Hestia

Hestia: I will be the very best. That no one ever was.

A level 25 with two generation one parents, one of which is an imperial, Hestia let too much pride go into her head. Never stepping down from a challenge, she strives to be the best at everything. Best dragon at training hatchlings? Check. Prettiest dragon in the lair? Check. Best at memorizing all of the flora, fauna, and whatever that is in the recorded bestiary? Check. I mean. Who can remember that a "Bogus Manamonger" is? Only she can. I honestly think she has too much time on her hands.

Hestia however, after conquering all of her previous goals, has set her eyes on one more challenge that she will never step down from: Being the greatest child in her father's eyes. Survine, being the great ruler and father that he is, loves all of his children equally. Hestia, however, will not accept that. She is striving to become greater than all of her siblings and take her father's love for her own, and constantly compares herself to her siblings, whether they know it or not.

Hestia: Watatsumi once was the only one in our family to fly around the entire Sornieth in less than 10 days. Once. Try 8 days, then come back to me. SUCK ON THAT YOU FIREY BLUEBERRY! I WISH YOU THE BEST OF LUCK IN BREAKING MY RECORD! OH WAIT! YOU SERVE THE FLAMECALLER NOW! GUESS YOU DON'T HAVE ANY MORE TIME ON YOUR HANDS TO EVEN TRY! HAHAHAHAHHAHA!

Talk about sibling rivalry, amirite?

Aside from the fact that she is still trying to hog all of her dad's love to herself, she also still hasn't accomplished one challenge in Goldenstorm: winning the pillow fight championships. However, now it's almost impossible. She's the only dragon ever to be banned from the games, for on her first day she almost burned down the entire stadium. And that's saying a lot, because Toruk is allowed in and she has freaking lava dripping down from her wings.

Hestia: I will destroy you all.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hestia quietly flew above the high spines of obsidian that surrounded her clan's territory, her slim body swirling around the long columns of black smoke and ashes. At this hour of the day, the moon was high up in the sky, and she was the only disturbance in a world of silence.

She froze for a moment basking in dim moonlight then started as she suddenly remembered her mission, her eyes glanced at the ground beneath her. For she was here for a reason and not to relax and glide pointlessly.

She wasn't there yet.

Every night, she made flight from her clan to her secret destination, a large cave. She had seen it in her dream, it was calling her with radiating light and warmth. Yet when she first got there, she couldn't believe her eyes...

Ah, there it was. The entry. It was almost unnoticeable, hidden behind a large bush of cindervines and fire flowers. As always, she landed and pushed some of the vines that were blocking the path, careful not to sting herself with their thorns. She slithered quickly in, using magic to make her horns glow a soft orange light. She didn't need it for too long, as veins of glowing minerals lighted her path soon.

The underground path got larger and larger, until it finally revealed a massive cave. Just like in her dream, it was beautiful. Even though she had been here a few times already, the view still took her breath away for a moment.

The roof of the cavern was covered with cindervines that hung down like a huge carpet entwined with fire lilies, that popped out against the darkness of obsidian and the gray of the vines like stars in the night sky. A pack of bright butterflies was dancing around the vines, they were probably attracted by the sweet nectar of the flowers.

Some bees were fluttering from flower to flower, collecting pollen and sugar.

A particularly curious one buzzed around Hestia ear, making it twitch and disturbing her contemplative state of awe. She felt at her side to assure that the bottles and bags of leather were still here, and jumped down the cliff where she was standing to start her search.

Every night, she went in this cave to collect the honey made by the rare bees thriving in the cavern. Sure, it was perilous and exhausting, but it was worth it. The liquid that the strange golden bees produced had magic abilities. One drop of this sweet liquid could appease the most painful ache, and if concentrated, it could do miracles to physical wounds.

The imperial's ears perked up as she heard the familiar sound of a hive. She opened her mouth to taste the sweetness in the air. There it was. There was an enormous hive hanging from an especially sharp looking piece of obsidian. And it was dripping the precious sparkly golden liquid from the many brood cells.

Hestia didn't waste time and started blowing smoke on the hive to make sure the bees wouldn't sting her. It was a trick she had learned from an elder of her old clan, who used to hunt for bees to satisfy his sweet tooth. Once the bees were asleep, she started pouring the honey in her bottles, cautious about not wasting any drop.
Once all three bottles were filled up, she started to wander around the cave. There would surely be some wonder out here, wouldn't it? Her scales shivered in excitation.

Only in this cave she felt like a normal dragon. After all, everything here was over-sized. She climbed and perched on a high cliff to see her surrounding from a high point.

From here, she could see the end of the cave. To her surprise, she saw bright red and blue creatures flying. They were definitely bigger than the fauna she had seen already. The creatures looked strangely like dragons. Agape, she took off and glided toward the strange animals.

A flap of wing after another she got closer to the pack of colorful flying beasts. From a closer look, they didn't seem draconic anymore. They had no visible limbs, a snout similar to the one of a wolf, wisp-like hair - seemed extremely soft to the touch, thought Hestia - and big ears.

She sneaked beneath them to get a better look. They were similar to duskflapper, a race of big volcanic bats, but even the biggest duskflapper would have looked like a dwarf compared to those ones. The smaller ones were as big as the imperial head! And those colors, Hestia had never seen duskflappers with such patterns. They were striped with vibrant colors, almost as if they glowed!

She stared at them smiling in an expression that was only found in young hatchling exploring the world for the first time. Her eyes were filled with stars from the beautiful ballet of those bats playing together and chasing after bugs.

She didn't pay attention to the bat landing behind her, staring at her with the same expression of curiosity and amazement that the imperial had. Obviously, the creature had never seen a dragon, especially not an Imperial. It didn't have the instinctive fright that most duskflapper species had when facing a dragon.

It lifted its muzzle and smelled the air. As delicious sweet scent caught its attention, the bat quickly lifted its body off the ground and started flying in a circle around the female imperial, letting out high pitched sounds to get her attention.
It worked, and Hestia let out a muffled scream of surprise. The bat didn't even twitch and continued fluttering around the dragoness head.

Hestia wanted to try to befriend the creature, as she had never seen such friendly and beautiful beast in the fire territory. She had an idea. She slowly got a bottle of honey out of her bag and opened the bottle, letting the creature smell the substance. After that, she poured a little of the sweet liquid on the smooth rock and put the bottle down. Then she waited.

The bat landed on the ground and started approaching the honey. It was glancing back at her every now and then to make sure she wasn't a threat. When the creature started licking the liquid, a low and repetitive sound started to emanate from it.

First concerned, Hestia then realized that the sound was the creature purring. She stared at the duskflapper a moment, and then lifted her bag to take something. Rummaging through her stuff, she finally found what she was looking for: A notebook with scribbles inside. She grabbed the piece of coal that was tied to the cover and started to describe the creature. She made sure to record every detail, and even doodled a badly made reference in case her writing wasn't clear enough. By the time she had finished, the bottle was empty and the creature had gone back with his kind.

Hestia suddenly realized that she had spent a lot of time in the cave, and that dawn would soon come. She stuffed all her objects in her leather bag and took off immediately, hoping the sun hadn't come out yet. She glanced one last time behind her before entering the path that would lead her to the surface, hoping to see the Honeycave duskflappers again.