CzaritsaIrina

If she really is a princess, she muses sometimes, how far her fortunes have fallen...

Hatched from a Plague egg with the royal seal on it, and born with the Plague emblem hovering over her head, Czaritsa Irina nearly died a number of times before Peril found her shivering on the edge of a field of battle. What he hasn't mentioned to anyone else is that when he found her, Irina was ravenously feeding on one of the fallen dragons' corpses...

She often wonders what it really means to be royalty of the Plague domain. First, there is the issue that she doesn't know from which kingdom (or queendom) she hails - and is a princess without a land really a princess at all? Dragons expect princesses to be delicate and well-mannered, or perhaps ferocious and warrior-like but with a maiden's heart. Yet isn't Plague the embodiment of disease, survival, chaos, and primal instincts? Is it really such a shameful secret that she wakes up sometimes at night, sweating, the taste of Imperial blood like liquid gold hissing on her tongue? Irina is often quiet, but her mind is filled with thoughts and thoughts, fluttering around but rarely allowed to escape into the world. There is a lot of struggling and thinking in her little head, but these are questions with which she wrestles alone, out of necessity as much as preference.

Irina has no qualms about socialising with other dragons, but she feels ill at ease in the civilised circles in which Moscow and Orleans thrive. She is more likely to accept an invitation to a hunting party or a blood-feast for a new warrior than to a ball. It's not that she disdains of mingling with high society, but she does feel discomfited and a little scared. If some dragons mistake her reservations for a princess's haughty pride, that is their own loss.

Irina only wishes she could talk to Plague-born and Plague-raised dragons about the doubts and confusion circulating through her mind. Despite that, the thought of permanently leaving the Whiteblood Clan has never crossed her mind. She would miss these kind, sometimes strange and wild or quiet and civilised dragons, and her little cavern by the sea is home.