Volantis

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A small, but content clan once lived on the outskirts of the starwood strand, toeing the line between the Arcanist's domain and the Plaguebringer's. The scent of rot was kept at bay by the gentle Starwood breezes, and the clan was happy.

But the reek of the Plaguemother's domain grew stronger, and the clan grew uneasy. They burned incense and sweetgrass, but the heavy smoke helped only for as long as it lasted. The clan grew restless. The Wandering Contagion - once a distant afterthought only just visible through the silvery forest - crept closer, corrupting the land with foul virulence and bringing forth a fetid wasteland. Several clan members leave, unable to tolerate the acrid stench. Several clan members venture into the wastes to find food or supplies and are never heard from again.

Several clan members go mad.

Young Volantis emerges from his egg to the scent of sweet, thick smoke. His nest is ringed with glowing runes and fragrant ash, and a single stick on incense burns in the dark of the lair. It is quiet. Still damp and with wings still yet to unfurl, he creeps into the darkness of the den.

He bumps into something. It is large, and it is blocking his way. He is hungry. He is cold. He noses the thing - it is soft. It is wet. The wet is warm. It smells bad. He doesn't want to go on - something out there is bad, his gut tells him - but he is hungry, and cold. He begins to climb.

He finds other wet-warm things in the darkness. Some aren't as warm as the first. They all smell bad. The stink makes his eyes water. He wants to cry, but his heart is beating too fast, his legs shaking too much. He finds several pouches right where the den starts to cant upwards - they are stuffed full of many things, and one of them is packed with food! The stuff on the top is rotten and makes his stomach churn, but the stuff on the bottom is good. He eats until his belly hurts, and his legs strain to hold him up.

He follows the smell of incense back to his nest, and he sleeps.

It is several weeks later that a neighboring clan spots a lair half-consumed by thick tendrils of Contagion. Armed with spells and fire, they burn away the rot, and examine the lair for anything salvageable. The clan's few possessions seem to have been packed up - like the survivors were getting ready to evacuate. Not much is worth saving but a few books, a handful of incense, and some sacridite now dark with dead wishes.

Farther in, they find a horrific scene - the bodies of the plaguetouched dragons that once inhabited this lair, their bodies warped violently by the madness that had consumed them - and the bodies of the dragons that had desperately fought off their kin as the corrupted dragons had turned on their brethren.

And the pawprints of a hatchling pressed into the sand.

Volantis is half-starved and near feral when his rescuers pull him from the rune-protected nest, attacking them as they try and coax him out past the corpse of his mother where she had fallen protecting her last surviving egg. He only becomes docile when they present him with food, and the scouting party takes what they've gathered and leave before the Contagion can regrow to envelop the lair completely.

The hatchling stays with his rescuers for only a while - as soon as his wings can support both him and the few things salvaged from his destroyed lair, he takes to the sky, leaving behind the lands of his birth.

Volantis took up residence with the Windsong clan as a withdrawn juvenile, avoiding the company of others and clamming up when spoken to. His time in the Ascent has offered him a chance at healing, and though his progress is slow, he has made great strides towards recovery.

Volantis is a melancholy but gentle soul with a permanent place as a Windsong dragon.