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A brief shadow fell across the snapper making her tireless way through the Abiding Boneyard. She stopped and squinted up, looking for the source of the movement. Again the shadow tracked over her, a fleeting respite from the blistering sun. Canyon's eyesight wasn't what it had been in her youth, and the glaring light of the impossibly hot day did her no favors. When the shadow passed over her a third time, it emitted a raspy screech. She called up to it in kind, wincing as her throat seemed to grind with dryness.
A moment later a large bonepicker landed ahead of the snapper in a spray of dust and pebbles. His golden eyes were sharp as his head bobbed this way and that. He danced in place, fanning the air with his wings in excitement. "Found something, did you? Something too big to bring me? I suppose it's back the way I just walked," she added with a world weary sigh. The bonepicker emitted a series of chirps and sprang into the air again, feathered tail smacking the snapper on the nose. "No manners," she muttered as she followed him at a more sedate pace.
The first thing Canyon noticed was the smell. It was so achingly familiar that she was alarmed to find tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. They ran in the cracked, dusty rivulets of her skin and dropped to the parched ground as she followed her familiar. It was a smell that evoked crowding together with her siblings in the nest as the sky darkened and the storm gathered. Tensing in delighted fear as bolts arced down to strike the arid, split ground outside. Her mother whispering that the thunder was just the Stormcatcher bellowing for his servants to work harder.
She was so ensnared in her memories that she didn't heed the shriek of warning her bonepicker uttered. The only thing that saved her from a braining was the terrible aim of the missile thrower. A large rock sailed past Canyon and crashed into the dried out ribcage of some behemoth beast that had met its end in the boneyard and added its corpse to countless others. Bone shards flew everywhere as Canyon looked frantically for the source of the rock. Her familiar squalled in displeasure and dove into the middle of a large pile of bones that glowed faintly in the center. There was a sizzle and a shriek, and he backwinged, his claws bloody and the tips of a few of his feathers smoking. From the pile of bones came the sound of ragged panting. Now the coppery smell of blood flooded Canyon's nostrils alongside the smell of storms. Whatever was there was hurt, and badly.
"Who's there?" Canyon called, keeping her voice calm. "I'll not harm you. I have herbs, I can help. Please come out." Small bones began to tumble down the stack as a dragon worked its way free from the pile. The mirror looked toward Canyon and Canyon gasped at the flares and crackles in its eyes. The noise startled the dragon, who took a stagger-step backward, lost its footing and rolled limply through the bones to the base of the bone pile.
Bitterness flooded Ixgris's mouth and spurred her to wakefulness. She tried to thrash out with her forelimbs but found them strangely heavy, as though held down by something. Opening her eyes, she expected to see the roof of bones that had formed her makeshift home for the past few days. Instead, the walls around her were smooth, deep red stone. Small bundles of dried herbs hung here and there on racks, and a brazier burned beside her. Blinking in confusion, she tried once more to find her feet, and couldn't. All four of her legs were bandaged, as was her midsection. After a moment's struggle and a bit of grunting and rolling about, she righted herself into a lopsided sitting position. Her body and head felt heavy and clouded.
She sensed another dragon nearby and dimly remembered hearing a voice calling out to her. She'd been hot, wounded, and so, so thirsty. Turning her head slowly, she met the eye of the dragon that had found her. "You're like me," she croaked, her tongue raking the dry inside of her mouth. A dipper of water was held before her and Ixgris took it, gulping it greedily. The fog in her head lifted slightly with the rush of cool water down her throat. "You're one of the Stormcatcher's children," she told the snapper, almost accusingly.
"As are you, it's plain to see." The snapper said, a gentle smile on her face. "It seems you're favored indeed."
"Favored?" Ixgris barked a laugh, knowing what the snapper must be referring to. "This is no favor, it is an accident."
"It may be, it may be," the snapper agreed complacently. "Tell me, youngster, how did you come to be in the state in which I found you?"
"Oh, that." Ixgris looked into the brazier, not wanting to meet the older dragon's eyes. "I left home, there were so many of us and I felt I didn't fit anymore. Nothing to do, nothing important." As she spoke, Ixgris pried at the soft hide underneath her with restless claws. "I didn't pack any provisions, I figured I could find what I needed where I landed."
"And where did you land?"
"About where you found me," Ixgris admitted sheepishly. "I was hunting when a mirror pack ambushed me. I thought I could join them, that they'd let me run with them. But they said food was hard enough to find. We fought...well, they ran at me and I tried to stay alive. The pack leader had me pinned down when this...this electricity shot through my veins. I heard a crackle, smelled the sparks. It must have scared her, she and the others ran off. I crawled into that bone pile, still feeling the electricity dancing through me. It was my companion, it sang in my blood and lit the darkness."
"And you do not feel favored?"
"If I was favored, I wouldn't have gotten attacked," Ixgris said with a snort. "If I was favored, I would have been important in my home clan. I wouldn't have been slowly dying under a pile of bones." The feeling began to hum in her again, arcing through her veins. Sparks leaped from her eyes, dotting the hide she rested on and smoking faintly with contact.
"Has this ever happened before?" Canyon asked, head tilting curiously.
"I don't remember if it did."
"That can be a danger when the Stormcatcher's magic is ours. It gives, but it takes. If you keep it, it will take more of you. If you can give it, channel it, you may yet find you are indeed favored."
"Channel it? How?"
"If you wish to learn, I can certainly show you! We'll get you healed up first, of course. That will take a bit of time." Canyon trundled to a corner of her lair and returned a moment later, several scrolls balanced atop her head. "Now, peruse these first. When you've recuperated, we can begin."
Ixgris looked from the snapper to the small pile of dusty scrolls. Though she wasn't much of a reader, the deep ache in her healing limbs told her there wouldn't be anything more substantial to amuse her for some time. The fierce glow and crackle of her eyes began to dim, exchanging the wrathful gaze of a vengeful storm goddess for the the bright eyes of an intelligent young dragon. Prying open one of the scrolls, she began to read by the light of the brazier.
I pronounce her name "EYE-gree".