If you hear the sudden, rapid snapping of branches and rustling of leaves, that can only be one of two things. Either the trees of the Starwood Strand have finally had enough of dragonkind and come to take their revenge, or Zayin is around. It's usually the latter, as the trees are much sneakier than Zayin is. The branches that wrap around his body can't handle the constant twisting movements of a spiral, but his magic quickly repairs them, allowing for constant breaking and re-breaking. And he leaves a trail of feathers and leaves wherever he goes, presumably leading all the way back to whatever clan in the Shrieking Wilds he came from.

Usually, that trail leads to a smallish building on Clan _______'s island, which Zayin claims is a shrine to a wise being known as the Conflux. The average dragon is not sensitive to its needs, but Zayin is nothing close to average. Through meditation, he learns what needs to be done to improve the physical health and magical well-being of the island and all who live on it, from direct applications of nature magic to gradual rearrangement of rocks on the beach to match the movements of the stars in the sky. Often, he will be warned of one of his clanmates disrupting the natural flow of magic, and he'll have to explain to them how their newest scheme is actually a very bad idea and will bring ruin to the clan. But discouraging an arcane dragon from their newest plan to make toast by tearing the fabric of spacetime apart is easier said than done. Sometimes, he'll fail, and then he'll be the only thing standing in the way of whatever horror his hapless clanmates have wrought.

Luckily for the others, the Conflux has granted him the power to defend his clan. Rays of starlight pool on his scales, dazzling and banishing is foes with the might of the heavens. Usually, that manifests as a truly excessive number of very sparkly lasers, though Zayin claims he can create a black hole in an emergency. His natural skills aren't lacking either — the branches covering him make effective armour alongside his chestplace, and the petals of tree bark that grow alongside his scales make effective throwing knives. He prefers to fight with the wooden knives and his own potent nature magic, for the intense power of the rays should only be used in dire circumstances. Like a terror toad brought in through a rift, or if things are taking too long and he's going to be later for dinner.

The Conflux grants peaceful powers as well. The shrine a holds of set sacred crystal orbs, brimming with mysterious magic. They're held in a large wooden case, branded with the cryptic phrase World Championship. With them, Zayin can look into the magical auras of those who visit him for searching for advice. Not to see into their future, that doesn't help anyone. Instead, he looks into their present mental state, to give simple, but useful advice on what they're stressing out about too much and how they can take better care of themselves. Really, he doesn't need the Conflux for that, but it helps. He had been taking courses on psychiatry and therapy at a university on the Focal Point before finding a greater purpose.

Unfortunately, not of Clan _______ understands the Conflux as Zayin does. The guardian of the shrine, a, well, guardian named Eirian sure doesn't. Eirian refuses to listen to anything Zayin says, instead chasing the spiral out of the shrine with a huge tree branch whenever he tries to decorate and improve the effectiveness of the shrine. There's not much Zayin can do about it, considering he would never use force against one of his clanmates. Also, that big stick hurts a lot. Flying away as quickly as his wings will take him is the honourable thing to do that situation. Zayin will be back. He'll always be back, no matter how many times he gets swept back outside with a broom.

The rest of the clan could serve to be more respectful too, instead of piling up all sort of junk in the shrine. A whole pile of odd tools and gadgets, sometimes covering the entire surface of the altar. They come back for it later, which is good because none of their stuff is a suitable offering for the Conflux. It is above such material goods. It likes spiritual offerings, such as compliments, and interpretive dance.

Of course, at least some of Clan _______ knows that Zayin is impressively misguided. The building is a conflux, not a Conflux, and there's nothing special about it. The leyline running through it is quite powerful, and has become ever more so over time, so it's possible that the odd things Zayin does have made it stronger. Nobody has an explanation for the rays of starlight, though. That's an impressively unusual ability, even for this clan. Perhaps Zayin somehow managed to receive blessing from the Arcanist himself. And proceeded to completely misinterpret what was going on. That's the going theory around the fortress, anyways. Nobody knows under what circumstance the Arcanist doles out blessings, but randomly giving them to university students without telling them seems on par for him.

Zayin was one of the first dragons to try to befriend Est, seeing the roving river spirit as being somehow being related to the Conflux. For his credit, he figured out pretty quickly that Est wasn't, and gave the little spirit their personal space. He also gifts them some particularly pretty branches on occasion.

In his spare time, Zayin makes little feathered wind chimes, which he hangs in all the various windows of the fortress. Apparently he was originally enchanting them to chime when danger was around, but quickly gave up on that when it became clear that some of them would never be quiet.