Thamina

The stars shone through the greenhouse's glass walls. They illuminated the garden and sent a sort of peace throughout the air. Thamina looked up through the glass, slowly turning a small brass button between her fingers. The room was silent until the door creaked open. Thamina turned, looking for the figure and noticed Rasputin walking over.

"Hey," she greeted him quietly and the older dragon came up to her and took a seat. "When I look at the stars, I remember the past," she said quietly. Rasputin didn't say anything, just stared up through the glass.

"Tell me," he than whispered and Thamina took a great big sigh....

As a hatchling, life wasn't exactly easy. Her parents were vagabonds traveling through the Southern Icefield. When they arrived, they just so happened to have a nest, and thus stayed longer than they originally intented. Her mother, Dahlia, was accustomed to the colder weather but her father was not.

Thamina was the only egg that hatched out of the clutch. Although miserable with the loss of her unborn children, Dahlia accepted that fact and decided to move on. As they left their little alcove, with their tiny girl stumbling behind them, they ran straight into a snowstorm. It was one of the worst Dahlia had ever seen. The barely made it into a cave and once there, they had no food or fire. Talei, not used to the cold in the slightest, became deathly ill. He'd cough and weeze; and one morning, he didn't wake up at all. Dahlia and Thamina were stuck in that cave for three days with the dead body.

The storm had finally died on the fourth day and the two Skydancers were able to push their way through the snow and out of the cave. Her father, they left behind. Her mother told her they were going to head to the Ashfall Waste, the warmest place on Sornieth, and they would never have to come back to the frozen tundra. Scared, Thamina followed her mother. They traveled for days and nights and met not a single soul. At one point, ice crystals started to form on little Thamina's coat. They were not creatures fit for the cold.

They never did get to the Ashfall Waste. After a week of traveling, they made it to the Windswept Plateau. Dahlia found shetler with a clan and there, she and little Thamina rested. Thami had never seen anything green. She was facinated by the colors and the plants that grew there. Many of the elders of the clan would tell her stories about other regions with other plants. How the Viridian Labryinth in the east was nothing but plants. Or how mushrooms glowed in the Tangled Wood. She learned from them, that plants could heal and save lives. They could make one feel full and the pain go away. If only she had known when she was younger, she could have made life better.

Once they elders had taught her so much, she begged her mother to let her travel. She wanted to see it all. Dahlia was worried that her daughter would end with the same fate as her father. Thamina convinced her mother she would be safe and write back often. And eventually her mother let her leave. And then, she found Clan Àidhear....

"You never told me this," Rasputin said as she finished her story.

"I never told anyone. I tried to forget it by looking at the clouds," she said with a smile. "Plus, the plants and herbs distracted me more than the past. I want to fix now what I couldn't then."

"You're well on your way," the Wildclaw said lifting a clawed hand to rest on her shoulder. "I'm sure your father is proud. And so is your mother."

Thamina nodded and kept twirling the button, a gift from her mother before she had left.