Blerim

A striped body loops around a sleeping pile of young hatchlings, twitching in slumber.

Blerim opens his mouth in a large yawn, coiling tighter around the youngsters. One of them squeaked in protest, and he grinned as he loosened his grip.

Despite his fearsome appearance (yes he's fearsome, thank you very much!), he is always certain to treat the hatchlings as though they are treasure itself. It made some of the other dragons snicker, particularly that annoying and cackling Nyx, so he usually only tried to do it when they weren't around.... but he couldn't help it. Just LOOK at the cute little boogers.

And they were the future of the clan, after all.

By the time Blerim had joined, Sayora's clan had grown to a decent size. But Sayora was still particularly proud to have found Blerim, for he was the first dragon to join her lair that wasn't one of the most common of breeds, and he introduced a whole new set of genes to the clan -- and the more genes you had, and the more uncommon breeds, the more respected you were as a clan.

Blerim felt somewhat bad that he had been hatched with these markings while dragons like Sayora and Soren had worked for years to earn theirs, but he knew that someday he would be able to help others earn theirs -- and he had never been treated poorly by those who had no such genes, so he tried to put it out of his mind.

And whether it was the genes, his breed, or Soren's capacity to care for young, the patriarch of the clan had fully introduced Blerim to life as an Arcane and made sure he was safe to reach adulthood (only forgetting about him to go off and study a few times...), and never seemed to treat Blerim differently than the other hatchlings. In Blerims mind, he was forever indebted to the clan for it.

After reaching adulthood, Blerim decided that every hatchling should be happy and safe like he was..... even if that meant being mocked by a certain shadow dragon.

He yawns again and, careful not to squeeze the hatchlings again, stretches out his brilliant wings.

Maybe someday he'll have some hatchlings of his own to care for as well, he ponders. He'll be certain that they're cared for properly.

And with that sentiment, he lays his head back down again and goes back to sleep.