Slackby

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He wasn't sure how long he'd been dreaming. His nightmares had always been confusing. The murky images of things chasing him - things he knew he should know, things he shouldn't fear, but still ran away from. Were they dragons? His family? Friends? Enemies? He didn't remember, wasn't sure if he should remember. He just knew that when they came after him, he had to run. He had to run, or he'd be caught, and if he was caught, he'd be killed. But who are you? Why do I dream of you? He was only half aware of the fact that he wasn't ascending anymore, but plummeting towards the earth. Somewhere in the back of his mind, where he could still think, he wondered if he was going to die... ..... SLAM! He woke up. And wasn't that a surprise every time it happened. Just to be certain, he opened his eyes and took a deep breath. Yep, still alive. What were the chances? Glancing around, he had no idea where he was. But he was pretty damn sure that he wasn't in the Crystal Pools any more.

For some time, he waddled around awkwardly on his wings and feet, trying to remember how to walk like some shell-wearer. Colourful insects buzzed around him, and he feebly tried to catch them, realizing only after he looked at himself that he was much smaller than he remembered. In vain he tried to hunt, and each time he failed, growing weaker with each attempt.

He might have died, had a whisker not brushed him, and a dragon gasped.

"Foundling! Foundling!" the pearlcatcher cried, motioning wildly to someone behind her. Through lidded eyes, he watched, helpless, as a spiral came looping from the sky towards him. "He's hurt!"

The spiral clicked her tongue, reaching for him with one claw; feebly, he tried to move back. "No," he gasped, eyes wide. "No, please-"

"Oh, hush," she clicked, shaking her head in disapproval. "I'm not going to hurt you. Sadie, keep him still." As the pearlcatcher's paws came down on either side of him, shielding him from the buffeting winds around him, the spiral continued talking, tugging his wings gently to test their range of motion, feeling for broken bones, and shining a light in his eyes from one claw-tip, apparently satisfied with his reactions. "We are the Starstrand Fellowship, and we're hunting harpies."

"We are training devotees to best serve the Arcanist," the pearlcatcher said stiffly.

"Yeah, that's what I said, hunting harpies," the spiral grinned, and he found himself liking her warmth despite everything. "Do you remember your name?"

"No, I don't remember anything," he admitted, wrapping his wings around himself. Had spirals always been so huge?

"Well, we'd better get you out of here," the pearlcatcher said, her striped hide rippling as she stood and scooped him into her mane, where he latched onto a tuft of hair, already terrified of what was coming. "Keep them alive, and follow my trails back." With a beating of leathery wings and a whispering of words, they were airborne, the pearlcatcher swooping northwest as he clung desperately to her mane.

---

The two leaders shared a glance, before turning their gaze back to the pearlcatcher. "And, Sadie, you said you found him in the scrubs?" asked the snapper in her usual ponderous tone.

Sadie nodded twice, briskly. The small fae shuffled nervously. "What's going to happen to me?" he asked.

The snapper settled her bulk, lying down and eyeing him as she would a book whose spine she couldn't quite read. "You can stay with us, if you like," she offered. "Though you must learn to fight. The Starstrand Fellowship cannot harbour those who will not defend themselves."

"Not that you have to learn right now," the spiral added hastily, also laying flat, the length of his body stretching out only briefly before his lower half began instinctively wiggling back and forth. "I mean, you're just a hatchling!"

He shook his head, confused. "But I feel older somehow. I don't know what's happened."

The two exchanged another glance and Sadie coughed politely. "If I would take my leave-?"

"Oh? Oh, of course," the spiral - Zary, he'd said - muttered, waving one arm. "Best get back to harpy-hunting."

With a sniff of annoyance, Sadie stepped back, flapped her wings, and took to the air once more. "Now," Zary continued, wrapping a hand around the foundling, "We'd best get you to your quarters. You'll be staying with Lucky, I think. He's one of our scholars, he'll know what to do."

---

"I do not know what to do." Lucky fanned his frills in frustration. "I have been studying every tome I possess, and have found nothing. There are no answers here." He stared impassively at the other fae, who squirmed under his assessing gaze.

