The First Exaltations (Clan Adeptica) (Story)

=== The Chronicles of Clan Adeptica ===
==== Chapter 11: The First Exaltations ====
September 6, 2015
After Adeptica and Devon's second clutch had hatched, and all three of the Lia sisters had had nests of their own, word spread throughout the realms of Sornieth that the Arcane military was making an offensive push to claim more territory from Plague. For a time, the Arcane territories saw many dragons of many elements passing through their lands to join the Arcanist's forces. The leaders of Clan Adeptica were happy to open their lair to these travelers, offering shelter, rest, food, and battle training. The visitors trained with Lilia and Cerulia, or with Devon and Talia, during the day, and sat around the fire with the rest of the clan in the evenings, sharing a meal and telling stories.
The hatchlings of the clan, Devon and Adeptica's grandchildren, listened to the visitors' tales of great battles and glorious victories they had heard or read about, and were enthralled. The visitors' enthusiasm for the cause of the Arcanist spread throughout the clan's third generation, and many of them said that they wanted to go and join the cause themselves. Adeptica was overjoyed to hear this; this was one of the reasons she had wanted to have a large family. Sending her descendants off to join the ranks of the Arcanist was her way of serving his cause and honoring him.
Devon and the Lia sisters encouraged the hatchlings to wait until they were full-grown, so they could receive elementary battle training from their mothers and grandfather before they left. They all agreed to do so. All too soon, Shadowspell and Lilia's first four children - Ivy, Cassiopeia, Eridanus, and Pinot - were ready to leave home, along with two of the travelers.
Adeptica insisted that no one, no matter what breed, should have to undertake the journey to the Observatory without a good meal. The clan had an early dinner that day, so that the exaltees would be able to fly from the lair to their destination before nightfall. During the meal, Magatama sensed that this was a serious and important moment for the clan, and suggested that they should do something to make it harder to forget this day, or the family members who would be leaving them. He thought that someone should draw or write something about this day, but he said that he couldn't do it himself. He showed the clan his furry, padded, thick-clawed, stubby-toed Tundra paws - they were made for digging and cultivating, not for manipulating fine tools.
Peaseblossom, his younger sister-in-law from the clan founders' second clutch, agreed that they needed a way to remember the exalted, and volunteered to do the work that needed to be done. She went and got a stack of parchment, ink, and a quill, and sketched portraits of all four of her nieces and nephews, as well as the two visitors. She wrote their names above their portraits in large, clear, dramatic letters, and then signed her own name at the bottom, in smaller script. The rest of the clan said she was very good at drawing, and that her sketches were the perfect way to remember the clan members who were leaving.
After the meal, the exaltees said their farewells to their relatives and friends, handed over their individual treasure hoards, and took off into the setting sun. Those who remained watched them go for as long as they could. As high an honor as it was, they couldn't help but miss the exaltees. Once they had vanished into the distance, Shadowspell and Peaseblossom took the six sketches and stuck them to the wall of the cave with tree sap.
These sketches were the beginning of an art gallery that grew, one sheet of parchment at a time, until it covered the hallway from floor to ceiling and began to stretch down its length. It became a tradition within Clan Adeptica for there to be a feast every time someone was to leave the lair to be exalted, during which Peaseblossom would draw a portrait of the exaltee, and Shadowspell would hang it on the cave wall with the others. Two of the portraits that were added to the gallery early on were of Talia and Jareth's daughter, Selina, and Cerulia and Magatama's son, Malachite. Each of the two Guardian sisters had laid two-egg nests that had hatched into one son and one daughter, and in each case, one sibling had decided to go and join the Arcanist's service, while the other had decided to stay at home. The siblings had parted ways amicably in both cases, but while one of the siblings who had remained behind was a Tundra, the other was a Guardian. Heath knew his sister had been trained well and would be fine out in the world on her own, but he was still sorry to see her leave, because he had seen himself as her protector. He felt lost and purposeless without someone, or something, to protect. His grandfather, Devon, told him that that was only natural, and that now would be a good time for him to leave on his Search. Heath did so... but that is another story, and will be told another time.
Unlike her two nestmates, Lilia had had no children who had chosen to stay at home. She and Shadowspell had a second nest fairly soon after the first. This time, they had only two offspring, one of whom did stay at home - along with one of the trainees who was passing through the lair. Spica and BlueCornMoon, a traveler from the Tangled Wood, fell in love with each other and became mates.
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