Unnamed

(pinglist: *empty*) April 1, 2022 fortune: But what did your familiar awaken to?
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''And I make you BEE-YOU-TA-FULLL!'' Andromeda chirped happily. Then amended, sheepishly, ''When have treasure again.'' ''I see,'' the new Spiral said. ''And name?'' ''I don't have one.'' ''I think of one!'' ''Perhaps,'' the Spiral suggested, smoothly and quickly, ''Lapurra?'' ''Ohhh, nice!'' Andromeda said. ''Very nice. You like it?'' The Spiral said, ''Give me a day or two to think on it.''

''Sure! And here we are at the lair!''

The new dragon took in the surface part of the scrublair, which was both unimpressive and well lived-in. ''How nice,'' she said. ''May I sit upon that tree there, before you put me to work?''

''Of course!'' the Mirror said! ''Long flight. Rest! Get the others to show you around soon!''

''Thank you,' the Spiral said. ''You are... most generous.''

Eventually, as the sun lowered in the sky and the electrical arcs became even more visible off in the east, the red and black Spiral ceased her slow -- lazy, by Spiral standards -- circling and coiling around the tree's branches, and allowed the other resident Spirals to show her around for a time. Once she had a good idea of where everyone's lairs were, and the well-room, and the room that people shouldn't go into because the floors were sticky and maybe there was Shade-stuff underneath it somewhere (but their new Gaoler would sniff it out if it got worse! he used to be a Spiral! He was Silver Bandit's child, but now he's big and fluffy!)...

The still nameless Spiral eventually excused herself, and asked to go watch the stars and lightning again. ''For,'' she said, ''such things are not valued at all, back in my home nest.''

Everyone rather believed it, for they'd heard stories of the Scarred Wasteland. (Sometimes hunting groups would go looking for things that could only be found there, such as medicines that could cure if you prepared them correctly, but were poison otherwise.) So they left her to it, with flittery farewells, and she watched they piled onto the back of the lair's Snapper, Light In Dark, as she went to pace out the pathways in the night.

For a moment, she thought it would be nice to be able to sleep and still move. But no, she had to be cautious. And alert. And...

There. A flash that wasn't from lightning. She slid out of the tree and fluttered towards it. Occasionally she got a little disoriented by the Shifting Expanse's nightsky, but the flash would repeat, near the ground, and off she went again.

And after a shorter time than it felt... Eyes as red as hers looked out from a hollow in the sands.

''Father,'' she murmured. ''I'm not sure if they've fully accepted me yet. The Fae and Pearlcatchers seem distant, still.''

''And this lair's treasure-horde?'' the other Spiral said. (His colors and patterns, a flash of lightning revealed, were identical to his daughter's.)

''The Imperials keep it, and they have Guardians as well.''

Her father snorted. ''The large breeds overlook us.''

Thoughtfully, she said, ''I'm not sure. One of the Imperials keeps company with one of the Spirals. I'd be cautious. And the Fae--''

''Does this lair listen to Fae?'' he interrupted.

She hung her head a little. ''I don't know yet. They've been stand-offish. I'll need another day to be sure.''

''I don't really want to hide out here for a whole another day,'' the elder male complained.

''You could probably hide in their lair. They've got some sleeping caverns. One of the Imperials in there is similar colors to us. And winter-fest colored dragons, too.''

He thought the matter over. In the sky, the lightning strikes created distant thunder, and small, scuttling creatures moved past. The uneven light made it hard for even Spirals to tell whether the insects were food or dangers. ''Fine,'' he said. ''I'll follow you in. If the other Spirals don't see us, it should be dark enough that anyone else won't notice there's two of us flying together.''

After several days, the Plague-born Spiral was both pleased and disgusted with how well she'd been welcomed to the lair. With variations according to personality, the others were relatively friendly. The other Spirals encouraged her to go flying with them to catch insects. The Imperials recited poetry at her from time to time. The Tundras blinked amiably, and offered her bugs that they'd caught trying to nibble their greenery.

Only the female Pearlcatcher, Bisera, and the obsidian Fae, Nixie, seemed... Cold? No, not cold. Distant. The elder Fae had taken the Pearlcatcher under a wing -- so to speak; the Fae was much smaller -- and together the pair would sometimes go out and watch the skies at night, talking of hunts and premonitions. Occasionally, the scrublair's Gaoler would join them, shaggy and white-patched, and listen with almost Tundra-like indulgence for a while before ambling back down to sniff around the Place.

Once, she'd been told, there'd been a collection of Bogsneaks and an Imperial. They'd made one of the underground cave-rooms a roiling marsh for their own devices, mucky and muddy, and containing who knew what. And to a Gaoler, it smelled of the Shade -- not a lot, but just enough. As if something deep-buried was touched by the moisture and the fragrance was permeating upwards until it could be detected.

That room was off-limits.

