Hidden Beauty of the Vale

Sunning on her favourite grassy hill, Perditta suddenly heard some unfamiliar noise. It returned repeatedly and echoed in the woods below, accompanied by some lower buzzing and cries from animals she didn't recognize. It interrupted her rest and after a while gave her a headache, so she swooped down to check on it. It originated in the forest near a rock face on one of the hills, but the canopy was too thick to see anything. Circling around the area, she smelled smoke, and she felt some tingling, uneasy sensation she couldn't identify.
 - So, the forest is on fire - she thought. - And the noises are the trees dying and flames roaring - she concluded and flew away. Several cycles later, she decided to check on what was left of her favourite spot. To her amazement, although the smell of burning wood was still there, and strong, there were no traces of forest fire. Instead, right next to the hill there was a small area of fallen trees. perditta gracefully landed on top of the hill and neared the cliff to lookdown. The clearing was populated by a group of animals that moved on two hind legs only and were trying to build a kind of a lodge  from the fallen trees, just like beavers do, but making a lot more noise. The smoke was strong here, and looking down she noticed a largish cave just to the left from where she was. Ther was fire burning in front of it, but instead of burning wild everything in its path, it stayed in one place, surrounded by stones and sand. At this moment, one of the animals came out of the cave and started to feed the fire until it burned high and bright.

Several weeks passed and Perditta made it her custom to check on her new animals. She usually took advantage of her colour masking at night, but sometimes one of them looked up at the sky and noticed her, but she easily fogged their minds with pictures of big, colourful birds that the animals preferred to dragons and were not usually afraid of. The settlement grew. More trees fell and more lodges were built. But the beavers must have been very hungry, because they started to dig all the roots from the hewn forest to the bare ground. The animals worked with purpose and helped each other, clearly indicating they are more intelligent than mere cattle.

One night while watching the village, Perditta  got surprised when some of the animals touched the fire - which they did a lot - and took some burning branches with them to a newly built beaver's lodge, and entered it too. Soon enough the smoke was visible at the top, and strange cries could be heard from within. Afraid her pets will burn, and she had to admitt she grew attached to them, she panicked and landed down among the structures. Poking her triangular head through the opening, she grabbed one of the animals and tried to pull it out. Instead of finding it in agony and burning, the animals looked as if they were scared of her and started to throw stones and sticks at her. Hurt by the sharp point, she uttered a confused mental cry, let go of her rescue and escaped, barely remembering to cast a charm at them to appear as some other animal.

 

Hidden Beauty of the Vale 

Hidden Beauty of the Vale is a pink female dragon who hatched on the 24 cycle. Unfortunatelly she has some quite messed lineage and I don't know if I'll be keeping her.