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Crystalstorm
Bonded to:
Age: 24 Sex: Male
Soul Name: isto Known By: himself
Mate Status/Sex Preference: Single, bi, gregarious
Children: none yet
Parents/Relatives: Mother Squall, Father Icecap (grandmother Ainea, grandfather Shatter)
Height: 4'3" Build: tall, muscled
Hair Color, Length, Style: Opalescent silver-graphite, lightly curled, long
Eye Color, Size, Shape: twilight-sunset (violet through orange), slanted, large
Skin Tone: darkly tan, bronzes in sun
Voice Quality: quiet, deep, like velvet
Clothing -- Summer: loincloth (greens) and occasionally a tank-top (cloth)
Clothing -- Winter: adds a long tunic of golden brown leather, soft boots
Jewlery Worn, Made: crystal ear pieces, scattered bangles in hair, loves making new things for lovemates and friends
Tatoos/Markings/Scars: tattooed (by mother)
Pets/Animals Kept: none
Notable Posessions: stones and gems, crystals and other objects ready to be shaped
Holt Function: shaper
Magic? How Powerful? Sending 7/10, Magic Feeling 2/10, Levitation 10/10, Sound shape, 3/10; Rock Sense (1/10), Crystal Shape 8/10; Weather sense 8/10, control (water shape) 4/10 (wind+water) 2/10 - he's a very powerful elf!
Climate/Locations Preferred: anywhere but the ground - though when he's on the ground it's deep into caverns where he finds gems and stones to shape; loves chilly weather to the extent that he's all but immune to cold
General Likes: being alone, storms, shinies
General Dislikes: mind games, bad puns, people who mock him
Fears/Worries: he feels that his mother is distant even though she does love him, he is not Apogee's child and always wonders if she'd accept him as a son too
Special Strange Info: has shaped crystaline versions of all the elves and their dragons, kept in a secret cavern den deep in Bald Mountain
Basic Personality: uncomfortable around many people, observant, impressive
How they feel about
Humans: curious, why all the fuss?
Elves -- herders: very handy to have fresh meat without hunting
Elves -- magic users: he's the top of that heap, of course!
Elves -- bond-riders: dragons are essential, but are there others?
Trolls, etc: admires the work they supposedly do
Bond Animal Info if any:
Chamomile
Bonded to:
Age: 17 Sex: Female
Soul Name: snaa Known By: herself only
Mate Status/Sex Preference: Single, very straight
Children: none but loves them and wants them
Parents/Relatives: Mother Morning Glory, Father Orangepeel, Aunt Rasp, Grandparents Heartshy and Clearwater, Great Grandparents Warmhand and Brittlebough (Biggest family tree of living elves in the whole Holt!)
Height: 4'0" Build: skinny, shapely
Hair Color, Length, Style: honey-orange-gold, fluffy, shoulder-back length
Eye Color, Size, Shape: yellow with a faint green rim, wide, slanted
Skin Tone: very pale, but doesn't burn like father's
Voice Quality: high, almost shrill, but exceptional singing
Clothing -- Summer: light silk wrap and skirt, dainty shoes all in violets
Clothing -- Winter: warm natural colored fur tunic, leggings and boots
Jewlery Worn, Made: necklaces, wire rings, little earrings
Tatoos/Markings/Scars: none
Pets/Animals Kept: probably goats, like dad's
Notable Posessions: none really
Holt Function: herder, animal tender
Magic? How Powerful? Plant sense 4/10 (excellent for planting and keeping poisonous plants away from animals), animal control 3/10 (herd and poultry)
Climate/Locations Preferred: warm and sunny days, hillsides and steppes for gardening and herding
General Likes: small animals, dragons when they're sleeping
General Dislikes: being inside, having to do hard heavy work
Fears/Worries: large animals scare her, including dragons
Special Strange Info: senses ghosts of the parents of the elders - those who died at their old Holt but did not vanish to another time or the Palace (mainly Orangepeel's mother, Bluebead)
Basic Personality: Calm, a follower, comfortable giving or taking orders
How they feel about
Humans: a bit of fear: they're pretty large
Elves -- herders: she's keeping up the tradition
Elves -- magic users: not everything needs to be shaped to be good
Elves -- bond-riders: dragons are nice, she's not sure she wants to fly though
Trolls, etc: ick! they sound so dangerous and smelly!
Bond Animal Info if any: Name: Kerolei
Gender: Female
Bond: Chamomile
Color: Earth brown with Emerald underbelly
Abilities: Verbal Speech, Light Breath Weapon
Markings: Earth (7), Wood (6), Wind (4), Light (1)
Hatchling Size: 1' to the shoulder, 10' from nose to tailtip
Adult Size: 8' to the shoulder, 80' from nose to tailtip
Personality snippet: Strong-willed and bold, Kerolei can be a bit bossy and stubborn at times, but will eventually learn to back down at Chamomile's urging.
