Nada

She is of a long lineage. Most of the dragons on her father's side have been exalted. Her great grandmother on her mother's side is a great light warrior known for her speed and strength. Through the generations there have been many changes in flights, but for her, the only home she knew was with her sister and parents in The Tangled Wood.
That was until the day she and her sister was taken from their parents before they were even named. This one was bought into the plague flight.

Once she was taken into this new family she grew very passive. Her outbursts were few and kept very secret. She was afraid of this new family. She saw the plague dragons to be more savage then they saw themselves. The three brothers especially the oldest one, Makā'ī Kṣētra, avoided her. They all left her alone for the most part. She hated the smell, the food, the general ferocity the land wrought upon her. She felt isolated. At least her parents left her the parting gift of a tan-colored bow, but she was too small to wear it. She puts up a front of contempt and laziness as a barrier between her and the others to protect herself. She wanted a name from her native people, so she named herself нада which means Hope. Its pronounced "nada", and the other family interprets that to mean Nothingness. The boys called her their word for Nothing sometimes- કંઇ (pronounced Kaṁi). She didn't think they were being rude on purpose but it still hurt. She was more educated on other peoples though, coming from such a long and diverse line, and she knows that in one language Kami means God. The thought makes her smile.

Nada eats insects and meat, but the insects disgust her new family. The meat from the plague lands disgust her, so she eats insects as often as possible in passive aggressive retaliation.

---

Now that she is big enough for her ribbon she wears it on her tail with pride. She has learned of the arranged mateship between herself and Pitānō Vākya. She thinks to herself, at least he isn't as much of a brute as his younger brother. He's grown much nicer to her as a young adult, obviously making up for the time he spent bullying her under the peer pressure of Candra Putra.
She still spends most of her time laying around and she never truly got out of her loneliness funk. Sitting in one place all the time throughout her childhood, she has grown a great fascination of the ground. She stares at it all the time, picking out each tiny detail. She loves the way the ants crawl and the dry cracks in the dirt. She loves seeing the things like old scales and tiny bones in the ground. Nada sometimes digs in the ground to find more of its wonders and has happened to find an assortment of interesting treasures. Some pretty stones, a couple broken bits of glass, and a long sharp tooth are a few of many. One day she awoke and moved a little further to sit down for the day, her previous area exhausted of entertainment. While sitting down she felt the ground as very bumpy, which was both promising for good finds and annoyingly uncomfortable. She shifted her weight back and forth but could find no good position, so instead she went to work on removing whatever was lodged in the ground beneath her. She scratched at the dry plague-waste dirt, flakes of the stuff embedding beneath her claws. Nada uncovered a pulsating fire egg- its shell was cracked with red rivulets that reminded her of lava seeping out of the crust of the earth. She continued to unearth the egg until finally it lie beside her.


Buried in the dirt. In the Plague Flight. A fire egg. The chances of that happening were next to none, but here she was- and here it was. The unhatched fire egg was glowing with life and she knew hatching it could change fer future forever. For a long time she did nothing. She set it aside and played with a pile of sand, letting the miniscule rocks slide between her fingers and picking through the tiny grains to look at each one's color and shape. She tried counting the ones sitting in her palm, but even for her keen eyes it was difficult and she gave up her distractions. This could actually change everything for her.
She suddenly realized how bland her existence had been up until this point. She had no friends, no hobbies. Her personality consisted of snarky one-liners and a façade of indifference to everything and she had a bad superiority complex. Nada was isolated for nearly her entire life. Her days were spent by scavenging for useless junk around the den. Ever since she refused to supplement her insect diet with real meat, her body has been wasting away. This was something she never noticed or thought about until this egg. This little thing that has invaded her formerly-stagnant thoughts with a passion that was eating her up inside.
It was called Hope.

She decided to hatch the egg. The drackling broke open it's shell with a mighty push, its egg-tooth falling off in the goop around it. Nada looked at the strange little thing with curiosity. It opened its eyes up at her and they stared at each other. He was male- his eyes orange with the fire inside him, and his body was pink and platinum. His wings were denim blue. Many emotions went through Nada at once, and so unused to feeling any emotion at all Nada became overwhelmed and choked on tears. He had to have a name at once. She wanted to name him in her mother tongue, and so she called him Ljubav, which simply means "love".

