Sindok

From a young age, the winds seemed to favour Sindok. They lightly swirled around him, keeping the rain off his face and the lift under his wings. It wasn't until he developed his magic that he understood what was going on. The wind itself was alive, with faces only he could see. A cloud of elementals swarmed around him, protecting him in whatever ways they could. As he grew up, he focused his magic on them, seeking to communicate with them and learn why they cared for him so.

It was possibly the worst idea he ever had.

The elementals were attracted to him because of some aspect of his magic. (As far as Sindok can tell, he just smells good to them.) That part was fine. The problem is that wind elementals are capricious, flighty creatures. They gossip incessantly about the most pointless of things, and have memories so loose that they often don't remember what they were speaking about minutes ago. So ever since Sindok learned to understand them, he's had to suffer many voices constantly discussing even the most inane of events in the clan.

Not that it isn't occasionally useful, but he really doesn't care to hear the details of every conversation that goes on in the clan. Especially not all at the same time. And then there's some things that happens in this clan that he'd really rather not have known about. But those elementals get everywhere, so if it happened, at least one of them will be talking about it. And if it didn't happen, two of them will be talking about it.

Sindok has one solace; the amulet around his neck. While it doesn't do anything yet, he and Valea are working on enchanting it. When it's done, it should suck all those pesky elementals inside of it, like a spiral eating bugs after fasting for a few hours. Sindok's not quite sure what will happen after that. The pendant might become a powerful artefact, capable of boosting the power of Sindok's wind magic. Or it might just howl constantly with the screams of hundreds of trapped wind spirits. Sindok hopes it's not the latter. Not only would that be even more insufferable than his current predicament, but he might actually feel some pity for the spirits if they're in pain. (But only a little bit.)

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Does speaking to the wind have any useful applications? As far as Sindok is concerned, it doesn't. Other dragons have a more hopeful outlook.

Minya considered recruiting Sindok as a spy, seeing the clear usefulness of invisible creatures for espionage. However, the elementals tend to forget about Sindok and never return if they're away from him for too long, so if the wildclaw was a spy, he'd still have to infiltrate the locations himself. This wouldn't be a problem, except that Sindok spends quite a lot of his time screaming in frustration at the flighty creatures he's saddled himself with. And since Sindok doesn't seem to have any interest in learning to tolerate them, it's no stretch to say that as a spy, he wouldn't being staying undetected for very long.

Aeric thought the spirits might be willing to help him with his weather magic, by keeping the local atmosphere stable so that he after he'd cast his spells he didn't need to maintain the weather himself. It turns out the elementals are the exact opposite of stable, and the presence of Aeric's magic in their vicinity is more likely to start a tornado than part the clouds for pleasant stargazing. Many small tornadoes, to be precise. The spirits don't really understand the concept of teamwork, and each wants to impress Aeric and Sindok by being the best weather ever. Aeric threw Sindok off his half-finished tower after the wind elementals nearly knocked it over in their excitement, and he's never asked for Sindok's help since.

Eventually, the clan did find a use for those spirits. The fortress is a big place, and the sprawling corridors need ventilation. (Especially the basement tunnels.) Sindok just has to patrol the halls and let the spirits replace the stale air with fresher stuff, and suffer them replacing the last of his patience with unbridled annoyance.