"Then what do I do?"

The butterfly-winged fae simply turned back to his shelves and rows of books. "Choose a name. Choose a path. And report to Visia and Atria. They will train you."

"Train me?"

"In the Starstrand Fellowship, all dragons must fight or die." He turned his head back to stare at the newcomer. "It is the way of things."

---

Fight or die. Those words remained with him over the duration of his stay. He learned much from the dragons of the Starstrand Fellowship - he learned how to fight the beastclans, how to harness the raw magic inside him, and how to affix his nest to the high corners of the common areas so he could retreat out of the way easily.

He slowly learned the other dragons, their names, their habits. How Siskiyou always spent two minutes turning over every piece of food before eating it. How Apera clicked her tongue after mimicking someone. How Soraka ground bones into pastes and powders, and how Sadie used them in her work, in rituals that were very carefully not discussed.

With so much learnt, and so much left, it was therefore a surprise when he felt a flurry of six wings near his nest and looked out to see Zary's excited face. "Pack your things! Get down from there! It's time! It's time!" the spiral squawked, his tail twisting around his own front leg.

"Time? Time for what?" he asked, frantic.

"To go, of course!" Zary spun in a circle, quivering with excitement. "To go somewhere else! Elsewhere! Other dragons, lots to see! Very lucky of you, you know. More dragons who can help you!"

"You mean I have to leave here?" the fae asked in confusion, looking around his small nest. The spiral nodded again, looping and whirling in midair.

"Yes, yes! Time to leave! New places, greener pastures! What does that even mean, anyway? We'll take you!"

Slowly, still half-numb from shock, he gathered his few things. He slung his spellbook over his shoulder, and left his small hoard of stones and coins. Then, stepping from the nest and fanning his wings, he followed the still-looping, still-whooping spiral out of the lair.

