Slaine: Nest lore and miniature

Nest is character from the 2000 AD strip Sláine. She is a druidess and sometime mercenary who has aided Sláine MacRoth on several occasions and who occasionally chronicles his adventures (or urges Ukko to do so). Her father bred dragons at Worm's Head Farm in the Glamour Land, with their wings clipped so they couldn't fly. The dragons' crystal skulls and jewelled eyes, which protected them from their own flames, were harvested when they died.

After Nest's father passed away she returned from Druid College, where she had spent six years, to take over the farm. On the way there she was abducted by several angry men who believed that one of her dragons had slain their brother, Gwawl. (He had actually been killed by the Mata, a wild ice dragon.) Sláine rescued Nest and in return she let him and Ukko work on the farm.

Nest's uncle, Crug of the brawny arm, told Nest that she couldn't run the farm until she was twenty-one, and knocked her to the ground when she objected. Sláine was watching but did nothing as it was not his policy to interfere in family rows. Crug then threw Nest's poems, written on pieces of bark, into the fire.

Nest ended up being offered to the Mata as a sacrifice. Luckily, Sláine had stolen her bull-dragon, The Knucker, and was flying away on it when he heard her screaming for help. Sláine killed the Mata and took Nest away with him on The Knucker. (She'd murdered her uncle earlier.)

Together, Sláine, Nest, Ukko and a number of other adventurers fulfilled Myrddin's command to defeat the alien Cythrons who were exploiting humanity in a manner similar to that in which Nest had been exploiting her dragons. They inflicted a grievous blow on the Cythrons and their leader the Guledig by slaying their god Grimnismal. The rest of the party included Calgacus, Mogrooth, Tlachtga and the Cythron Oeahoo, captured to use as a guide after she had previously attempted to torture Nest.