Glimmer

So, how did we end up with a RainWing able to goof around with minds for hilarious hijinx, chaotic capers, crafty chicanery, and occasionally even salacious shenanigans? Well, it all began about twenty years after Queen Glory took the throne, the kingdom had known a period of unparalleled prosperity with the efforts of the RainWings and the NightWings combined. Until disaster struck! Well, that's very dramatic. The worst that happened were that a couple of NightWing homes fell into a sinkhole, but thankfully no one was harmed. Though in this tumult, one little RainWing out on patrol caught sight of a structure rising up amidst the swamp. And this is where our story really begins.

You see, edifice ejected from the murky depths was the tower of an ancient RainWing building—one from time immemorial, back when the RainWings still understood and used the means of construction. It was very old, perhaps dating back to when the RainWings as a tribe were young, even. Who knew what mysteries it could hold? Glimmer alerted the rest of her scouting party, and they flew in through the belfry together to investigate. As the majority of this old place was still largely submerged, it was fortuitous that most RainWings had developed excellent night vision. Even still, they had to squint a bit as they followed the tower down into the depths of the interior, though as they did a number of orbs lit up, illuminating a large domed room chock-full of racks of scrolls!

A cavalcade of questions and queries raced through poor Glimmer's mind. Are these animus touched objects? Did the RainWing tribe have animus dragons at some point? Is this a library of lost, forgotten RainWing knowledge?! Clearly, her fellow scouts were experiencing the same frenzied wonder and energised curiosity, cooing at the sheer beauty, majesty, and potential of what they beheld before them. "We made this..." Glimmer whispered softly, her words hushed almost in respect. "This is ours." Casting her cyan gaze around the concavity, she spied a number of archways leading off to side rooms promising even greater adventure. It was all she needed, she turned to face her fellows and exclaimed, excitedly "Let's explore!" and with that, she was gone.

A voice called after her, anxiously. "Wait!" It sounded like Fritillary, she was always a worrywart. Fritillary the Worrier! There was a pang of concern in Glimmer's heart, though tiny as it was it was quickly overwhelmed by an experience this peculiar, the sheer novelty of a RainWing library set her mind alight with wonder! She dashed into a short corridor, then into a side room that had an odd spiral engraved on a sign next to the door, accompanied by a script she hadn't seen. Could it be an ancient RainWing tongue, from before the tribes agreed on a common language? "How exciting!" Oh, there were treasures to be had here, and Glimmer liked treasures. It wasn't unusual for a RainWing to enjoy beauty, minerals that shone brilliantly, gems that coruscated with a thousand myriad colours... Still, she had a special interest in them, she sometimes even had daydreams about being the Queen—and RainWings would shower her with shiny delights.

She plucked out a few scrolls that seemed interesting, pouring over them with as much attention as a RainWing could muster she quickly realised that she wasn't able to read any of them! It was then, in a sulk, she spied a desk with a strange implement positioned over it that ebbed with an eerie glow. After a few blinks, a thought began to form. "Maybe I could read it if I had light?!" The little dragon blurted out. She spread one of the scrolls out on the desk, and—no such luck. She frowned dejectedly, longing to know the secrets that it might contain. Her eyes widened slowly as a bizarre scene unfolded before her, the words glowed with the same eerie colour and began to rearrange themselves into something she could read!

It hadn't been long since Glimmer had begun to learn to read, her efforts were at a basic level and often involved silly little stories about jungle animals that lasted but a few minutes, where most of the scroll was laden with colourful illustrations. And yet, she could read this easily! It was as though the scroll was talking to her. It felt a little... odd, a touch unsettling that gave her a small queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach, but the promise of forbidden knowledge spurred her on. "Another animus-touched object..." she cooed quietly in the dim light. The next few hours were intoxicating as Glimmer sat there and absorbed the secrets these scrolls had for her, and oh, these treasures were most certainly forbidden knowledge! It hadn't taken her long to learn that in times past, RainWings had a variety of skills they'd since forgotten. It wasn't that they'd lost them per se, but that they'd grown so very comfortable in their niche that they lost the desire to record and pass along this knowledge. And one of these secrets a little slack-jawed RainWing learned that day, was called Mesmerism.

