[center][b][i][color=f26522]Taraah - A mountain not so far from the Inn[/color][/i][/b][/center]
The Claw was a supposedly inactive volcano. There was no eruption in hundreds of years, however if you asked the locals, the older ones would claim that often the mountain would spew fire and the ground would quake. Not in the recent years though. There would be talk of a monster living beneath the mountain - ancient by their standards that would rain fire on the land if they angered it. Others however would tell you stories of a spirit of the volcano that protected the local villages form bandit raids. And the more educated folk would simply write both of the theories off as simple exaggeration of what were most surely natural disasters and accidental fires.

Only a few would have ever seen the truth, and they would not tell of it - no one would believe them. A monster was an ambiguous term, so was a mountain spirit. But who has ever seen a dragon? They were myths, fairy tales told to children.

But today, the world would see the truth once more.

An amber eye slowly opened in a cave deep beneath the Claw. For the first time in ten years it took in the sight of piled up gold and gemstones. The other eye popped open as sunlight shone over it's lid from the crevice leading into the mountain's innards. Beneath the earth a dragoness awoke.

Raising on her legs, Taraah stretched and shook off the numbness form her body. Has it been a decade already? She felt like she could sleep another one - was she getting old? It couldn't have been. She was timeless! But the world has likely changed, just as it did through her previous slumbers. Her still idle mind wondered to the last memories she had before falling into her magical sleep, and the root of one of her wings ached a little.

She recalled a promise to a kind fool. Yes, perhaps that was where her first steps should take her. Be rid of her debts so she could soar through the skies as she saw fit. A yawn escaped her lips, although a lesser being would be forgiven for mistaking it for a terrifying roar.

As she walked towards the mouth of the cave Taraah's stomach let out a growl of it's own and the idea of visiting the Inn was even more appealing. After all, how better to start the next fifty years than on a fine home cooked meal?

Standing in the full sunlight, the dragoness let her lungs bellow the fresh morning air a few times before taking a running leap into the air, followed by the beating of her wings.

It felt reinvigorating to fly through the clouds and out on the sun, the moisture form the air condensing on her scales and turning her into a magnificent glittering jewel. She was the most beautiful creature in the world and the gods in the skies should avert their gaze lest their eyes be burned by her radiant beauty!

The dragoness stretched mid-air, falling into a dive before performing several feats of acrobatics for the joy of it, uncaring of her shadow passing over the sparse villages on the land below and scaring the souls out of the peasants. Before long she picked up a course and headed towards her desired destination.

[hr]
Her memories true, it was but a half an hour flight to reach the familiar building. Taraah made a couple of fly-bys at high altitude before soaring down. She took in a deep breath of the thickening air and bellowed out a deafening roar that would no doubt alert everyone on the ground not yet aware of her magnificent presence.

With a final beat of her wings she rose twenty meters above the ground before folding them and landing hard on the ground making it shake a little. Raising herself to her full height, Taraah waited with interest to see how would the patrons react to her presence.