That room, the nameless Spiral's nameless father said when she brought him food, was clearly where the lair's best treasures would be stored. She'd protested to him that she'd found their treasures, guarded by Imperials and Guardians, but he insisted. Scrolls to change a dragons breed? Valuable, but not as much as what would be in That Room. Scrolls or potions to change the patterns of a dragon's hide? The same. Gems, kept in the eldest Imperial's lair and only brought out when he could not avoid it? Well, of course the pair of Spirals should make off with some of those, but about That Room...

Finally, in frustration, she'd said, ''Andromeda wants me to have a name.''

''No!'' he snapped back. ''Names... You can be tracked by names. You'll never be free of a name, once you take one. You should be pure. Untouched. If you don't have a name... They'll never be able to trace you.''

''I'd be able to go out and hunt, instead of having to thank the Tundras for scraps,'' she muttered.

He coiled up and glared at her. ''No names! They'll catch you with a name!''

It was worse than his obsession with The Room. ''I'll keep putting her off, then,'' she said.

''Good. Good. Now. That room. You've got to get in there. Bring a sample of the muck they say is in there. There'd be dragons who'd pay well for that sort of thing.''

She set her jaw and considered for a time, but finally said, ''I'll try.''

Then she left him there, amid the sleeping dragons, and flittered back to the brighter parts of the lair. It was only her imagination that obsidian wings fluttered behind her from time to time -- she checked and doubled back to be sure -- but they did haunt the corners of her brilliantly red eyes until she went out to welcome back the hunters who'd brought back food.

''Have you gotten a sample from the room?''

''Have you brought me even a handful of the dirt from that room?''

''Is there not even a hint of mud upon your scales?''

The questions were enough to drive a Spiral mad. She told herself that her father was only impatient because he was hiding. She told herself that she was not unsettled by his obsession. She told herself... Well. That she should find a way.

It was hard, though. The Gaoler slept across the opening into That Room, and while he did venture out and about, whenever she went to see... Someone else was there. One of the Guardians, usually. Sometimes an attentive Mirror or the Snapper. Coatl, occasionally.

Finally, her father snapped at her, ''We have a buyer for this stuff! If we cannot produce it, we will have more enemies than just those in this lair! You must get at least a sample!''

Frustrated, she snapped back, in quiet anger, ''If I get some, I will have to flee immediately! There will be no time to gather any of the other treasures!''

With his red eyes staring into hers, he said, ''So be it. Get the stuff and flee. I'll know when you fail to bring food next, and make my own way out. You know the place where we'll meet.''

She nodded shortly at him, and spiraled her Spiral self out and away.

Her irritation perhaps had made her careless. As she left the tunnels that led to the den of the sleepers, obsidian wings fluttered near her, with moons upon them, and a Fae's toneless voice said, ''Are they well.''

The Spiral recoiled like a spring, then threaded her head through her own encircling length to see who had said it.

Nixie. Of course. The Spiral said, ''I've been checking the sleepers for parasites.'' She licked her nose. ''A good deed,'' Nixie said, her crests rippling gently. ''It is kind of you.'' ''The lair has been kind to me,'' she said. And added, ''It's not what I'm used to. Plague believes in strength.''

''And Lightning believes in efficiency.'' (The Spiral wished she understood Fae crest-displays.) ''But kindness... Well. I hope you are happy here.''

It was a troubling realization that, overall, she was. ''I suppose,'' she said, instead of the truth.

Nixie blinked once, and nodded, and fluttered away, with her wings casting shadows when they passed the light-sources a little further on.

I have to go, the Spiral thought. I have to be gone from here soon, or perhaps I will never be able to leave.

After two more days, more and more desperately searching for an opportunity... More and more sure that the dark Fae was watching her...

The Gaoler, Tigerblood, slept across the mouth of the tunnel that led to That Room. But by now, he knew her scent. So the sound of her wings would not alert him, she crawled along the rough cavern wall, tracing the imperfections in stone and dirt with her own body, dirt-smeared to be less vivid. Clutching the ceiling, pressing her body against it, she crept upside-down past his branching antlers while his soft breath seemed to fill the room.

Eventually, she dropped from the ceiling and caught herself midair, fluttering the rest of the way until she was in a darkness, barely lit by a few blue-glowing mushrooms, suspended from the ceiling and resting upon rotting wood planks.

The darkness beneath her seemed to reach up. Or perhaps it was her imagination. Hatchlings played in this, she reminded herself. They were fine. They wallowed in it, from what the others said. They were fine.

She nerved herself, darted down and scooped up a double handful of muck in her foreclaws, and fled, arrow-straight. Up the tunnel, past the slumbering Gaoler, all vivid red and white, and up more tunnels as he snorted and shook his head behind her. She was nearly through the mouth of the tunnel to open air when she heard his bellow: ''Shade-mud! Someone's taking Shade-mud out!''

