Willow

Rarely seen without a book, she is known as the go-to dragon for most things not concerning science (best ask one of the specialists for that). She spends most of her time with her two best friends, Welthom and Suzuran, who she’s been inseparable from since the founding of the clan. She treasures the quiet times they spend together in the evenings, makes sure to only read lighter books during that time.

She is, at her core, a Light dragon who was originally born under the blessing of the Lightweaver. It takes a very discerning eye to recognize that her element is actually fire as, in a cruel rejection of her new element, she bound her own magic and stripped away that didn’t fit her concept of perfection.

Her childhood was bathed in the glow of the Sunbeam ruins, wandering the stacks of the great libraries and learning at the knees of the great sages. Her fondest memories are of basking in the sun on one of the lesser agoras with book on her lap as she idly listen to the philosophers debate. Her avid interest in anything that crossed her path meant that even as young adult she had a basic knowledge in huge breadth of topics, but even so among the scholars she was a nobody. For all the sweet promises of sharing knowledge, the truth was that Ruins’ academic circles were a brutal battlefield where unestablished researchers had to fight for every opportunity that was more interesting than basic reference work. It hurt for Willow to finally admit to herself that she would never reach the lofty heights of the great scholars, not through raw talent nor the more standard route of common viciousness. Her choice was to either settle for unstimulating work or leave the Ruins to make a name for herself. She chose the most demanding job she could find – helping to start a new, no-name clan in the Shifting Expanse. Hitching her own success to a clan was dangerous gamble, but the one she chose suited her goals perfectly: knowledge-focused, unable to retain more than one scholar, and – best of all – a leader almost maddened by her desperation to succeed.

Her new clan was pretty weird, honestly. Willow got asked just the oddest questions by anyone at any given time of day. It ranged from the simple – x“Are Blue-footed gulls migratory?” xx to the obscure – xxxx “How many generations does it take for immigrant lineages to present the epigenetic patterns in neuronal development associated with Windswept Plateau natives?” xxxxx to the fiendishly complex – xxxxxxx “What is the best configuration for maximizing magical output when balancing a three-point element circle across five separate elements?” The most difficult and interesting questions always came from Bishop, one of the clan leaders. Of the three leaders he was the most liked, but Willow found his pleasant smile and congenial attitude to be ever so slightly alarming. However despite her apprehension, Willow couldn’t help but be enticed by the magical theories he was exploring and, before she knew it, her research had become the backbone of his magical endeavors and Willow was left with the disquieting feeling that she’d just joined a cult.

Willow spent months researching before even daring to propose the training venture to help cure Welthom of her anxiety. She had half a mind to claim minor-specialties in history, geography, and xeno-studies (i.e. beastclans) from all the knowledge she synthesized during her preparation. She quietly preened over the smoothness of the training trip. Of course there were some retreats and minor defeats, but her growing skill in healing magic meant they rebounded from those setbacks stronger than ever. At least, it was smooth sailing until she set foot in the dust of Ghostlight Ruins. It matched none of the places she had read about. Even a frantic, surreptitious check of all three maps she carried were futile. By all accounts Ghostlight Ruins didn’t exist. Despite her anxiety, they all decided to press onward. Being the first to document a new location was far too tempting a prize for her to pass up, even with the ferocity of the beastclans in the area. Willow honestly believed they could survive this strange place, until the fog rolled in. That awful fog hurt to breathe, making her chest ache with an overwhelming sorrow. Sharing a look with Welthom, she could see the same disorientating sense of loss. Willow was paralyzed as she watched a gargantuan, clawed hand emerge behind her friend, and, in a swift scooping motion, impale Welthom through her stomach and chest. The sharp jerking of her friend trying to free herself as she was lifted high broke Willow from her frozen terror. She desperately cast a healing spell over Welthom heedless of the fact that she was still impaled. Suzuran, charging in like an avenging angel, struck the monster and knocked Welthom from its claws. Throwing a healing spell ahead of herself, Willow rushed to Welthom’s side – and with the agony of claws down her side, was thrown into a wall. Nearly paralyzed by pain, Willow twisted her neck to get line-of-sight and cast another healing spell over Welthom. It’d be weaker since she can’t assess the damage, but she couldn’t risk Welthom bleeding out. Willow had to watch helplessly as those brutal claws came down on Suzu in a brutal inverse of Wethom’s impalement. The claws lifted, Suzu hanging limply – Spinal damage? No! – until gravity pulled her free. Willow frantically gathered her magic for another desperate healing spell at far too great a distance, the monster moving in for a killing blow. xxx ‘No! Please! Lightweaver, Stormcatcher, Anyone! Please don’t let them die here for my folly! If there is any goodness in this world, let this awful fate pass from them and hold only me in ransom!' xxx And Welthom, fueled by all the healing magic cast on her, bodily shoved Suzu out of the way and through a grate into the sewers, rolling in after her a scant few seconds ahead of the claws. Willow froze, clamping down hard on the building magic. She watched the creature for any sign of it reaching her friends as she slowly crawled around the corner of the building. Once hidden, she slowly trickled the built up healing magic into her injuries, keeping enough in reserve for an emergency cast. After the indeterminable wait for the beast to leave, sliding down in the sewer to find her friends broken, bleeding, but still miraculously alive felt like an ablution.

