CASIMIRA
dragon-shifting daughter of ashhal and ryatah
“They do sound exhausting, I’ve heard enough stories to tell me that I think I much prefer the direction the kingdoms have gone recently.” The stories that her mother told made the kingdoms sound like a chore—a place you worked rather than lived. While perhaps the idea of rising through ranks might sound grander than simply living and being happy, Casimira easily knows which she would choose if given the choice.
She would rather Tephra be seen as somewhere safe, would rather she be seen as a keeper of peace than one who wears a crown.
She wonders if perhaps the lack of magic back then played a part in the old kingdoms’ need to feel ‘prepared’ in case of an attack. While it was still good practice, being prepared for an attack was certainly much different now. It took more than just visiting other kingdoms to flesh them out, and more than friendly mock battles. It was impossible to predict that kind of magic their opponent might be harboring, and difficult, too, to help others prepare with powers that you might not be familiar with.
It was why she had finally allowed Breach to help her practice using her shifted form, so that she might utilize her skill should it ever be needed rather than hide it away.
“And likewise, Tephra will always be there for Hyaline.” The promise is returned with just as much ease, because Hyaline was as much her home as Tephra. In Tephra she had been born, had first discovered that she could shift into a dragon—had died and been reborn on this soil. But Hyaline is where she had learned to live, had learned to be comfortable in her own skin, and had learned that broken hearts don’t last forever.
She lets her blue eyes drift from her friend’s face, looking past her and into the distance, where the new shoreline that the flooding of the south had created. “I’m still not used to Tephra being an island. I’m glad Hyaline was spared damage from the flooding that the earthquake caused, though.” That would have been just her mother’s luck, it seemed, to escape death and return to a destroyed home, she can’t help but to think ruefully. “Have you met anyone from the sea kingdom? It’s almost unsettling to think another kingdom has existed all this time and none of us knew.”
@Mazikeen