It certainly was mesmerising! It almost seemed impossible what her tribe had been able to do. It appeared even the animus-touched objects were... "gifts" from animus dragons of other tribes whom they'd "befriended." It seemed that unless an animus dragon knew to protect themselves from RainWing mesmerism, they had no real defence against it. Especially if a number of dragons were trying to hypnotise them all at once with their scintillating wings. Indeed, this Mesmerism was one of their tribe's best kept secrets, as it permitted them strong, positive relations with other tribes. And since it appeared RainWings had never had an appreciation for violence or bloody combat, having allies who'd loyally rush to their aid was an indispensible and invaluable resource. It was so quiet that Glimmer had assumed the other dragons of her scouting wing had done the same, they'd found their own little nooks and crannies lined with cornucopias of forgotten delights. Apparently that hadn't been the case! She heard fritillary call and it was only moments before the little lime-green dragon popped her head around the door. "Glimmer! There you are! I was worried! Yes, okay, it's only been a few minutes since I last laid eyes on you, but... I've seen animus-touched objects, and this place might have traps!"

Her mind was racing, 'minutes?' She felt like she'd been reading scrolls for hours! How could that be? It was like the scrolls had just imprinted themselves upon her mind, impressionable as it admittedly is. Animus magic! These were her treasures, though, and a gateway to so many more! If Fritillary calmed down, she might get nosy. "Um! Hasn't Cocona been quiet too? You know me, I'm just gawking at all this... stuff! You know I'm safe! You'd better find her, too."

Fritillary thought for a moment, her eyes darted. And then, with a rapid nod she blurted out "Right!" and scampered off. "Whew, that was close." Glimmer intoned slowly to herself, in relief, as her wings finally relaxed. "Okay..." She set her cyan eyes on finding a little hiding hole, a nook, a crevice, a tiny crack, just about anything would do! And there, under the desk, hiding in shadow? There was a welcome hole in the clay-coating of the wall, where the stones beside had begun to erode. She plucked up the spicier scrolls about Mesmerism and eagerly stuffed them into the stubborn crevice. It wouldn't mattered if they were a little damaged—she remembered most of what was on them anyway, how could she forget? If she could just keep them out of prying eyes just for the moment... If she was very lucky, she could return for them later.

Her gaze floated up toward the desk and the unusual rock emitting that peculiar throbbing glow that had allowed her to read the scrolls. It would be too conspicuous! 'Think, Glimmer,' she thought to herself, 'a missing rock would have them examine the room to find it!' A thought blossomed in her mind, and she skittered off to check some of the other rooms, spotting Cocona perusing scrolls just as she had. The sign on the door said 'History.' Wait, she knew how to read the script, now? It made sense, she supposed. It made perfect sense that that's where Cocona would find herself, too. So where was Fritillary? It didn't matter for now—she'd find her!

It turned out that most of the rooms had desks with lights like the one in hers—and in some of the more damaged rooms, some had even gone missing. "Aha!" She yelped excitedly, spotting one especially devastated room with an intact reading orb. With a sharp tug, she snatched it out of her housing and ran as fast as she could back to the spiral room, skidding in the hall and kicking up clouds of dust. The little RainWing was so excited that she hadn't even noticed Fritillary just down the way from her. She dived into the room she now knew was titled 'Mesmerism' and tucked the stone into her little hidey-hole.

"What are you doing?" Came the familiarly nervous voice of Fritillary. "Yeowtch!" Glimmer exclaimed, banging her horns against the desk as her head shot up in surprise, startled. She kicked frantically back from out under the desk, causing the lime-green dragon to cough at the dust cloud gusting up from Glimmer's manic wriggling. "I... nothing!" The purple RainWing exclaimed, raising her wings, trying to block Fritillary's view of the desk. The dragon swayed her head from side to side on her long, slender neck, trying to look around Glimmer's wings.

