Kana

“Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.” 
― Lao Tzu
***
Kana is the matriarch of her clan, a family of misfits and dragons healing their scars. She loves them all dearly, and would protect them all with her own life if need be. Younger Kana, who so often felt lonely, wronged, abandoned, and unwanted, is gone. Taking charge and responsibility over so many, being needed and trusted and relied on, has forced her to grow, to change for the better, and leave that part of herself far behind. She's glad to see it go.
In spite of her youth, she has shown herself to be a selfless, wise, and adept leader. Her clanmates love her and respect her, and trust her to make good decisions and protect them from harm. It's a lot of responsibility for a young guardian to carry, and sometimes it's overwhelming. Really though, most of the time all it takes is Cor whispering jokes into her ear to get her to laugh when she seems to struggle under the weight of her responsibilities. They're still best friends, close to a point where few of the clan members actually understand the relationship, and Kana is rarely seen around the cave without Cor nearby or tucked into the space between her curving horns.
Although she has no intention of taking a mate for herself or having hatchlings of her own, she takes in all the hatchlings that she and Dew can manage together, and loves them all as if they were her own. They're her true charge, the hatchlings of her clan. In fact, she feels uneasy when there are no hatchlings or eggs to mind in her cave. She makes her bed close to the nesting grounds, to always be close to them.
***
Kana's nest had been abandoned by her parents before she even hatched. When she fought her way out of her glowing purple shell, she wailed for her parents, but they would not come. And when she tried to smell the air to find them, she could smell only the wind coming off the sea and the soft grass of her nest. So still covered in the slime and shards of her egg, she struggled out of the nest, and began walking.
As the sun sank lower in the sky, she was cold, and hungry, and her feet hurt, and she felt so so alone. But as the sun finally disappeared, the flowers bloomed in the trees of the crystal spine reaches, and she was suddenly stunned by the beauty of seemingly a million stars.  She stilled, as she watched, and soon, she drifted into a state of quiet wonder. She wiggled her new hatchling wings, still small and useless, and wondered what it would be like to fly amongst those stars.
Of course, the arcane forest is a dangerous place for a newborn hatchling. Had she fallen asleep there, who knows what could have happened to her.
As it is, a young tundra female had heard the cries of the newborn hatchling, and went in search of the calls. Even when calls stopped, the tundra could smell the scent of the fresh arcane egg slick, and followed that instead, determined to find the source. When she arrived into the clearing, she saw a small quiet guardian, with pink eyes, staring up into the mesmerizing forest canopy. The tundra quickly went to Kana, and began to clean off the remains of drying slick and egg shell.
The Tundra didn't quite understand how this had happened, but she could not smell parents on the young guardian, just birth, and not new birth at that. What she did know, was that the new hatchling was alone, but smelled like something she almost remembered from her travels, that belonged with the ocean and the sea and fish and small caves near tide pools. She had to take the hatchling there.
With Kana's thick neck scales and spines, it was impossible for the Tundra to carry her by the scruff, so the Tundra coaxed Kana onto her back, where she nestled into the tundra's soft fur. Then the tundra began to walk
Already on the edge of arcane, it didn't take long to walk through the windy steppes and to the sea of a thousand currents. Young Kana though, still grew extremely attached to the tundra, the only other dragon she'd ever seen. They soon arrived at a cave on the edge of the sea, where a clan of guardians resided. Although the tundra did not remember them well, she explained to them what had happened. The hulking shapes of the massive guardians scared Kana compared to the small soft tundra, and when they picked her up and moved her to the nest, she started to wail. The tundra felt a pang in her chest, but felt she knew this was for the best, and after a last nuzzle to a whimpering Kana, slipped out of Kana's view.
***
In Kana's new clan, her adoptive parents had hatchlings that were all older and larger than her, with deep blue eyes in contrast to her own bright pink. When she tried to play with them, she often only got unintentionally hurt for her struggles. After one too many times of accidentally causing a hurt Kana to burst into tears, her nest mates just eventually stopped trying. Although her adopted parents and clan took good care of her, she always felt that they did it more out of responsibility to their breed than love for an adopted daughter. She grew up lonely, quiet, thoughtful, and reluctant to trust. She often thought of her true parents in arcane, if they still were alive, if she had had nest mates, why they had left her. But her new adopted clan taught her of guardian heritage, of the charge that she would one day assume care over, and part of it resonated deep in her soul. Although she played and swam in the ocean by day, asleep, she dreamt of starry skies, lit with millions of twinkling pink and purple lights.
***
When she reached maturity, that's what she sought out. When she first saw the starry forest again, she nearly cried at its beauty. It was worth protecting, of course, but when she considered it deeply, it wasn't /it/ for her. a little bit lost, she wandered around the arcane isles for weeks, thinking and searching.
Until one day she ran into Cor, a bright gold and blue fae dragon, admiring the forest canopy at night. She was surprised to see him alone, away from the safety of his nest. As it was though, once he got over his initial shock, he began to talk to her as she walked, and they got along well enough. Somewhat nervously, he asked he could join her on her travels through arcane. She agreed.
Quickly, she learned that in spite of Cor's monotone voice, he had a playful, whip smart, sarcastic sense of humour. It was something that they shared. It only got better when Cor made use of it in front of other dragons, and only Kana could tell, and she struggled to control her rumbling laughter. Even better still when he sat on her head, and whispered solely into her ear, creating a rumbling chuckle that Kana couldn't stop if she tried.
Eventually, somewhere along the way, they became best friends, and one day, him nestled between her curving horns as they walked, she learned the true story of how he came to be alone. His clans nesting area had met catastrophe by a fire set by the beast clans beneath his tree. Many of the faes in his clan had died. He had escaped along with a few others, but couldn't find it in him to stay with the remnants of his shattered family.
Initially Kana didn't know what to say. So she went with what felt right.
"I'm so sorry Cor." She started. "And I know it can't in any way make up for it, but just so you know, you'll always have me if you want me."
She felt his crest lift a little, and within the next week, they started creating a lair together.