After that first encounter, StarGazer and Xaria drew closer until one would never leave the others’ side. Together, they would fall asleep under the black sky, feeling the blissful blades of the meadow around them. Finally, they had found an escape from all their troubles; Xaria’s past life was all but forgotten, and Stargazer found solace on this lonely, yet intimate hill.

Days and nights passed, and as the intimacy faded, the lonely feeling persisted. They decided to have a child together, fusing their magics into a single small, hopeful egg.

It sat there for what seemed like forever, but as time wore on, cracks spread across its surface, giving way to the dragon within.

JadeClaw, painted with the colors of the meadow, emerged from the broken shell. The newborn dragon’s mane was soft, and the color of seafoam; her hide, striped caramel, shone like sunlight; her eyes, that all-encompassing pink in the ground and air and the magic alight all around her.

Frail. Tiny. Strong. Giant.

She was all of it.

Her eyes turned toward the darkness above, that strange absence of light. It seemed almost like a blot of ink, dripping into the earth, soaking through grass and roots and rocks.

Was it poison? Was it magic? No one dared to know.

After all, we are all infinitesimally small, a grain of sand on an endless beach.
There’s no time to think about it.

She looked down.

The earth beneath her claws gave way perhaps a mile from where she stood. From there, there was only the sky mingling with a million other isolated islands, stars within Sornieth. Still further in the distance, mountains rose like claws to seize space.

It was peaceful and chaotic at once. It was all she’d ever known.

There, she sat for a long, long time, reveling in the glory of the dark.

The Pearlcatcher’s runes shone across her body, illuminating the dirt. Her rosy eyes glimmered in the night.

She was here.

Lore credit to @Undergrowth