Iola

Ruby Starsilk Wingdrapes Apparel A collection of radiating silk bands, held together on the wearer's wings by star and moon clasps. 1325 Overwatered Seedling Familiar You've given it sunlight and mineral supplements, what does it want from you? Blood? 1500 Dusky Rose Thorn Arm Tangle Apparel A twist of thorns with a beautiful bloom. Wear with care. 1500 Tertiary Gene: Contour Specialty Items A scroll that will change the tertiary gene of one dragon to Contour. This item can only be used once and will disappear after it has been applied. 15000

This dragon has set out on a journey through Sornieth during Brightshine Jubilee '19 from Tuesday, June 25 'til June 30. She is one of many that wants to visit lairs and clans, hoping to receive lore before being sent back to her home after the adventure is complete. Even years later she will be able to look back at this time by going through the poetry, prose, and art she received, as well as all the encounters, adventure, new friends and enemies she encountered. Please, keep in mind... not to purposely edit or delete lore made by other users not to breed or exalt this dragon while traveling to send this dragon off to the next destination after 1 day to return this dragon to her owner dd2900 as agreed to the rules of the event. This is the list of destination lairs for Iola to keep track of her journey. Jaspernoir Ashfoxx Snek cobaltstorm TroubleinSevens Home! Let's get started, shall we?

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Travelled to the Alstroemeria Clan Your dragon appeared during their archaeological dig, through the brambles and blacksand beaches, to end up with the Alstroemeria clan for a time~ With a renewed sense of mystery and a few weird trinkets, they head off to their next destination! Achieved: 25 June 2019 BSJ

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Just as the sun was beginning to set, after a long day of participating in Alstroemeria Clan’s archeological digs, Iola stumbled out of the brambles that bordered the edge of the Tangled Wood. The mist cleared as she entered the Lightweaver’s domain, and the glow from the tainted mushrooms was replaced with the warm light from dozens of reedcleft sparklers.

“Hey, you must be Iola, right?” A male pearlcatcher came toward her from where he’d been waiting under a nearby tree. “I’m Daniel. I’m here to take you to our clan.” He tried to make conversation as they walked, though it was clear that his social skills were a little lacking. “I’m clan’s archeologist,” he explained “Well, actually I’m an archeologist and a linguist. You’ll be working with me during your stay here. You’ll be my research assistant, I guess. Our clan is a little sparse right now, what with about half of us handling the whole “pandora’s box” thing out in the field. It’s just a few of us and a couple hatchlings holding down the fort, but we’ll try to be good hosts.”

Daniel took her to the clan’s queen where she was formally introduced, then led her to den that would be hers for the night. He told her he’d see her in the morning and excused himself, but before she could settle into bed there was a quiet knock on the door and a loudly dressed skydancer slipped inside.

“Hey, I’m Catharsis,” she whispered excitedly. “Welcome to our clan! I know that you’re only here for a bit and you have to get some sleep so you can help Daniel in the morning and blah blah blah, but I bet you could use some food and some fun, yeah? Come on!” The skydancer grabbed Iola before the pearlcatcher had a chance to argue and drug her back towards the woods, stopping at a warm natural spring.

“Daniel means well, but he’s not the best host. You can soak here and clean up a bit before we hit the party.” The skydancer began rummaging around in a bag, flinging bits of clothing everywhere, while the pearlcatcher took advantage of the spring. “Here, I’ve got some things you can wear. I mean, you look great the way you are, but where’s the harm in dressing up a bit? Here, you’ll look great in this!” She handed the now clean pearlcatcher a set of silks for her wings, embroidered with delicate golden stars. “You ought to keep that. Something to remember us by,” she winked and then led Iola on through the woods.
As they got closer to the party, Iola began to feel the deep thumping of the music in her chest and she smelled something absolutely wonderful. They came to a clearing where large temple ruins served as a dancefloor for dozens of dragons from neighboring clans, and light magic created brilliant bursts of neon that flashed in time to the music. After stuffing herself with food and drink provided by a talented tundra chef, Iola joined Catharsis out on the dance floor and lost herself in the music until she was thoroughly exhausted.

