Creative Corner

[b]Coming of Age[/b] @NetShy [url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=23492169] [img]http://flightrising.com/rendern/350/234922/23492169_350.png[/img] [/url] DarkRain had never known a dragon could be so happy as she was today. Mama had declared the day her coming of age. She had given her a gift - goggles with deep blue lenses, to protect her eyes in the harsh sunlight of midday. They were a delight - two pools of comfortable shadow she could wear! She would never have to spend the center of the day hiding under Stoneguard again! Then, Mama had set a fancy breakfast in front of Stoneguard, and they had sat down to eat with Anael instead of taking a mouthful of dried something-or-other and flying off to the day's tasks. She had wondered why at first, but Mama took the time to make a little ceremony of declaring her an adult in front of the visitor, and saying right out loud that she was big enough and strong enough to accompany mama to the Training Fields! After the little ceremony, Mama regaled the visitor with little stories about all the ways DarkRain was the most helpful daughter a clan leader could dream of. DarkRain thought she might burst from pride, with Mama saying so many wonderful things about her. When breakfast was over, Anael surprised them both by asking permission to join them. Mama seemed to think it was strange that the skydancer would want to help do the clan's daily chores, as she called them. DarkRain didn't think it was so strange though; it was good to be helpful. It was good to see what you had done that day making things better for other people. Who wouldn't want to do that? They had gone out all three together, gathering what they could around the lair first. They found another rusty treasure chest, and Mama was reminded and let her claim the elegantly simple necklace from the one the unicorn had found the day before. Then, the little party visited the trading post (the collector actually bought something!) and the fair. DarkRain and Mama had agreed that they needed to save up money bring a male to the clan (DarkRain had a vague suspicion that Mama was thinking of grand-eggs, but DarkRain was mainly thinking that their clan was just awfully small compared to...well, everyone else's that she'd ever met so far). Since DarkRain was good enough at Tidal Trouble to win lots of treasure, Mama let her play the bubble game until she'd made enough for the day's savings goal. The skydancer poked at the runestones booth while DarkRain had her fun and earned her profit, and tossed in a few hundred-count coins of her own. Finally, they had gone to the Training Fields. DarkRain felt like she had been waiting her whole life for this. Mama always came home from the fields bruised and tangled, and she had taught DarkRain that the problem was hunting alone. Mama was small and magical, like a fae kind of, and any two serious enemies could force her to retreat. Well DarkRain hadn't learned any magic yet, but she was big and strong, and they had a plan. she would protect Mama while she cast, and Mama would weaken the claws of the enemies with her magic, and together they wouldn't have to run away. This was going to be a new day for their tiny clan in the hunting territories, yes indeed. At first they thought the delicate pale skydancer meant to observe, but Anael elected to join them hunting as she had during gathering and trading time. They strode boldly onto the fields, and Mama pointed out a leafy-looking moth flying near a bumble. DarkRain had been too excited to be properly afraid. Together the three of them took on the enemy - and together they won! They defeated moths and bees and web-winged birds. Together, there was nothing that could stop them. Together, there was barely anything that could scratch them! Mama and Anael had time to compare magical blasts and learn from each other and their foes, and DarkRain paid careful attention to how her strikes landed, learning for herself this one thing that her mama couldn't possibly teach her. They gathered more food on that one hunt than Mama had brought home in DarkRain's entire life before! That evening, they had shared food from the hunt around the fire. Mama thanked Anael for the assistance, and the skydancer had given a long meaningful look to the Statue and then to DarkRain and said, "It was a fascinating day. I think I shall remain a while longer. There is mystery here for a season, if you will." For a moment, Mama seemed awfully uncertain, but DarkRain had leaned behind Anael and given Mama a big encouraging nod behind the skydancer's back. And Mama had raised her eyebrows at DarkRain - and agreed! So Mama had finished off the day by digging a proper burrow for Anael - no trouble for Mama, who loved to dig anyway - and DarkRain had gone off to sleep in the warm glow of accomplishment. She dreamed, that night, of a huge clan of guardians and tundras and skydancers. In the dream, even Stoneguard smiled at her and said, "Well done." OOC: All three dragons made level four in a single day! Having a full coli team was SUCH A RELIEF! I might have gotten a little lucky too, because I didn't have to retreat even once, and only used two more potions.

