Salinja

“You are officially banished from the burning cottage!” Almaz said in a joking manner. Despite what he expected, Salinja took the words personally. With tears in her eyes, Salinja ran out of the burning cottage and into the wilds. Almaz tried to stop her, but Salinja was set on leaving.

Once Salinja arrived in the wilds, she was immediately approached by a radioactive female nocturne. The nocturne’s eyes were glowing, and her general colors seemed darker than what they should be. The nocturne seemed to be scanning Salinja, looking for any threats.

“What are you doing?” Salinja asked.

The question caught the nocturne off guard, she stumbled back. She immediately got up, and ran away. Salinja ignored the dragon, thinking that the dragon was simply a creep. She began to wander the wilds to find food for herself.

The Ashfall Waste wasn’t forgiving for Salinja. She wasn’t very trusting, and typically turned down help, especially since she thought that the clan she trusted banished her. Salinja wasn’t able to find any fish that day, and went to sleep hungry.

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The next day, Salinja found multiple bugs crawling on her. She screamed before pushing them off of her. She got up, and began searching for food again. Salinja was able to scrounge up a bit of seafood, but it wasn’t enough to satisfy her hunger.

Salinja ran into multiple clans, each seeing how hungry she was. They offered her food, but she declined. One dragon insisted that she take the food, but Salinja saw that this dragon’s food was suspicious and declined once again. The dragon was infuriated by this and attacked Salinja. This left her wounded, so she ran away.

The Radioactive nocturne showed up again, and spoke to Salinja for the first time.

“This land isn’t forgiving, you have learned this now.” She said. The nocturne then flew away.

Salinja followed the dragon, but had to land due to her injuries. She had to ask that dragon who they were, Salinja was determined to find that nocturne again.

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Months passed without any sightings of the Nocturne, and Salinja was almost ready to give up. She began to explore one final day, and noticed that there were more stray dragons than usual. Salinja stopped one of them and demanded to know where they were going.

“Woah, no need to be pushy.” They said, “We’re just going to see the queen make a speech. You can come to the speech, but leave me alone.”

Salinja nodded and began to follow the dragon. She did this because she believed the Nocturne would be there. There were many dragons heading in the same direction, which seemed odd. Salinja didn’t know that there were that many stray dragons in the Ashfall Waste.

Once she arrived at the location, she noticed that this was a meeting of stray dragons. Most talked about a supposed leader of the wilds. Salinja tried to ask about this, but found herself unable to speak.

Eventually, the radioactive nocturne arrived wearing a crown of bones. She gave a speech of some kind, but Salinja wasn’t paying attention. It seemed that 5 seconds passed, and all the dragons had left.

Salinja walked up to the nocturne, and stared at her, she expected the queen to finally give her some closure. However, the Nocturne didn’t say a word. Salinja was filled with rage. She began attacking the nocturne, beating her up until she was too injured to fly away. After she was finished, Salinja took the crown from the Nocturne. She deemed herself queen of the wilds and left.