Sirene

Guardian of the clan's treasury, Sirene is blunt, strict, and capable of snapping a ridgeback in half from twenty paces. (Hasn't happened, yet.) She is locked in an eternal rivalry with Levant, who is able to match her in battle prowess, and whose habit for "borrowing" things has not gone unnoticed.

Sirene is fiercely proud of her status as vault guard, and refuses to let anyone other than the clan leader access the vault. More often than not, she won't let the clan leader access it either. Little does she know, but Gwenith has already found a way to get VIP access to the vault's contents. And on Silas's request too, as he was struggling to run the clan without access to its treasury.

Her protection extends to the point where she very rarely leaves the entrance to the vault. She sleeps there, she eats there, she trains there. The only time she ever leaves her post is for a single flight each day, to make sure that her wings remain just as strong as the rest of her body.

Despite multiple attempts, Sirene has not yet been given approval for a booby-trap that causes the entire island to sink when the vault is opened. She's had to settle for a number of explosive runes inscribed on the vault doors. It might not even be possible to open the vault doors without setting them off. And that would require an intruder reaching the vault doors, which is nearly impossible as every passage that leads there is designed to first lead through Sirene's most dangerous booby-trap: herself.

There's a decoy vault too, designed to lock in prospective thieves. Anyone trapped in there will have very little to entertain themselves with, for the fake vault only contains two things: a frog and a maple leaf. Sirene's doesn't know who takes care of the frog and replaces the leaf, but she doesn't particularly care either, as it's not the real vault. You can break into that one all you like.

Her relationship with Jenna is rather unclear, but both she and Levant appear to be competing to be the coatl's greatest purchaser of weaponry.

Despite being an arcane dragon, Sirene has no real interest or skill with magic. She views it as a waste of time, which admittedly is understandable if you look at what the clan members do with it. Why would you bother with a spell that might be able to solve a problem when you can just muscle through it with brute force? The imperial's yet to meet a problem that can't be solved by smacking something (or someone) hard enough.

Even though she prefers using her claws, Sirene does know how to use a variety of weapons. Well, how to throw a variety of weapons. Have you ever had a flail thrown at you? It's not fun. Especially if each spiked ball is as large as you are.

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Many years ago, an arcane wizard wanted to cast a spell. This is what wizards normally do, so nobody paid him any mind. However, the spell was beyond his capabilities to cast. Again, this happens pretty often, so he remained ignored.

But the wizard wasn't one to give up. He encased the burgeoning seed of his spell in a small crystal, and brought it to a small clan in the Starwood Strand. There he planted it, ordering the dragons of that clan to guard over it until the magic bloomed and he returned for it. Then he disappeared, off to wherever it is wizards go after they've dumped all their problems on someone else. Wizards tend to do that, so the dragons just sighed and got on with their lives.

As a young warrior of the clan, Sirene was tasked with guarding the place where it was planted. Sirene didn't take the job seriously at first, for she really was just guarding a plot of dirt. Still, it gave her an excuse to do whatever she wanted as long as it appeared to help with her duty, and so she took the time to learn to use an excessive variety of weapons.

Over time, the seed grew into a sapling, and then a tree. But a tree of solid crystal, its structure so pure that it was nearly invisible until the sunlight hit it just right and painfully blinded you. The tree never grew particularly large, being noticeably smaller than Sirene, which meant few knew of it outside the clan. This was probably a good thing, as it meant fewer annoying tourists. Not having to bother to shoo off fae trying to steal clippings was a real boon for Sirene.

But the tree did still attract some visitors. It started with a single guardian, who declared the tree to be her Charge and made a lair close by. Then there was another. And another. Soon, the clan was infested with guardians, all of whom were convinced that the tree was their Charge first, and the others' second.

Clearly, Sirene didn't need to guard the tree anymore. Instead, her job switched to breaking up fights between the guardians. Invariably, one of them would decide that another had looked at the tree funny and hurt its feelings, or was going to break it with all their stomping about, and a brawl would break loose. The tree was never in any danger, but the rest of the clan really appreciated not having their lairs destroyed by a deluge of wayward spells and wrestling behemoths.

In the beginning, Sirene had trouble convincing the guardians to agree to a truce. She'd return to her lair battered and bruised every night, tired but looking forwards to the food provided by her grateful clanmates. Sometimes she considered leaving the clan and becoming a hermit in the woods. But she realized that there would just be more guardians to declare an arbitrary rock next to her their Charge, and so she stayed.

