Keen

The thing about canyons , there doesn't tend to be a lot of room for things to grow. Whether making your home on top of a plateau so battered by winds only a few clumps of grass have ever managed to grow there or clinging to a cliffside none but the birds have even dared to try, plants, and especially the more delicate types of flowers, are not known for surviving in such harsh conditions.

This is important, for while the Carrion Canyons may be a permanently arid series of gorges and precariously placed lairs, not all the dragons living there started out in the mesas, and those who came from more nurturing domains would occasionally act rather extremely to the seeming utter lack of delicate life.

Keen was born in the shadowed realms in a nest surrounded by darkly hued roses. Her first memories were of her mother telling her to keep away from the thorns, for no matter how beautiful they may look, they still would not hesitate to cut through her soft hatchling hide. She was born on the autumn balance, and as the days slipped closer to winter and the shadows grew longer she played amongst the roses. Her parents, however, worried. They knew this winter would be harder than the many before it, and the one after harder still. The Southern lands, strange and difficult to live in as they may be, would at least on the whole be warmer and therefore safer, especially with a hatchling to protect.

Keen sobbed for the loss of the only home she had ever known, but her parents remained unmoved. She flitted around their nest and demanded they bring along the remains of her childhood. However, the cold had set in before her parents expected, and they had no time for packing, instead bundling their child into some layers and beginning the long flight South. Just before they left, Keen pleaded, with a hopeless look in her eye, for them to at least take the roses.
"They'll die when the first frost hits, and we don't have room anyways. Besides, where we're going, nothing grows."
Keel refused to accept that, and finally her parents allowed her to take one bloom.

In the canyons, travelers died. Their bones would grind in the windstorms that carved the canyons, and eventually become sand indistinguishable from the rest of the Expanse. To shelter at least a few of these wayward souls, the Cathedral existed. A small oasis of civilization, the Cathedral opened it's arms to lost travelers, only surviving on donations and what electricity they could bottle and sell. Water was precious, and since food was mostly imported or the responsibility of the two wind and wood spirits, none was left over for Keel's rose, which had gone to seed.

She rationed the seeds carefully, trying desperately to find somewhere in her new home they could grow, but to no avail. Seed after seed died where it was planted until only three remained. Looking around in desperation, she could see nowhere in this cursed land with the water and nutrients needed for her beloved roses to grow-

Until she looked into the mirror and saw the perfect soil.