Quin

Quin is the inquisitive, friendly mate of Amber, whom he met on her travels with Xeno and Axinite in the Starfall Isles. He had been zipping after a Fallout Streak, intent on studying it, and had slammed directly into her. Quin had apologized but not stopped, as his target had taken the distraction to fly even further away from him. Later he had tracked down Xeno and Axinite, finding Amber through them. He apologized for crashing into her as she flitted around erratically, panicking that she had passed on her 'illness' that she refused to explain. Eventually he calmed her down enough so that she would sit beside him, and she explained that the slowly encroaching gems and transitioning color of her wings were the result of a spell that horribly backfired, slowly turning her into amber. Quin reassured her that he had simply been born with the gems that coated him, and that she hadn't passed anything along by bumping into him.

Quin visited the group often when they were within the Starfall Isles, often accompanied by his friend Aether, and he was sad to see them go, but understanding of Axinite's eagerness to continue his hunt for his mate. For the next few weeks he continued his research as he always had, but something was constantly tugging at his mind, distracting him and making him extremely anxious.

When he spoke to an elder Fae about his troubles, they remarked that perhaps it had been a holdover from when he was a Guardian hatchling, before he had fallen into a pit of mysterious glowing liquid that had caused his transformation into a Fae. The elder's mate, a Guardian herself, agreed and spent the rest of the day trying to explain what a charge was. While everyone was certain that Quin didn't have a charge in the truest sense, he still felt a strong sense of responsibility over something, and, given that the only thing that had changed was the travelers leaving, two months after they had left, so did he.

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Quin and Amber's hope had always been that the magic that had cursed her would never be passed along to their hatchlings, and for several hatchlings, that seemed to be the case. But as time went on, it became clear that their children were not as safe as they had believed. Some, but not all, of their hatchlings seemed to have inherited a form of the magic that cursed their mother. Those unaffected, Mawar and Lama, continue to live quite healthily, but the fact that the magic was passed on twice was enough to keep them from nesting again, at least until they discovered the cause.

Damaris passed away at a young age, unable to move freely and steadily weakening as the earthen crystals on his wings drained him of all energy and nutrients. He passed peacefully in his sleep, and Quin never quite recovered from the experience.

While Amber had grieved Damaris's loss deeply, Pinja's passing had a far greater impact on her. She had lived into young adulthood, and had seemed so healthy. Until one day, her Gembond began to...bleed. The healers had been keeping a close eye on Quin and Amber's four remaining children (reaching out to Maris to ensure that an eye was kept on Lama), and so they immediately sprung into action, giving her blood transfusions and trying to discern what caused the bleeding. As time passed, however, the bleeding only increased, and Panacea discovered that the blood still in her veins began to crystallize. The healers fought the crystallization to the bitter end, and Quin and Jaden once again crafted charms to try and ward it off, but ultimately it was too little. After her passing, a soft hissing could be heard within her roost, which eventually turned out to be an Onyx Cobra...enclosed in a shimmering cage of light...

Word was immediately sent to Haven both to make certain that Lama knew that the venom might exacerbate her own Gembond, and also to share the news that Pinja's death was now deemed suspicious. During this time, Mawar felt the Gladekeeper's call, and while she was reluctant to leave her grieving parents and her two sisters, it soon grew impossible to ignore, and she flew off to the Gladekeeper's side in the war.

Pebble was supervised constantly for the next fortnight as the lair was scoured top to bottom for Almediha, everyone quite sure that she was behind the cobra, and yet...she was nowhere to be found. Not even Elidyr could see her, which he insisted boded very ill. Pebble seems as happy and healthy as ever, now with a raised awareness of snakes that might be slipped into her roost and a small but growing number of self-defense tactics taught to her by Blizz and Vela. Save for the crystallized wings that she was born with, life continued on as normal for her, and she did her best to help her parents continue on.