MythicalViper » Lair » Vespera

Vespera

(#15652109)

Oh? Do you know about the quarantine area? No? What a shame.

Familiar

Spellbound Tome

Energy: 47/50

Personal Style

Apparel

Skin

Scene

Physical Attributes

Battle Stats

Measurements

Length

4.7 m

Wingspan

5.33 m

Weight

319.9 kg

Genetics

Blue
Iridescent

Lavender
Shimmer

Thistle
Underbelly

Hatchday

Aug 07, 2015
(8 years)

Breed

Adult
Pearlcatcher

Eye Type

Plague
Common

Level 12 Pearlcatcher

EXP: 3751 / 38956

STR

AGI

DEF

QCK

INT

VIT

MND

Lineage

Parents

Offspring

Biography

Vespera

The Reporter Who Just Will. Not. Stop.

"I'm plotting against you! I'm a writer; that's what I do!"
aaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaa aaaaaa aaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaa

Personality and Clan Life by ZincAlloy

Words have power. Thus, the one who writes the words must be the one with the most power. At the very least, that’s what Vespera believes. And as the clan’s scribe, she provably writes a very large number of words. She even has written record of that!

But it doesn’t matter how many words you write if nobody reads them. Thus Vespera is the founder, editor, lead writer, and field correspondent for Vespera’s Voice, the Aequitas Clan’s first and only newspaper. Her publication contains everything you could possibly need to know about goings on in the clan, and everything you didn’t need to know as well. And unlike those competing newsletters that definitely exist, Vespera can guarantee that every article has been exhaustively researched, and then proofread and edited to perfection.

Notice that she hasn’t promised that any of it is true.

For as far as Vespera is concerned, life is so much easier when you just listen to her. Don’t worry about that whole truth thing, everyone has their own version of it anyways. As she’s said, she’ll tell you everything you need to know, and leave out all that troublesome stuff that could confuse the issue. You can trust her; she’s knows what’s best for both you and herself. (Mostly herself.) She is the greatest reporter of our time, after all. See, you can read all about it in last week’s paper!

And she does take that self-awarded title to heart. Obsessive and a perfectionist, everything she writes she shines to a gleam, blinding you from the more suspect intentions behind it. Even when Vespera’s writing slander about you, you can’t help but appreciate the time and effort that went into it. She puts that single-minded focus into her investigative journalism as well. In the name of the free press, she will completely violate the privacy of anybody she doesn’t like! Luckily for whatever shreds of privacy are left, she’s been confined to a small section of the clan. For now. It took some quick thinking, but a quick wall was erected, and any emergency guard detail posted. And no matter how many forged press passes Vespera produces, she’s yet to convince anyone that she has permission to enter what she assumes must be a quarantine zone. It helps that neither press passes, nor the quarantine zone exist.

Still, her pride wouldn’t allow her paper to be entirely self-serving propaganda. The truth doesn’t rot dead and buried under a pile of lies, but stands proudly up front, only replaced by a devious doppelganger when Vespera’s machinations require it. While she may abuse her position to the ends of Sornieth and back, nobody can claim she doesn’t do her job. When she isn’t getting on everyone’s nerves by acting manipulative and self-serving, she’s annoying them by sticking her snout where it doesn’t belong and asking completely legitimate questions about current events. Turns out reporters are annoying enough when they aren’t trying to overthrow the clan and control every facet of your life.

All of this probing and scrutiny is leading up to something. If all goes well, Vespera’s schemes will lead to the surviving clan members so broken by blackmail that they’ll bow to her every whim. Surviving members, of course, because they’ll have all been killing each other in spectacular displays of treachery, futilely trying to prevent Vespera from revealing their darkest secrets. Some will try to resist her, without a doubt. But Vespera has a plan for that. In a display of her patented ingenuity, her pen’s true form is that of a penknife, honed to an edge as sharp as her wit. Those who stand against her to the end will be rewarded with a flash of ink in the dark, and death written all over the inside of their throat. Regardless of who is left standing in the end, Vespera will be the one on top, with every last drop of bloodied power held between her claws.

No, Vespera isn’t worried that there are dragons ten times her size. Her ego is ten times that, and as far as she is concerned it could slay an imperial all by itself.

Even though her schemes are as flawless as she is, Vespera would admit that they will take some time to put into motion. But that’s not going to stop her from getting a taste of that delectable power and influence as soon as possible. To that end, she took Haukin as a mate, assuming that a direct connection to one of the four leaders would be enough for the lowlier dragons to understand that they should bow before her. But Haukin isn’t a leader, so while he might get some status, none of that passes on to Vespera. She hasn’t noticed though, misinterpreting her clanmates' efforts to avoid being in the presence of such an unpleasant dragon as fear of being overwhelmed by the presence of such a powerful and perfect Pearlcatcher.

