Creative Corner

"She's gone."

The soft words from their seer were met, as usual, with silence. It was not silence that mourned, no, but the type of silence that asked-- why it had to be this way. The fields around them had decayed, the little river that many had helped dig had run dry. It was like the little land had been sucked dry once it had lost what it had cherished the most-- Inari's presence.

The only thing that was constant was the large lantern kept right in the middle of the circle-- it was about the size of an adult pearlcather and the fire that erupted from its base was the proud product of their clan's sorcerer-- it was dark red and burned no other shade, and never went out or even faltered. You see, it was made from the fae's very essence, so the flame would only ever go out if she were to perish

Everyone looked to the flame, and in that same instant, almost as if forseeing the apocalypse, the great flame flickered.

Everyone stared at it, dozens of little green eyes.

It flickered again, little wisps of crimson beckoning the dragons around it to come closer.

It moved wildly, the fire now begging the dragons for help-- flicker after flicker.

And then it went out, leaving the clan in darkness.

"Scairi!"

The shouts were instant-- panic spread quickly. The moonlight was not enough to find a single fae in the thousands of acres that the Scarlet Tornado had claimed as its home. THe next morning, the seer pronounced it.

She, too, was gone.

---

The mirror hatchling awoke, bathed in sweat. Another nightmare?

Geez. Ryun rolls over in her little nest, stretches her wings, and falls into her dreamscape yet again.

---

Among the puzzle pieces of the frigid floes, a glacier stands, wobbling through the currents and towards the Ashfall Waste. It isn't tall enough to be noticed, nor oddly-shaped enough to be spotted while flying above. But if the stray dragon is ever keen on swiping past the frozen waters with their face only inches from the icy surface (in other words, if the specimen at hand is a total idiot), they may have noticed something. A single glowing orb, like a frozen pearl, in the middle of the icy block.

---

Meanwhile, in the Ashfall Waste itself, a very young coatl looks upwards. The sky. Maybe she's mistaking it, but it feels as though there's a familiar face in the clouds above her. She doesn't understand this feeling, and it's driving her insane, but what if who she is isn't who she's meant to be?

The warmth of the Emberglow Hearth no longer calls out her name. It's a different kind of destiny, and she can only hope the sky is good at keeping its promises. Who knows how many shattered ones she'll find on this journey? The very idea of change sparks a fire inside her own heart, and suddenly, the sky's not far away, and her wings are besides her.

The world is hers, if only she can leave the other one behind.

---

A guardian leaves the Reedcliff to find his charge.

---

Another guardian loses hers.

---

Green, blue and purple eyes stare at each other in a three-way lock.

Seconds pass and the eerie forest is consumed with the stillness of the three distinct dragons' piercing gazes. To ease the aura of war, a little leaf falls onto the head of a young imperial. The blue eyes blink, and laughter erupts from the other two.

Huria's lost the staring contest again, much to her dismay.

---

The sound of swift, agile feet hitting a grassland. But if you listen closely, and smell the spring air, you will notice that the footfalls are being followed by hundreds more. Shimmering wings dart past, and loud voices follow.

Something (or someone?) has been stolen.

The chase has begun.

---

Another coatl finds herself stained in scarlet blood, and her curious tongue learns that it enjoys the metallic taste. For some reason, though, she's crying. Underneath her foot is a sparkling gem, and a part of her wishes that she'd never laid eyes on it.

Soon after, that part of her dies away, just like the pearlcatcher at her feet.

---

A series of unrelated events sets off, just like those unrelated deaths a hundred years ago.

PINGLIST:

@thiscouldbeyou!!

"You," the guardian declared, speaking frankly and yet with a difficult, measured tone of voice.

At first the fae, tiny and quietly buzzing around, making sure to conceal her presence with magic, assumed the guardian was talking to his familiar. Or to the sky. Or to himself, because surely, surely, he hadn't noticed her.

She was simply in the middle of collecting dead skin samples from his body-completely unobtrusive, completely silent---

"If you want my dead skin just ask!" bellowed the guardian, sending a bit of a tremor through the air.

Well, more of a breeze. But it might as well have been a twister to the fae, who darted backwards and hovered behind the nearest tree, deeply confused as to how the guardian had noticed her.


