Lavender

Though she spent most of her life on land, enjoying the company of others, Lavender wants nothing more than to find solace and understanding deep in the ocean. She's far outgrown the den she once shared with her sisters and mother, but she has all she needs under the sea. Lavender has a beautiful voice, and when she sings - it sounds warped underwater, but the tone is bright and clear nonetheless - the bubbles streaming from her mouth gloss over with visions. Sometimes the events depicted are premonitions of a tentative future, but more often they're glimpses into the past; of Lavender's life, her family's history, and the long ago story of Sunbeam Grotto's beginning.

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Cyla mother

Fickle older sister

Flitter older sister

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Since she was a hatchling, Lavender was a chatty, bubbly little Snapper. Growing up with a stoic, silent mother and two very busy elder sisters, she learned to fill the space in her day and in the air with her own voice. A sweet singing voice and a chatty countenance earned her popularity among the other juvenile dragons in her clan, and Lavender rarely had to go a day without the company of her friends. Yet, with all the attention from her peers, she still felt something was missing.

As her older sisters had already established their places in the clan, Lavender felt left behind. She hadn't experienced the same strong calling as her Fae siblings, who seemed as if they'd excelled in their respective crafts since their fledgling days. Happy for her sisters' successes, but feeling sorry for herself all at once, Lavender excused herself from the den she shared with her family one evening and ambled down to the beach. As the sun passed slowly over the horizon, Lavender watched the rhythmic waves wash over the sand, as bubbles from the deep sparkled and popped in the surface's light. She felt so calm breathing along with the sea that she didn't notice heavy footsteps approaching.

"My daughter," Cyla spoke from behind, her voice raspy from underuse. Bemused, Lavender raised her head to look back at her mother.

The elder Snapper continued. "Your sisters are not like you and I. We are fated, by the truth of our heritage, to seek knowledge beyond our birthplace." She crouched at the edge of the sea, her eyes focused on something far deeper than the scope of her vision. Following her gaze, Lavender peered down into the depths, and saw nothing but blackness under the seafoam and bubbles.

"I was not much older than you when I left my home for the first time," Cyla said. "I carried with me only the memories and teachings of my own mother, and learning was all I sought along my travels. It was only chance that led me to this clan, and pure serendipity that led me to stay."

A flock of dragons flying overhead cast a shadow over the pair for a split second. At this, Cyla looked her daughter in the eye, her sharp violet gaze searching, just as she had stared into and through the ocean seconds before. Under her mother's eye, Lavender remained still and silent.

"Lavender, your journey is not mine to dictate, nor does it belong to your sisters. The map and the destination already exists within. You alone must leave, must find what you are looking for, and you may not return."

"May not return? What does that mean?" Lavender said, the words rushing out of her mouth as a wealth of emotions bubbled up in her gut. "I'm not permitted to return, or...?"

In response, Cyla only shook her head, her mouth a firm unbreakable ridge. She silently cast her gaze back to the sea, searching yet again for something deep below. For a moment, Lavender watched her mother watch the ocean, now full of unsettlement instead of tranquility. Seconds and then minutes passed in silence, and Lavender finally turned away. Where to now? As she supposed, she could only travel up the shore to the east or west. From there, as stated by Cyla, she must find her own way, and may not return.

Lavender plodded ahead silently, accompanied by the ever-present rush of the ocean in her left ear and occasional rustling of leaves to her right. It wasn't long before she crossed from familiar sights of her home turf into the realm of strange waters and woods, the likes of which she'd never imagined. Curious fellow dragons - at least, she assumed they were - peered down on her from the sky and cliffs above. Persevering, Lavender found she felt safest cocooned where the water met the land.

Guided only by her own footfalls, Lavender took step after step throughout the night and into the next day. She crossed lands unfamiliar into lands even less familiar, but yet she felt beckoned...as if she were returning to a long-lost home. As she took step after step from her birthplace, her steps grew stronger, her posture more confident, and her gaze no longer directed to her toes but to the horizon ahead. A weight, literal or metaphorical, had lifted itself from her body. For the first time since her youth, Lavender felt she had a direction, a purpose. With a sigh, she stepped over the tiniest of streams, an offshoot from a greater delta she knew carried the same water that had once nursed her own egg. Pausing to look ahead, Lavender could see the water grow murky at the intersection of a dark wood against a barren, fungal plain. Simultaneously, she felt apprehension at the idea of leaving the safety of the water, alongside a magnetic pull to whatever laid beyond her vision, past the water's reach...

A deep breath of salty seaside air filled Lavender's lungs as she strode ahead, watching her feet carefully as she stepped over and aside dams of all sizes, until the last streams of water trickled into the earth and disappeared. Choosing instead to direct her eyes ahead, Lavender fell easily into the pace she'd set days before and continued along the path stitched together by warring woods and plains. Finally, as she crested a tendrilous ridge, she saw her goal for the first time as it appeared over the horizon.

The rocky, uneven ground crackled beneath Lavender's heavy steps as she gazed in wonder. The pillar stretched from the earth to the clouds, massive in a scale she had never seen. The dragons clustered ahead upon the cracked open swathes of land were certainly unfamiliar, but even at a distance Lavender could see many had a body type she recognized from her own reflection in the stillest of tide pools. As she drew closer, they noticed her too, and greeted her warmly.

Lavender spent the following season traveling with the caravan of Snappers, encouraged by a kind elder older even than her father who took on a sort of mentor's role to the curious juvenile. Anijah's soil-brown claws were dull and dusty from unending years of travel, where Lavender's were smooth, polished as tumbled rocks. As the nebulous "clan" - no dragon present would label it as such, but Lavender didn't know a better word to refer to the group - moved from one site to another every few days, Lavender soon saw her own heavy claws take on the earth-touched quality of her fellows. Her strength and stamina grew, too; no longer did Anijah have to dig for food for the both of them, or wait behind the group as Lavender struggled to catch up. And their stories...oh, the stories! The Snappers told of their history in songs, some lasting as long as days as more and more events and names were recounted...the mellow melodies washed over Lavender in a way that made her homesick for times and dragons she hadn't been alive to see.

They were approaching a ridge when Lavender noticed Anijah looking at her with the knowing half-smile the elder often wore when she was waiting for Lavender to ask her something. Lavender herself was distracted by her rumbling stomach - it had been since the day before's breakfast that she'd last eaten a full meal, and she was looking forward to their next break so that she might root around for something to sustain her.

"Don't you smell it?" Anijah prodded, that smirk still stretched across her rough but gentle face.

Lavender made to ask, 'what?', but then the salty sea air rushed into her nose.

Her steady pace faltered as she broke into a thundering run. Lavender bounded between the cracked, jagged rocks and over the ridge with her wings outstretched as breathy laughter escaped her open mouth. The river delta ahead of her widened to open ocean, and Lavender dove in as soon as the water was deep enough. Her body stilled for the first time in days, and layers of dust and grime flowed away from her great form in a halo.

With unbridled joy bubbling from her belly to her chest, Lavender couldn't help but break into song, echoing the tail end of the tale Anijah had blessed her with earlier that day - a story of how the elder had foreseen Lavender's arrival. As Lavender slipped deeper into the sea, she added a next verse of her own. She'd arrived, disoriented and not entirely sure of what she was supposed to be seeking, and she'd discovered a family and heritage all her own. Once the song was complete, Lavender felt a rush of bubbles swarming around her belly and legs - the buoyant bubbles lifted her higher, higher, carrying her to the surface before fusing indistinguishable from her body.

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