Pitch

Pitch was hatched in a quiet arcane clan around the beginning of the great Hewn City Expedition--a battle with the ever encroaching greenery of the Shrieking Wilds whose mere mention sends hushed whispers among the denizens of the Sunbeam Ruins to this day. She grew up on stories of Lindiana Light and her talented crew, she heard the call of glory and honor and immediately joined a small group of like-minded dragons who hoped to train and meet up with Lindiana's expedition.

She was one of many dragons who left their clans that week, but one of FAR fewer to leave the ruins alive. Giant animated plants seperated her from her group, thorny growths writhed and wound about her limbs--giving way to teeth and claw enough to make breathing possible, but never enough to break free. Never enough. She strained against her bonds, driving the sharp thrones deeper into once-sturdy hide, now riddled with bleeding tears. But no one came. The focus was on the center, with the final eve drawing close at hand.

Trapped in the darkness, a fire grew within her, a twisted knot of rage and fear and pain that kept her fighting even as her strength trickled away with the blood from her wounds. She pulled away from the strangulating greenery, yearning for the faint twinkle of stars and the light of the distant moon, a tiny sliver of night sky between two crumbling walls...

And then, as consciousness began to fade. As the sky grew infinitesimally brighter--with the coming of dawn...

Wings. The flurry of hundreds of thousands of wings against the pre-dawn air, Shadows blotted out the sky--the giant imposing forms of Imperials, other Guardians, surrounded by swarms of the smaller breeds-- the final warriors answering Lindiana's final battle call. None of them heard her shouts. Her curses. Her frantic scratching and roaring against the strangulating vines.

Except one. A lone coatl broke away from the pack of warriors, the faint starlight that filtered into the ruins caught in his icy wings. The fire that ever lives in a coatl's breast tore through the vines, scorching Pitch's dark hide where the flame battled against her living captors.



Yuuki bore the injured Pitch away from that battle, looking longingly over his shoulder at the retreating silhouettes of his clan-mates who never returned. Two pearlcatchers, claw in claw, winging away to face the coming dawn.

The news of the battle's loss came to the battered and wounded clan, inciting rage and grief among those not-strong enough to join the battle, or those who had been forced to stay behind. Pitch soaked up all the resentment and hurt of the following weeks, carrying the negative feelings deep in her heart, throwing all her energy into learning battle and training so she could never end up in the situation again. Yuuki found her one day, bruised and bloody on the edge of the mire, and refused to allow her out of his sight. But he too, understood the ache of loss and shame that came of being one called to battle, and yet one forced to remain behind. She seemed to settle then, nurturing that fire in her own breast, a self destructive urge turned constructive. But even still, her heart ached every time she'd look at her savior, staring off in the direction of the single patch of darkness in the Lightweaver's domain. Waiting for the friends he had lost to return.

Now, having completed her training, Yuuki retired from battle leaving Pitch to shoulder the burden of training new recruits. With the creation of the Mirrorlight Mercenary Company, she has made it her sworn duty to earn money for the clan, dragging poor unfortunate souls through the dark and fetid depths of the mire. Money, and warriors. She determined the clan would never be without again.

There she met a maned cobra who took a liking to her, coiling along her shoulders during rest, and nipping at the heels of the recruits during work. A well placed bite could make even the most sluggish of snappers pick up the pace.

The burn scars from Yuuki's fire--the fire that saved her life--never truly healed, leaving her hide splotched with an odd golden sheen. One day, nearing the end of her training, Yuuki admitted to having never manifested his fire before that incident--nor had he ever succeeded again. A blessing he said--and then pointed to the golden shine with a single claw. Just as there had been a single odd wind, bringing her cries to his ears, or that he'd lagged behind his colleagues enough that he would hear anything over their wing-beats.

She took his final words to heart that day. It just hadn't been their time.


After a year of running the mire with an iron claw, Pitch stepped down from primary training duty, passing the mantle to a young Pearlcatcher named Astraea. Ever the warrior, Pitch couldn't retire peacefully, so she joined Serinar's hunting party during the Greenskeeper Gathering. Their purpose was officially hunting for flatleaves in the Rainsong jungle. But truthfully...Serinar suspected she never did forgive the denizens of the Viridian Labryinth for what she suffered during the Hewn City Expedition.