She had nearly killed her best friends. If she had been more diligent in her research or more aggressive in seeking out information, then she could have warned them off Ghostlight. Willow was haunted by her failure. It was her job to make sure they all were prepared, her job to guide them, and her job to keep them safe – and she had failed. What if there was something else out there? Something else that she didn’t know, where her lack knowledge could cost her everything? She found herself spending more and more time back in the Sunbeam Ruins, buried deep in obscure archives. Laying down to rest, she was haunted by the thought of all the things she didn’t know. What little sleep she got was fitful before her unease drove her back to her books. On the day Welthom and Suzuran finally caught her, Willow was so exhausted she could hardly fly. It was forced intervention, where they didn’t have to do anything but hold her ever so gently until she finally accepted that she had done the best she could. She had saved them, hadn’t she? Without her healing, they would have surely died. It’s not enough to free her from her guilt entirely, but she finally able to let herself be held by her dear companions who she nearly killed.

Dragonhome was wonderful. The sheer weight of history in everything around her was electric, from the bustling streets of the Colonnades of Antiquity to the quiet desolation of the Shattered Plain. The bones of this land were deep, enduring, and steeped in draconic history. Leanan was here to study the reanimation magic intrinsic to Cairnstone Rest, but Willow wanted every piece of fragmented knowledge this land had to offer. Willow’s eagerness to study their new home quickly dimmed in face of just how out of her depth she was. Even the most demure seeming potsherd could be significant. She once nearly threw out an essential fragment of a historical record, and, inversely, once spent five days trying to classify what ended up being a metatarsal of a common bush rat. Willow needed help, specifically she needed help from an archeologist. She had spent the years since she left the Ruins jealous guarding her position as the go-to employee for anything related to existing knowledge, but now finds herself in need of specialized expertise. Being forced to recognize your own faults is a bitter **** to swallow, but, looking around at the life she’s built and the people who trust her, she no long feels threatened at the thought of having another professional academic on-staff.

After watching both Suzu and Welthom get sick, Willow thought she knew what to expect. It was too much to hope that she’d be as lucky as Suzu and come back as her own element. Instead, Willow woke with a burning in her breast that was disorientingly different from the radiance of her birth magic, but not unpleasantly so. Even though she liked the heat of her new magic, she did not want to relearn all her magical abilities from scratch. With Bishop and Witchazel’s competent help, Willow bound her magic. She chained it to the familiar pathways she’d known all her life, discarding the pieces of her new magic that did not fit her glittering ideal like so much trash. xx “In the end, what is Fire but just another source of Light.”