She brought all of this to a halt, lurching, causing some residents to miss a step or stick themselves in the cheek instead of delivering a tasty bite of roast carrot. It wasn’t unheard of, particularly in the last few years, so no one made much of a fuss. Well, ‘no one’ would be incorrect. A few people would always just know something was up, any time the Den moved of its own accord.

In her office, fiddling with a tricky set of DNA sequences in the form of a pair of computer screens and a bit of under-her-breath cursing, Baeris Kshau took a moment after the Den settled, but didn’t so much as look away from her work. She did notice when her partner in crime and father of some of her numerous children came in.

“So, what is that?” Kalkin asked, not quite in passing, as he among the population was one of the few on edge due to the lurch of the Den. Even though his mind was shielded now from psionic activity thanks to his dragon Sixth, he could still hear something was up, deep in the Den.

With a quick tap tap tap on her keyboard to save her current works (always, always save as, just in case...) Baeris then looked in the direction his nod indicated, and grunted. “Aside from the obvious ‘filing cabinet’? I...” Her hands moved away from the keyboard.

Baeris’s eyes narrowed. Not in distress or anger, but in thought and with memories. “I recognize that, it’s... been a long time since I’ve seen it.” That grey-painted metal filing cabinet was hefty - coming up to her shoulder, her fully extended arm’s length deep, and almost as wide across as her shoulders themselves too. Fit for larger documents, apparently.

And fit to bursting. She cautiously approached the filing cabinet as if it would suddenly come to life - or cease to exist. Examined it, noting that the third drawer down was a little ajar. As she did so, she remembered the feeling of trying to wrench it open when it would stick; why it was ajar, she’d never known or had long since forgotten. Maybe it had always been that way. Perhaps it was the weight of the files within it, because that third down drawer was positively stuffed full. Just like the Den.

Her long fingers dwelled on the slightly-rusty corner of it. Her thumb drew down along the not-quite-centered top drawer. Motionless except for the faint tilt to her head when she looked at the old circular stains where obviously a bottle or mug had been left too long and took paint with it when it was lifted up.

Kalkin left her alone after a few moments. He would be back, but for now she needed a little time alone to process what she was seeing. And what she saw was hand-written notes, scraps of torn out notebook pages, printed-out computer files, reams of them. All sorted into manila or red and green or brown and white folders; or stuck into colorfully-decorated school work folders; half-dissolved pee-chee workbooks with fanciful additions drawn over the sports players printed on them. Even a few plastic accordion envelopes with string-tied closures.

The realization that every single one of these pieces of paper represented a dragon, a flitter, a gryphon, perhaps even inanimate objects or strange concepts gently washed over her. Baeris didn’t have the same sensory overload that Kalkin did, but she didn’t need super-hearing to know that every single one of them was here with her in the Healing Den.

“All of these, they’ve - come back? Not forever, they can’t possibly all remain here.” She muttered, quietly. “I thought we’d seen the last of some of these lines ages ago, I don’t even recognize you,” each page had images, a few lines of text, and there were quite a few folders.

Finally she stood, stretched. She’d been putting folder after folder around herself on the floor, all but painting herself into the corner with them.

Striker cheeped at her from his little perch over the doorway.

“No I’m not making a nest with these and no you cannot make a nest of them either!” She finally smiled and patted her shoulder. The big blue flit jumped and didn’t even have to extend his wings to land properly where he always felt the best: right next to her ear, tail curled around her neck (not tightly!). He could view everything with ease, and apparently also had faint memories of these things. He sniffed at the air, eager to get those old ‘deliver the invites’ muscles pumping again.

It was Dulath who queried mentally, there are definitely a lot of them... Her mental image was pretty impressive.

“I didn’t even know we had that much space here,” Baeris admitted, and she’d seen a lot of dragons come through. She glanced through the window from her office, blinked a couple times, and then had to head down to the hatching cavern below just to make sure. That cavern usually hosted hatchlings and eggs, not full grown and highly varied adults. It was loud - louder than a hatching with everyone attending, but a different kind of noise; dragons that spoke, dragons that hissed and bellowed, dragons whose wings rustled and thudding steps shook the place, dragons whose powers rang clearly in chiming or whistling tones.

A few of them caught her eye specifically: they had feathered wings and antlers, and a few of them were looking right at her as she entered the large cavern. Though a pair of them seemed rather out of place, dark and angular, and with no feathers on their leathery wings. So the team was slightly different than she... remembered.

The deer stood elegantly, some grooming themselves, others nuzzling old friends thought long-lost. And Baeris realized just how this had happened. She remembered some notes in a specific pile still sitting upstairs in the office. Nodding deeply, “a sleigh team,” she sighed, “that’s why it was so ... efficient at gathering and distributing. Of course.”

