In Sight of the Wyrmwound

A Wildclaw held one spot, that was neither apt for waiting for the arrival of any companions, nor a merchant’s stall. The crowds, a lethargic tide, with brief moments when clusters of dragons hurried by, passed around her, allowing a berth. This was a brief respite at best, as far as stopping on one’s travels, the locality, the place being within an easy scent of the Plaguebringer’s festering cauldron, meant that few besides the warped, zealous, imprudent, injudicious, or any combination thereof, would even seriously contemplate lingering. Besides the profiteers of course.

The place’s existence had sprung up from the routes of traders leading to sharing a point upon their routes, where it had once been a diminutive, self-contained settlement, but one that saw no reason to discourage the traders’ passage. So it had come about that awareness (as it couldn’t exactly be called ‘fame’) of the place had grown, and aspiring merchants sought to seize opportunity before their rivals.

So this Wildclaw stood. A stranger alone and lost in a crowd. Signs not being of desperation or panic, as would be expected from one abruptly separated from their party, but of forlornity. She turned her head as she stood, casting her cyan eyes over the crowd. Anyone suggesting that she was a long way from home would be correct, though it had been some time since she had known a place by such a term.

-

There was a good range within the travellers moving through the crowd, a Fae elaborately decked out in feathers and gleaming bangles perched atop an impassive Guardian, a pair of orange Spirals bickering to one another, and a quartet of hooded Mirrors.

Two walked in front and two directly behind, one of the former, on the right, wore a white hood, and bandages over some of his red scales, the cloth being the same hue as the hood where it was not darkened with blood. For a fraction of a moment he faltered, and his purple-scaled female companion looked at him with concern from under her blue-green cowl. He smiled and they continued.

Walking behind on the left, was a male of dark-blue scales with a fitting choice of hood. Of the group he was the only one for whom a hood was not a change from their accustomed choice of garments.  He’d found the whole proposal rather amusing, and recalled when they’d crossed into the lands of Plague dragons, the one who had since suffered injury, had suspected their leader of being influenced by the words of a certain Arcane Fae, who was suspected to be making questionably fuelled lamps again. She had given no reply at the time.

In fact, the dark winged Mirror would likely still be amused now, were it not for the ineluctable repulsion with which he beheld the place. Not only simply on account of the landscape not being to his tastes, but inasmuch as the augmentation of a deep-rooted foreboding, that had merely accentuated in rate over time and approach.

At that time of crossing the border, the Mirror with eyes of lighter hue than his scales, who of them had been most indecisive over choice of hood, had been full of zest about the matter.  He who had since notably calmed down, walking on the right of the dark-cowled one. At this point, with signs of that which they had made their business being subtle and seemingly lacking to his perception, he was looking forward to the end of this stage of their quest, as he saw it. Pausing, the Wind dragon raised his head and looked over at the Wildclaw, a couple of Mirror lengths away, hoping for her sake that she would have found someplace to go before the illicitly tacit curfew. They made eye-contact, and he smiled, before proceeding after his group.


The Wildclaw’s gaze lingered on the one dragon to have willingly, if not welcomingly, caught her eye that day, and then allowed it to pass over the group he accompanied, settling on the bandaged, crimson Mirror.
She gave a silent gasp, not daring to believe what she thought, before she called out:
"Inkfell?"

Shunic halted and turned to look back at the Wildclaw, who had suddenly taken a keen interest in them. Melreyna sent her bandaged companion a questioning look, who continued, as unresponsive as to any of the cries that sounded amid the crowds. The Mirror rolled her eyes at her companion’s composure, which little had been seen to hinder his control over besides injury of a sort (he was beginning to learn how to avoid the favoured Fae interrogation tactic of clinging to a subject’s head).
Orssiel gave the Wind dragon a shove, his expression amid the cowl’s shadows broking no argument, and Shunic hesitantly continued with them, an increase in pace being notable.

For the Wildclaw however, that one friendly face looking back was all the encouragement, and almost all the confirmation, she needed. She loped in their direction, leaping over a portion of the crowd that had drifted between her and the group, skidding to a halt before the group, forcing them to stop.

Melreyna couldn’t be certain whether she did see a twitch in the countenance of the Mirror in the hood’s shadow, in the moment before the stranger pushed his hood down and brought her own head closer.
“It is you, dear! My, what have you been doing all this time...and in a place like this?”
“I could easily ask the same of you, Molerince,” Inkfell replied civilly.

Shunic scurried nearer and craned his head, “you know her?”
“Yes, Shunic. She was a member of my birth-clan.” He gave a little smile as he turned to the Wind dragon.

Melreyna frowned slightly. For her part, she disliked the practice of smiling because of it being what others wanted or expected to see. She could see a slight quivering of the muscles of the red-Mirror’s upper jaw, as though a hiss was being pre-empted.

“Oh, so you did find a new clan then.” Molerince’s interest was piqued.

Inkfell continued, “yes, this is Melreyna,”
“Salutations,” she made the greeting quietly and with eyes shut, not knowing whether for reasons of distrusting herself or otherwise,
“this is Orssiel,” the water dragon gave the Wildclaw a nod. He hadn’t been certain that she wasn’t aligned with those enforcing the movement constraints in the later hours that they had become aware of, and he still wasn’t easy in her company. “And, you and Shunic seem to have already met.”
“Hello!” The Wind dragon chirruped happily and bobbed his head in greeting.
The red dragon turned to the group in general, “friends,” Orssiel and Shunic shared a glance, but both knew the importance of the mission to accept that some element of an assumed bearing to be a possible necessity.  “This is Molerince, formerly...?” he turned to the Wildclaw who nodded her head with a smile, “of the Errant clan.”

Orssiel suppressed a snort. Almost giddily, the Wildclaw began to speak, “well, I’m not sure you could call it a clan anymore, or ever in the first place really. Just a lost gaggle of strangers who were strange to themselves.” She chuckled and went on to talk about how the members went their separate ways after Inkfell left.

Orssiel, growing bored of the formalities and talk that it didn’t take a seer to predict, looked over at Melreyna and followed her course of action of scanning the crowds and perimeter for any change.

Nothing yet. Though it may yet be that, as Melreyna had warned them on the border crossing, as had been part of her motivation for deciding on the small group for the task, a reassessment of their planned course of action may be required.