Melaine

The Skydancer hatchling's eyes were wide with fear as she was carried through the air by the grey and white Ridgeback. Leading the way was a pale yellow male Skydancer. She'd never seen him before in her life.

"Where are you taking me? Where are my parents!?" She called out for at least the sixth or seventh time. Just like before, neither of them answered her. They merely kept flying through the night sky.
Melaine was a lovely young dragon. Her body was a deep dark purplish-blue, and glinted with an crystalline sheen. Her wings were the color of dark woodland berries, and wispy paler markings stretched over her body. She'd lived a normal life up to this night. Her parents had cared for her and her siblings, they'd nurtured and protected her. Then, suddenly they were gone.

"Where are my brothers where is my sister?" She demanded, in a small voice that she wasn't even sure they could hear. It was several moments later that the Ridgeback finally spoke, and it seemed, only to himself.
"What has come from shadow must return to shadow."

"What? What does that mean? I want to go home!" She struggled in the dragon's grip, but it was no use.

Ahead she could just barely make out the slender trunks of dark trees peeking out of a thick mist. The forest seemed to stretch on for countless miles. The Skydancer leading, never once spoke nor looked back, but flew just a bit higher, and the Ridgeback followed. It was as though they didn't want to be too close to those ominous treetops.

She remembered only vaguely her parents speaking of The Tangled Wood, how it was thought to be haunted, or perhaps full of dark faeries. She'd heard that the light never shown there, and it was a dark and terrifying place. She stared down at it. Why were they flying over that place? Where were they taking her? Why had they taken her from her parents?

Then, they slowed, and hovered for a moment, wing-beats keeping them aloft.
"Take her down to the trees and drop her." The Skydancer finally said in a low, dry and slightly nasal voice.

She shrieked. "NO! I don't want to go! I want to go home, I'm scared!"
The Ridgeback seemed reluctant, but then he steeled himself and descended in a slow drifting spiral. Melaine clawed at his leg, and tried to cling to it. She couldn't fly yet, only sort of hop and glide a little. If he dropped her down into the trees she'd fall, and not only that, if she survived the fall, how would she get out? They seemed to be exactly in the middle of that terrible place.
He did not just drop her, once he reached the tops of the trees he slung her. A shrill shriek burst from her, as she frantically flailed her wings. She hit the top of a pine tree, and clawed at it, sliding and tumbling end over end. She fetched against one branch, and then another. Finally she managed to stop her fall, but not before getting a bit banged up. She thought however, she was only bruised.
She looked up at the night sky, and thought she saw two shapes up above, moving back the way they had come.

She had been abandoned.

Fear kept her up in the tree through the night, but by morning, hunger drove her down. She managed to climb most of the way before taking a tumble, luckily she slowed her fall with her wings, and the ground beneath her was carpeted with a layer of pine needles.

The trees were all strangely skinny and thick vines and brambles seemed to overrun most everything. She cowered before creeping along towards some old ruins. There, she overturned stones and small bits of deadfall, finding grubs and beetles. She'd hunted her own bugs before but always with the notion that if she didn't do well enough her parents would always have extra for her. Now, she only had herself to depend on.

It took a while but she managed to eat enough to fill her belly. She found a small stream as well, and drank from it. Scared, but determined, she fought the urge to curl up somewhere and cry. Instead, she picked a direction, her best guess as to which way led home. She set out, running at times, and then at others, walking so that she didn't wear out as fast.

The scenery changed little. Sometimes there was more bramble and sometimes there was bare ground. Always there were those thin strange evergreens. She had to climb over some rocks at one point, and at another, climb up a pile of dead pines clustered at the base of a steep hill. The hill was harder to climb, but she didn't want to go around and risk getting off course. She pushed on after reaching the top.

The forest was oddly quiet. She saw small woodland creatures from time to time, but only in fleeting glimpses. She heard birds too, but rarely caught more than a brief flash of one. The Tangled Wood seemed far less populated than normal woodland.

She wasn't sure how long she'd been going, only that her little legs were so very tired. She'd never gone a fraction this far on her own before.
Up ahead she spotted some ruins. She found herself wondering how many old ruins this place had. The sight of the old weathered hunks of stone reminded her that she hadn't eaten since that morning when she'd set out.

She fully intended to rest there, and perhaps go digging for grubs again. That was when she noticed the disturbed pine needles. Had someone else been here? She crept closer and saw several overturned stones. For a moment she could only stare, dumbfounded at what she was seeing. It couldn't be, but it was.

She was back where she had started.

She'd been going in a mostly straight line, there was no way she could have gotten turned around. Her heart was pounding wildly in her chest. She began to rationalize, that maybe she'd just gotten confused somehow. Now she'd lost a good two hours of time, she needed to get out before dark. She set off again, picking a different angle from the last time. Straight line. She had to keep going in a straight line. She crossed a narrow stream, she clamored over rocks and fallen leaves up and down hills, although none as big as the one before. She knew for a fact she hadn't veered off this time.
Up ahead were ruins, and those ruins had overturned rocks. She ran back the way she'd just come in a blind panic, over fallen trees and rocks, over the narrow stream, and ended up back at the ruins for a third time.

She finally broke down. Crawling off to a spot where a jutting boulder offered a bit of shelter, she curled up and cried.

Night was much worse, there were strange sounds she couldn't place. Clicks and whistles, low drones. She knew there were things out there, and they weren't squirrels or birds, or anything normal.
The next day she tried again to escape, even making a trail of broken sticks and pine cones. It verified her mostly straight line. Somehow, she always ended up back at the same place.
The second night she was still afraid, and her despair was even stronger. She was starting to believe that she'd never get out, that she'd never see her parents or siblings again.

The third night, the Shadow Sprite appeared to her. She was afraid at first, but it told her that she'd been expected.

The two dragons who'd abandoned her thought they'd been doing just that, ridding themselves of a dragon born into Shadow. Really, they had been bringing her home. The Sprite told her that her parents seemed to have been called 'home' early to be with the Shadowbinder, but it could tell her no more.

She was taught by the creatures of the Night, to blend in, to slip amongst the shadows. She was taught to embrace the great Mysteries. She became cunning and secretive. Her companions were the things that chittered from dark crevices and skittered past the corner of one's eyes. The Sprite did return from time to time, giving additional lessons, testing her skills.

Even when she learned to fly she felt no reason to leave. This was her home and her people now. She grew into adulthood, a stunning and graceful creature, full of secrets she would tell no light touched being.
The Murktooth Bear came took her one night and told her only 'It is time." She followed the strange enigmatic creature without fear, even though she did not know what was to come.

It was time for a final test of sorts, an initiation, so to speak. She stood before the Foxfire Bramble, and even she was startled when the thick vines embraced her, pulling her down into the depths.
There was no light there, and thorns scratched against her. The vines wrapped around her until she felt herself short of breath. There was a whispering, words meant only for her ears, and at last she understood.

The shifting vines carried her like a gentle tide, and returned her to the same spot she'd been taken from. They all withdrew, save one. A single vine nestled around her shoulders like a coiled serpent. Now, wherever she might roam, she would have a piece of her home with her, and the dark blessings that came with it.

She would eventually leave the Tangled Wood, although she would often return to visit. She knew she could never stay away forever but the time had come to return to the world outside. The Galewhisper Clan became her home away from home so to speak. While they found her quite strange at first, and some of them didn't wish to trust her, Celeste soon came to value her council and wisdom greatly. She was a Seer, and a Priestess of the Dark, but she understood that Dark was not evil, and that she was a keeper of Mysteries.