Nailah

Toni had always felt the Call. It consumed her deep inside, driving thoughts of everything else out of her mind. She tried her best to ignore it. She tried to be happy with her mate, with her clan, with her life... but it was never enough. She had to find It. She had to find her Purpose. Nothing else mattered.

Finally, when the desperation had reached its peak, Toni left her clan without a word of goodbye. She travelled far and wide, braving the very worst Sorineth had to offer, barely noticing the highs and the lows of the world. She braved the dazzilingly beautiful and deadly peaks of the Cloudscape Crags, her fiery element the only thing stopping her from freezing where she stood. She stumbled, half dazed, across the arid expanse of the Shattered Plain, the burning inside her driving her ever onwards. She dived to the deepest depths of Leviathan Trench, determined to leave no stone unturned. Her Search continued.

It was as she approached the roar of the Tempest Spire, avoiding the deadly lightning strikes as they blazed their way towards the tall metal spires, that she finally felt it. The pull grew stronger, dragging her onwards. Underneath a rock lay a pitiful bundle of fur and feathers - too small to be alone in the world, and too far away from its native Rainsong Jungle that it surely could not survive.

The void inside her seemed to vanish the moment she gathered up the tiny creature. She knew now that she had to save him - her little Rafiel. However, out in the very midst of the most powerful storm in the whole of Sorineth, she had no idea how she was going to get the little creature to safety, never mind herself.

As she curled up around the creature, help came from the unlikeliest of sources. A large wing extended to cover over them, and Toni found herself looking up into the friendly green eyes of a large imperial, his head mostly covered by a fearsome cloak that looked to have been made out of an enormous canine. The imperial beckoned for her to follow, his words snatched away by the howling of the wind, but she refused to uncurl. The other dragon looked closer, spotting the little creature. Before Toni could protest, he had snatched the fur-and-featherball out of her grasp, and bundled it up in his cloak, protected from the wind and lightning. He turned, again beckoning her to follow, and this time she did.

The first few nights in Clan Kaitos were worrisome for the guardian as she and several healers within the clan battled to save the little creature's life. The cub was too young to even be weaned, and his life slowly faded. Kain, the imperial that had originally met them, could see the despair in the guardian's eyes and was painfully reminded of his formerly best friend, Ares. He vowed to save the little creature's life and disappeared from the clan, taking only his adopted daughter, Shaushka, with him.

The duo traveled to the depths of the Rainsong Jungle, looking high and low for the native creatures. Finally, they came across a family of king pardas - one adult female and two mostly weaned cubs. Kain snatched them up before they could even protest, vowing to bring them back once the job was done, and flew back as fast as he could to their homeland, Shaushka keeping up with him the entire time.

The trip only took a few days, at the rate the two travelled. By this time, the parda cub was too weak to even chirp, and it barely even breathed. Kain left the king parda family with the healers, knowing that it was now up to them. Toni watched, desperately, as they managed to soothe the king parda mother and coaxed the cub into latching along with the other two. It weakly suckled, finally gaining the lifesaving milk it required.

Day by day, the tiny creature grew stronger, becoming accepted as one of the king parda family, despite Toni's fussing. The family grew happier in the company of Clan Kaitos, settling happily. Kain allowed them all to join the clan, and extended the same offer to Toni. The guardian refused to make her choice immediately, waiting to make sure that the cub she had christened Rafiel survived.

Eventually, the little parda grew strong enough to leave the mother, coming off milk altogether. At this point, he slowly began to accept Toni as his new mother, despite still playing with the king parda family. Watching and caring for the little parda occupied the entirity of Toni's time, and she realised that for the first time in her life, she was truly happy. She had found her Charge and she had saved him.

With this revelation, Toni realised she was no longer the same dragon she used to be. With this in mind, she reinvented herself, changing her name. The newly christened Nailah introduced herself to the clan and accepted their invitation.

Nailah now spends most of her time watching over and playing with the king parda family, although Rafiel maintains the majority of her attention. She sometimes thinks fondly back to the places she has seen and the dragons she has met, now that she can finally appreciate them. She sometimes feels a regret that she couldn't enjoy them more, but this makes her even more determined to appreciate every moment she spends with the dragons and other creatures that make up Clan Kaitos.