Miko

The Traveling Storyteller

Dragons huddle around each other, struggling forward to hear better, falling back when the performance becomes too intense. In the center of the flurry, there is a small dragon with a lilted voice. Heroes and monsters come tumbling from his beak and fall upon the crowd with as much strength as an avalanche. With Miko, the end is always unclear and happy endings are not guaranteed. The only certainty is that his listeners will leave satisfied.

He was not always a wordsmith. Miko’s soft feathers and coral-colored spots mask his cold, glazed eyes, glinting with all the harshness of the tundra. He wanders, each step light and graceful, letting the winds guide his path. He has wandered the Southern Icefield for what feels like a millennia, following the well-worn paths of his memory to civilizations he’s not sure are still there. He finds tiny towns along his path, well-lit hamlets and warm camps, and he’ll stop and entertain them for a few days, maybe a week or two if they give him food and shelter. These are the moments he lives for. Their kind words and awed expressions keep away his prickly thoughts, stifle the memories that drip feed him moments of his past.

He refuses to think about it. Every dragon raised in the Icewarden’s realm grew up on tales of the monsters that stalk through blizzards, their never-ending stomachs aching for flesh. Tales of the creatures that patrol the Fortress, howling into the wind as they guard the Icewarden’s prisoners. For a young Miko, those stories were fake, a dumb way to make hatchlings eat their vegetables and come inside at night. Until they weren’t. He can’t remember what he did to catch their attention, and he can’t remember how he got out. He just knows he woke up on the outskirts of the Crags, and he got away from that place as fast as he could. Miko believes that he’s too dangerous, too unlovable.That he left the true Miko behind long ago, and is now just some icy husk. He keeps those monsters close to his heart, and pours himself into his stories, drifting away when anyone gets too close.

HOARD