All of her thoughts were jumbled together, but the thing that stood out to her the most was fear. Fear for her adopted child and fear for herself. What would they do to her when she returned? What would they do to Ljubav? Plague dragons are savage. She was caring for a child that was not bred of Pitānō Vākya, which could only enrage Prathama Pitā. She knew how he placed his son on a pedestal. He would hurt her. He would sacrifice her new hatchling to the gods. And what would her would-be mate think? Would she disgust him? Would he lose respect for her? Candra Putra. He would hurt her son too. He would kill him without even the honor of an exalted death.

She did not go home that night. She stayed out in the desert coddling this new baby boy. Maybe the Plague dragons would not mind if she had the egg- she still had 10 more weeks before she'd be old enough to breed anyway. By that time, Ljubav should be old enough to fend for himself. She recalled that the Guardian breed was relatively fast-growing. She wanted a lot of things for him- one of which was to show him his Flight's heritage, just as her real parents tried to do before she was taken away. She had forgotten most of her own culture, a fact that ached deep inside her. Nada wasn't going to let Ljubav surrender to the same fate.

-

Her baby had grown so fast... He was much bigger then her. He was happy and strong and free- everything she dreamed for him. But there was one thing that kept nagging at him, she noticed. Then he confronted her. He told her that he wanted her to stop hiding from birds in the sky and shadows on the ground. Ljubav led her to the coliseum and said "Let us fight side-by-side! And then you will regain your courage!" Her son was so excited that his plan would work, how could she refuse that look in his eye? Although massive as a mountain he was still just as playful as a hatchling. After the warmth of the moment vanished she felt a deep hole where it once occupied. How long was it since she was just a hatchling herself? It felt like years when really it was a handful of weeks. If she could feel young again, no longer in hiding from Prathama Pita, this day might become the most special day of her life aside from the day she adopted Ljubav. She steeled herself for whatever lie inside, and entered with her son.
She was not expecting Pitānō Vākya, her arranged mate, to be there as well.
Pitānō Vākya saw her and the male Guardian dragon beside her, but he did not say a word.
Nada's heart stopped.
Ljubav and Nada stood on the team platforms.
Pitānō Vākya stood next to them on the third one, silently.
Ljubav watched.
Nada waited.
Pitānō Vākya stared straight ahead, unblinking.
Breathe. Breathe.
The training grounds opened in front of them. and the three dragons marched out.
Breathe. Breathe.
Enemies approached and the three took up formation.
Breathe. Breathe.
They fought. They hurt. They won. Blood gushed from the underside of Nada's pinprick claws. Ljubav held his own- of course he did, he was a 10 ton giant. Pitānō Vākya was the most experienced fighter and he struck the most vicious blows. Another set of enemies. Nada couldn't hear from the roar inside her ears. More of them, more of them. She hacked and slashed away, her mate coming in to assist. Saved him from a back attack. Lost some blood. Pulled a nail. Ljubav tore the enemies throat. Running, running. Twisting her body she swiped the killing blow and then held back for Ljubav to take up another. Pitānō Vākya used his breath power to strike a monster down in one move. Blood tooth claw. Plague Shadow Fire.
It took time but Nada got better, stronger. If Pitānō Vākya wanted her dead he would have already let the monsters take her. The Mirror dragon led Ljubav and Nada out of the coliseum. He looked into Nada's eyes and opened his mouth to speak but he couldn't seem to find the words. He closed it again. Nada didn't really understand.
"How did you know I would be here?" She asked.
"You want to fight Candra Putra." It was a statement not a question. It was something she never thought about. The silence stretched. "I want to fight him too."

She was on the edge of something big and she felt the same as when finding that fire egg. This could be everything. She still didn't understand, but she didn't really need to.
Ljubav spoke instead. "I want answers. Who are you? Who's that other dragon? What's going on?" Pitānō Vākya looked up at her son and he said. "I could ask the same to both of you but... I'm not my father." He turned to Nada. "I don't love you. That's not why I'm here. I'm here because I regret ever being pressured by my brother to hurt you. You were never a snake, Nada."
Nada felt a tear fall from her eye. She wasn't a snake. Yes, she was a dragon. Dragons fight. She would fight. Yes, she would win. She felt her blood pulse and eyes narrow. "When do we leave?"
At the same time, Ljubav interjected, "You hurt Mother?" He roared in fury. Towering over the Mirror male he was a ferocious sight, his maw parted to show a mess of fangs.
"Candra Putra hurt your mother." He replied evenly. He hid whatever confusion he may have felt and jumped straight for the source. "And we will make him pay."