The Tree hasn’t even grown yet, Dulath commented, idly in the background of Baeris’s mind the dragon’s curiosity at this fact started the woman’s ‘holiday drive’ instinct up again.

“Oh. The ... Tree.” She whispered, as if mentioning it would summon the thing. There was that one year it was so big you had to be a dragon to fly to the top of it. Others, it was more diminutive. She wondered... how would it look this time around? At this rate, it would be a whole grove.

And with that, a whole grove of pine trees sprouted in the hatching chamber.

It wasn’t just there. It was everywhere in the Den. From the Parking Lot framed with them, to the strip mall (where Open All Nite was just getting ready to reopen, what would those aliens think about this?), to...

“Baeris, there’s a tree in the laundry room!” “Why is there a sapling in the library?” “We’ll never get the needles out of the carpet in the theater!”

All of these things chimed in thanks to the intercom and speakers. She headed back into her office to get a grip on things there.

Everywhere at once, trees had popped into existence around the Den’s entire environment. Top to bottom - even down where the old Hydra lair was, though what had become of those hybrids... Baeris did not know and didn’t want to know. They weren’t here any more, and that had freed up quite a lot of the lower water-filtration levels and power caverns.

They were packed with holiday and winter dragons now, though. And pine trees. The needles wouldn’t start dropping until later, Baeris knew better than to imagine they were half-dead like the ones often dragged into people’s homes on Earth. They would clean themselves up. Whether she was just wishfully-thinking and hoping that this would make that thought true, who knew.

The trees however seemed to sequester groups now. Some of the trees were Douglas Fir, others were Balsams, others Scotch Pines, White Spruces. The Noble Fir that grew largest rested around gatherings of Whorlings and creatures that all seemed to have manifested one-specific-year. She spotted the Scotch Pines on a video feed where a similar gathering of once-familiar dragons were starting to romp in the power room. Those up in the break room were fewer and farther between.

The parking lot's grove was abruptly interrupted by the newest, single, tree, which stood carefully, proudly, nowhere near as big as that one time, but definitely not a small one - that, she realized, was The Tree. All these others, where had they come from? She knew. Of course. They were the trees from prior events, they'd grown and spread like trees did. And now they were back, with their grown 'presents'. A few small broken ornaments from years past clinked and cluttered around under each of the grove's main trees. Remnants, half-remembered, dinged up, but still there.

Baeris grunted. “Huh, so that’s how this is going to go, then?”

Technical Information:

Assembled by Shard/Zekiran in 2022-2023 in reality. There is not a clear cutoff date but I would prefer to have images ready for distribution by mid-February 2023, to possibly be handed out 'just after the Flurry' drops. I will request people check over the abandoned list before opening the request line for them - in case there are folks who want to claim images they created, or reserve for some specific reason - if there are such requests I will follow those, hand off those images or set them aside as needed, and REMOVE them from the 'available' list so there is no confusion about who may be adopted. Once people have had the opportunity to send requests in for both new or reclaimed dragons, I will arrange pages for pickup. It's highly unlikely that all of the dragons will be adopted (at least - there are a zillion whorlings still unclaimed so I don't expect to empty them out) but still I will be limiting a couple years worth to one-per as needed. I may also hand out randoms from those years if requested and they still are unclaimed!

Claim info and request form will go up AFTER removals or holds has been completed.

1.26.23 Past Status of event - CHECK ABANDONED LIST FOR YOUR IMAGES / REQUEST HOLDS- time's up, no holds/changes requested, on to the next phase
2.2.23 Current Status - I will remove/hold; I will open requests; STILL TAKING NEW IMAGES for flis and dragons/whatever! Check below for format!
**.**.23 Future Status - (( Assign new/reclaim + make pages )) (( Release! ))

In-Character Timeline of This Event:

This event takes place in Rookery Year 14 - one ‘year' after the Checkerboard Ball occurs for the hosts of that event (any of Shard's) of 2021/2022. However, the dragons themselves may be ‘from' upwards of 20 years before that - it's entirely up to the new owners to decide whether theirs came forward in time, or had been lost in limbo for that amount to get here-and-now. Also up to you, whether your characters or sponsors are from the same ‘eras' as these dragons, or if they're new on the scene. That's entirely up to the new owners. (Suggestion: those which were never picked up / put online might have been in limbo, while others whose former owners vanished might have gone the long way. Whatever they get now is better than either option had before.)

Be aware though that as the show runner for it, Baeris and company have had 1 ‘full' set of seasons between the Ball and now, and is after other people's events (which may or may not have gone out yet in real life, such as the Flurry - the Winter Gather will occur after the Flurry either way). In reality this doesn't much matter, but for the sake of any story-writing, the order of events is Ball > Flurry > Winter Gather.

