Unnamed

Studious as he is silent, the unnamed disciple flits from one microcosm of clan life to another— recording something from each ministration of life he encounters. His fellow clan members have learned not to ask about his ongoing observances, as he seldom deigns to answer curious queries from the dragons around him.
~ ~
As a hatchling on the Zephyr Steps within the Windsinger's realm, he was quiet and antisocial compared to his siblings. As his brother and sister scrapped with one another— perfecting their species' renown fighting abilities— he would wander, turning over small rocks and parting bamboo shoots with his claws, his eyes alighting with every small insectoid his ministrations revealed.

Upon his and his siblings' 'flight test' on the pillars of the Reedcleft Ascent, wherein they would begin developing the superior aerial maneuverability and dexterity ascribed to the denizens of the Wind Flight, he failed. Miserably. The powerful gusts of wind whipping through the skyward pillars caught under his wings, spinning him off of his trajectory and into a wall of rock, his claws scrabbling for purchase. His brother and his sister doubled back, dancing within the gusts until they perched next to his panting, trembling form.

“Brother, can you not fly?” His brother snorted, sending small peddles tumbling from the outcroppings’ ledges. “You have spent so long upon the ground, staring at sticks and dirt, that you have forgotten your place-,” he extended his bright, sunset-hewn wings until they caught a draft and he allowed himself to be pulled back into a current, “-in the wind.”

The disciple’s feathered crest fell as his brother shot up to the next ascension of pillars before turning to his sister still perched against the rock-face beside him. “I… I lack the strength to ride the wind.” He extended his pale-pink wings, the wind contorting the leathery surface until he retracted them, folding them sharply against his back.

She closed her eyes, exhaling as her breath stirred the feathers on his snout. Her bright chartreuse eyes gazed at him then for a moment—two—and then she tilted her snout downward and away. He followed her line of sight and saw the small, hurried encampment they had erected at the base of the Reedcleft Ascent.

“But Sister, I can’t go back now. What will Mother and Father say?”

She tossed her head softly from side to side and pushed off from the rocky pillar with her hind legs, spreading her own sunset-colored wings and she, too, rode the current ever higher and away.

A small, frustrated growl bubbled up in his throat softer, then softer until it died away completely, and all he could hear was the low whistling of the wind. He sagged against the pillar, pressing his head against the cool rock. I should be able to coast back down. But what then? What is a Wind dragon that cannot embrace and harness the wind?

He held up his head, craning his neck upward to see two sunset-colored dots dancing gracefully in the airstreams.

He dug his hind-claws into the rock-face, pushing upward, finding on claw-hold after another. I will join them. I will join my hatch-mates at the summit. Pebbles fell in ongoing showers as his claws scrapped against the stony surface until his claws dug into a thin sheen of grass: earth. He pulled a claw back, sending a dusting of soil and roots falling. I have reached the top of the pillar! He hoisted himself up, letting his toe-claws dig into the shallow respite of grass and soil.

He felt his crest fall again as he saw the next-highest pillar, several meters above his current location. Right, then. He crouched, spring off and feeling the grass up-heave itself under his claws as he sprinted across the pillar’s top. At the edge he extended his wings, beating them so hard that he winced, and coasted on the turbulent drafts until he could dig his claws into the next pillar. He began climbing again. It would be sunset soon, and he had a long way to go.

~ ~
His muscles spasmed in his arms, his legs, as he stumbled across the plateau, drawing nearer to the bright beckoning visage of flame. The two forms about the fire glance up, their familiar crests, subdued by the encompassing darkness rose as he approached.

“Brother? Are you alright?” His sister rose, stepping toward him.

His brither, too, rose. “How did you get up here?”

The disciple lifted a hand, displaying his chipped, blunt claws.

His brother snorted. “Of course, why did I even entertain the idea that you had managed to fly up here?” The male stalked forward. “Since you’re so keen on digging in dirt and rocks, perhaps you should find a clan in the Earthshaker’s domain? At least then your fragile ‘wings’ may appear impressive when compared to those walking boulders- ow!”

His brother winced, rubbing the crown of his head where his sister’s tail had just whipped him. “That’s enough.”

“Sister-”

“Get some rest.” She walked back to the fire, kicking dirt over it until only angry embers remained. “Tomorrow we’re heading home.”

His brother walked back to the campsite, crouching down and wrapping his tail about himself.
The disciple looked at his hatch-mates, each curled up, resting. He tucked his legs beneath himself, drawing his tail about his legs. And looked about the plateau as his eyes began to adjust to the starlight. It was then that he saw them. The bright little pinpricks of light that lit up the sky: stars. They seemed so much… closer than they had before—mysterious, bright, new.

There were no pillars to climb not bamboo shoots to part to get closer to these ephemeral bright curiosities. As his hatch-mates slept, the disciple dreamt: he dreamt of flying between the stars, discovering their compositions and ecosystems, and most of all he dreamt of how to reach them.
~
The day he watched his siblings fly away from him again, this time to join the exalted ranks of dragons in service to the Windsinger, he left—not just his home, but the domain of his birth—Wind.

Since his time at the plateau of the Reedcleft Ascent he had thought of the stars, of what secrets they could hold, until he heard of a curious device and paraphernalia a traveling fae had sold to him.

“These are Cosmologist’s Fieldtools, straight from the realm of the Arcanist. See the stars like never before,” was what the disciple could make out from the dull droning of the fae as the small dragons crest oscillated between various hues.

That night he held the curious cylinder to his eye and he felt a sharp exhale of breath leave his body. He could see one! It was right there. He involuntarily held a claw out, almost as if he could grasp the bright, mottled orb in his hand. He spent the deep hours of the night until the bright light of the sunrise hid the stars from his view.

Today, I am a disciple of the stars, and I will follow every sunset until I can find a way to fly with them.