By Rula

The Starfall Isles contain many fascinating sights, but the still-nameless fae was regardless struck with awe and more than a little fear as his wings, and the swirling air currents around the Focal Point carried him to an island floating up high in the sky. Marking the clear perimeter of the residents' territory were several frozen creatures he recognised as beastclans of all shapes and sizes. Some of them flickered, and a couple even disappeared from view for seconds at a time before returning in the exact same position as they had been before they vanished. The display formed a vague sphere in the sky, still several imperial lengths from the nearest landmass, and as he was pushed past them a faint tingle passed through his body. "Hello!" a voice called out, and before he could so much as blink a pink spiral was upon him. Trailing a little way behind her, rolling his eyes in what seemed like fond exasperation, was a pearlcatcher of similar colours. "Are you here to visit? You look like a visitor. But weird. What's your name?" He felt the need to confess his lack of a name, but that seemed to not phase the spiral in the slightest, as she span around him in the air, so close she almost clipped his wings and sent him off balance. "I'm Hikaru!" she continued. "This is Yakeru." She indicated the pearlcatcher who had finally caught up with her and was surveying him with colder eyes. Yakeru did nothing to stop her from herding the fae further and further towards the largest island, chivying him to land in a large clearing surrounded on almost all sides by caves set into hills so large they almost qualified as mountains. Directly ahead of them was a true mountain, with caves dotting it at various points. It was from one of these caves that a dark red fae emerged. "Greetings, nameless traveller," she said, fins twitching in a way that implied she was rather too used to welcoming visitors and had no real love for the job. "Welcome to Fukutsu no Seishin; I am the clan's matriarch, KetsuekiRyuu. Do you intend to stay long?" Not knowing the right answer - if indeed there was a right answer - he spilled his story so far, and his mission to find out who he was and where he was from. "An interesting dilemma," she mused once he finished. "You are welcome to remain here as long as you wish. Our librarian, Ganjona, or our chronicler, Jiyu, may have record of something similar. If they do not, I am sure Kukan and Jiki would be delighted to assist you." The names meant nothing to him, but that was rendered a non-issue as KetsuekiRyuu gestured towards a mirror resting nearby. She obeyed the summons, making her way to her feet and bounding over. "I'll take you to the library," she said, forgoing any sort of greeting or introduction, and gestured with her head for the fae to follow her. "Thank you, Tsubomi," KetsuekiRyuu said, fins twitching in gratitude. "Could you inform your mother that we will have a guest staying for a while?" Tsubomi nodded, entering a crouch before lightly springing away, towards a cave emitting a dim light. The cave was immense, orbs of floating lights illuminating stack after stack of scrolls and books, many of them several times the size of the fae, who felt particularly small. "Some research for you, Ganjona!" Tsubomi called out, and a head slowly rose from behind one of the shorter stacks. Upon spotting the newcomer, the snapper hauled himself to his feet and plodded over slowly but surely. "And what can I do for you?" he asked, inviting the fae to recite his story again. Sometime during the retelling, Tsubomi vanished, leaving the two dragons alone together. Ganjona was fascinated by the tale, listening in silence until he was done, at which point he began to bombard him with questions. They were interrupted some time later - hours or days, it was impossible to tell in the library - by a pearlcatcher making his way in to the library, calling for Ganjona. "Ah, you must be the mysterious guest," he said upon seeing the fae, settling down on the ground so as to be at a better level for conversation. "Ganjona, why didn't you call me?" He sounded put out, and the snapper grumbled something under his breath that sounded disgruntled. "Sure, old guy," the pearlcatcher shrugged. "The name's Jiyu. I chronicle all the tales I hear, although the old guy here doesn't like including my stuff in his precious library." He placed a sheaf of what looked at a glance like parchment, and at a second glance something slightly more disturbing, on the ground and began to rifle through it. "Would you tell me your story?" In all honesty, the fae was sick and tired of repeating himself, but as Jiyu withdrew more of the suspicious parchment and a quill dripping with red ink, he obliged. The pearlcatcher meticulously recorded it all down, word for word. It was only once he was finished that the fae dared to look closer at the medium that had recorded his story, and recoiled in horror when he realised the parchment was in reality skin, and that the red ink was blood. "Disgusting as usual," Ganjona grumbled. "Do you have anything of use in that macabre collection of yours, or have you wasted both our time?" "I've never heard of this phenomenon before," Jiyu admitted, and Ganjona made a groaning noise. "But there are many tales I don't yet know. I'll keep listening." He made his way back to his feet, and left with little more acknowledgement of them than a single flick of his tail. "Plague dragons," Ganjona spat, leaving no doubt that the flight was a cursed word. "No respect, and no sanity."

For several months, the fae stayed in the library, venturing outside only when Ganjona's mate, a pretty yet severe pearlcatcher named Fuon, chivied them out for fresh air and food. During the brief excursions outside, he met several other members of the clan, including a glimpse of the very shy Miko, who apparently kept up the living quarters he had been assigned yet never used. Unless approached, he chose not to interact with the rest of the rather large clan, and for the most part his wish for solitary was respected. Two dragons, a female guardian called Hoseki and a male Imperial Kagayaku, claimed his time during one break, where they proceeded to continue the battle training he had started in a previous clan, until they pronounced themselves satisfied with his ability to protect himself if such a requirement arose. Another time, the two mages KetsuekiRyuu had mentioned - Kukan and Jiki, who supposedly specialised in space-time magic - came over to grill him about his experiences, but with his memories so fragmented and their experiments too unstable to risk there was little help they could offer. The fae learnt much during his extensive stay with Fukutsu no Seishin. The clan, while not one of the true ancients, was old and had amassed a bounty of knowledge through the years. Not all of their knowledge was focused on the Arcane arts, either, and despite his desperation to learn who he was driving him he still found time in the lulls where frustration got too much and he had to take a break to browse their other areas of interest. He asked, once, how they knew so much on the inner workings of the other flights. Ganjona failed to answer, sidestepping the question with a vague nod towards inter-clan relationships and an allusion to the possibility that their allies had given them the information. Fukutsu no Seishin, he learnt, had many allies all across Sornieth. It wasn't so surprising, then, even if he was still left with the odd sense that something wasn't quite right. However, it wasn't his place to ask and so he resigned himself to forgetting about it. Like all things, good and otherwise, eventually his stay had to come to an end. Armed with more knowledge of Sornieth, if not his specific issue, he eventually exhausted the extensive yet still finite resources of the clan to no joy and the day came for him to bid farewell. There was no pomp and circumstance to his departure. No-one begged him to stay, claiming an attachment, or that he'd stayed so long he owed them for their hospitality. Indeed, Ganjona was the only one he bid farewell to at all. As far as the rest of the clan was concerned, he simply vanished in the night, letting the winds carry him where they would on his search to find out who he was.

