Skaava

A Lightborn dragon walked into a Shadow den. It sounded like the set up to a grim joke. Skaava had thought about this for a long time, considering every possible outcome. She would have to work twice hard to prove her worth and she would have to be twice as cautious and she could never let her guard down. She was certain she was up to the challenge.

She readjusted the idol in her bag, exhaled, and walked forward to meet her fate.

The Black Bog clan were the nearest to the border of her sunny home, where the light began to fade into the gloomy fog. More importantly, these wyrms were merchants and she would not stand out among the other traders and tourists milling about. Still, she cast her eyes downward in an ultimately futile effort not to betray her heritage when she asked the guardsmen to speak with the matriarch.

It all started years ago, when she found an idol to the Shadowbinder in the ruins behind her home. Having already begun to grow weary of the unbending morals of her Flight's culture, of every rule of propriety and shackling taboo, it did not take long for the young dragonelle to quickly grow obsessed with the votive object.

The Shadowbinder.

Mother of shadows, of creatures secretive, puzzling, mischievous, but certainly not the wholly evil monsters her family believed them to be.

Oh, to hide away from the spotlight, to abide by only your own ethics, to see things from another angle, to play and laugh and live without worrying about how it would reflect on your family. How could it, when everyone was wrapped in the inky embrace of the Shadowbinder?
This little statue and the freedom it promised became more and more alluring by the day, while her duties to the Lightbringer kept constricting her, squeezing the air from her lungs.

It was then she decided to follow the path set before her, to seek out the leader of these unscrupulous dragons at the Black Bog Trading Post.

The matriarch, Rhizanthel, looked at Skaava with hooded eyes, violet, like all wyrms born in the twisting vines of the Tangled Wood. She contemplated the Lightborn's request a long time, seemingly unsure whether to laugh or chase her off for wasting her time. When it became clear that Skaava was, indeed, serious about her request, Rhizanthel smiled. Who was she, after all, to deny their Mother a new acolyte? Especially a dragon stolen from the lands of her sister and rival, the Lightweaver?

The clan had a pitiably small shrine to their patron deity, but it had fallen into disuse, standing empty and hollow among the buildings. The dragons here were not overly devout and were otherwise too busy to tend to the humble, grey shack. But to Skaava, it was beautiful. She gingerly placed her precious idol atop the pedestal and placed several coins and game pieces at its obsidian feet. Seeing the idol returned to it's home territory filled her heart with a kind of peace she could not describe and, to Skaava, at least, the little statue seemed to smile...

-with credit to PlantMage