Chia

Chia knew she shouldn't be alive, she didn't even know how she was alive. The last thing she remembers was going out with her two friends and clan leader and then suddenly her entire world was filled with a monstrous roar and then darkness.

When she regained consciousness she had no idea how long she had been in the dark, but her entire body ached and was stiff. As her eyes were able to focus she found herself in a cave covered in a pink, strange quartz stone. When she looked down to see why she felt so stiff and sluggish and found her body being slowly encoated in the quartz. Panic filled the Coatl's mind, and she knew she had to escape before it completely engulfed her. She strained and flapped and let out desperate cries that no one seemed to come to help. She had no idea what happened to her friends, but she knew there were two hatchlings that had been left alone and had to be terrified and alone and were waiting for their parents to come home, which Chia didn't even know where they were.

After struggling for some time she was finally able to break free and crash to the ground with a heavy thud. Much of the quartz covered her back, chest, neck, back of her head, base of her wings and base of her tail. The quartz had begun to take the form of a rose and she tried to claw it off the best she could to no prevail. It was more a parasite than actual quartz, and she tried to flap her wings, but the crystal that coated the base of her wings made it impossible to properly flap them to get herself off the ground and fly, she was grounded.

She had to get out and get back to Hermes and Sirius and worry about getting this off of her body at a later date.

The cave system was long and filled with twisted tunnels that sent Chia running in circles for some time, but eventually she could see the bright light at the mouth of the cave and she rushed towards it, bursting free to feel the sun on her face and the wind moving across her body and rustling her feathers, causing her to cry with joy.

She simply stopped for a moment to let herself become grounded in the moment. She was outside and free and could move, for the most part. She looked around, not really knowing where she was, which made it difficult for her to get her bearings to figure out where she was, but she couldn't stay here or risk being captured once more.

Who captured her? And to what purpose? Had their plan been to feed her body to this crystalize parasite? There were so many questions that swirled through her head it almost made her dizzy, but she couldn't stop and think about that now, she had to keep moving, she had to get home.

Chia did not know how long she traveled, many days at least, until she saw the beginning of the Frigid Floes and knew she was close to home. Her heart raised in her chest and a smile broke across her face, the first true smile she had in some time. She hoped the boys had been alright during this time, and she couldn't wait to curl around them and offer some comfort. She didn't have any answers to their questions, but that would be something she would concern herself with later. Right now she just wanted to be home, to be somewhere she knew and to be with her small clan.

What greeted the Coatl when she entered the familiar cave was the unfamiliar voices that echoed off the wall in a calm conversation. Had someone come and taken in the two hatchlings? When she exited the entrance tunnel into the common area she froze, as did the two Tundra's talking.

She would recognize those two anywhere, it didn't matter that she was staring down two full grown Dragons. Hermes and Sirius stood there in shock as they too stared at her as if they were seeing a ghost. For what she thought had only been a few days, maybe a week at most, had actually been years missing. This information was too much for Chia's mind to comprehend in the moment and she collapsed to the ground.

When Chia would wake again, she was laying in the infirmary. She sat up slowly to find both Hermes and Sirius standing beside her. Both of them were happy to see her, even being grown they still made the excited chattering noises of hatchlings that would greet her and their parents when they would return home from gathering and patrol.

Of course they began to ask her many questions about where she had been all this time, what was the growth on her body, why was she returning now? These were all good questions, that sadly she didn't have the answers to them.

Once she had rested and had some real food in her belly, she was allowed to leave the infirmary and meet the growing clan, there were many new faces and this was not what she had been expecting and it was difficult to wrap her mind around the fact that she had missed YEARS with the two boys, who had been left to raise themselves.

To say she was racked with guilt was an understatement but there was nothing she could do but apologize for not being here when she needed them, and tell them all that she remembered, which sadly was not much.

Though Sirius took her aside one day and talked with her what he knew and what he had told Hermes. It was a blow to the Coatl to learn that her friends were dead, that she had been spared when two good Dragons had been slayed mindlessly.

Sirius held no anger towards her, at least not upon discovering the quartz that had been slowly devouring her body. Since separating from the wall it had stopped spreading over her body, but when attempting to remove it, the act caused her physical pain. It felt like Hermes had been trying to remove her wings or limbs and the pain threatened to make her pass out.

Whatever the parasite was it had become apart of her, and although it would not spread it could never be apart from Chia. Though she had no qualms with letting Hermes, or the other Healer Papillon, examine her and try their best to come up with a solution to remove it. Chia is not too worry about it, as long as it does not attempt to spread any further she could live with it, albeit reluctantly. Though it now served as a constant reminder that her friends had died and something had attacked them.

Chia is doing her best to catch up to the time she had missed, Hermes had taken the mantel as leader and she steps down as advisor, for she felt too lost and confused herself to be able to help the two of them properly.

During one day, Hermes and Sirius approached Chia with a welcome home present, two which she claimed she didn't deserve but when they looked at her with those sad expressions, she accepted the covered cage to discover two small song birds. They had gotten the idea from Katrun that her birds helped to chase away her loneliness and that they would perhaps chase away Chia's. It was a touching and thoughtful gift that she gladly accepted.

She named the two birds Amelia and Joshie, and was surprised that both birds stayed with her even outside the cage. She couldn't deny their tiny songs did make her happy and helped to keep her company when she was lonely.

Regardless of what the future holds, Chia does not want to lose anymore time with her clan. It was still going to take her time to learn new faces and she was grateful that they were understanding but she was left wondering what this rose colored quartz growth was and why had she been chosen to be the host for this beautiful, but dangerous, parasite?