And yet, perhaps the lowly peons aren’t so bad. There has to be somebody left standing to witness her triumph, after all. Vespera might be willing to settle for less of a bloodbath, and more of a… communal agreement that she is truly the best. Not that she’s trying to avoid resorting to violence, nothing of the sort. But it was only just last week that she helped Haukin with some of his work, and the smile on his face after they finished was… Well, it was something that her pen hasn’t quite figured out how to put on paper yet. So Haukin stays, and everyone else can either submit to her superiority or take an unexpected trip to their deity of choice. Though there was that one Skydancer who mentioned how much they looked forward to reading each week’s paper, so perhaps they’ve earned some leniency…

Though the lowliest peon of all, Unnamed, doesn't deserve any leeway. She's so inferior that she doesn't even have a name, which makes writing slander about her in the paper a unique challenge. There's only so many times Vespera can write 'that nameless moron' before wanting to write a name on Unnamed's forehead and make her start using it. Perhaps an acronym instead? DSONWN (for Delusional and Self-Obsessed Nocturne Without a Name) has a suitably awful ring to it. And if it's not good enough, Vespera has a lot of time to think it over. In the name of complete and thorough reporting of everything that goes on in Clan Aequitas, Vespera has to attend every last one of Unnamed's lectures on her own self-importance. It's enough to make her want to smash her pearl to destroy the memories of such ridiculous classes, but Vespera forces her way through them. The news will not lose to an unnamed nocturne! (And it'll prove that by jeering and throwing last week's papers at her while she tries to give speeches.)

She once experimented with having the newspaper enchanted with wings so that it could move around and forcibly make others read it. After waking up to a rather large pile of shredded paper outside her lair, she reluctantly marked that idea down as one of her rare mistakes.

Plagueland Scheme

By ZincAlloy

Vespera was the last of a clutch of five, hatched to the leader of a large gang of light dragons, who’d been forced to abandon their old territory and make a new hideout in the Scarred Wasteland. As she was the last to emerge from their egg, Vespera’s parents put her last in line to inherit leadership, dooming her to insignificance. However, even at such a young age, Vespera wasn’t willing to let others beat her - which her parents should have realized when they caught her attempting to shiv one of her clutchmates with a fragment of her own eggshell.

But as she grew up, Vespera quickly learned that she couldn’t take the direct route to power. She couldn’t beat anyone in a direct fight - not her larger siblings, and certainly not the Imperials or Skydancers or the other dragons that made up the rest of the clan. And yet Vespera wasn’t discouraged – this just meant she’d have to find a path more suited to her own skills. She was lucky enough to have a training ground within claw’s reach, for her siblings were always in conflict, and as the baby sister, each of them trusted her greatly, and foolhardily.

Vespera never sided with one sibling for long, constantly switching allegiance to whomever was currently dominant. Whether it was her brute of a brother or her sister with a penchant for poisoning, each of them thought Vespera was their personal spy, only pretending to help the others to get information to help them climb back on top. In truth, Verspera didn’t care which one eventually won, as long as she had a place as their right-hand claw.

While her siblings squabbled, Vespera plotted. She took lessons from the rest of the gang; rather she watched as other gang members got schooled. Others saw a dragon who knew her limits and did what she could to get by. Vespera saw that you didn’t have to be the leader by name to be the one with all the power. She learned both how to use a blade and how to twist her words so that others wished they’d gotten the blade instead. She devised long and complicated plans for what she’d do after she’d gained control of the gang in all but name, and then quickly threw them out after devising new plans better suited to her greatness.

And yet, all this scheming would be for nothing if one of her siblings didn’t get off their scaly butt and give the others a sound thrashing. There was else nothing to it, Vespera was going to have to take matters into her own claws. She still wasn’t going to stick her own neck into the ring, but her siblings were going to have a good old-fashioned fight to the death, whether they wanted to or not.

To that end, she started writing. Some info from an anonymous helper here, some falsified evidence there, and Vespera had the recipe for four siblings who all thought the others were out to get them. As she spread her lies, three of her siblings began to act increasingly paranoid, gathering whatever gang members they thought to be loyal to them and keeping away from everyone else. Strangely, her oldest brother didn’t seem to notice her messages, but Vespera had always thought he wasn’t the sharpest spine on the ridgeback. He was probably too dim to even realize what the others were doing. Still, those of the gang who liked the way things had been run so far were rallying to him, so the final result was the same. The clan had split into four sub-gangs, each of which had given itself an expectedly derivative name based off its sibling of choice.

Vespera quickly made herself scarce, realizing that being chewed out for cowardice was a far better fate than siding with somebody who might lose this war. To her dismay, she was forced to pick an exceptionally disgusting hiding spot, but the alternatives just don’t exist in the Scarred Wasteland. From that safety, she was able to watch as her siblings prepared themselves for the fight of a lifetime. It looked to be a four-dragon free-for-all, the rest of the gang having picked favourites, but none of the grunts were actually loyal enough to any of the four to risk their own scales. Instead, they had set up betting stations, and a series of increasingly ludicrous gambles were bring recorded. Vespera was not the type to bet her sister would be able to decapitate the other three with a single strike, but part of her would be quite excited to see such a feat.

