Brine

It had been a long time since Brine had soaked in the clear waters of her home flight's territory, and she longed for the depths of the Sea of a Thousand Currents - but her banishment was made clear by the Matriarch and no other Water clan would take her in, lest they face war declarations for harboring a traitor.

It saddened her deeply, but she fundamentally disagreed with the clan's decision to fight the nearby Maren - they were there first! - and she could not stand by and let it happen. Where, then, could she go?

She wouldn't even consider the plague-infested waters on the shores of the Wasteland, the waters in the Labyrinth were almost certainly inhospitable, and the waters by the Southern Icefield or the Ashfall Wastes would freeze or boil her in an instant - no, she needed something temperate, somewhere far from the Tidelord's piercing gaze...

The only remaining option was just as likely to kill her as the rest.

---

Brine had heard of the Vanguard as a hatchling - great scholars and mages, on the forefront of magical innovation... perhaps they could help her? Unaccustomed to being on land for so long had left her weary, her scales dry and cracked, flaking off by the dozen by the time she arrived to the Vanguard's lair.

Settled in a shallow pool of filtered water, the mages talked about how they could acclimate Brine to the high levels of chalcedony in the waters around the Isles - she didn't have the same immunity, but perhaps a tolerance could be built through exposure...? Desperate to be submerged again, Brine agreed to their suggestion.

---

It was agony. How long it went on, she couldn't say; might as well have been moments as well as seasons that she could feel the sharp pain of the radioactive chalcedony invading her body. For moons she came to the brink of death and back again under the careful supervision of the Vanguard. For days she heaved and retched and fought the chalcedony poisoning away, leaving her wholly exhausted for years.

Until it was easier. Until she could speak, and eat, and swim. Until she was free and whole in the clement waters of the Isles, greeting new corals and fish and the Maren factions that trade with the Vanguard. Until she slept inside a large clamshell and finally - finally - rested.

---

When she awoke, a long time after, she found that she could not rise - not in the way she was used to. Her limbs were gone from her, her wings stunted and tattered, and in it's place she found a ribboned, aqua fin. Her natural impulse to swim with her legs and wings was replaced with an instinctive undulation to propel her forward. She knew this form - the Undertide, those who left and turned their back on the Tidelord. But why did she now take their shape?