Rorik

Deafening. The cracking was all around him, inside of him, inside his ears and eyes, and yet he felt no fear. Only the longing to see the light, to see the faces he knew were awaiting him. He'd never met them before, at least as far as he knew, and yet he knew they would be as familiar as stone to him. Dim light reached his eyes at last, and he leapt from his crumbling shell with a bellowing roar that, to his surprise and delight, melted into a chorus! All around him were others of his kind rejoicing at the ability to shake their manes, frolic and speak. And up ahead, at the front of the crowd, he could see winking lights that could only be from the....Velya. He knew her name and her face, and the names and faces of the dragons with her. Father had shown him, had shown all of them.

---

Rorik flew swiftly across ragged plains in Light territory, eyes sweeping back and forth in search of any who needed his help and for the great shrieking beast he'd heard- and smelled- earlier. He did not know what sort this beast was, only that it sounded like dragons...but warped, wrong. No matter, he knew this creature was not the enemy his father had warned him about, and so he simply avoided it. No, his mission now was to find a clan and protect them.

Some time passed, and the landscape no longer bore the horrific trenches left by the great beast. Here, birds sang and smaller animals went about their business, and so he knew the land was healthy. Just as he began to wonder what lairs Light dragons kept, he saw a ruin on the horizon with fantastic broken marble pillars, cracked platforms and wide steps. As he flew closer he noted motes of color gliding along above the ruin- dragons! He marveled at the different colors and shapes of them as he drew closer, naming to himself the different breeds he knew and wondering about the ones he did not. If only there had been more time.

He let air spill from his wings as he glided lower, toward one of the lower dens of the spacious ruins. Sitting outside was a large white dragon, its long muscular tail curled loosely around it. Something about this dragon's shape, face and the great antlers crowning its head made Rorik think of something older, a dragon shaped for a more dangerous age and from a sharper material than he. Rorik landed a respectful distance away from this taller and infinitely more imposing dragon, and approached with his wings open and head high. "Hello!"

The white dragon stood slowly, its eyes widening and wings raising. From his back, another dragon appeared, a tiny blue Fae who seemed to have sensed his apprehension. The Fae leapt into flight from the massive white dragon's fluffy shoulders, and he rumbled a concerned warning as she made to fly toward Rorik. "Oh, Norri! Nonsense. And...hold on, who are you? What are you?" The frills on her head twitched excitedly, and her eyes flitted over him with surprise and curiosity.

"My name is Rorik," he said, keeping his voice light despite the growls of the white dragon- Norri- giving his heart a nervous flutter, "and I am an Obelisk. One of the youngest sons of the Earthshaker, come as an ambassador."

"Earthshaker! You've come from that great archaeological site in Dragonhome?" The Fae flared her wings and hovered at the midpoint between him and her companion, looking stunned. "A new dragon species! That's what all that was about! Oh, but forgive my rudeness. I am the matriarch of this clan, and my name is Greth. This is Norri, my dear friend."

The furry white dragon eyed him skeptically, but stepped forward to take a closer look. After a moment, his expression softened and he dipped his head. "Welcome to Sundial Terrace."

---

Rorik found himself almost forgetting his purpose as he spent his first days with his new clan. At first, they had all reacted much like Greth had, with surprise and wonder, and he'd felt nearly the same about them. Among this clan were several other woolly dragons- Gaolers, he had learned- like Norri, some smaller and thorny looking dragons called Banescales who spoke with an accent that sounded like a song, and a few dragons even tinier than Greth known as Veilspun. He learned that they had resurfaced fairly recently, and that they struggled to fully rejoin this young new world around them. Their stories of their homelands and those of their parents and grandparents reminded him of something his father had said, that the elements were surging with power and that the balance of the world was uneasy. He wondered what other creatures were rising, remembering themselves in their wake.