The air was full only of the sound of jostling wings and tails as the dragons moved aside. Hel strode down the aisle they formed, her head held high and her bright golden eyes blazing. She halted before the Mirror and tilted her head to the side in cool curiosity.

Hel's poise and balance are unrivaled. She conducts herself like the queen that she is, every movement calculated and aware. While she seems distant and removed, there are rare times when one may find her in an unguarded moment of levity or tenderness. To have seen such things is to have seen a star fall, it is said. She and Cadelus present a united front to the others of the clan, though how she might truly feel about the Fae she was chosen for remains to be seen by most.

Born among a cadre of inky black dragons that massed like crows at the Beacon of the Radiant Eye, Hel seemed as far removed from a Call to the Plague Mother as perhaps any dragon might be. And yet...there was always something about her that was different. Perhaps it was the way she composed herself, a manner hovering around her that set her apart from the others. Mayhap it was the way she avidly watched as creatures the clan hunted took their final breaths, or the keen interest she paid to those things that had fallen to decay.

It was as though she were waiting for something to happen. The others felt it too, a sort of building tension that swirled around the young Wildclaw as she grew and made it difficult to be around her for long. It was something of a relief, then, when the Mirror came to the territory that fateful afternoon. They had just brought down a kill when Svet appeared. Every headcrest rose, every body tensed for fighting, but the Mirror did not seem interested in the smell of cooling blood or the meat that fell from jaws that had stilled in chewing.

Without a word, Hel's kin split down the middle, for all the world like they were taking part in a ritual. Hel walked toward Svet, and they eyed each other for a long moment.

"If you are to come with me," the Mirror said in her raspy voice, "you must prove yourself."

Without a word, Hel launched herself at Svet, the other dragons of her clan making way as their eyes trained on the fighters, their eerie silence still perfect. After a brief scuffle wherein Svet and Hel pinned each other in turns, the Mirror stepped away, some inner criteria met. Svet and Hel nodded at one another, an understanding running deeply between them. After a few farewell headbumps for her brothers and mother, Hel turned from the Beacon of the Radiant Eye and the Lightweaver's watch and toward Tva'Kadith and the life she would begin as its queen.