AriaoftheWinds' Clan

There is a pillar in the promenade that has been hewn hollow slowly over the centuries. Standing on the cliffside overlooking the sea to the north, the Tangled Woods to the west, and the beacon to the east, it juts jauntily into the air, a solid statement of semblance to any who would doubt the validity of the inhabitants. The current inhabitants cleared out a portion of the pillar, the uppermost; the rest had been removed by prior occupants, by prior clans, by prior civilizations, and by prior winters. Of the past inhabitants, there is little to be said. Mystery veils their history, mystery hides their truths, and the only certifiable information about the pillar lies within the current pillar keepers.

The first of the clan came when she was young, body sickened by the gemwasting. Her friend helped carry her from her nest, from the shadows of the bodies of her parents and brought her to the empty pillar with its hollow base and hardy spire. There they laid while the first healed, while the first grew. They were both young, in years and mind, and when food grew scarce, they did the only thing they could to survive. Venturing into other lairs, in the Ruins and the Wood, they stole food and treasure, taking only what they needed to live. Perhaps this was more than they needed to survive, but what does youth know of boundaries? They had respect, even when they had only each other, and they had each other. No other was needed.

But youth does not last forever, and as the first grew, a charge grew in her belly. For she was a guardian, and guardians are meant to protect, but she had nothing to protect, no Charge to call her own. Thieving grew to be a scab on a healing wound; she would itch, but there was no relief. Her friend understood as best as she could, for Fae are different in mind and body from Guardians, and some things are beyond knowledge or ken for even the wisest of creatures.

Thus did the first set out into the world while her friend watched over the pillar, and many decades were spent looking for hearth and home and Charge. She met young dragons and old dragons, cruel dragons and kind dragons, living dragons and dead dragons, but she did not meet anyone or anything that called to her. She returned to the pillar with stories and scars and stones, but she did not return with a Charge. While the pillar was comfort and the pillar was home, it was not what she needed, what she craved with ever fibre of her being. Her friend consoled her, offered words of comfort, and sent her on small errands to help the pillar and the small coterie the friend had gathered in the first’s absence.

It was on one of these errands that the First ran over the Second, and it was on one of these errands that she found her Charge, and the Pillar was never the same.