Petrichor

Clan Leader, priestess of the Gladekeeper, and only living child of the Matriarch Genesis. Petrichor plays many roles within her community, and considers every dragon in the clan her mother grew as her beloved charges.

The sea finally gave way to sand and shore and Petrichor heaved her aching body onto land. Her mother had instructed her to find somewhere new to grow the clan and so she had left the waters of her hatchgrounds and led her clan far from familiar lands and seas. Months they had wandered, numbers dwindling, morale fading, before washing up on the jungle beach. A weary count told them nearly half had disbanded in the journey, and silently Petrichor felt the ache in her joints compounding as the tired flock trudged into the murky green depths. This was no ordinary exhaustion. Something had taken root in her bones, she could feel them grinding like sand as she walked. But she continued walking anyway. Homeless clans were vulnerable to any number of dangers, and the longer they wandered, the more vulnerable they became.
Three nights they spent wandering the Gladeveins, and three days Petrichor spent scanning the underbrush attempting to ignore her agony before collapsing in pain and defeat in a clearing at the base of a set of waterfalls. Anxiety swept through the remnants of the clan, and the night was spent in frenzied planning.Where would they go? What could they do? How would they survive should the worst occur?
When dawn broke over the treetops the clan circled around her unconscious form, utterly at a loss. Petrichor was made their leader because her instincts are sharp and she has a knack for lucky impulsive choices, and the already nervous group felt the edges of panic setting in without her guiding voice. Genesis, Petrichor’s aging mother, stands at the edge of the crowd and stares unblinking into the green wall of foliage, heart aching, when a soft voice echoes into her mind and the ripples across the glade…
’I will save her.’
A warm gust kicks up in the quiet morning air sending a spiral of emerald leaves into the air amidst the crowd and suddenly tendrils of green burst from the ground beneath Petrichor, bury into her flesh and twist around her limbs and a haze of green light enfolds her and then fades into her flesh, leaving bark encrusting the vines next to her stony scales. She opens her eyes for a moment, but the sunlight is suddenly far too bright and she squeezes them shut against the light once more.
She still ached, oh did she ache. But it was a different ache, it wasn’t in her bones anymore, but her muscles, her organs. Twisting onto her limbs in a halfhearted attempt to stand, she squints her eyes open to see the blurry forms of her clan surround her. Relief spills through her pain-crazed mind. ‘Safe, safe, for now we are safe’. And she falls once more to the ground.
In her sleep she wanders through endless vines, following a soft, beckoning voice whose words she can't quite make out. She wanders and wanders before breaking suddenly into a familiar clearing with a massive, ancient tree at the center. And then the tree opens her eyes, and lifts her head, and speaks:
‘Hello little one. Your clan was quite worried at your expense. Perhaps you ought to have shared your state sooner?’ The leafy dragoness chuckled at her own comment and Petrichor gawped at the criticism. ‘No matter, you are here and you are well. And...’ She delicately lifted a giant barky limb to inspect her thornlike claws, ‘...you are welcome.’
Dots finally connecting in her mind Petrichor could only squeak out ‘You are the Gladekeeper!’ The emerald lady only gives a small smile and tilts her head expectantly. ‘Thankyou!’ Petrichor squeaks, embarrassed she had not only neglected to thank the goddess but completely failed to recognize her!
There could be only one response to such mercy. Petrichor shook herself, trying to eliminate her nerves and pads forward to kneel in the shade of the boughs of the Gladekeeper's massive leafy form: ‘Green mistress, Lady of the Wilds, I offer myself and my Clan to You. Let us wander no more.’
Satisfied with this response, the Gladekeeper takes a single razor claw and cuts a vine from Petrichor’s side, and then plunges its bleeding stem into the earth. With another claw she carves a simple symbol into the earth as she hisses in the language of the divine and the vine churns and grows to become an enormous twisting rose bush. ‘With the pact of the rose we are bound. Sleep well, little one.’

Petrichor sleeps for a fortnight, and her clan, rudderless, decides here isas good a place as any to camp, build minimal fortifications and begin to hunt. It was a sunny day that Petrichor’s eyes open once again to see her clan milling about in the fashion they once had in the rune bedecked caves of the Tidelord’s realm. A heaving sigh passes her tongue, alerting her mother nearby to her newly regained consciousness.
‘My beloved hatchling…you are awake at last.’ Genesis murmured as she nosed her daughter’s tired body.
‘Mother, it was the Gladekeeper.’ Petrichor's voice is dreamy and soft, as though she's just awaken from a comfortable little catnap and not a fourteen day sickness sleep.
‘What?’
‘The Gladekeeper saved me, and I swore my fealty to her in return. Look mother, she’s already blessed the clan with the beginnings of a proper home.’ Petrichor gestures with her snout at two Coatl bickering at the riverbank over a particularly large fish. ‘We will wander no more.’ She sighs contentedly.
‘So be it.’ Genesis smiles, nosing her daughter’s head gently. ‘I will announce your words to the clan.’
Petrichor closes her eyes again, not quite yet ready to rise and inspect the work that had been done, but still a great toothy grin spreads across her face at the whooping cheer that breaks out in the distance at her mother’s proclamation.
It seems the clan approves.