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ApprenticeWriter is also not great at lore and therefore slapped on spiral eyes and morph

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Aerii forgot they had this kiddo so Slackby got Stitched.

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ladylilitu has no idea what to give him,, she gave him tundra

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He jumped off the ship, easily gliding to the solid ground of the docks. A few days of sailing had brought him far to the islands of the south, where everything was cold and damp. The tundra breedchange had seemed like a good idea at the time. You know, get some fur before heading down to the ice and snow. But apparently he'd managed to arrive just as the snow was melting, and now everything was slush. He was wet and thoroughly unhappy. Not thoroughly wet quite yet though — he'd managed to avoid falling face first into the snow so far.

Not that the dragons of this clan weren't trying. First he was nearly shoved off the path by an imperial strutting around and not looking out for smaller dragons, and then he'd had to jump backwards to avoid a guardian who'd come tumbling out of the sky and rolled into the ocean.

Cautiously, he peered over the lip of the boardwalk. Just in time to get seaspray in his face as the guardian surfaced. One massive hand grabbed the edge near where he was standing, while the other slammed a large metal sled onto the ground with a resounding clang that left his ears ringing.

"I think you got this a bit waterlogged," he said, peering at what appeared to be a rocket booster attached to the back end of the sled. It sure didn't look like it would work anymore, spitting sparks while and odd pink ooze slowly leaked out of one side.

Behind him, the guardian shook herself off, getting even more water on his fur, this time with extra salt. "Yeah, probably," she said. "Setting it to max power probably wasn't the best idea, but I just had to get the record for the farthest jump before the ramp started to melt. You know how it is."

He nodded, not sure he did know how it was.

"Anyway, who're you?" the grey and green guardian asked, making faces as she tried to get the taste of saltwater out of her mouth.

He paused, staring kind of blankly at her. He really should have figured out a better way to explain his lack of a name by this point.

"Oh, you're named after the clan? Neat!"

He continued to stare, fully blankly now.

"I'm Cancionbrisa," the guardian continued, ignoring his confusion. "Or Brisa, or Cans, or maybe even Ncion, depending on how many syllables you're willing to deal with. What are you doing today, and more importantly, do you want to try the Big Ramp? It's extra icy today."

He did not, but Brisa seemed happy to give a short tour of the clan grounds instead while he explained his situation. The tour did involve handing the sled off to a nocturne named Ashdar at the top of the Big Ramp, who promised he'd have it fixed within a few hours. The ramp was at least twice as tall as the average building, which just confirmed that he didn't want to try it. Just looking at it made his face hurt.

Once the tour reached the clan's main building, a massive fortress carved into a pink chalcedony spire, the tour went places that he was more interested in. A tavern, some workshops and laboratories, a sprawling library, and a wide variety of communal rooms for socializing or playing games. He especially appreciated a small room with some sort of combination of a magical heat source and fans in the walls, which was apparently used for drying clothes, but did an excellent job of drying tundra fur as well. (Though he respectfully declined the offer to have 'tumble mode' activated for the room, whatever that was.) Brisa kindly finished the tour by bringing him to the clan's innkeeper, so that he could get a room stay in for a while until he figured out what he wanted to do.

"No!" the innkeeper, a skydancer named Gwenfor, had shouted, when Brisa brought him over. "This young dragon does not deserve such a fate!"

Very confused, he had turned to Brisa for assistance, and she simply assured him it was okay. Gwenfor just had an overactive imagination, she claimed, and the inn wasn't cursed in the slightest, no matter what he said. It was part of the same building as the rest of the clan, she had laughed, so if it was cursed, which it wasn't, then the rest of the clan was cursed too.

