SSO Winter Prompts 2020

27. Adventurer (Stonegrounds)

With a name like "Stoneground" you would expect a serious, steadfast, and overall sedentary person. If you asked a Stoneground where the name came from they would shrug or spout a story a relative told them about a seven times great ancestor that did something with stones or the ground. Usually the story behind the name was ironic or metaphorical because Stonegrounds weren't happy with a stationary life. The call to adventure and exploration was always there, an ever present siren song for the family.

For Nic Stoneground, magic and ice held the greatest mysteries to discover. It led him to the Keepers of Aideen, to Evergray, and eventually to the Valley of the Hidden Dinosaur in a hot air balloon. It wasn't always as wonderful or easy as he hoped. Finding out magic was real, honestly and truly real and not a childlike Santa is Real type of magic, was an adventure in itself, and more dangerous than he could have imagined. Going into an eternal tundra with perpetual storms in a hot air balloon was as dangerous as expected. Thankfully friends had found him before a frigid death did, and with a base set up he continued his expedition. With luck, he'd find what was leaving mysterious tracks in the snow and make personal contact with the Kallters, not just second hand through others.

Mica Stoneground, despite Nic being the one chasing magic, was somehow the more fantastical one by exploring the skys. Rather than aiming for the stars as an astronaut, she had become an aeronaut instead, traveling in a hot air balloon like her uncle but landing in the clouds rather than snow. She knew in her heart that somewhere between the stratosphere and thermosphere was a whole world to be explored. She just had to get closer to it, somehow. No matter how long it took, or what she had to do, she would find the kingdom in the clouds because she was a Stoneground, and Stonegrounds were adventurers.