Khisanth "Sky"

Description:The dragon who calls herself Sky is just over a decade old, but has been from coast to coast on a continent where most people don't go more than 50 miles from their homes in their entire lives. She was hatchedin a hot, dry, dusty cave in what used to be Nevada almost twelve years ago. The rest of her clutchmates were either already gone- some of the other eggs were broken- or dead- most of the other eggs were brittle, desiccated husks.

Along with her mother tongue, she knew her name the moment she was born, and how to fly. Armed with these meager resources, the young dragon set off into the world. A very interesting world, she was to find. The first thing the young dragon did was to find something to eat- a pack of ferocious grig leapers who had the misfortune to think a small dragon was a vulnerable dragon- then she flew away.

To the west, she found an uninhabited coast, but dozens of hidden, buried and lost places. Dark places that hadn't seen a living being for centuries, deep caves full of monsters, facilities sunk in hundreds of feet of water- all this and more. No rock could withstand her digging, no chasm was too deep for her to dive, no peak was too high for her to land on.

And almost everyplace she went, no matter how remote, she saw signs that this strange race- humanity- had been there first, from the deepest, darkest caves to the depths of the ocean to the peaks of great mountains. They had come and they had built and then they had disappeared.

What had happened to these creatures? It was two years before she met her first human. She was almost convinced that they were extinct, that the entire land was full of monsters and d-bees. The dragon became obsessed with the things; they were so clever, and many of their creations had lasted through the long centuries to reach her.

The young dragon became a self-taught expert on the race and their creations. She read books and later electronic filesthat told her about their history, read stories made by and about them, read their science, literature, and poetry, watched entertainments and documentaries stored on ancient computer drives in deep, long lost facilities.

She was shocked when she finally met her first human, and a little disappointed. But her expectations had been so high- to her humans were Shakespeare, Einstein, Kissinger, Picasso. They were poets, scientists, authors, actors, generals. The wilderness scout who confused her for a monster and attacked her was not what she was expecting.

But after biting the little monkey's gun in half, taking his knife, and coiling him in her long tail, they had a good talk. After a while she was even able to let him go, and she peppered him with questions- most of which the woodsman couldn't answer. But he told her that there were still civilized men to the east, and she went, even ferrying him to the nearest outpost where he could re-equip himself.

Sky didn't find much of civilization to her liking. Most of the CS occupied middle country was hostile to her, with those yappy littledog-boys and their big, heavily armed friends. Smaller, less 'civilized' areas are more to her liking, or large, more inclusive places, like the psychic enclave of Psyscape or the towns of Tolkeen.

Once she started east she decided to keep going, though, following her nose to more buried treasure troves of information on the men who had lived here before. She is fascinated with the clever ways they entertained themselves, on the way they saw the universe, and still wonders at the truth of the Coming of the Rifts.

She is a rootless wanderer, always searching for something interesting to catch her eye. When she finds something she wants to have or some bit of lost lore, though, Sky knows how to focus. Modern humans are interesting, as is magic, of course- her birthright as a dragon- but what really interests her is the lost lore of the Time Before the Rifts.