Spade

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Life-giver: idk anymore honestly i'll find someone

Spade has always believed he owes his allegiance to Arenji. In fact, he knows he owes his very existence to her. As a male Spawn, his nest-sisters had leached away his life and magic in the egg, leaving him vulnerable. By Arenji's grace, he had been allowed to continue. For a time. Trained as a spy, he left his birth clan to spread the message of Arenji and serve her will, and came across a scouting party for a clan serving the Lightweaver. He asked if he could stay with their clan, posing as a traveler, and eventually joined the clan. He then sought to repay Arenji for his life by spreading her ideas, in particular her message that the old gods do not deserve the service of exalted dragons. However, the clan was not receptive to his ideas, even trying to persuade him that rather than almost death, exaltation was a high honor offered to dragons who proved themselves willing. They forbade him from attending any exaltation ceremonies, however, and he thinks this is because they're hiding the truth from him. He speaks to the groups he travels on gathering missions with in quiet tones, never crossing the line into outright denial of the clan's beliefs, merely... offering an alternative. Arenji, he tells them, does not seek destruction. She doesn't have "good intentions" that will decimate the population of Sornieth. She is simply Balance. Good luck, bought and paid for by difficulty. He quickly learns that preaching to convert only leads to the other dragons avoiding him, so instead he simply thanks Arenji aloud when he encounters good fortune and answers the questions of any dragon that asks. And, eventually, most do. He doesn't delude himself that many are persuaded, but it doesn't matter. Some are at least receptive, like that red skydancer and the weird fae who might be a kind of necromancer, and Solara at least heard out his arguments and didn't seem entirely opposed. He's planted the seeds of change in others, and the clan shifts from direct devotion to the Lightweaver. Oh, they still exalt dragons to her service in those secret ceremonies, but they are less quick to call out to her in need and prefer to seek out solutions that will be found in this world.

It's... kind of nice, while it lasts.

A while after he joined the clan, he started to notice changes. The runes granted to him by Arenji began to flicker, particularly around dawn and dusk, and the vivid colors of the sunbeam ruins grew dull in his eyes. His dreams grew confused and he saw a long tunnel once, fading into a cold light and ribbed with stone arches that hid chittering shadows. After that, he tried to stop sleeping altogether, only drifting off in the bright sunlight for a couple hours until the babble of the shadows woke him.
He could almost...
almost make out the words...
he didn't want to hear the words.
He woke again, gasping in a ragged breath, suspecting that there would be precious few left to him. He prayed to Arenji that he may be delivered from the ice beginning to encase his bones, desparately straining his neck to seek out the sun- surely it hadn't set? But no, there it was above him, yet the world was dark. All that was left was the gray and shrieking shadows that swarmed around his feet and that high, cold light that seemed so far away as he fought... faltered... won the battle for a breath he knew instinctively would be his last.

And then... light. Light to push back the shadows that now seemed to whisper to themselves. Light to melt the ice from his bones, light to be breathed in place of air, light that was a beautiful warm gold like he hadn't seen for weeks, like he hadn't seen in his life. He opened his eyes and wondered that he had ever thought that he was alive, because now the world held COLORS, the air held SCENTS, and the soft murmurs of the clan settling in for an afternoon nap held a music to them like nothing he had known before. He soaked in his experiences, finally realizing that he wasn't alone by the pillar he had crawled to. The other skydancer carried runes blazing with the golden light that had saved him, and Spade realized that he had seen this dragon before, among the party that had found him. In fact, if he recalled, this dragon had presented him to the clan's leaders.