"Okay, definitely one of the weirdest things I've said aloud," the guardian said, shaking his horned head before he located the fae again, with seeming ease. "Anyway, you. It's you."

The fae, insulted at his capacity to find her when she quite explicitly did NOT want to be found, quipped back:

"I have a name, you know."

"And so do I, yet here you are, farming my skin like I'm some kind of ezcema field," he said.

The fae did not have a response to that, so she said nothing. It seemed the logical thing to do.

The guardian scoffed, grinned, and then stalked closer to her, taking slow steps until his nose was the tree. He tilted his head until he could see her, still hovering behind the tree bark.

"Parda got your tongue?" he asked.

She sulked. She had lost this encounter already. She quickly hid his dead skin in a pouch before he could ask for it back, and then turned her attention to the guardian again.

"Well, what do you want?" she huffed, trying to recollect her dignity.

"I'm not sure," the guardian said.

"Excuse me? Then what'dya you mean? It's you," she mocked, trying to make her voice deeper to imitate the guardian. Two could play the game of making jabs at the others' pride.

Unfortuantely, the guardian seemed impervious to her efforts.

"You. You're...uhm." The dragon's big head sulked a little, and a little rosy blush appeared on his cheeks.

"I-- I--I'm?" mocked the fae, swishing her tail from side to side.

"You're my charge."

Silence.

So silent, in fact, it was like the forest had slowed for a second. And then, so tiny he could barely hear it, but growing louder with every passing second, the fae's roaring laughter.

"N'ahahahahaha! What? What?" she said, doing spins in theair and cackling gleefully. So this wasn't going to turn into a fight, after all! "Is that even how it works?" she asked.

"I...I don't know," came the reply.

She had failed her sacred duty.

Well, she had failed long before that.

But in her eyes, this clan was the true beginning of all this failure, and she, well. She had done very little wrong. And yet, deep inside, she could sense it. Smell it. The smell of guilt, wafting inside her nostrils, coming from the depths of her belly. It was more pungent, more vile than any poison or herb she had hung on the walls of this cave.

But it wasn’t guilt on their terms, of that, at least, she was certain.

She felt guilty, of course she did. But she didn’t like feeling guilty, because he had told her, again and again. It wasn’t her fault.

And yet….Yvella turned to the cave’s exit, the exit of her lair. Was it just her imagination, or had the whole clan already gathered there, dark eyes ready to judge her, mock her, ostracize her as though she wasn’t already pushed to the edges of so-called “guardian-society.”

Tch-- as if they were capable of behaving decently enough to comprise any kind of society.

She clicked her tongue and gave one last, fleeting look to the dead coatl, to his dried, white feathers, to his vacant eyes. He was sick. He died sick. And she had failed her sacred duty.

Oh, who gave a ****?

She turned around and walked away, heart bitter, hardened. She was ready for exile. Exaltion. Forever-long service to the Shadowweaver and noble, empty life of fighting against the Shade. Or whatever. Not like that mattered, either. It was all just ********, anyway.

She had finally found herself a life half decent and a quarter worth living, and what? It was taken away from her, because Fate wanted to be bitter about that one time, all those years ago, that she had escaped it? Death’s revenge, was it?

It was all meaningless now.

Lead a life with purpose, he had said—well, she had tried. Twice now, in fact. And she didn’t believe in luck (or any of Fate’s little monikers) enough to try a third time.

The guardian sauntered out of her lair and emerged smelling like strong herbs and death.

The other guardians were, as she had imagined, waiting for her on the outside with patient, unforgiving eyes. The looked at her as though they were feeling shame on her behalf, as though they were trying at once to share her pain and reprimand her.

She didn’t feel shame, so their efforts in all realms of sympathy were in vain.

In morbid contrast to her pained, bleeding heart, Yvella smiled and ran her tongue along the tips of her teeth. Ironic glee radiated in the way she flicked her tail and batted her eyes. Of course, the humor would be lost on this lot of do-gooders.

“Yvella.”

So it’ll happen without them even asking her how she was feeling, then? Lovely. Just what she wanted.

“On grounds of the greatest failure,”

What fish wouldn’t fail when tasked with climbing a tree?

“of the death of your charge,”

Of whom you know nothing about. Shut up, imbecile!

“you are hereby---”

Sweet relief. Let it come quickly.

“—sentenced to death.”

Wait--what?!