@AmongTheStars

Your dragons are so cute x3 Please add me to the ping list? :D

@Neige, @DruidicMelody
I would be glad to :)

[b]Like A Dream[/b] @NetShy, @Neige, @DruidicMelody [item=seeker orb] Viviane could hardly keep up with the changes in her own scent. It was almost as if she was a real clan leader... In recent seasons, her scent had been simple. She smelled of the burrow, small and close and often crumbling a little into her fur; of the foliage around the burrow, where she foraged when hungry; perhaps, just after a long nap curled up against the statue, she might carry the faintest trace of the already vanishingly faint scent that was mostly stone, but might have a bit of Stoneguard's true scent in the undertone. Now, she smelled of fields and even woodlands. Her fur carried a whiff of ozone from all the magic she used - still unnerving, if it caught her off-guard, but she was slowly getting used to it. It had given her a few nights of troubled dreams, but the memories they bubbled up from were faded, too distant and vague to remain frightening once she woke. If she sniffed for other dragon-scents, she found herself picking up DarkRain - impossible that it should be otherwise, mothers and children always rubbed off on each other - and Anael, and even the traders, now that she was seeing them every day. Even her own personal scent was stronger in her fur; she was moving and sweating and occasionally bleeding more than she had since... well, she didn't recall when. Besides her clan's cautiously expanding hunts, there was also the simple activity of being a clan. There were fires to build in the evenings, for light even if the air was warm. Alone with Stoneguard, she had rarely bothered. There was a hoard to manage, small but growing (and already impressively eclectic, thanks to DarkRain). There were familiars to feed, and meals to share like a proper clan, sitting down together in front of Stoneguard, using actual bowls on a flat rock table. There was another letter from a forgotten but familiar smelling clan, inviting Clan Stoneguard to meet them at the Greenskeeper Gathering and renew the acquaintance. Travel! When was the last time Viviane had traveled out of scenting of the burrow? Aside, that is, from the recent hunts in the woods. Long Before, surely, but if she traveled now DarkRain would remember the way home - or Anael, who had travelled to get there in the first place. Viviane supposed she would come back smelling of strange flowers. It was a nice thought. *** Anael could hardly keep up with the changes in her own energies. Four orders of power in as many days! It was almost as if she were a real mage... Before her fateful "shortcut" her aura had been simple. She had been in the habit of fluttering out of reach of any danger, letting the golem handle it, if whatever-it-was stayed on the ground. She was young - younger than she tried to let on - and more educated than experienced. Certainly she had learned all her parents could teach her about interpreting the auras of magical energies and living beings, both waking and dreaming, but traveling was a whole different kind of learning. Now, however, she felt her own energies growing and brightening, rather like the glowing mushrooms of her homeland. She had at first meant only to repay the tiny clan for their hospitality, but she felt now that she had gained rather more than she had given. Besides, they were so [i]very[/i] tiny. How could they hope to survive as a clan with so few members? Clan Leader Viviane was worried about food, and the reason was not hard to fathom, but just see how a little extra help on the hunt had improved that situation! And then there was the Statue. Anael wondered how the tundra knew it was alive? DarkRain of course took it on faith because her Mama Viviane had told her so, but Anael knew it was true only because of what her antennae told her. The energies in that thing! Powerful magic indeed, and to what purpose it was directed was still a mystery. Of course, it seemed to have something to do with Viviane, so perhaps she knew it by the effects of the spell? Yet she showed no awareness of any such effect, nor any sign of hiding things when Anael tried to edge the conversation in that direction. And her dreams - night terrors one moment, and raptures the next, and never a word of comment upon waking. The Statue dreamed as well, seemingly never waking, yet never wavering under the great magic it controlled. Mysteries to hold the attention for a season at least! Anael supposed she could get used to having a fixed home again, anyway. It was nice to rest from wandering for a while. *** DarkRain could hardly keep up with the changes in her little family. It was almost as if they were a real clan now! The even Mama had stopped calling Anael "the visitor" and learned her name properly. They had a lair, with places for working and storing things and sitting out of the rain to talk - though Mama would take any important conversation outside in front of Stoneguard, unless it was storming in earnest. DarkRain suspected that Mama still thought of Stoneguard as the clan leader, deep inside, even if she never said it. Now that she was officially an adult, DarkRain was finding things different yet wonderful. She was really helping manage the clan! The daily routine of gathering, trading, and hunting was like shade* and air to her heart. In her spare time, she practiced her writing, and experimented with different things that could be made into inks. She had a scroll. She thought of it as more of a draft, a practice copy, because she wanted it to be fancier. She had a scroll, though, with their four names written on it. Stoneguard, big at the top, because the clan was named after him. Then Viviane, DarkRain, Anael. Technically, that last wasn't for sure yet. DarkRain figured Anael hadn't admitted to herself that she was going to stay a part of the clan, but she was pretty sure the skydancer had made the clan hers in her heart. And right here before her, there was another egg! Soon, another name for her scroll. Anael would love the mystery of it - it was carefully swaddled in soft furs and other padding and tied under a great kite in the shape of a large feathered something - maybe a harpy? Anael would probably know. But a kite with no string! DarkRain might be young, and a bit of a homebody compared to the wanderer, but even she knew that had to be a Wind Flight creation. No shock then, that the egg was pale green with swirly patterns on its shell. DarkRain carefully folded the kite around it and flew for home, pure glee radiating from every scale on her hide. A new clanmate! Would it call her sister? Would it call her Mama?? Would she get to teach it to hunt and gather and trade? DarkRain supposed it didn't matter all that much who did the teaching though. It was just nice to see the clan growing. * A dragon with a different element would probably say "like [i]light[/i] and air"