“Hey, you look tired,” Daniel commented as Iola flopped down at his desk the next morning. “I bet it’s all the traveling, huh? I don’t sleep well in strange places either. Here,” he set a mug in front of her. “I have tea and coffee. Pick your poison.”

Iola spent the rest of the day downing caffeinated beverages, deciphering glyphs, translating tablets, and trying to piece together broken bits of things with Daniel. The two did manage to discover a few useful tidbits of information. At the end of the day, he sincerely thanked her for her help and told her to come back and visit anytime she liked. She packed her bags, smiling as she folded up the wing silks Catharsis had given her. She added them to her trinkets and headed off towards her next adventure.

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"Is this your nesting space?" Iola asked, peeking in through the open door.

"Oh, yeah, uh--well, you know, it's not much, but it's the first real home I've had, and--"

"It's beautiful!" And it was. The fae leading her down toward Vriesea's main gallery had grown all manner of plants in his quarters. They filled the shelves, the tables, the baskets hanging from the ceiling--a few even littered the floor. He had multiple specimens from every flight's territory, each carefully attended to as best as they could be in such a small space, and his efforts seemed to have paid off; the room of greenery and rainbows looked lively and filled the space with the freshest air she'd ever smelled in an underground lair. "Can I go in? I'd love to see them."

He wrung his paws and fidgeted. "But the paintings--"

"Oh, they can wait a bit, can't they? Please?"

The fae waited until she had turned away again to look at one of the potted miniature potash peach bushes to do his own glancing at one corner of the room. "Not all of them are safe, I mean, and you're so--I don't want you to get hurt."

She was already edging into the room for a better look at some star moss growing in a thick, lush patch beneath a handful of fat glow mushrooms. "I won't touch them."

It wasn't Iola touching the plants he feared. Still, he was something of a pushover and he knew it; her begging quickly overran his ability to tell her no. "...Okay, but just a little," he said, unconsciously rubbing at one of the blood-stained bandages on his wings. The scabs beneath the fabric had started itching like mad. "Then we should go. Vriesea really doesn't like to wait."

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"You're very talented," Iola chirped as he shut and locked the door. She waited until they had resumed the trek down the corridors to continue. "I've never seen such a green thumb on a Shadow dragon before."

"I get a lot of my plants from this seller in the Everbloom Gardens--he saves me all kinds of weird and exotic cuttings." He grinned nervously and stuck his paws into his pockets as they walked. "Strange plants are kind of my hobby."

"They're not strange at all." She shook her head. "I think a lot of dragons would like to see your plants, if only you'd let them."

"Aw, thanks..."

A thick tendril coated in purple leaves with orange patches slid between the bars of the wrought iron fence keeping one plant blocked off from the rest of the room and, stretching out, turned the door's lock from the inside. A few more vines soon joined it, tugging on the door handle and pushing it open. Such a cruel caretaker, refusing to take it upstairs and introduce it to the clan's guests. It'd just have to do the hard work of making the place look inviting all by itself...



// Snek, BSJ 2019 //

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Iola wandered through the woods, with her new friend nestled deep in her pack. She wasn’t quite ready to return home, and wanted to see more of the woods. After all, she had already discovered such unexpected things here and she had only visited one clan! There was certainly plenty more where that came from!

The Tangled Woods of course, is known for it’s games, and the biggest game of all is keeping what is desired out of sight. For days Iola’s footsteps were the only sound she heard. It was if the entire shadow region had been abandoned by everything but the plants. No bird graced the branches above her, no little mammals scurried in the leaf litter. It was just her and her plant.

Exhausted from her travels and dispirited, Iola set up camp for the night. She let her plant out to find its own entertainment for the evening and pulled a book from her pack. Her tired eyes refused to make sense of the words in front of her and she soon fell asleep.

When she woke up the mists were thick and the woods were dark. The oppressive silence that had lingered over her for days still pressed down against her ears. Her plant was asleep in the pack and Iola realized she barely knew what day it was. Something was calling to her, like a rumble she could feel in her bones. Curious, Iola shouldered her pack and set off to find it.

It was difficult to pin down the direction. Iola meandered, switching directions as she felt the rumble deeper and stronger. Eventually she arrived where there was sound, a great deep sound that went right through her. It sounded, she thought, like what must have happened when the great pillar shattered. Perhaps she was not far off.

