Meiosis

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Meiosis is a biologist, who works to study and categorize the many wildflowers and insects of the Viridian Forest, particularly their interactions with the magical field of the area. She works alongside her meteorologist partner, Crispr, who observes the weather and how it, too, is affected by Sunbeam Grotto's mystical force field.

A stranger may observe the pair of dragons to be especially inseparable - indeed, it's not uncommon for elder dragons to gradually withdraw their operations in the clan and focus their energy on their own family unit. But while these two lean on each other and their children frequently, their togetherness is due to the fact that the foundation of their relationship was once fractured deeply.

As she had been halfway into a research journey in the Starfall Isles, Meiosis was one of the few residents away from Sunbeam Grotto at the time of the hurricane. Immediately upon hearing of the storm, she traveled back to the Sea of a Thousand Currents, and spent days searching the wreckage for any resemblance of her home or the dragons who had lived there...to no avail.

With a heavy heart, Meiosis returned home to her old clan living in the roots of the Behemoth. While her clanmates were overjoyed at her return, Meiosis grieved her friends and mate. It was as though a piece of her soul was taken away in the hurricane, and she resented the rain for the rest of her life, holing herself away in her windowless room each time a storm struck the Viridian Labyrinth.

Decades passed during which Meiosis had given herself to her work, continuing to study and identify samples of plants even as her vision lessened and mane grayed. Students and coworkers had passed through her life meaning little more than the data they left behind. To the dragons around her, Meiosis came across as eccentric at best and downright rude at her worst. Simply put, she was afraid of trusting again, for fear it would lead to another great loss.

As Meiosis failed to make or keep any close friends since her return to the Behemoth, it was a surprise when she was disturbed one day by an intern's knock at her door. The slight Skydancer stood tall under her fierce glare, announcing that a stranger was darting around their town searching for Meiosis. With an attitude befitting of a juvenile, Meiosis hauled herself up from her desk and into the hallway of the research dormitories, casting a doubtful look behind her at the intern.

As she exited the dwelling built into a hollow offshoot of the Behemoth, dragons Meiosis barely recognized wordlessly pointed her toward the town center. She lumbered along at her own pace, wondering who still cared enough about her to make such a fuss.

It was then that she spotted a familiar orange crest, paled by age. As their eyes met, Meiosis froze in place before rushing forward, the tears she'd never cried spilling from her eyes. Indifferent to any onlookers, Meiosis openly sobbed as she curled her body and tail around Crispr in a hug long overdue. He embraced her with equal fervor, using the bulk of his strength to squeeze her close.

After she became certain the dragon in front of her was real, not an apparition, it didn't take long for Meiosis' mind to switch from emotion to ration. She pulled away from the hug and wiped her cheeks as she organized her thoughts. Urgently, she asked him about what had happened - what he remembered from when and how the clan apparently disappeared. Always on the same page, Crispr passed her a stack of blank paper and a writing utensil from his pack before he plopped down and recounted his tale. The dragons began at the present moment and worked backwards through Crispr's journey, Meiosis taking careful note of every tiny detail her mate had observed as unusual.

There were many questions Meiosis was anxious to ask that Crispr didn't have the answer to. How had the clan completely disappeared from the shores of the Sea of a Thousand Currents? And why had the dragons only now woken from their hibernation? There were plenty of questions he prompted her with, too, that Meiosis was unable to respond to...like how she had spent her life in the Viridian Labyrinth, or how she had dealt with her loss. She was too embarrassed to say that she hadn't found a renewed purpose, and she had never come to terms with her grief.

After another question about her present life, to which Meiosis looked away in silence, Crispr took her paw in both of his. He told her that he would never be able to understand her loss, but when he had awoken alone in their shared home, the fear and discomfort that struck him at her absence was a feeling he never wished to experience again. The truth was that Crispr was unwilling to spend a minute away from Meiosis for the rest of their lives, and he had put aside his loyalty to the clan and to the scientific method to come seek her. It was only luck that in his muddled mind he'd recalled her brief mentions of a home in the Behemoth, that he'd been able to reach the area safely and find the right settlement. To this, Meiosis began crying again, holding his paws tightly.

The pair stayed in Meiosis' quarters for two straight days, unable and unwilling to leave each other's side. As Meiosis had few attachments in her current home, she submitted what work she had finished to her scholars' commune and began packing her belongings for a final voyage to the Sea of a Thousand Currents. After all, her questions about the clan's disappearance couldn't be solved outside its borders. Crispr, too, was anxious to return to the clan and support their efforts to rehabilitate and rebuild.

Upon their arrival, bittersweet emotions washed over the members of the clan. Meiosis was overwhelmed with sorrow to see the clan devastated, and her former home overtaken by the forest...but joy stirred within her to see her friends alive, supporting one another through the pain of their loss. Crispr and Meiosis worked alongside their clanmates and a passing group of sympathetic travelers to restore the dusty, overgrown lodge and clear the shoreline of debris. Once their home was rebuilt, Crispr passed the Lightweaver statuette he'd carried on his journey to Meiosis so she might place it back in its rightful place, upon a shelf above their comfortable nest. As the two gazed upon their home, once fractured but now whole again, Crispr murmured to Meiosis, "something worth sticking around for."

As time went on, the clan was repopulated by travelers and the children of its members. Some dragons even moved into the forest nearby Meiosis' home, clearing space to farm and live while leaving plenty of room for the wildlife to live untouched. Sunset's son Begonia cultivated a garden of wildflowers near the entrance of the forest, which attracted all sorts of dragons to marvel at the rare blooms. Soon, Meiosis found she didn't have to travel far at all anymore to find something exciting to study. Today, she can be found lounging in the midst of the garden occasionally jotting down observations, with Crispr at her side sketching in his own research logs.