After a few days of Vespera’s tactical cowardice, tensions between her siblings grew to a crescendo. They’d each spent those days futilely trying to assassinate each other, whatever substituted for a plan with them inevitably being scuppered when their target turned out not to be where they expected. In most cases, because their intended victim was on the other side of the clan, trying to execute a similar murder. But such fun and games couldn’t last forever, and the four heirs to the gang’s leadership found themselves in a classic Dragonhome standoff.

To Vespera’s delight, the action started quickly. Her oldest brother took the first move, charging in while cursing the others for daring to betray their own family. The others followed suit, any similar sentiments they might have expressed drowned out by the hollering of their audience. With a flurry of magic and claws, the fight was on!

And then, to Vespera’s annoyance, it was over. Her oldest brother had dispatched the other three with ease and was slowly dusting himself off as the wreckage settled. She sighed, but quickly extracted herself from her hiding spot and tried to shake off as much of the virulent sludge as possible. Even if the fight had been boring, she still had the rest of her plan to carry out. She flew over to when she’d hidden a couple stacks of papers and grabbed the pile that explained exactly how she’d engineered her brother’s rise to power. Vespera turned to leave, but then turned back to look at the other three stacks. If anyone found them, then all of her hark work scheming would be ruined! And as she wasn’t a fire dragon, she didn’t have any easy way to burn them. There was only one thing to do: she’d have to eat all of it.

A few hours and a series of painful tongue papercuts later, the evidence was finally disposed of. She hurried over to her brother, congratulated him on his victory, and presented him with the fruits of her labour. But as he looked over the papers, he just seemed very confused, not impressed and thankful as Vespera had expected. As he handed them back, Vespera realized something. The idiot was completely illiterate! This was going to complicate things - most of her plans relied on others being able to read her lies.

Instead, she was just going to explain to him how much he owed her with her own words. As she spoke, her brother said nothing. Instead he just frowned, a frown that evolved into a major scowl as she kept talking. Vespera’s voice gave out when the scowl progressed to a glare of seething hatred. Her brother’s eyes glowed red with Plague magic and unbridled fury as he towered over Vespera, who gulped. (It was a very majestic gulp.) Perhaps she made a slight mistake, and her brother hadn’t wanted to claim leadership for himself, but instead wanted lead together with all of their siblings.

Perhaps.

Vespera doesn’t remember much after that, just that she woke up soundly thrashed and facedown in rot, somewhere in the Wandering Contagion. Going back to the gang wasn’t an option, that was clear. But Vespera hadn’t really ever wanted to lead a group of useless thugs anyways. She deserved better than that, and she would get better than that. Her ego soundly patched up, she set off away from the Scarred Wasteland in search of a clan deserving of her greatness. No such clan existed, of course, but once an inferior clan crumbled before her perfection, she might be able to build them back up into something deserving.

She still sends the occasional letter to her brother, getting that lovely feeling of superiority from the fact that he can’t read them.

§ Graphics by LuminousNoble, recolored by Fantastea, Icons by Hazeledpoppy

§ Bio and Backstory by ZincAlloy

Artwork

_________________________________________________________________________________

Wrote a love poem to Haukin during the Mistral Jam Poetry Contest and won this cute lil badge, along with some very pretty and expensive apparel. Of course, such flimsy jewelry isn't fit for a magnificent Pearlcatcher like herself, so she gave it away to some of the lowly dragons in the lair. She'll keep the badge, though. It's pretty.

Vespera was selected as the Mistral Jamboree Grand Poet for the 2020 Poetry Contest after writing a poem for her familiar, the book she attached wings to in hopes her news would deliver itself. She received this lovely badge as well as a new Spiral clanmate, which Haukin is rather dismayed about. Live with it, Haukin. It's no surprise someone else became smitten. Vespera's fabulous, after all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There's a rumour in the Scarred Wasteland
The lands in which I was born
That love was a disease
No warrior should ever grow
For the moment you loved someone
They become a weakness you can't afford
They become your bondage with but a single word

"I love you," you told me, and I thought you foolhardy and blind
For all I'd ever known were untrustworthiness and lies
Little did I know back then that the only one lying was me
As I plotted and backstabbed - all my heart wanted was to be free

I don't know when I realised; I don't know when the thought crossed my mind
That the only thing I wanted was to have you next to me
I wanted your kindness and the gentle way you saw everything
And the way you act so selflessly, so warmly, was mesmerising

You saw both my good side and the side I hid deep in the dark
And even so you didn't judge the shadows residing in my heart
You radiated a closure, a warmth I'd long forgot
My darling - can I just say? You're quite the work of art.

I don't know when I realised; I don't know when you stole your way into my heart
But now that I understand this, I will never let us be apart
If love is a disease, I care not how ill I become
Because the only dragon who's ever accepted me -
My dear, you're the only one.

§ Poem by MythicalViper

Art by WhiteVenom

Art by Amehime

Art by ClearLakes44

Art by Deoxtri

§ Art by JustaRev

§ Art by meanling

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