She burst out of the tunnel, into the sky full of stars and lightning, and fled into the night, while all the rest of the lair began to awaken and the few sentries called out questions. She imagined Tigerblood bursting out of the den, imagined him calling lightning to guide him, imagined him following the scent of the Shade-tainted mud...

She flew faster, eyes almost closed, whining as she went -- in fear, or regret, or something else she didn't understand.

Eventually, she came to the place where she and her father had arranged to meet, should they get separated. An old refuse-heap, not far from the nearest marketplace, where there would be crowds to lose herself in. But she didn't know who the buyer was, for the still-damp handfuls of dirt she clutched, and didn't dare venture to where more Gaolers might sniff the stuff.

There might be a few discarded, empty bottles in the heap, and she wanted to get the clinging mud off her scales. She eeled down into the clearing they'd made, under old tree-branches -- then paused.

The purple Pearlcatcher uncoiled herself from around her pearl, white ribbons striping her sides. ''Yes,'' she mused. ''The visions were correct.'' ''Visions?'' the nameless Spiral panted. ''Nixie's been teaching me,'' Bisera explained. ''We saw this place. She said I needed to go here.''

''Whyever do you need to be here?'' the Spiral asked.

The Pearlcatcher leveled a blue gaze at her. ''Because you came here, obviously. I've been waiting. So you must tell me: why are we here?''

The lie was easy. ''I wanted to look around the marketplace. The Fire celebration will come soon, and I know some lairs give gifts at all the holidays. But I hardly have any treasure, so I wanted to see if there was anything here, overlooked, that I could trade.''

Bisera's gaze was... pitying? She said, as if to a hatchling, ''Why are you running?''

''I'm not running,'' she replied.

''Lapur--''

''That's not my name!'' the Spiral shouted. ''I don't have a name!''

''But you have something else.'' And Bisera gestured, so the Spiral was sure that it was to the dark mud in her foreclaws.

''I--I'm going home!'' she said, and fled again, not caring that the lie had been a terrible one. She would lose herself in the marketplace after all. She would risk that Gaolers would sniff the muck. There were so many other scents -- she'd be able to avoid them!

As she crested a hill, suddenly black wings blotted out the market-lights and someone shouted, ''BOO!''

The Spiral screeched, reversed herself, and darted away, her forefingers opening so she could claw at the air. But the mud clung now, refusing to flake off, refusing to drip off, refusing to be flung away.

It added to her panic. Caught, caught, this sticky stuff clinging to her, tracing her scales, tracing the stripes and markings and getting on her wrists and wings and not coming off. She panted and shrieked on every exhale, trying to fly away.

''There!'' came a shout, a familiar bellow. ''It's getting stronger! ...much stronger!''

No no nononononononnoooooooo

she couldn't be taken, couldn't be trapped, couldn't be put down in that hole and kept there and kept from her father kept from the air kept from HER PURPOSE

She hit the ground, tumbling in sand and dirt, coiling into a knot that seemed to bulge and writhe in ways no Spiral should ever do.

And high above, on dark, dark wings...

''There,'' Nixie said.

''I sense it,'' Ciardha replied, angling down. ''It's bad. I'm glad Tigerblood is coming. He's so big now.''

The Fae clung to the somewhat larger Skydancer. ''He won't be happy. The taint found a way in.''

''I'm not happy. Wait, isn't that--''

''Yes.'' Nixie fluttered off as Ciardha landed, getting closer to the dark tangle of Spiral that seemed to be growing. She perched on a larger stone, clutching something in her foreclaws, and flattened her crest in tense concern.

Tigerblood came barreling into view, skidding to a stop. ''Stormcatcher's bones, that's foul! What kind of Shade-creature is this?!'' His eyes narrowed underneath his furry brow. ''Well, it's my job...''

And the Spiral's head burst out of the mess, dirt and filth clinging to it in strips, with the sound of cracking bones. Her voice was a hollow thing, wailing, ''help me!'' But her eyes were as huge and red as before, and met Nixie's.

Seeming impassive, the Fae looked at the twisted Spiral, and then past her, at the Gaoler beyond.

And in those blue eyes, that had begun to harden with a Gaoler's purpose... Instead, he looked to Nixie with a desperate plea.

Nixie nodded once, shook out the scroll she carried, and began to read it.

Because when the Shade has taken root in a fickle, flighty heart, only the prison of the Icewarden's chosen can capture it. Stop it. Contain what cannot be purged, with the Purpose of a Gaoler.

And when the muck was gone, dissipated or imprisoned forever... Tigerblood stepped carefully over to the exhausted, crying heap of far-bigger dragon and gently put his head down beside hers. ''Come on,'' he murmured. ''It's time to go home. I'll help you.''

She looked up, and while there were still things she didn't say locked in her throat... She nodded.

Registered Koi Types, which redrange-black-redrange is not. But Swapped Showa Sanshoka? Yessssssss. Range: Copper-Brick / Maize-Midnight / Copper-Brick