Wings of Fire • Dragon of Secrets [2]

A Map of Ventus

(If you are a returning reader, you can skip this and head to the prologue)

Ventus is a large continent facing away from Pyrrhia - a three-day flight flying at the speed of a SkyWing. There are islands between Ventus and Pyrrhia that a dragon might use to rest during its journey. Ventus looks like a dragon with one arm and three wings breathing fire. It takes several days to fly from the 'snout' of Ventus to the 'tail'.

Ventus is similar to Europe, however, it stretches from the southern hemisphere to the south pole in the dragon world. Ventus has mountains, temperate, mixed, and taiga forests and a tundra as well as an ice plains biome. Beaches are few and hard to come by, seeing as the coast is made of mainly high cliffs and sea stacks. Most beaches are made of dark rocks.

The reason why Ventus is so cold is that it is going through a semi-glacial period only strong enough to affect water a few hundred kilometres around Ventus. If a dragon were to fly through the mountains they would find vast glaciers and never-melting ice. The dragon tribe that lives on Ventus has grown tolerant to the cold and breathes fire (an evolutionary trait stemming from a shared common Pyrrhian ancestor with the SkyWing).

There is only one dragon tribe that lives on Ventus known as the SwiftScale. SwiftScales were once called SwiftWings when they had a small territory around the Diamond Spray River at Pyrrhia. They were driven away by the SkyWings who wanted more territory for themselves a few years before the Scorching. No records were kept, and memory of the SwiftWings on Pyrrhia faded away. The exiled tribe found its way to Ventus, and, in a vow to separate themselves from their old home they changed their name from SwiftWings to SwiftScales.

Animals on this continent are unique. While the fauna on Pyrrhia could be considered "modern", the fauna on Ventus is mostly prehistoric (basically, all of the reject animals that never made it through Earth's testing phase live on Ventus. Sue me [please don't sue me]) and mostly from the European geographical area. Due to the simple fact that the SwiftScale was once a native Pyrrhian tribe, they are invasive species at Ventus. Native Venturian inhabitants include:

SCAVENGERS:

Many familial groups of scavengers live on Ventus. The most active are the Eagle and Raven moieties, which reside on the Little Pine Islands. It is unknown if scavengers reside in the forest as well since no SwiftScale has seen them there.

MAMMALS:

Cave bear, cave hyena, cave lion, (ice age) leopard, elasmotherium, (Irish) elk, homotherium, woolly mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, (Sardinian) lynx, (Sardinian) giant shrew, tarpan, smilodon and other sabre-toothed cats, (Pyrenean) ibex, pika, hare, giant rats, sea mink, scavengers, and the dire wolf.

BIRDS:

Pied raven, great auk, giant swan, (Ibiza) rail, eostrix, garganoaetus, gastornis, kelenken, andalgalornis, titanis, Haast('s) eagle, giant moa, argentavis, (St. Helena) petrel, dodo, (Pelagornis chilensis) Dragon Bird and Pelagornis (sandersi)

REPTILES:

(Ratas) Island lizard and (European) monitor lizard

FISH/AMPHIBIANS:

houting, Lake (Constance) whitefish, (Ivelle's) sea anemone, blackfin cisco and silver trout

INSECTS:

(Madeiran large white) hourglass butterfly, (British) large copper butterfly, scarce large blue, silver-studded blue, (Perrin's) cave beetle and (Tobias') caddisfly

PLANTS:

(Apparently, all the plants survived the ice age so, none of those, sadly XD) However:

On the shores of the largest lake on Ventus grows the oldest tree in the dragon world at 8,068 years, a supersize 700 meters tall, and 250 meters wide (at its base). It is surrounded by a few other trees near its age and size, and it is an ancient species of redwood called sequoia praegrandis (not a real thing, I made it up, but it sounds cool :). These trees at their full height can easily be seen a from a few kilometres away. Oddly, the tallest tree on the shore of the lake seems to have bulbous growths of vines under its branches and around its trunk. At night it has been reported to glow with a soft yellow light.

When the aurora meridionalis (essentially the aurora australis, however it can't be called that) is visible during early spring on Ventus the trees glow. They glow because the charged particles in the dragon's earth's atmosphere touch strips or patches of special cells on the tree's leaves and needles. This creates a display of glowing purple light that attracts insects, which then help pollinate the trees. Cones on coniferous trees glow the brightest purple. Dragons can see this colour.