Twenty six turns ago
"It really shouldn't surprise anyone," Apogee said, "so please stop! It's all right!"
Squall didn't stop huffing. She wasn't crying, but she was angry-ish, worried more than anything. She fluttered about in the aerie, floating just above the floor. "But I --"
"No buts!" Apogee laughed. "Squall, you're my lifemate, I have known you so long, and if there's anyone who should Recognize him it's you!"
Squall bit her lip, and then tried something else. Maybe she was trying to get Apogee to scold her, or something. But instead, what her lifemate was doing was ... encouraging her to Recognize someone! "He's so young!"
Apogee merely rolled her eyes at that, waved her hand, and pushed at Squall who floated limply in the air still. "Oh hush. He's young and handsome. And he's yours, for the moment. You know you don't have to keep him."
So Squall entered the bonds of Recognition with the - indeed, young and handsome - Icecap. Son of Ainea and Shatter. Powerful sonic magic user, he certainly was a good match for the weather-shaper! Within a year or so, Squall started to show, and everyone began making preparations. Some started large leatherworking projects for a sling bed, others tanning hides and furs to make clothing. It was going to be a chilly winter, perhaps not the worst they'd had at Bald Mountain but when this child would be born, it would certainly be the coldest point of the year.
And about then, was when Squall pointedly asked her lifemate Apogee, "why don't you hate me?"
Apogee sighed. "I love you, Squall, you complete every part of me, you've been my friend, and you've seen me through so many things. How could I ever hate you for this?"
"But..."
"We know each other's soul names, Squall, nothing can take you from me that way. He's always been part of you, you just didn't know it until he came into adulthood!"
"But," Squall said, "when I'm ... the baby will keep you up, you don't like having interruptions."
"Oh feh." Apogee said. "I can stay in the den if it gets too bad, don't worry about that. Look." Apogee tilted her head. "I would be lying if I said that there was no ... jealousy, or anger. I was mad, at first. But... I ... A long, long time ago my best friend at Twin Peaks Recognized and had her baby just as you'll do now. And I got mad at her then. Jealous, oh I was so furious and sad."
Squall waited for this. Surely it would come, she'd be on her own again.
"And then I realized what a total idiot I had been all that time. Here it was her finest moment - she had a gorgeous baby, the father wasn't much for most of us," she whispered behind her hand, "because he was a little weird in the head you know, a bit off-ish..." Squall giggled. "But Catcry was so proud, and I realized I should be proud too. She was my friend, they weren't taking her away from me, I was getting a friend with a lovely child. Of course I was jealous... I ... I lost Tallow and my chances for Recognition, long before. She didn't even know that. You have known that since we traded our soul names."
Squall nodded. She did know, she knew from listening and feeling and sending. The love she had for her one mate Tallow - she'd had other lovers, but never like Tallow, he was gone and Squall was here. She thought the better of asking whether Catcry and her child had survived the huge ground quake at Twin Peaks. If anything would get her booted from the aerie, that would probably do it.
They hugged solidly, warmly. Apogee giggled. "You're so lumpy now," she gently prodded her lifemate's breast, and laughed when Squall grunted. When winter finally came, so did this child - his birth name would be Storm, for that was what his mop of matted hair looked like, storm clouds. The storm outside didn't abate when he was born, but it did within two hands of years - when he glared at a cloud and made it vanish with magic.
***
Seventeen turns ago
No one seriously thought that Orangepeel would really be able to sire a child, he was always so shy even after bonding his dragoness. Between him and White Eyes, they were somewhat considered children even though they were long since grown up enough. But Orangepeel and Morning Glory had always gotten along well. She was always gathering her herbs and helping watch the goats, and Orangepeel tended the animals and gathered wool. Between the two of them, they seemed so ... well, dull.
Morning Glory wasn't dull by any stretch of the imagination, at least not to look at her. She was always smiling and laughing, while Orangepeel remained somewhat sedate. But they did get along famously. And they did eventually Recognize. And perhaps they both bumbled around a little before really figuring out what to do with that event.
But his daughter was born, Orangepeel's progeny with chalk-pale skin and her mother's build. Chamomile kept her birth name, prefering it to anything that she or the other elves in the Holt could manage. It was good on her, by the time she started using any magical powers, it was to openly avoid sticker-plant toxin and to make sure that the nearby goat didn't eat the plant.
No one believes that Chamomile and her age-mate would pair up, but they enjoy each other's company because for many years, they're the only children around. That started to change, when Chamomile was two hands of years old...
