Colossus

The Watcher

Silver Pocketwatch

Trinkets

This pocketwatch is in excellent condition, but the time it keeps is always too early.

90

Red Linen Fabric Scrap

Dragonmade

An intact scrap of linen fabric. Red is the color of action.

79

---

He hated it here, this frigid, miserable place. Even when the sun was shining, it was a harsh, blinding light that did nothing to warm the landscape, let alone his frosty scales. To have been sent here after having been born in the fires of the Ashfall Waste, was particularly cruel. He cursed the Icewarden for this desolate wasteland he called home. He cursed the Flamecaller for his birth. He especially cursed the Tidelord for the creation of his breed and, most importantly, the wretched Search He had hardwired into each and every one of his kind.

The Search. That’s what had driven him here, you know. The bloody Search, his quest to find his one true charge, be it dragon, mountain, tree, or pathetic little flower. It was like one day, after he had grown, his brain had just switched on, vibrant, buzzing, and he couldn’t shut it off. He tried, for about a minute. But something pulled in his chest, pulled hard, and he found himself taking flight, soaring up and above the Waste until it was far behind him. He spent months searching. He was almost zapped out of the sky over the Shifting Expanse, lost his way for weeks in the Viridian Labyrinth, and tore a wing after getting caught in a twister in the Windswept Plateau, which took weeks to heal enough for him to carry on and left him with a horrendous, jagged tear. The Icefields, naturally, had been the final place he had searched. The last thing he had wanted was to spend days traveling across the ocean with no place to rest for miles.

Days after leaving the Starfall Isles, he collapsed in a heap on the shores of the Southern Icefields, half-frozen, exhausted, and his wing throbbing in blinding agony. Still, his brain would not rest, his heart still tugged – as much as that aggravated him. So he dragged himself along, cursing every deity he could think of as he went, urged on by this impossible, invisible force. He nursed his wing, keeping it tucked up beneath him, safe from the blasts of cold air and snow. But there wasn’t much to eat here. He grew weak; he was certain he would die. Worse than that, he was a failure. His bones would bleach here, without his ever having found his charge. How pitiful, he thought as he closed his eyes.

At first, he had thought he was hallucinating. Growing up in the Waste, he had seen firsthand what had happened to dragons that hadn’t had enough water, and he hadn’t had a fresh source since leaving the Isles. And unless his eyes were deceiving him, he was sprawled beneath a great tree, so tall it faded into the mists overhead, with splintering white bark and bare, spidery branches.

He lifted his head, turning his body as he did so, and for the first time in weeks he didn’t feel the familiar twinge of pain in his wing. Craning his neck, he saw his sloppy patch job had been removed, replaced with bandages of clean linen. Some sort of poultice must have been applied, and it gave off a distinctive flowery smell. He wrinkled his nose, snorting in disdain, and that’s when he noticed the other Guardian. She moved carefully, slowly, but with the utmost precision. It was although the cold didn’t touch her. Her garb was completely impractical, sparkling green silks that looked like they’d shred with any wrong movement. And, most bizarre of all, she wore a garland of flowers on her head.

Oh. She was one of those.

He remained in her lair, tucked beneath the base of the massive tree, for days. All the while, he grew more and more resentful of this other Guardian, for no reason he could explain other than that her existence, so polar opposite of his, irritated him. They barely communicated; when it came time to replace his bandages, he would snarl at her (though she paid him no heed), determined to show that he was choosing to accept her aid, not that he needed it. Besides, it was only a matter of time before he was off again, continuing his search.

And that’s when he realized his brain had gone quiet. His heart was still. And he stared at this Guardian, baffled. This was the creature he was supposed to protect? This willowy Guardian, who never raised her voice, who accepted total strangers into her clan, whose charge was a giant, dead tree, for Flamecaller’s sake? And to think, he thought he’d be relieved when he had finally found his charge. But this, this was so much more insufferable.

Begrudgingly, he remained beneath the tree, long after she had removed his bandages and his wing had been healed, with only a thin seam to show where it had once been torn. He kept meaning to carve out a place for himself, near enough to keep watch, far enough away to maintain his solitude, but it was just so damn cold. It took all of his energy to keep warm, day in and day out. Days passed, and he remained balled up beneath the tree, shivering uncontrollably and seething in rage as the other Guardian seemed to pay him no mind – she just seemed to have just accepted, wordlessly, that he would be remaining. She simply lived around him, bringing him food without asking, and once a cowl it took him three days to finally agree to put on.

One night, a month after his arrival, a particularly fierce blizzard blew in over the clan. The rest of the dragons under her care took shelter, adequately prepared for all the storm had to offer; he, however, hadn’t imagined the cold could get any worse. Enraged, he lumbered to his feet, for the first time in days, and howled – at the storm, at the cold, at the injustice of it all. He didn’t belong here. What use was he, who could he protect, in his condition? He was the worst thing a Guardian could be: useless.

Just then, the other Guardian entered the lair, shaking the snow from her scales and horns. She blinked her big, pink, disconcerting eyes at him, taking in the scene before her, and suddenly, he felt shamed. He dropped down again into the little indentation he had made in the ground, his head drooping, defeated. Turning away from her, he faced the tree, fully expecting another sleepless night in glacial misery.

He felt a nudge from behind just then – the other Guardian. He ignored her. When she nudged again, more forcefully this time, he lashed his tail threateningly. He didn’t need her sympathy.

She didn’t nudge again. Instead, she burrowed down beside him, slipping in beneath his wing as though she meant to drape herself with it. His spine went rigid – did she truly mean to sleep there beside him? How dare she? This was not how Guardians were supposed to act at all. They were a proud breed; they took their roles as protectors seriously. She was undermining his authority! But, she made this noise in the back of her throat, sort of a comforting, rumbling noise, and he suddenly found himself grateful for a shield from the cold at his back. And when she exhaled in her sleep, her breath warmed the back of his neck. When he awoke the next morning, the storm had cleared away, and the sun shone down, cold and bright, on the freshly fallen snow. And for the first time, he wasn’t frozen to the core, only through his scales and the first layer of muscle.

He would never like it here. It would always be a miserable, desolate slab of ice in the middle off his personal hell. But if anyone came near their clan, threatened their lives, threatened her life, he’d kill them. He’d kill them all.

---

mated to Polaris
Oceanic Hues