Cloudscraper

Cloudscraper was a fine avian whom many an avian lass adored. He did not concern himself with the world of rocks, forests, or seas, but only the beauty of the sky. His golden and red wings were the splendor of Airia gossip and tales. He was popular, envied, and respected. It was not, however, until he became artistically insane, that he became legend.

As the story goes, Cloudscraper, in the middle of his life, was soaring higher, higher than ever before, piercing the clouds until all that remained in heaven were the dim pink of the sky and the vague lines of Nercuros and Dyphreties. The first time he saw the ocean of clouds, he saw only a canvas -- a blank, unused canvas. And while the world below warred and fought and bled, he was above, dancing happily through the weather chants of the rangers, through the angered bolts of lightning of the elementals, through the meteors of the battlemages; he never heard the screams of civilians during a raid, he never heard the conversations whispered over tea, and he never heard the sly deals of Syndicates and their clients.

All while he could fly higher than any faerie, higher than any demon, higher than any avian, he did not put his eyes on the naked crystalline glow of Lysenties, the peaks of the Dragon's teeth, nor even the towers of Savant. His ambition was to sculpt the clouds themselves, to swirl them in his mesh of gusts and dives. He thought of every shape he could, and when he made them, he returned to Mount Khorandain's spire, Airia, to tell his tales.

But his satisfaction of the art was short lived. By the time he pointed his finger to the shapes, they had blown away, and no one could distinguish them but him. "Alas, I see only the smoke of burning trees rising out of Eilum", said some. "Alas, I see only the black vortexes of hate rippling above the Nexus fortresses". Cloudscraper could not cope with this! He could not stop the flow of wind and he could not make his audience see! As much as he tried to put the beautiful images his mind into solid form on his canvas, nothing remained long enough for him to experience the pride of completion.

And still he remains above the clouds -- if e're you see a shape in those clouds, know that it is likely he that makes it, and weeps for it as it blows into formless strands of vapor.