"It wasn't nothing!" Fritillary exclaimed in a panic. "I saw you hiding... You put one of those weird orbs in that crack! I saw it! I did! Glimmer, we really shouldn't be messing with this stuff! We should let Deathbringer and his guard—"

Glimmer cut her frenzied yapping off right there. "Hey! Hey, it's okay! First of all? RainWings built this place, okay?? Secondly, I... really want to show you something I learned." It was all she could think to do! If she really could use Mesmerism, then maybe... maybe she could make Fritillary forget? It wasn't possible to do as much with a RainWing's mind as they had an innate degree of protection, Glimmer remembered that from one of the scrolls, but if a dragonet hadn't been properly trained? Small things like wiping their short-term memory were possible, she just had to act fast.

"What??" Fritillary asked, her heart pounding. "Show me what???"

Glimmer flexed her wings.

Well, that was then, and this is now! It'd all worked out. Fritillary had forgotten thanks to Glimmer's talents, allowing the little dragonet to sneak back and secure the scrolls. Thanks to the reading orb, she'd spent many nights committing them to memory. It'd been about six months since and Glimmer was growing up, it was a strange time for her and there were all sorts of new thoughts and feelings running through her head. Plus, she was becoming emboldened. At this point, the library was common knowledge, though there was little left on the topic of how Mesmerism worked and what it could truly do. The only scrolls she hadn't taken were those that suggested the nature of this innate ability RainWings had, and spoke about it in terms of therapy alone. Nothing like the scrolls she'd sequestered away for herself!

She'd shown a keen interest in the topic of therapy, having asked around and spoken to other dragons about the topic. It might be a nice way to practise her powers and find out what she could truly do with them! And the NightWings, oh... they presented opportunities! Yes, true, there were limits on what she might accomplish with other RainWings, but all bets were off for members of the other tribes! The scrolls certainly hadn't suggested that anyone else was capable of offering up real resistance, especially since those RainWings were going around and making lots of animus "friends." And Glimmer liked the idea of that! After all, she was a bit too strange, flighty, and shy to be especially good at making friends outside of her acquaintances, such as those in her scouting group. So her powers allowing her to have some best friends sounded like a pretty good deal!

She brokered the topic to Queen Glory, and Deathbringer, her... attache of sorts. Her case for exploring Mesmerism was founded on how it could be used to aid dragons in need, both helping other tribes and endearing them to RainWings, which Queen Glory liked; And as a means of distraction, to allow RainWing's in danger a means of escape, or to snatch success out of the jaws of defeat in a battle scenario, which Deathbringer liked. And, after much deliberation, it was agreed that it was worth investigating further and the role was granted to Glimmer to do so—though only with fully-informed participants! It was a huge win for Glimmer, it was a day of glee, merriment, and spontaneous fits of dancing. She really wanted to follow this, to see where it would lead. In truth, though, she was being a bit of a duplicitous deceiver... It was in her self-interest, she desired the kinds of doting, loyal, and caring friends she'd seen other RainWings with, perhaps if they liked her they'd even bring her gifts! She liked gifts...

Especially if they were shiny.

It took almost a year in total for everything to be put into place. This, quite admittedly, is a brisk pace for most RainWings. In this time, she'd reached maturity and she could be trusted with a big responsibility like this. A dragonet no longer, Glimmer was now a young dragon! A dragon who had a lovely, well-decorated (if-a-bit-small) hut with large, thick leaves. Those were for privacy purposes, of course! She'd need to be able to protect dragons from prying eyes should anyone come to her with therapeutic needs, rather than just as a willing participant for her to experiment on. Oh, it was a grand hut, a glorious hut! Definitely the best house in all of the rainforest! Because it was hers! A colourful sign had been hung lazily over the hut's entrance with the title "Mesmertherapist in Training" scrawled on it, and she liked that too. That's what she wanted to be! She was never going to be mean or hurt anyone, after all! It was unthinkable! It wouldn't hurt if she managed to control a few though, just a little bit, right? Just so she too could have friends? And maybe she could make some hi-larious things happen, too???

And thus began the enchanting escapades of Glimmer the Mesmertherapist! A dragon who'd most certainly live a very interesting life. But will you be part of her story? You happened to notice that she'd been hanging up notices around the rainforest, in both the RainWing and NightWing villages, asking for volunteers to help her unlock the secrets of Mesmertherapy. It sounded a little interesting, fun maybe. Your curiosity was certainly piqued—and her hut is just over yonder...