Charlotte

When she came to, she was surrounded.

She blinked, as a dozen eyes stared down at her. Concern, wariness, curiosity; so many emotions reflected in a rainbow of colors.

"Make way. Let me pass!"

The feminine voice sounded muffled, as if her ears had been stuffed with cotton. The crowd stirred, and from it, a stout, reptilian creature with dark, glittering scales emerged. She bent over her, her large, walnut-shaped eyes stopping just inches away from her face.

Memories came to her like a whisper; tiny droplets of knowledge in the back of her head. The dragon, the pearlcatcher before her examined her carefully, her pearl clutched in her small, delicate claws.

"You do not seem to be injured," the female muttered. She reached out with one hand, but when claws touched feathers, a wave of terror coursed through her. Eyes wide, fur puffing out, she pulled away suddenly. The pearlcatcher blinked, mouth half-open in surprise. A moment later, she smiled uncertainly, her arm falling back to her side.

"What is your name?" she asked. Her stare was now more guarded.

The droplets of knowledge turned into a downpour. She was a skydancer, a dragon, and this world was called Sornieth, there were eleven deities, each of which led a Flight of dragons, and she was of the Shadow Flight, and her name was-

"Charlotte," the skydancer spoke. "I am Charlotte."

"Charlotte," the pearlcatcher repeated. A small, polite smile formed on her thin lips. "I am Voidbane. My clanmates found you lying here. How did you get here? Do you know where you are?"

The skydancer blinked slowly. The outpouring of knowledge had stopped, leaving an unsettling void in its place. Her own name seemed to fill it, echoing in her head as if spoken by numerous discordant voices. A blinding pain blossomed in her temple, spreading through her skull.

She was not Charlotte.

For a moment, she could see Charlotte. Her face, and her eyes, and her wings, they writhed like a million worms, not only in the image of her, but inside her own head, and she understood then, that the discordant voices were coming from her, from a million leeches' mouths. For a moment, the crowd around her was Charlotte, closing in, scraping ever closer with deformed claws, reaching, grasping, for her-

And the very next moment, it all collapsed into itself, memories of the horror vanishing, giving their place to that unsettling void once more. A gasp left the skydancer's mouth. Voidbane tipped her head to the side, a curious, expectant look on her face.

"I'm... at the Focal Point," Charlotte muttered. The answer had come to her unbidden. "I... I must have fainted from exhaustion. I left my last clan to travel, and was looking for a place to stay."

Lies, whispered something at the back of her head. Oh, she knew. She recalled nothing, but she knew what had happened to her was not something that mundane.

The pearlcatcher blinked. Then, her grin widened.

"Then you've just found one. You can stay in our clan for as long as you like."

Voidbane extended a claw once more. Charlotte stared at it for a moment, before reaching out and grasping the pearlcatcher's hand, a cautious grin forming on her own snout as well. The other female pulled her up with surprising strength, given her petite form.

"Welcome," Voidbane spoke, "to our clan."

In the distance, Charlotte could make out a gathering of tents, as colorful as the dragons that had surrounded her. Said crowd had begun to disperse now, most of the clan's members going back to their daily routine.

Her new acquaintance turned around and began walking away. After a few steps, she stopped, and looked at the skydancer over her shoulder.

"Come on," she said, the same grin as before on her snout, "I'll show you around."

-written by Enako