There was a crack in the ground and as Iola watched it heaved and flexed before branching out like shattered glass and splitting the forest open. In the earthen maw that opened in front of her, Iola spotted two dragons flying up and up and up. There was a dark purple skydancer with vivid yellow markings across her hide and wings. The other was a spiral and Iola wasn’t quite sure what he looked like. Every time she looked at him her eyes glanced off. He was blue, she thought, or perhaps grey. He was small for a spiral, or perhaps he was longer than anything she’d ever seen before.

Trying to pin down specifics made Iola’s eyes water, and she focused instead on the skydancer who landed in front of her. “What wonderful timing, was it you who opened the earth?”

“Ah... no, it wasn’t,” said Iola. “I just... found my way here.”

“There, there sweet heart, you’ve been in the woods a long time, haven’t you?” said the skydancer. She patted Iola gently on the shoulder. “Our George always gets lost in these woods as well.”

“Are you sure it’s your George who gets lost?” asked the spiral. There was something soothing about his voice, Iola discovered that while she still couldn’t look at him, she liked him immensely.

“I’m Iola,” she said, “I was just visiting. I came to see what there was to see. But these last few days it’s been almost nothing.”

“My name is Morrigan,” said the Skydancer, she gestured to her companion, “and this lovely dear is Labyrinthe. And it sounds like you have a desire... perhaps I can help.”

“Auntie...” Labyrinthe started but Morrigan hushed him.

“She’s a big girl, she can decide if she wants my help or not,” Morrigan sniffed and turned her piercing blue eyes to Iola. She said nothing else, she just waited. Iola knew that Labyrinthe was staring at her too. She felt weak under such intense scrutiny, and she opened her mouth but nothing came out. Instead her legs dissolved underneath her and she fell to the ground.

When she woke, it was to the sound of someone or something getting a very harsh scolding. Labryinthe, quietly handed her a bowl of strong smelling liquid. “Drink.”

Iola drank and listened to Morrigan continue to berate whatever seemed to be the target of her ire. “What happened?”

“Your plant was siphoning blood from you, from a spot under your mane while you were sleeping. The painkiller it excretes can act as a mild hallucinogen.” Iola realized with a start that she could focus on Labryinthe as he talked. He was a normal spiral, striped with the blue eyes of the ice flight. Perhaps the silence in the woods, and the ground opening to spit forth this pair of dragons had been a hallucination too.

Labryinthe kept talking as he helped Iola up. “I wouldn’t worry now though. Morrigan’s convinced that once she’s through with it, it’ll be on its very best behavior for you.”

“Oh, I’ll have to thank her,” Iola felt under her mane curiously. It wasn’t difficult to find the scabs between her scales she wondered how she’d never noticed them before.

“No need,” Morrigan said cheerfully as she came over and dropped Iola’s very contrite looking plant back into her bag. “Now it’s time for you to go home, little one. After such a thing happened its best you rest at home before you explore anymore. You can come see me for tea once you’re better. And write! Goodness knows no one else ever does.”

Iola had a variety of questions about this arrangement. If she was well enough to travel, why couldn’t she keep going through the woods, for a start. Her head felt a little fuzzy still, so all she said was, “How will I be able to visit if I don’t know where you live, or if the woods lead me astray?”

Morrigan chuckled and plucked a flower from the ground, she handed it to Iola. “You will always find your way.”

Taking the flower, Iola thought to protest but as soon as the blossom left Morrigan’s claws it began to glow. The stem grew around her wrist and the petals bent back but they did not fall. Instead they melted down into Iola’s scales and left a bright marking across her hide. Iola wished she had a mirror to see what exactly she looked like now but the flower’s transformation wasn’t over yet. As the glow faded, the stem had turned into a thorned climbing vine that flowered small shadow roses.

“There we are, all set,” Morrigan took Iola’s arm and looked it over before giving a curt nod. “Now home with you, young miss, you’ll always be welcome in the woods.”

by TroubleinSevens

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A big thank you to everyone who took Iola in over BSJ! Your words and art are great, and I really appreciate you having her over and writing/arting for her! Thanks to Ashfoxx for the starsilks, Snek for the fam, cobaltstorm for the lovely art, and especially to TroubleinSevens for the arm tangle and Contour (!!) !

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