Trades and Exchanges:

This year as a new feature I will be allowing post-giveaway TRADING - if you aren't feeling it with a dragon or pet, say so! And if people respond I'll reassign it to their new owner. I want these to be in happy homes! As long as everyone agrees and all requiremets if any are met, I will simply redo the records to show their new ownership. Since I'm going to be working this as a half-giveaway and half-claim there shouldn't need to be too much of this, but we'll see!

New 2023 Dragons:

I will EAGERLY accept dragons, pets, whatever you'd like to give me to hand out first and foremost. These can be any breed, type, with or without requirements - it's all up to you. The Winter theme is encouraged but not necessarily required, though 'gift' and 'regift' or similar themes might also be fun. You don't have to send in anything to participate. You may ask for them to only be sent one-per-person, or multiples, or even 'okay to give one back to artist' if you want one of them (if you haven't held one back or created one for yourself).

Formatting:

Please try (not a demand, I can also rename gently to keep my own records clear if needed) to name images with:
*Your username (or abbreviation that is distinctly yours) plus
*2023 or some variant of Winter Gather, separated by - (a hyphen)
*whatever other designation you'd want on them (a number, a name, etc).
Also maybe try and keep the full dragon images to a maximum size between say 500px and 1200px wide but if there are larger versions say they are available for those who desire huge ones!

So, for any I might make it would look like shard2023wg-xyzdragon1.png

If there is information about their parentage, their size and breed, requirements and abilities, please include it in a txt or doc format, and/or online on a page that won't vanish, and a link where you want people to refer back to.

The flitters will be on a similar click and randomize page as Dray made for the 2020-21 gathers! As they come in, I will add them to it.

Current Participants with New items last updated 5.2.23:

WREClaimation:

Since a great many people over the last 20 years in real life have vanished, never posted their Winter Gather dragons, or actively have returned but okay'd their re-release into the wild, I've gone through every single Winter Gather that I've run - from 2003 onwards - and collected the dragons and what information there is for them from any that were never posted or released. I will be redistriubuting them in a semi-request format, in that you will all be able to view all of the entries (in fact ALL of the winter gather pages) and assign requests for them individually. You may also request to not recieve reclaims at all, instead limiting yourself to the newcomers.

If you CREATED a dragon that these users abandoned, you may request that it either go to you, or be specifically reserved for someone, or not be handed out at all (to be forever in the void apparently) that's fine, just tell me. I will need to know however, in advance of actually assigning the reclaims. Anything after that point, I cannot guarantee. If you're okay with AU duplicates that's ideal, if not we'll try and figure out what to do. But again anything that's left unsaid equates to permission in this event. I handed them all out originally, and yeah I'm using that conceit to hand them out again. If you are uncomfortable about receiving a reclaim, please specifically say so when the event is accepting requests.

There are specific limitations on quantities basically 'per year' since the original 2003 event reclaims have only 14 available. Other years have anywhere between 24 and 50 of them! MANY of these are whorlings. I did do the one reclaim and giveaway in the Discord for 2009's but there are further reclaims from that era as well which will be included.

The list of individual owner reclaims and reasons is below. NOTE that if you see YOUR name on the list and want to make sure that your dragons aren't reclaimed - put them up, it's been between 10 and 20 years already I think it's pretty fair that I would have 'mistakenly' put them on the list. Once I know they're still desired and showing up somewhere, they will be removed from the list. Likewise if there are dragons that you have sitting around and don't actually want from any of the listed Winter Gather events, tell me and I will post those in their proper year. Alternately if you know that a user on this list is still around, before I reassign - and not after - if they put their dragons up I'll yank em from the listing. I have also already sent out or reserved some of them for either myself or specific recipients, so the final list will not necessarily include those, but if they do include dragons from those individuals haul - either they're an AU (if they get the dragon up) or they're too little too late and the new owner gets priority with a site that's functional.

Also if someone is on the Discord UNDER A DIFFERENT NAME please freakin stand up with your old weyr name. Some folks went through 2 or 3 different names along the way and I'm sorry I cannot keep all of them straight particularly not if I didn't know who it was in the first place 15 years ago... But again: if your name's on this list and your dragons aren't or weren't visible, they need to be paged as above. ** No changes appear necessary, off we go! **

Former Owner List

Dragons Available (By Year) now open 2.2.23

Linked either by the year for the single-page pickups (so long ago) or the page with breakdowns otherwise. Since these are very old, I don't expect much information to exist but if you do know of any of the dragons which appeared anywhere else such as in mating flights or existing still-paged locations, please tell me. Again, if you made a dragon which is in this list, and want it for yourself or to suggest a person specifically to give it to, please TELL me before I finish up.

REQUEST PAGE IS OPEN click here!