The rigours of daily combat strengthened her, and after a few years she was able to fend off three guardians at once with ease. Eventually, they'd all pretend to be minding their own business whenever she appeared, fervently hoping they'd been fast enough to avoid Sirene's ire. There were always a few who were too busy throwing insults to notice her though, and they'd quickly find themselves literally thrown out of the clan, into a quickly familiar personal impact crater.

By the time, the crystal tree had hit full bloom, and rumours abounded about what kind of fruit it would produce. Some suggested the usual; that managing to eat one of its solid crystal fruit would bestow immortality, great knowledge or perhaps a wish. Others had different ideas, guessing that the fruit would contain a twelfth deity, a clone of the wizard, or would just be a highly powerful explosive.

Evidently, Talona herself was of the idea that it would be a weapon, for one day a huge raiding party of harpies travelled from somewhere in the Windswept Plateau to make an attack. Most of the clan scattered, screaming at the guardians to make themselves useful for once in their lives. And make themselves useful they did, working together for the first time to make sure the harpies didn't seize the tree.

The battle was fierce, a cloud of harpies advancing from the east into a hailstorm of elemental bolts. Sirene could have flown into the thick of the battle, but it was clear the guardians had the defensive line covered. Instead, she used her somewhat better mobility to take out straggling harpies, and scatter any flocks that attempted to flank the other dragons.

As she was obliterating another unfortunate group of attackers, Sirene noticed something strange out of the corner of her eye. Sneaking up from behind the tree was a lone harpy, but unlike the others. It was wearing a mask, but also an outlandish and brightly coloured collection of hats, bones, leaves, feathers and a very alarmed cat. Some sort of spellcaster? Well, no matter. She'd show them who was winning this battle.

Quickly, Sirene flew up into the air. She did a quick loop, and then dove down at the lone harpy. As she sped towards it, she had a split second to muse that it didn't even look much like a harpy in that ridiculous outfit, before she grabbed it with one of her claws. She then spun around in midair, and with all her might chucked the harpy back into the thick of the battle. But her aim was a bit low, and instead of the battle, the harpy was sent face first into the trunk of the crystal tree.

With a resounding crash, the tree shattered into a million tiny, blinding suns, which rained onto the battlefield like the Lightweaver's personal apocalypse. As the sound of the tree shattering echoed across the battlefield, its pieces bounced harmlessly off all the guardians' scales, while the harpies weren't quite so fortunate. Then as the last bits hit the ground, everything went silent.

Fortunately for Sirene, nobody seemed to have noticed what she had accidentally done. After a short pause, she carefully walked towards where the tree had stood. All around her were sobbing guardians, some fruitlessly trying to convince themselves that they still had their glorious beards to live for. Off to the side, the other dragons of the clan were planning a party to celebrate their freedom from this nonsense.

Sirene ignored them all. Instead, she searched the area for the largest chunk of the tree she could find. What she found wasn't much longer than one of her claws, but it was enough. She took it and left without a word.

With the shard of the tree safely stowed away, Sirene searched for a clan that would suit her purposes. She found one on the outskirts of the Isles, and after quickly proving she could defeat the clan's guard in seconds, she earned her desired position as vault guard. (Much to Kokoro's confusion. He'd been convinced this was the end for him.) With access to somewhere as secured as this vault, she enacted her plan. Tearing apart a bit of the floor with her claws, Sirene made a small pit, dropped the shard inside, and then buried it in money.

Against all reasonable logic, this actually worked. A thing of magic, the tree didn't need light or nutrients to grow. As long as it can absorb excess magic, it could grow at the bottom of the ocean without incident. And as there's more than enough excess magic floating around the fortress, it was able to regrow from even that small piece. In fact, while Sirene doesn't know it, the tree leeching excess magic has had the side effect of stabilizing the island's pink chalcedony, and is possibly the only reason why the fortress hasn't been destroyed in a huge explosion by now. Ustasi's wards can only do so much.

The new sapling has grown into a small thing, and yet seems to be a perfect reproduction of the old tree. Sirene still doesn't know what magic its trying to produce, but she's decided that after all her hard work, she deserves it, whatever it is.

And if that wizard ever shows up to try to claim it?

Well, Sirene will be happy to show him quite a few weapons with his name on them.