[b]A Play Of Roles[/b] @NetShy, @Neige, @DruidicMelody [item=unhatched wind egg] Anael found it fascinating to watch the tiny clan learning to be a clan. The arrival of the new egg was a fine example of how things went. DarkRain had been off exploring in a different direction than usual, something that Viviane wouldn't do because she wouldn't think of it. Anael would do it if she was asked, but DarkRain preferred to do it herself for fun. Having found something interesting, DarkRain was all excitement and future plans; Viviane was thinking a bit more sensibly short-term. Viviane saw (or should it be, smelled?) the egg as it was: a tiny and vulnerable person in desperate need of nurture and care, soon to be in need of food, already in need of shelter. She was figuring incubation times compared to the planned trip to the Nature Flight festival, and revising travel plans to account for a hatchling who would need more frequent rests. DarkRain saw the egg as it could be: a productive member of the clan, enlarging and enriching the lair. She saw an assistant, a cohort, a friend she couldn't wait to meet. She burbled on about how another clanmate would allow them to specialize and get better at specific tasks. She speculated about what kind of person it might be - quiet? energetic? studious? athletic? another guardian? another tundra? fae? [i]male?[/i] Viviane carefully set aside the furs in an oilcloth bag, the better to preserve the scents of unknown dragons who might be parents or clanmates that the orphan might want to seek out someday. She settled in to incubate the egg in the same old nest in the shadow of statue Stoneguard - and leave it to an arcane dragon to hatch eggs as close as draconically possible to the largest vortex of magical energies for miles around. To Anael's sensitive antennae, that magic felt aware, as a dreamer might be aware of noises in his surroundings and incorporate them into his dream. Viviane said, "Of course Stoneguard knows we're here. That's why I always try to do clan business where he can hear it." Anael didn't think it quite worked that way, and had her doubts as to the wisdom of considering nest care as "clan business" too, but Viviane could be immovable as the isles themselves when she wanted to be. So Viviane spent much of her day sitting against the mysteriously powerful statue with the wind egg, and DarkRain did all the trading, speaking confidently for "the clan" as if she were a matriarch and not a youth barely at her full growth, and her family a bustling lair not a half-handful of lost children. As for Anael, she went out to the windward coast and gathered as many scraps of colored fabric as she could find. Let her clanma- her [I]hosts[/i] - wonder why. Anael might have also been searching fruitlessly for clues about the harpy kite's origin, but she was tired of feeling like the least unusual person in the lair. Let them wonder about her in return! Maybe she would think of something interesting to do with the scraps later. OOC: argh, autocorrect, stop trying to "fix" Anael's name! It needs that E!! Apologies to my readers if I ever miss one...

