Aikka » Lair » Champagne

Champagne

(#3701477)

The Vainest Dragon

Familiar

Moss-Covered Golem

Energy: 0/50

Personal Style

Apparel

Skin

Scene

Physical Attributes

Battle Stats

Measurements

Length

4.35 m

Wingspan

6.5 m

Weight

978.75 kg

Genetics

Purple
Iridescent

Shadow
Shimmer

Maize
Runes

Hatchday

May 26, 2014
(9 years)

Breed

Adult
Skydancer

Eye Type

Arcane
Common

Level 8 Skydancer

EXP: 15041 / 16009

STR

AGI

DEF

QCK

INT

VIT

MND

Lineage

Parents

Offspring

Biography

Champagne

"His magic is passive. He's always been able to sense the emotions and intentions of others, even from a young age."
-Amethyst, describing Champagne's abilities to a newcomer

Who, who are you really?

An incredibly sociable (and devilishly handsome) fellow, Champagne is the third of the three clan leaders. His job is to handle all external affairs, and with his good nature and ability to sense hostility in others, it's something he's excelled at. However, he often finds himself unable to keep his nose out of his own clan's business, loving to partake in the latest gossip.

As a dragon, Champagne is almost painfully narcissistic, often found preening himself for hours in front of a mirror if he finds one... hence the reason there don't seem to be any in the clan. He's firm but fair with his clan mates, stands his ground when dealing with conflicts, and is a warm and doting father. However, he cherishes his wife, Amethyst, the most of anyone else. Cutely nicknaming her 'Amy', Champagne dotes on and spoils her silly, to the point of annoying her into not speaking to him, much to his dismay.

When guests come to the clan, he's quite courteous to them, always greeting them and talking to them with a warm smile, never betraying what he might otherwise be feeling beneath. When talking with friends, he might be more inclined to be honest with his expressions, but still often uses a smile as a guard. He takes off his hat when he needs to speak seriously.

[img]175x290[/img]

And where, where are you going?

"What happens in the past stays in the past," that's what he always says. Champagne believes that the past, while something to learn from, is also not something to dwell on either. Champagne himself doesn't care to recall much of anything before he came to live in this clan.

He was raised by a band of liars and thieves--he wasn't even sure if he was born to any of them for a long while, but he knew even as a child that he didn't like being with them. The sensation of being surrounded by liars and malicious dragons made him queasy every day, to the point of being unable to eat. He left at a young age, never looking back, or missing his makeshift 'family.' He wandered from clan to clan for many years, never staying in one place for long. His ability to sense others emotions enabled him to survive for as long as he did; as a result, he developed a silver tongue and the ability to think well on his feet.

Although he had meant to make his time in the then-tiny Nature clan another short stay, as he had done countless times before, he found Banana and Risen to be quite charming in their brutal honesty. It was certainly a breath of fresh air from the frequent lying and deceit he had often encountered, he thought, and stayed for longer then he had initially planned.

He became fast friends with Banana, who was happy to finally find someone who could fully understand a Fae that could not express herself through tone of voice or frill movements, and Champagne enjoyed her company as well, relating to her estrangement from her family. And he enjoyed Risen's off color sense of humor, the two exchanging silly banter with joy.

Still, the odd couple had never been this independent before their strange meeting, and lacked many of the things they needed to stay safe and fed. Champagne, mostly feeling pity for the pair, offered to show Banana how to barter and trade for goods, how to preserve food, and how to hire contractors. The Fae, who had been a shut-in before meeting Risen and Champagne, did her best to learn from him. She struggled with even the basics of approaching and talking to people, but with Champagne's help, he could read her emotions and help her navigate the things that frustrated her and read the emotions of the dragons around her.

As he got closer with Banana, Risen became more distant. Still, it was never like he and Banana had feelings for each other anyway, and Risen could be... "a bit much," as Champagne put it, so it just made helping Banana easier, in the long run.

A month after Champagne visited, the nest that Banana and Risen had built together had attracted a few more stragglers, many also fleeing Raptorik attacks. One morning, Champagne resolved to collect his things, content to head back on the road for a new village or town. He neatly packed his few belongings into an old backpack of his, and attended breakfast with the others. He'd leave around noon, once the insects had settled in his stomach, and be on his way.

At breakfast, Banana had asked to speak with him in private. A bit confused, he still obliged, as he did consider her a friend at this point. Her anxiety left a sour taste in his mouth, however, and he hoped she would make it quick.

