Balthazar

Balthazar believes he has ended The Search. Resting here, in the Lesser Lair of the Lucanidae Clan, in the Everbloom Gardens - he was pulled to the Viridian Labyrinth as though called by soft and sweet lullabies sung by the Gladekeeper herself - awakening to this call as though roused by a prophetic dream in which the call was sung.

Balthazar considers his charge to be Kynareth and the Lucanidae Clan itself - his utmost desire is to ensure the future and safety of the clan and its matriarch.

Balthazar is quiet and reserved, much like his mate Kynareth, but holds less attachment to the Unknown and fails to understand the significance that Kynareth places in the enigmatic and mysterious. He is kind-hearted and fair but frequently finds himself unable to understand personality traits of others. In spite of this, he rarely allows this lack of empathic understanding to show him up as obnoxious to others.

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Balthazar's gaze searched the skies as he soared across their expanse and saw only wisps of cloud that carried slow as slugs with an arrogance and lack of interest in his mortal affairs that would have aggravated him had he not experienced such stirring dreams the previous night. The memory of these visions was nearly impossible to drive away, they crept forward with utmost stealth and found themselves far ahead of all other thoughts only moments after being pushed aside or buried deeply away. Balthazar's green eyes darted from wisp to wisp, trying to capture something that would hold his attention and move the passage of his thoughts away from these visions.

"Why do these burning green lights speak to me so incessantly? Why do I remember them... and not my parents?"

He caught himself and glanced across his shoulder and wingspan; no one had heard him talking to himself. Of course they hadn't. In the empty space of the purveying voyeur he had imagined he saw only expansive terrain resting far below him, the outskirts of the Viridian Labyrinth were a light green haze of colour that called out to him. It had been in the Sea of a Thousand Currents that he had met the visions that he was now possessed with, they had sung to him so urgently of something painfully prophetic that nestled deep in the beating womb of the Viridian Labyrinth. He had left the lapping waves that hid an ancestral world he held with much importance and he had marvelled as the lapping had given way to the total stillness and silence that seemed to actually seep out from the mist that hung over The Tangled Wood. Far to the west, he saw the Shattered Pillar and felt a cold pang he couldn't quite describe. As the pang dissipated sending shudders of its remnants across his body he appeared outwardly forlon and sad - yet inside he felt seemingly neutral. He was concerned about the visions still but now also concerned about the frequency with which any manner of inexplicable thought or feeling came to find him. He thought and worried tirelessly over their plausible causes. Sense and logic eluded him, he was assailed with absurd and ambivalent forces that he continually failed to explain - but he was in no harm. He thanked the gods for his health.

...

Several days later he had been directed to the modest hut of a great oracle. This aging scholar was well versed at reading the meanings of dreams, especially dreams that had lingered like the memories of real events. Any dragon that carried the lingering memory of fantastic dream-borne visions with them for longer than a week were very often instructed by their clans to pay this oracle a visit at his quarters in the Mirrorlight Promenade of the Sunbeam Ruins. His modest hut was hidden away in one of the areas many unassuming crevices.

"I have this parchment with me, I have sketched this form. It looks like tangling roots set together like runes or letters - but this is what I see as a great, green fire in a dark, night sky that lights everything before it. The heavens themselves are as visible as all of Sornieth must be from the furthest we could reach from it."
"This symbol you show me is indeed full with meaning. It is a Sigil of a Nature clan."
"A Nature clan?"
"You will find the meaning your dream is directing you towards in the Viridian Labyrinth. Something waits for you there."
"How will I find the clan, who will recognise this Sigil?"
"No one will recognise this Sigil. This Sigil does not exist..."
"What?"
"There is no clan that I know of in all of the Labyrinth with such a marking on their banners. This is either the Sigil of an ancient clan that has not been seen in Sornieth for many generations or your dream is a vision of the future."
"The future?"
"This Sigil may belong to a clan that is yet to exist - it may even belong to your clan."
"My clan? You mean... my dreams point me towards my charge?"
"So you believe your charge to be a future clan already. Well, all is clear then. Go to the Viridian Labyrinth and find your mate, you will be the progenitors of this Nature Clan - you will take this Sigil and be the ones to craft it into physical form. The symbol in your dreams urges you towards this path, it urges itself into this physical realm by your hand and the hands of your clan..."

Balthazar felt the buzzing of the insects that feasted on Labyrinth vegetation flood his mind and swarm it's heaving thoughts and calculations - emotion swelled to the surface of this bubbling cauldron as he contemplated fulfilling the primal urge to discover his charge. He settled down to sleep that night as the dying rays of sun hit the Sunbeam Ruins with angular perfection, the sky full with hazy pinks and purples and clouds that shimmered with outlines of gold, as though crafted with the same ancient wisdom as the ruins. His sleep was restful and his ever-following vision of fiery green roots had subsided in it's pursuit. He had spent a week in the labour of travel before the vision returned with a colossal might. Many new images found him and pulled him more urgently towards the Everbloom Gardens of the Viridian Labyrinth.

...

The silhouette of Kynareth was unmistakable as he saw it outlined from afar, perfectly still among the light green blades of grass of an Everbloom clearing. From this distance, Balthazar could not tell that Kynareth's eyes were closed and that she was held tightly in a slumber that led her from soothing peace into formidable anguish. He sailed downwards, oblivious to much of his surroundings as the living incarnation of what he had only known as image until now came to life, birthed from dream - roused with anxiety and fear, Kynareth's expression did not belie any such feelings and so they remained hidden to Balthazar in his approach. Once more, a vision that had tailed his every move seemed to slip away from his shoulders like an ethereal spirit drifting to the skies and a sense of fulfillment struck him and burned new embers in his heart.

This would be the day that the Clan of Lucanidae was born.

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Familiar: Rubus the Flower Nymph
Mate: Kynareth
Alignment: Neutral Good
Likes: Guarding, Flying, Hunting, Helping others
Dislikes: Violence, Mean-spiritedness, Flies
Hobbies: Stone-skipping, Swimming, Dreaming, Gardening
Theme: Fake Wings (cover) by Yuki Kajiura & Emily Bindiger

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