"You came in search of answers, did you not?"

The bogsneak sat, majestic, at the far end of her cavern. The runes upon her body glowed with a pulsing energy, only amplified by the ritual tools she wore and the fact that her home was now close to the Arcanist himself.

Aquilla. Proud daughter of her line, bringing the light of the Waking to a tribe that had long slumbered, vibrant colours adorning her scales and bright runes awing the younglings that blinked their way from eggs thought long inert. The scars across her face spoke of a past in battle, though she was far younger than all but the hatchlings of the clan. Her words carried a wisdom with them, a miracle of alchemy and magic both, a wisdom of dragons long Exalted, dragons long Slept, dragons long dead.

"Not intentionally."

Uther had long forsaken the title of Patriarch. Lairkeeper at best, he kept his station out of the need of others, not himself. His bones ached from a hundred old combats that magic could not heal, his pearl gleamed in the light of years of memories kept safe and pure. But he was tired, and he worried that when he slept, so too did the clan that was called his.

"You will find what you seek," Aquilla assured him, and smiled a toothy bogsneak grin. What had she been, before the transformation? Had she been born with the potion running in her veins, latching hold of her heritage and contorting it, transforming it, metamorphosing it?

Her bright green eyes watched him. Knowledge, magic, power. Certainty. That was what the clan needed.

"Yes," Uther agreed, "I will."

Being the first did not define him, not any more. He could wait now, this he knew. And he could sleep safely.