Reluctantly, Gwenfor had shown him to a room, which was more luxuriously furnished than anywhere he'd ever stayed before. Anything to make his final nights as comfortable as possible, Gwenfor had explained morosely, as he dove headfirst into a pile of the softest blankets he'd ever slept in.

No matter how many dire tidings of hungry monsters and vanishing dragons Gwenfor tried to bother him with, he had a great time over the next few days. Compared to the last library he'd visited, this one was rather difficult to find anything in, so after the librarian, Invernale, explained that the clan did not have any books that conveniently told you who you were, he decided he'd rather just enjoy himself for a bit instead.

And he did. He wandered the fortress, admiring all the tapestries hanging on the walls. He watched a play on the Crater Stage, and drank some very strange teas offered by a friendly coatl. He sparred a bit with one of the clan guards after mentioning that he'd had a lot of combat training, played complicated board games he only half understood with various clan members, and got a wonderfully goofy looking hat from the local tailor. And all the while, Gwenfor doted on him as if he would vanish at any moment.

A week or so later, he was resting on the roof of the fortress, doing some stargazing among the terraced gardens.

"Are you that dragon with no memories?" someone asked from out of sight. He looked around, easily spotting a fae who'd landed nearby, fire eyes glowing in the darkness.

"Yeah."

"Valentia. It's a pleasure to meet you. If you don't mind, I have a few ideas that might bring some answers."

"I don't mind," he said. "If you think you can help, go right ahead."

She hopped over to the nearby garden, and pulled a branch off one of the shrubs. "Help me make a fire," she said. "The flames hold the light of both the future and the past."

He followed her instruction, pulling leaves and twigs off the shrubs, and uprooting the plants he was pretty sure were weeds. He only snacked on the occasional flower bud along the way. There was more than enough vegetation to go around regardless of how much he ate, and before long the two had a nice pile of kindling, which he quickly slid away from the gardens before Valentia could light it.

Once he felt it was at a safe distance, he let her light it with a quick breath of flame. The fire sprung to life immediately, crackling but letting off no smoke, despite the freshness of the fuel. Valentia sat down in front of it, staring into the fire and entering a meditative trance. He laid down across from her, resting his chin on his hands to watch.

For a few minutes, Valentia was silent.

Then the fire went out. She blinked a few times, and re-lit it with a snap of her fingers. It came back immediately, brighter than ever in its second life. Valentia tranced again, but to his surprise he could sense something was different this time.

"Now the flames speak," she said. "I see that this is not your original form."

Sure, he had used a breedchange scroll not too long ago.

"These figures though, they're less clear. They search for you, that is certain."

He looked as deeply into the flames as his eyes could, and perhaps, from the edges of his vision, he did see something. Murky shapes, looking for him. Dragons? Maybe. They were the same ones that had haunted his dreams, that was certain.

"You will need to meet with them eventually," she continued. "You are strong now, much stronger than you were before. But are you strong enough to face them? Only you can decide on that."

He listened to her every word, entranced. A sudden gust of wind blew the fire out again, breaking both of their concentrations.

"And that is not a good omen," she finished.

Suddenly very worried, he asked "What does it mean?"

"Nothing to panic about," she said, poking at the ashed with a long finger. "But it does mean you've stayed here too long. More time has passed than you've realized, and you'll want to meet these figures on your own terms."

"Thank you," he said.

"I'm sorry I couldn't be more specific."

"No, this was very helpful. Thank you again, this means a lot." He stood up. "If I should go as soon as possible, when would that be?"

"There was a ship scheduled to leave late tonight. You can probably catch it if you're quick. Good luck."

Saying his goodbyes, he took to the sky. The flight to the port wasn't long, but it felt like it was. Suddenly, he was more eager to travel than he'd been in a long time. He didn't know where he was going, but there were no more answers to be found here. He circled up as high as he could, just for a moment, so that he could marvel how the lights glowing in the island's chalcedony made it look like a second night sky full of constellations below the real one. But then he landed on the ship and it was time to go.

It wasn't until long after the ship had left that he realized he should have checked out of the inn with Gwenfor. That innkeeper was probably panicking about one of the guests disappearing. Oops.