival, and dragged him back home to the nest with his belt of Embers trailing behind him. Try as they might to discipline him, the Kindred could never quench the passion that now burned in Borealis' heart, and when he came of age, he left to train his flamecalling. All they could do was to find him a lair outside the Ashfall Waste, where he would learn from tomes instead of barbaric Fire dragons. That is how Borealis met Yuukiji.