***
Now
Crystalstorm took his name, well earned, and the tribe accepted it. He hadn't waited for someone to give it to him, as was more traditional. But what he was waiting for, he and his friend Chamomile would be doing together. They didn't do much playing any more, Chamomile was busy helping tend the young children a lot, while Crystalstorm had been sent up to Ainea's ice-house to learn to use his crystal shaping powers along with learning that he didn't have the ability to ice-shape. If anyone would become a self-sufficient scout and creator of things useful to the Holt, Crystalstorm was it.
Chamomile wasn't jealous of him, of course. He was bold, brash, like his mother. But he was also far more friendly than she, and kinder when it came to defending others actions during a Holt meeting. Not that Chamomile herself had had to weather anyone's devistating glares or anger: she stayed well clear of that kind of thing! If she could avoid problems, she went out of her way. She enjoyed being asked to do things, at least things she didn't have to break her back with. She didn't hunt, but then that's why she helped tend the goats. Who needed to heft a big spear or worry about arrows getting broken, when you could simply pen the goats in at night?
Chamomile did watch with interest, as Crystalstorm's mother applied a tattoo on his skin. Squall had her own with long histories behind them - having been a captive of Humans, having learned the art of skin inking from a near high-one half-breed, her tattoos of clouds and lightning and rain went perfectly with her personality as well as her powers. Crystalstorm chose a wide spot on his strong shoulder, to have a cloud bursting with shining lightning and rain tattooed.
"Doesn't it hurt?" Asked Chamomile after Squall had finished. Squall chuckled, wondering what her son's reply would be. He put up a brave front all right, but she knew what it felt like. It felt new - he had never known pain, and if she, and the tribe, could help it, he never would.
"Well, a little, but it's over muscle, you know. I think it would be worse if it was over bone," he said. They walked out, he had a bandage covering it and Squall had given him specific instructions about it. And of course, she'd also told him all about where tattoos hurt more than others.
Apogee approached her lifemate, and asked, "so, when?"
"Oh very soon, both of them will be ready. Not the younger ones, though, what do you think about them?"
They were talking of course, about the coming-of-age, the one rite of passage that all Bald Mountain elves were now required to perform. That of becoming a dragon rider.
"Oh definitely not the kids, even Hush isn't nearly old enough for that, yet." Apogee nodded, looking after the pair of younger elves. They weren't quite adults, yet. Not Chamomile anyway, but she would likely always carry a childish innocence about her - like her father. "So... when his tattoo is healed up, then?"
Squall nodded, "that would be perfect I think. Just about a hand of days - I think we can find the right place, in that time."
***
And they set about it, diligently asking the dragons to go out to the Nexus and sniff around. Were there eggs? Nests in need of bonders? And sure enough there was! Moontwin's tattoo-dragon was able to sense from his Paradise, though it resided within and without the Nexus and Moontwin at the same time, that there was a nest of half-tattoo dragons.
And right next to that, in the same dragonry, there were three nests sired by one incredibly beautiful male!
It was 168 turns after the Bald Mountain Holt had been established, just under seventy since they'd started finding dragons, and two hands of turns since the bulk of newcomers had arrived to the Holt. Some of them hadn't found their bonds, right away. Apogee and the other elders of the Holt got together and decided to send not just the pair of younger elves, but those who hadn't yet bonded and were more appropriate to these nests, to Clan Akelara for the duration. There, they would surely find something among the beautiful eggs!
To make it formal, Apogee called a big gather, up in the highest Aerie where things like this were done easily. The big open room with several entrances and a huge ledge where the dragons could squish up and watch, was often used for such things.
With the two, plus Kid who appeared about their age (or a little younger, no one knew his real age and no one asked, because he didn't know either), the group of elders and dragons decided that they would find dragons, or if not, come back and try again elsewhere. They would be full tribemembers then, they'd get their names or symbols inscribed in the big aerie wall. Each of the riders and their dragon bonds had a symbol, colorful, which made everyone remember who they were.
And now, they were to head out to this new place, Akelara, and find their own!
With Crystalstorm having his own very interesting... dragon... tattoo... well, it was both, wasn't it? Chamomile traded shy, happy looks with Kid, and made sure to keep him distracted from the somewhat frightening other candidates around.
But that passed quickly - because at the complicated, noisy hatching, Kid got to watch her as a lovely little dragonet approached!
Chamomile found herself the intense focus of a pair of teal eyes, as a brown and green hatchling reared up on her hind legs (a paw on Chamomile's leg for support) and sniffed at her.
"You!" the hatchling finally proclaimed with a nod, as she let herself fall back to all... sixes? Two pairs of front limbs, one set used as both forelegs and wings, along with her generally slinky body, labeled her as a hatchling out of Ohrazah's clutch. "I'll go with you! I'm Kerolei!"
