Taking up the Mantle
Sasaldier didn’t really intend to become the clan’s treasurer. He liked the coins; they were shiny and glittery, just like him, and at first he simply started to hoard them, sometimes going so far as to steal them from Arandar and Lafiris as they headed out to trade, only to tuck the cold treasure under him, feel it’s smooth shiny surface against his skin.
He wasn’t sure who ratted him out - probably Von, or Sapphire, the self-named morality compasses of the group - but somewhere down the line, other dragons actively started giving him the treasure.
He wasn’t upset about it, really. If they wanted to give him a gift, well, who was he to stop them? But he started to feel a bit bad about it when even the hatchlings would toddle proudly up to him and nudge coins and gems across with their noses and their stubby claws.
Not that he refused them, of course. Couldn’t be rude, could he?
Then, eventually, there came a day when a group of hatchlings started to hover nervously about him. They shifted their wings and twisted their elegant necks - skydancers, all. Ramoth and Mnementh’s latest brood, he noted - until eventually he sighed and asked them what they wanted, exactly.
“We were wondering, Sas- um, sir, if we could... borrow some of your money?”
She said it so quietly that by the end it had become an unintelligible squeak, but he heard it, just about.
Apparently, a game had gotten out of hand, and they had ruined their brother’s favourite toy: a little jackalope that Styrkur had given him before he... Before he’d left. The hatchling was apparently distraught, and although he said it was alright, that he didn’t blame them and it was ‘just a toy’, he hadn’t stopped crying since.
“We wanted to see if we could get him a new one,” the apparent ringleader explained, high voice still quivering with nerves. “We tried to make one ourselves, but we... Um.”
“It’s harder than it looks”, her brother finished.
It would be so easy to say no, Sasaldier mused. He was so much bigger than them, he could probably send them packing with a well-timed glare or two, but...
Truthfully, he’d seen their absent fourth, lurking about the lair. A pretty little thing, all dappled and golden, like his mother, and once just as vibrant. Now he always seemed so miserable.
It wasn’t a difficult decision to make.
He counted up his money and handed the right amount carefully - with strict instructions - to Lux, the ringleader.
That evening, Kandofri had smiled for the first time in days, radiating joy like a small sun, clutching tight to his new toy.
The next time someone asked Sas for money - for some gear or other that Andele simply could not do without - he started making lists.
And that was how it began.















