Aria

This young dragon does not much like the water. Though her forefathers traveled far to nestle amongst the greenwater tides, and her wings, coated in oil, bare their gift of buoyancy, she feels she is a stranger among them. While her sibblings laugh and play along the waves, she yearns for other worlds, and things she cannot yet quite understand.

She often wills the waves to take her ashore. They seldom succumb to her, but her determination has made her a fine swimmer, despite her distaste for it. At every chance she gets she pushes and paddles herself from the shallows until her tiny claws scrape against the sandy bottom of the shoreline, and from there she pushes herself up on her swimmer’s muscles until every feather is whispered in wind instead of water.

It is on a day like that she first discovers the fire.

It is unattended when she sees it, of course. Whether it was built by someone she knows or a stranger to the shores she cannot be sure, what she does know is that she wants it. There is something in her that says to approach it cautiously, but a much larger part of her aches to be a part of it. To feel its warmth around her like she knows herself to feel the fire within her. She is entranced. Wings stretch wide she steps into the fire.

And it burns her. Her wings, drenched in the oil that keeps her afloat on the waves, ignites instantaneously, sending her ablaze. Her whole body grows white-hot as she screeches and flaps away in great fear, in her panic she is unaware that though the fire burns her, she feels no pain. She flees for the water, and in one giant leap she submerges herself, sizzling, into the waves.

It is not until later that she realizes the changes. She sees now that the fire has cauterized traces of metal in her feathers, leaving thick layers of golden stripes along her sides and up her belly. And then there are her wings, of course. Scorched through by the oil and fire, the traces of singes along them will likely remain on her forever, a reminder of her love for fire despite her life in the water. She quite likes them so, and wears them like one might a badge of honor.

What is next for this young dragon, no one can be sure. She bares both the gift of water and the love of fire, but it is possible that her fate may not take her in the direction of either. After all, the world is large, with many more horrors and honors to bestow than a young dragon can fathom. Perhaps it will be your job, then, to point this little one where to go.