Isle

ISLE OF PEACHES
NEIGHBOR OF THE CLAN

Isle didn't have any memories of the Southern Icefield. She was so old, and she'd been auctioned off so young. Every memory she had was of peaches.
She'd been here in her orchard so long she didn't even remember starting it. Where were the dragons who'd bought her? Had these trees always been this big? And why were there only peaches? Anyway, it was too late to change now. The fruits had become part of her. Her scales and gembond were peach-colored, and their sweet scent followed her even when she went away. Her fur had even taken on the soft fuzz of the peach peels. Most of her hatchlings, all grown now, had peach in them as well.
She sold most of the peaches and ate whatever no one took. Her neighbors--what was their cave called? The Cave of Moonlight or something? she didn't remember--came to take armfuls back to their lair every week, leaving seafood for Isle so she had something else to eat every once in a while.
Sometimes, when she took trips out of the orchard, bits of memory would come floating back to her, like bits of a shipwreck reaching the shore. One time she'd visited the Southern Icefield, just to see her hatchplace again. It wasn't familiar, and at first it was quite dreary. There were no trees in sight, and Isle was considering cutting her visit short when something caught her eye.
Nearby was a residential area--ice caves meant for small clans, stacked on top of one another. One to the far right had collapsed, and the sight stirred something in her heart. She flew up to investigate.
The jagged chunks of ice had long since fused together with magical frost, but even though she was old, she was strong from picking peaches. She pried them apart, setting pieces aside carefully. She dug for an hour, and when she finally reached the bottom, she found...nothing. Underneath all the ice was just hard-packed dirt. She sighed, disappointed--what had she been expecting to find anyway?--and started moving the pieces back.
She was flipping a particularly large ice chunk over so it wouldn't slide off when she noticed the writing.
Engraved into the ice were names. GABRIEL. NAHALIEL. Nahaliel...she knew that name. BELLINI. VICEROY. And there at the bottom...ISLE.
This was where Isle made the fatal mistake. Instead of taking the ice home with her packed in permafrost, or asking around for those names, Isle simply left the ice sitting on top of the pile and trusted her memory, flying home with the intention to return another day. Nahaliel. Viceroy. I won't forget. I'll come back better prepared and look for them.
And so she flew home to her orchard. The branches of her favorite peach tree were so warm, so welcoming. She settled down with her journal and went to write...
...what?
What was it she was going to write? Names? She looked up at her peaches for help.
What's wrong? they whispered. There's nothing to remember. You've been here the whole time, you silly dragon.
"Oh," Isle laughed. "I guess I had another weird dream. For a minute there I thought I had visited the Southern Icefield again. Ah well." She closed her journal and curled up on the branch to sleep. "Good night, my orchard."
As she slept, the peach trees' branches grew. Further and further, they crept into her mind, ensnaring and devouring her thoughts.