Elgaria

Story by Polymythical:
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There was no moon over the Tangled Woods that night. Storm clouds, dark as the Stormcaller’s rage, blocked the stars from view and filled the air with charged tension.

The mushrooms glowed with a frightening intensity, casting shadow upon shadow and creating little hidey-holes.

The wind whipped through the tangled trees, carrying with it at first one whisper, then many.
“Come, my children,” The Shadowbinder quietly called, and her children replied, “Mother calls, mother calls. . .”

A million tiny whispers rode the wind and shadows shifted, slinking through the trunks of trees as tiny bodies moved in mass.

The Tangled Woods were alive with unseen motion, masked by the wind in the trees. The Forum of the Obscured Crescent was its epicenter, where the shadows gathered and peered out at their maker with bright, purple anticipation.

The shadows swirled and oozed together until a form appeared before the eyes of her children.

The shadowlings chittered and whispered words of awe. Their mother was here. She had called them. This had not happened in a great, long while.

The Shadowbinder, ooze and shadows dogging her every move, approached her hiding children.

“Come out little ones, I have an important job for the trickiest of you.”

At first, nothing changed. Then, one lone dragon relinquished her hiding place. She was small and compact, leathery wings pressed against her slight form. A single horn sprouted from her head. Her black lips oozed a darkness not unlike her mother’s.

“We want nothing but to please you, mama. What would you have us do?” the young dragon asked, and the bright eyes of her companions shown from the shadows behind her. Anything their mother asked of them, they would do.

“Only the sneakiest of you have can hope to accomplish this task. Only those of you that can abandon the shadows and yet stay shrouded will be able to help me,” the Shadowbinder rasped, her voice but a whisper that somehow carried itself to all of her children’s large, proud ears.

A flurry of noise could be heard as the dragons quietly discussed this with one another. Give up the hiding place that their mother had so graciously made for them? How could they? It was all they had ever known.

But the first girl, who had relinquished her hiding place to address her mother, looked unafraid.

“I can do it, mama. Whatever you ask of me,” she said, as another dragon stepped from the shadows into the faint light of the glowing mushrooms. This one looked just like her, save for the extra horn that grew parallel to the first on his head. He was the girl’s mate.

“I’ll do it to. Whatever it is, I’ll try to please you, mama,” he claimed, voice quiet but deep.
The Shadowbinder nodded her head in acknowledgment of the two before her.

“You two shall go to live in my sister’s domain, to watch over her and send information to me. It is vital that she not know it is I who sent you- in fact, I think it would be best she thought you were her children instead.” A ghastly smile stretched the Shadowbinder’s lips, right as the sky broke open and rain began to pelt the Tangled Woods in drenching sheets. Lightning flashed, and the shadow dragons had to fight the urge to disappear into the undergrowth.

The Shadowbinder’s chosen two cowered as their mother stretched out her great wings, letting the leathery appendages fill her children’s view. She took off into the pouring rain, only a few beats of her massive wings enough to propel her into the air.

The Shadowlings watched in awe as their mother snatched a lightning bolt straight from the clouds and grasped its brilliance in her claws. It sparked and sputtered, her oozing shadows already tainting its radiance with darkness. She landed once again and as the rain continued to fall, she presented the quickly fading lightning bolt to her bravest children.

The pair slunk forward and, bowing their heads in respect to their awesome mother, each grasped a bit of the lightning bolt in their claws. Light and power surged through them, painting their shadowed skin and dark whiskers the bright colors of the noonday sun. Suddenly, two patches of white stood drenched and shivering in the Forum of the Obscured Crescent, as out of place as a stream of sunlight in the Tangled Woods.

“Any of you who thinks themselves clever enough to fool my sister, come forward now or forever miss this chance,” the Shadowbinder commanded, and a handful of her children slunk from the safety of the shadows to grasp at the fading pieces of the lightning bolt.

Once the lightning bolt had completely dissolved into the Shadowbinder’s darkness, the mistress of the shadows gazed out at her children that still remained hidden in the dark. She seemed to be able to pin point each one of them, no matter how good they thought themselves at hiding.

“Those of you that remain with me, leave now and never let another of the Eleven gaze upon you. If you do, I fear that it might be the end of your siblings that have decided to risk their lives for the better of us all. You must all do what you can to make sure this ruse is never discovered.”

Nods and whispers of agreement could be heard, and then just as the shadows had come, again they disappeared into the stormy night.

The few brave stood alone, their mother looming over them. Slowly, she reached into the oozing shadows around her and pulled from their depths a pearl, shiny and new. She held it out, just as she had the lightning bolt, so that the first of the dragons to offer herself could come and take it. She did so, hesitantly holding the pearl in her light-colored claws.

“In this pearl,” the Shadowbinder began, “I have preserved memories of the Tangled Woods, so that you will always have a piece of home to hold on to. Each of you shall receive one. It will then be your job to add to it. Go to the Sunbeam Ruins and fill these pearls with memories of my sister’s domain, so that one day you might give it to me. Shadows dwell inside you still and can be used to bind memories to these spheres.”

As the Shadowbinder spoke, she passed a small pearl to each of her chosen children, who took them graciously.

“I will escort you to the edge of our woods, my children, but from there you must go on your own. You must learn to hide yourselves even without my shadows,” the Shadowmother said, knowing that her children would make her proud.

Days later, the Shadowbinder heard word that her sister had created another species of dragon kind to fill the Sunbeam Ruins. The Lightweaver was calling them “Pearlcatchers.”
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“Pearlcatchers are known for their love of gossip, choice tidbits and secrets of other dragons a currency among them worth more than mere gold.”

“They grow and maintain their pearl by secreting a thick, black mucus that cures to a smooth, iridescent sheen.”

“Pearlcatchers are notorious cowards, and prefer flight to fight.”