Thanasis Western Fringes
The Fringes, they called them. The relatively uninhabited lands on the very edges of the peninsula that made up Thanasis. These were primarily rocky, lifeless beaches beyond the reach of the mountains that sheltered the city-state, but there were still pockets of life among the outcrops. Leovold would never understand it, but people did in fact live out here, and for some ungodly reason they were still considered to be under the protection of Thanasis proper. Border patrols were important as a regular task regardless, but the existence of these scattered Thanasian villages meant that the patrols were a frequent necessity, and one that required a far more complex route than it had any right to. It wasn't as though the Fringe villages didn't serve a purpose, either; a large amount of Thanasis' food supply came straight from the sea, and the majority of those that lived in the Fringes were themselves fishers. Leo just had no idea why something so important was left up to poorly protected fishing hamlets and plebeians instead of being handled first and foremost by, say, a minor noble house with the funding and military power to keep an operation running safely and smoothly.
Instead, regular fly-overs were considered to be a duty shared by the Thanasian military and the Scaleguard, something that Leovold felt was wholly beneath the latter of the two groups. The Scaleguard were, after all, the elite, the guardians of the royal family, the very pictures of Thanasian glory. Patrol duty was so...tediously trivial.
Of course, all of that was out the window now. Leovold and the few others that had been selected to accompany the current dragonflight had been called to investigate what once had been simple rumors. At first, there were mere sightings, tales of strange, hulking creatures that resembled only the most tired of children's stories. Rumors gave way to evidence; missing livestock and destroyed fishing barges and docks became commonplace. Then, the disappearances arose. Missing Thanasian citizens and mangled corpses represented a potential threat that Thanasis could no longer ignore, even if rare and only among the Fringes.
Atop the back of his faithful bondmate, Iralux, Leovold surveyed the land below him, not too distant waves crashing against the rocky shoreline in the afternoon sun. The lord-apparent raised a hand to call to his fellow riders above the din of the wind.
"Spot anything strange yet?"
