Nebula

NEBULA

The Sea Serpent

The night calls on nebula, to fill the black void of space with bursts of colour and fantastical shapes. The ancient beauty gives you chills, because you know if you look closer, you’ll be burned. White hot expanses of pulsing greens, blues, reds and orange splay out from her beautiful wings. These were not wings shes always had though. She clawed up through a volcanic pool deep in the ocean. Searing lava burned her feet and the polluted water burned her nose, but she did not stop to wallow in her wounds. The maze of tunnels, impossible to navigate to most, did not serve their purpose. Imprisoned she would not be.

Dragons are supposed to soar the sky, not dwell down below. So how did she end up in such a precarious scenario? The Answer, too simple to accept, is that she was born in a time when dragons were feared and their eggs stolen and destroyed. The locals assumed that the mouth of a volcano would be a sufficient way to eradicate the dragon offspring, And that is why she was born below the earths crust. A species facing extinction, her goal was to save herself. Breathing noxious fumes in barely livable air pockets, she finally emerged into the clean open ocean. This was not the end. She knew she wasn’t the only one down there. Initially pretending the sounds of claws digging obsidian were in her imagination, she could not bite down the guilt. After not much deliberation, she turned around, back into the horror of her childhood. Marking every turn, she spent years searching the underground expanse of the earth, guiding every hatchling and long lost dragon back to the water, where they could swim to freedom. Single handedly, she saved her species from extinction.

The Elder dragon Sol, suddenly aware of the influx of young and unnervingly recognizable youth, began questioning where they had came from. Upon finding out Nebula was the root cause, Sol gifted her with a cloak of immense beauty, to protect her charred skin from the harsh sting of daylight. Unlike other dragons who’s namesakes exist before them, Nebula was the original. To honour her sacrifice, Sol named the roaring clouds of fierce colour in the sky after her. Once a serpent bursting out of the sea, she now lives comfortably in the solar clan as she watches her life’s work flourish before her.