She surprised him when she took a large, grey hat out of a storage crate, dusting it off. (It did not actually have any dirt or dust on it. The motion was just to settle her nerves.) She shyly presented the hat to Champagne, saying it was a thank you gift for all he'd done for them. Touched, Champagne gently took the hat from her hands, inspecting the large, floppy brim in curiosity. She explained that she didn't have the budget for much, but she knew the harsh sun would bother his eyes, and got him a hat to help with it. She also asked if he'd consider staying, permanently.

Champagne thanked her, and despite his mind whispering to him it was a bad idea, he told her he'd think about it. As he held the hat later that day, Banana's words weighed heavy in his head and heart. Somehow, he felt a sense of belonging here. It was something he hadn't realized he'd been missing, all these years. In the end, he stayed. He never unpacked his backpack, however, and it still sits in the hoard, buried beneath a pile of junk, long forgotten by the Skydancer.

Champagne became the third leader of the clan after the clan exploded in size after the end of the last Nature/Plague war, and many years after that, created a coalition amongst many of the clans residing in the wetlands. He is the only non-Nature dragon in the coalition; a testament to his negotiation and language skills.

"Oh, right, of course. Sure, I can write that diplomacy letter for you. Let me just add that to the list, on top of the two other diplomacy letters, the monthly ledger, both trade negotiations, and the invitations to the inter-flight yearly meeting. Maybe I can get a day off next year?"

"Yes, you're right, you're right. I just... Need to breathe. Can you breathe with me? I need someone to help me stay grounded."

"What? Oh, NO, no, no! He's my great-grandfather, not uh... yeah. He was just rubbing my back because I was close to having a panic attack. He always seems to know when my anxiety is going to go over the edge."

It had only been 2 months since the clan had to bury this many.

Normally, such a devastating blow to the Gladekeeper’s domain would be enough cause for grief to the native Nature dragons that made the majority of the Aikka clan; however, even Champagne had to admit that the thought that the latest attack on their land had created the room needed to bury their newly passed friends was rather morbid.

In the grave to his right, Champagne could hear his neighbor speaking profanities. The fire-born courier, who had been attacked by harpies and left to die a few miles away from the Aikka clan, had been recruited to help bury the dead. (All the more competent dragons had been pulled away to tend the wounded, or secure the borders, or put out the fires, or to check the stability of the dens, or to clear dangerous debris from the trees, or…) Well, the point was that there weren’t many dragons left who could (or would) take to the arduous task of burying the fallen. So the task had fallen on the few left without grievous injuries, or the skills to help with the other, more dangerous tasks.

Even being a clan leader, Champagne was not so self-absorbed that he would refuse to do such a grim task. He would never ask a member of his clan to do something he wouldn’t do himself. That fact only made the dark muttering of the courier beside him aggravate him all the more; he would think a dragon rescued from a life-or-death situation would be more grateful! Perhaps they should have left them for dead in harpy territory, he thought darkly.

“And jus’--” the courier burst out, suddenly, startling Champagne from his thoughts, “--jus’ WHY am I being bothered with this stupid task?” The courier threw their shovel into the grave with a huff. Petulant child, Champagne thought. “Why not jus’ toss them and be done with it?”

Champagne raised his shovel and stuck it into the ground besides the grave he dug. His chest heaved as he took a well deserved rest; they had started digging at the same time, yet, looking into his neighbor’s grave, Champagne could see his own hole was more than twice the size of the other’s.

He gave the incompetent courier whining beside him an unimpressed, sarcastic smile. He normally wouldn’t give such a dragon the time of day, but he was both physically and emotionally exhausted, and couldn’t be bothered to put in so much effort to his usual act. “And what exactly do they do with the dead where you come from?”

“Burn ‘em,” the courier replied simply. Champagne snorted. He wasn’t sure what he should have expected from the dragon from the land of ever-flowing lava. “This seems a lot o’ unnecessary work, puttin’ ‘em in the ground like this just to pile the dirt back on.” The courier picked up his shovel and dug it into the ground, mirroring Champagne, leaning against the handle while heaving a dramatic sigh. “Why even bother?”

Champagne ignored the urge to chastise them for taking a break when they’d done so little, knowing they’d just bite at him with some excuse about a broken wing. (Like such a thing affected your ability to dig, like the dragon with the broken leg two graves down wasn’t digging faster, like the teenaged FEMM three graves down wasn’t putting in more effort and complaining half as much! As if they hadn’t given this idiotic courier free medicine and a place to rest in the middle of a god damn war and hadn’t asked anything of them up until now. God, Banana was just too nice to others who didn’t deserve it.) Instead, he bit his scathing remarks over their work efforts down. “It’s a religious thing, I guess.”

“What, you guess?” The courier looked incredulously at them. “You live ‘ere, don’t ya? Shouldn’t ya know about that sorta stuff?”

