Gallica

Gallica The Defender

Gallica was the first of her nest to hatch, but she was smaller than her siblings for a long time. Despite her diminutive stature, she was a force to be reckoned with. She fiercely defended her siblings against hapless animals that wandered into the nest, but she also defended animals against each other. She would chase foxes away from rabbits, destroy the crows that ganged up on falcons in the sky, and if any dragon was being bullied (be it one of her siblings or a complete stranger) it took several adults to pull her off of the perpetrator. Her parents said she reminded them of a Guardian, but without the focus or foresight. They began teaching her to use argue effectively and strategically, so that she could pursue her protective urges without always ending up in fights. One of her brothers said she was like a tiny lawyer who could rip your throat out. Some dragons were a little scared of her, but they all knew she never started fights on her own, and that she would always help you out if you were at a disadvantage, regardless of who you were or what you’d done in the past. She spent a lot of time with her siblings, but also hung out with some of the smaller, weaker dragons and stopped them from getting picked on.

When she was old enough to learn a trade, she immediately decided she wanted to be a warrior. She had visions of herself as a lone knight in shining armor on a neverending quest, protecting the weak, descending upon evildoers in a storm of blades, and flying away in a bright flash of armor in the sunlight. Her first few days of training, however, made that dream seem far out of reach. She was fast and great at grappling, and she was always strong when she had adrenaline in her system, but her muscles were surprisingly weak in practice when she didn’t have anyone to be angry at. She could barely lift the sword, and had to spend days just standing there, learning to hold it up and aim at a fixed point for long periods of time. Then she had to learn to carry a shield, and then to coordinate movements with sword, shield, and footwork; plus how to do all that and more in heavy armor. There were lots of boring drills, lots of stabbing at marks carved into trees, and far too much running on her feet when she thought flying should do just as well. Gallica felt weak and clumsy for the first time, and it annoyed her to no end. But she kept at it, and as she trained and built up her strength, she grew closer to the size of her other siblings. She also learned control. What her parents had been trying to teach her with arguing lessons in her youth, she somehow learned while training. By the time she was ready to be considered a true warrior, she could hold her tongue when she wanted, meticulously control her movements even in the heat of battle, and harness anger or calm at will for whatever purpose she needed.

Gallica now works mostly as a solitary agent, traveling on her own until she finds an encounter in which she is needed for defense or protection. She’s slowly been training herself to sense when others are in danger in an ever-increasing radius around her. Often her searching takes her into a clan. She’s found that within clan territory, she’s mostly needed as a verbal defender of justice (as she would say, although her brother would just call her a lawyer); but she never fails to find instances where her skills as a warrior are required. Gallica walks and moves with deliberate pride. Some dragons think she is proud of fighting or of defending those who need it, but she only sees it as doing what she has to in order to exist and be who she is. She does take pride in her accomplishments, however; and never stops training and drilling her skills, whether she learned them yesterday or years ago.