Seventh

It hurts to be the only one.

He wasn't really, of course. He had been the seventh ice-born dragon to ever grace the halls of this clan's lair. And of all the ice-born, he was the among the last to stay. Could he really leave? It wasn't like the Wastes were all he'd ever known, he did come here in adulthood after all.

Still, most places he'd visited had been... amicable, to other flights. This was no exception to... most.

Lightning Dragons fit in wherever they went; should there be ample space for a well-grounded workspace. Nature dragons could never replicate the lush forests of home anywhere else, but any clan that grew their own food was delighted to have their help. Wind Drakes needed no accommodation if they could find the sky. And anywhere else, those of the Southern Icefield could find solace in a patch of shade where they made their cells...

...Dwellings. They were called dwellings everywhere else. Hard habit to shake.

But shade in the Ashfall Wastes held no relief. The very earth beneath their feat was Flamecaller's hearth; warming all upon it even on sunless days, and those were many. The land itself was alive, in a way far different from how those born of Nature or Arcane envision it. The earth had blood, and they were residing upon it's heart.

He wasn't being literal, he hoped, when he came to that conclusion, but he felt as though he were constantly pressed upon the flesh of a living thing. As though he were treading on the back of an Imperial still warm from the exertion of the hunt. Those born here waxed poetic about their closeness to Mother and this living earth, and he found no flaw in that love. He sympathized, even.

But love cannot fill all needs. Every day he felt himself melt just a little more. He was being more literal than he wanted to be, even though his form would never be literally rearranged into water. For the sake of his health, he had to find something.