Champagne shrugged. “Not necessarily.” He turned and observed the rest of the dragons digging. They were all drained, (war does that to any sentient being), but in particular-- “FEMM! Take a break. Visit Amy in the medical area and have her make you some tea.” The aforementioned pearlcatcher turned to look at him, shocked for a moment, and then glanced back into her hole. She looked unsure. “It’s alright. Just go get some rest.”

Her ears twitched back and forth, a moment passing before she ultimately tossed her shovel in the grave and complied, taking off towards the deeper parts of the forest where the injured would be treated. Champagne had been so busy dealing with the immediate fallout of the attack, he hadn’t even been to see how the rest were fairing. He hoped Amy was ok, above all else.

“And you got damn children out here, diggin’ graves. Really, man?” the courier glared at him. “I’d heard screwed things about you guys, but this is a whole ‘nother level. It true the dragons here eat their dead when they pass?” The Fire dragon perked up, continuing. “How about makin’ skulls scream, or uh, makin’ plants grow legs and eatin’ children, or that thing where you strap down your enemies and plant carnivorous seeds in their eyes--”

“No,” Champagne said firmly, cutting them off. “You’ve been spending too much time with Plague fellows,” he huffed. The courier looked sheepish in return, picking up their shovel and resuming digging. They pointedly avoided eye contact with him.

Champagne continued to rest, attempting to let his weary mind and muscles relax. Easier said than done, though; he could literally taste the tension the clan was feeling in the air.

“Ya didn’t answer my question earlier, ya know.”

Champagne turned to look at the courier, who was still avoiding eye contact. “Yeah, about uh, why we’re doin’ this and all that. Why bury ‘em?”

“Reincarnation, from what I understand.”

The courier, forgetting themselves for a moment, turned to look him in the eye, an incredulous look on their face. “Reincarnation?? What in tarnation--” As if suddenly remembering they should be embarrassed, they quickly averted their gaze from Champagne. They continued to cut at the dirt with the tip of their shovel, but their attempts were now half-hearted, at best. “So they tryin’ to do some voodoo revival magics on them or somethin’?”

Champagne laughed heartily at their response. “No, no, nothing like that,” he chuckled. “Tell me, have you ever seen what happens when you bury something beneath a tree? Say, some animal bones, or the body of a passed pet?”

“Uh, not really. Not really a lot o’ trees in the Ashfalls,” the courier admitted.

Champagne nodded. Fair enough. “Well, the tree roots absorb the body of the deceased, bones and all.”

The courier looked up at Champagne again, eyeridge cocked. “Seriously?”

He nodded sagely. “Seriously. Not only that, but the roots take the shape of whatever it absorbed, leaving a startling resemblance to whatever it absorbed through its roots.”

“You’re screwing with me,” the courier responded.

“I’ve seen it myself.” Champagne silently recalled how Banana had once taken him to the den beneath the clan’s largest tree. There was a tangled knot of roots in the heart of the root system, in the shape of a Fae--Banana’s deceased father, and the clan’s namesake, Aikka. “The tradition has two purposes: to give back to the Gladekeeper by using the nutrients from the deceased to nourish Her trees and expand Her domain; and to have the spirit of the dragon reborn through the roots of the tree.”

“... So, like, the dragon,” the courier waved their hand at the graves, “gets absorbed into the tree and, iunno, becomes reborn as the tree? Why would you wanna be a tree, o’ all things?”

“Some believe the dragon is reborn as the tree, yes, and watches over and provides food and shelter to those in its domain. Others believe that when the tree blooms for the first time, the pollen of the flowers is the soul of the dragon being released into the air, allowing it to be reborn after that.” Champagne scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Or some other variation of that. It’s not consistent from clan to clan, really.”

There was a beat of silence, where the courier seemed to expect something from Champagne. When it became obvious that Champagne wasn’t going to answer the unspoken question, they spoke up. “So uh, what do you believe?”

“Hmm? Oh, nothing so fanciful. A body is a body is a body,” he replied quite frankly. “But this is much more charming a funeral than I’ve seen in most other places.”

Interest piqued, the courier leaned in towards Champagne. “Oh, like what? What other types o’ funerals you seen, buddy?”

Shaking his head, Champagne uprooted his shovel from the ground, cutting his break short. He didn’t much feel like exploring this topic, especially with a stranger. “Come on, we’ll have time for that later.” With no further acknowledgement to his neighbor, Champagne went straight back to work shovelling the dirt for the grave of Haven’s dead son.

Art by Biscuitmango

Art by Eavesdropper

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Exalting Champagne to the service of the Gladekeeper will remove them from your lair forever. They will leave behind a small sum of riches that they have accumulated. This action is irreversible.

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