Merlot

"You will be as pretty as your mother." That was one of the first things she remembered anyone ever telling her. She also remembered scoffing and returning to play with the other hatchlings.

Her mother wasn't just 'pretty'. She was dignified and elegant, snout always in the air and so, so distant. Merlot wasn't like that. She never had been. She got her feathers as dirty and ruffled as anyone while playing. She screeched more loudly than any of them. She didn't care, either. She liked being who she was, even if all anyone expected of her was that she'd be her mother come again.

She wasn't very old when she realised that most dragons hatched in her home lair would leave soon after, for other clans and new adventures. The other hatchlings would speak excitedly, sometimes, about where they would go and what they would get to do. Merlot found herself trying to hide whenever representatives from other clans came looking for hatchlings to adopt.

It wasn't that she didn't want to leave. As much as she loved the clan she had been hatched into, she wanted to see more of the world, experience as much as she could. But she didn't want to leave if all she was was 'as pretty as her mother'. She wanted to be more, offer more, to be herself and have that be enough.

As soon as she was old enough, she went to the clan fighters and asked to be trained. They turned her down. Of course they did. They probably saw just the pretty, delicate coatl, just like everyone else. She wasn't going to give up, though. She never was one to give up. She trained herself, as much as she could. She went to the clan's familiars, and asked them to help her learn. A few helpful ones agreed, and she snuck them some of her food when she could as treats. Then she returned to the fighters, again and again, begging and bargaining and arguing until finally, finally, Odessa, the great Imperial female fighter, agreed to take her to the Mire.

Merlot trained again and again for days on end. She got knocked out more times than she could count, she nursed bruises, and sometimes she felt she progressed so slowly she wanted to rage. There were good days too, though. Days when she learnt so much her head felt full to the point of bursting. Days when they brought home so much loot she could've started collecting a hoard of her own, if she'd cared to. Instead, she just kept training.

The happiest day in her life was when she finished, when Odessa said there was nothing more she could teach her. She'd never forget the Imperial's great, toothy smile when she told her, "No one will ever again be able to mistake you for just a pretty face." Those words made her preen more than anything ever had.