@AmongTheStars

I'm really curious about the egg now ö3ö
And it's amazing to see how your clan is slowly growing and getting better at things :D

[b]Wrapped in a Mystery[/b] @NetShy, @Neige, @DruidicMelody [url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=23790269][img]http://flightrising.com/image_generators/dragonpic2.php?body=11&wing=35&style=6&gender=1&ages=0&prig=0&secg=0&tert=65&elem=3&tertgene=0&spec=prev.png[/img][/url] Anael, naturally, was the first to notice. The eggling was no longer dreaming, but seeking the way out. The focusing of energies for a task; the tentative trial of tiny muscles in brand new motions; there was no mistaking it. She quietly sat down across from the nest to watch, and waited for more visible developments. Stoneguard might well have been the next to notice. Anael felt an eddy of interest in the swirl of power around him. She wondered what senses a statue-ized guardian used to determine that an egg was hatching. Did he even know it was an egg? She couldn't tell how much he really perceived. Viviane eventually noticed and came alert from her comfortable evening doze as the first tiny claw scratched through an equally tiny crack in the shell. She curled herself a bit more loosely around the egg, resting her hands where a hatchling might fall if the egg were to split suddenly. DarkRain made it back from an evening flight around the territory in time to see the hatchling put a foot through the shell entirely. Unfortunately, it punched out a chunk of eggshell instead of splitting the shell altogether. The little tundra - the fine downy fur on that one flailing leg could not be mistaken - let out a squeak of frustration. "Should we help?" DarkRain asked tentatively. "No," Viviane told her, "it's important to let a hatchling do for itself if it can. As long as she is still trying, and doesn't cut herself or otherwise do herself an injury, we'll let her be about it." DarkRain bit her lip and glanced uncertainly at Anael, but the skydancer nodded in agreement. "So also do they teach in my clan," she affirmed. "One does not rush an egg unless one has good reason to believe the hatchlings is ill or injured. Once they pass that certain point in development, eggs can go dormant for quite a long time, but from outside we cannot know how far they grew first, or how fast they came out of dormancy, or how exactly they have developed. Also, egglings are remarkably fragile in some ways. Have patience, and an egg will hatch itself safely 999 times in a thousand." The hatchling squeaked again and rocked the egg, tearing out another chunk. Another set of tiny claws attacked the edge of the hole, scrabbling to widen it. It seemed to take forever for the little one to widen the hole enough to struggle out of it and flop, exhausted, into Viviane's waiting hands. Viviane crooned a lullaby and groomed a few stray bits of shell out of the hatchling's downy fur. Her body was blue, dark as midnight, and her wings a deep forest green. DarkRain went into the lair and came back with her scroll. "The clan has a new - " she paused to examine the sleepy hatchling. "Daughter," she continued. "What name shall we record for her?" Viviane sniffed deeply and suggested, "Windy?" Both of the others shook their heads. "We can't just name her after her element! There's thousands of wind dragons just across the bay. We need to name her something that sounds like an [i]us[/i] name," DarkRain said. "Besides," Anael continued, "That's the most common thing about her. She's a living mystery, we can't give her a [i]common[/i] name." "Mystery, then?" Viviane tried. "Or something with mystery in it?" DarkRain frowned uncertainly. "Maybe something like that, but it shouldn't sound silly, she has to answer to it her whole life." "Enigma,"Anael proposed with a tone of certainty. The other two thought about it. Finally DarkRain nodded and wrote it down. "Hatchling, I declare you Enigma of Clan Stoneguard." The hatchling burbled sleepily, whether in response or distraction they could not tell, but the three of them laughed all the same. "Welcome to Sorneith. May you live long among our clan." OOC: The new hatchling is a tundra female, midnight/forest/magenta. Also, auto-"correct" has decided that hatchling should always be plural.

D'awww, she's cute! (aaand another female xD)

Could you add me to the pinglist, please?! I just read all of this in like ten minutes. I need to know more! :D