There are a great many leaves that make up the canopy that casts a gentle shade and a hint of green over Skalkaar. One of these leaves does not look its best though. While the others were a vibrant green, the color of this leaf looked dull. Its edges were frayed, and it looked as if it might crinkle a little were one to crumple it in hand.
A slightly stiff breeze was the last straw for the leaf's poor, old stem. It gave way, sending the leaf into the air. Skalkaar was not known for sustained winds, so the leaf was soon floating downwards, traveling in a lazy spiral. It descended below the canopy formed by its brethren, seeming destined to join the rest of the fallen that covered the forest floor.
Before that came to pass though, the leaf settled upon the snout of a small hatchling dragon, snapping her out of her thoughts. A quick toss of her head sent the leaf on its way again. This time it found a more final resting place on the ground beneath the rocky hill that the hatchling was sitting upon. A spider stepped on it soon afterwards.
The dragon, a smooth-scaled blue with purplish whorls swirling over her hide, glared after the leaf as if it had deserved to be trodden upon by a spider. She was obviously not in a good mood.
Her milk-white eyes drifted to the spiders milling about just below her. They seemed either unaware or simply unfazed by the presence of the predator watching them from above.
Kaelara's first spider kill had been a thing of triumph a mere day ago, but now the thought that it had excited her at all left a foul taste in her mouth. Any and every hatchling to come through Skalkaar was capable of that feat; what did it say about her that she had been
excited?
And now she had been tasked with her first mission against the Aegis - again, something asked of all hatchlings - and she was too
afraid to go do it. Instead, she was sitting on Skalkaar again, a place she was sure that few returned to after learning its lessons. It was as if, in a way, she felt that she shouldn't be moving beyond it.
That creepy elf she had met earlier hadn't helped things either. Making fun of her for not knowing how to bind herself to a shrine... And making the Empire sound like it was more in theory than in practice.. that everyone was pretty much on their own... Not to even mention the thoughts of.. of..
Recall bifurcation that he had filled her head with.
She kept telling herself he had just said those things to scare her, but part of her couldn't help but fear it had all been true.
"Have you... ever seen half.. a zombie wandering around some deadland...?"
Kaelara shook her head fiercely to get the thought out of her mind.
I shouldn't have to be out here! she thought.
I was perfectly fine just staying in Father's lair! I can't have been that much of a burden. For Drulkar's sake, Father was hardly even around to be bothered by me! He shouldn't have forced me out here!
A lot of phrases resembling "this is for your own good" had been tossed around. Was getting teased by a naka really
good for her?
Father hadn't even given her any money or anything. He'd just shoved her out of the lair, told her to go to Skalkaar, then left with the warning that he'd kill her if he found her there upon his return.
Such a wonderful, loving dragon, he was.
Kaelara sighed. What good was it doing her to sit around thinking about all this - about her short-comings and her fears? If she wasn't going to face those fears, then she supposed she ought to at least try to do something else productive.
There was always crafting... She knew Kerian sold some formulas that were not just given out as part of the curriculum. Maybe there were new spells for her to learn. That might even help her once she was inevitably forced to fight those skeletons.
Yes.. that seemed like a good plan.
Finally inspired to action, Kaelara got to her feet and Recalled away to New Trismus.. though not without a moment's hesitation as the thought of only arriving half there reared its head again.
((Figure I'll give the whole writing-stories thing another shot; it's been awhile. I'm also hoping that it might help me connect to the character and make me want to stick around a bit more. I've been veeery off-and-on with this game for a long time.))