Bernice

Bernice

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Bernice is the clan’s primary chef, organizing elaborate feasts fit to suit everyone’s diets and tastes. A lot of the time, the clan’s meals are of more of a buffet style or a “grab-and-go”, but for those researchers so absorbed in their work they refuse to leave, Bernice will be so kind as to bring them a serving of food, to keep it hot for them, to leave it at the entrance, and to knock on their door before silently slipping away. In addition, when the occasion is so great it calls for a feast, Bernice does all the cooking then, too, and then proceeds to gather up and usher all the reclusive researchers into the grand hall.

If any other dragons took up these tasks, they might be considered a nag. But Bernice is just a kind, old, sweet dragon that radiates a grandmotherly aura, and nobody can find themselves saying no to her or rejecting her meals, especially when she’s put so much effort into appeasing everybody. If any dragon were cruel enough to turn Bernice away, they would probably find themselves being shunned by the rest of the clan.

Bernice had lived in a Fire clan with other Fire Gaolers, once, who had, many generations ago, moved themselves to the Ashfall Waste as a form of atonement or self-punishment for what their kind did to the Banescales, and adapted over time. (Although Bernice is very old, she is nowhere near as old as the Gaoler-Banescale conflict, and came many generations later.) But this clan’s ideals were eventually forgotten, and the clan slowly dissolved, leaving Bernice to wander.

Bernice, after wandering aimlessly for a time, found herself lost in the Shifting Expanse. The lava-laked lands she was used to were far more intense than the dry desert heat, and shockingly, Bernice found herself coming down with hypothermia. It was the Clan of the Striking Bolt who found her, passed out, freezing cold, and delirious, and nursed her back to health. They invited her to stay, and their initial idea was that Bernice would join the retirees, but she politely refused this latter idea. Instead, to thank them for their hospitality and healing, Bernice decided to put her cooking skills to use and become the clan’s official chef.

Blister was outraged when she heard the clan had an official cook now, and that she herself had not been asked first. She threw such a hissy fit that she caught Bernice’s attention. Bernice, being as kind and patient as she is, politely offered to take Blister under her wing as an apprentice cook, but this didn’t last long once she realized the extent of Blister’s cooking inability, and once she realized that this was somehow a trait innate to Blister that no amount of teaching could train her out of. But Bernice is still too kind to reject Blister outright, and while Blister is no longer Bernice’s apprentice, Bernice still cannot bring herself to tell Blister that her cooking skills — or lack thereof — will always keep her out of the cook position she covets so much.