Fritha

(This bio is in need of an update)



Fritha has not had the easiest life, despite being surrounded, protected and loved by the extended family that the Outpost Clan is to her. Hatched as a Guardian, in Odin and Frigga's first clutch – the first clutch ever hatched in the Outpost – she did not yet know of the curse laid upon the offspring of the two leaders, nor could she possibly foretell the grief it would bring her, though, in hindsight, Angrboda's unusual interest and kindness towards her should have been taken as an omen.

It was not, though, so Fritha grew up oblivious to the fate that awaited her.

The only female in the three-egg clutch, Fritha quickly understood that if she wanted anything, she would have to take things into her own two paws and make it happen, because with two (three, once Loke joined) rowdy brothers, the more subdued female was easily forgotten or overruled. It was a process of trial and error, of seeing what worked and what did not, and when the things that worked worked. Slowly but surely, though, she started wrapping her brothers, and then most of the rest of the Clan, around her claws until Itha good-humouredly called her “princess.”

The name quickly caught on, and soon the entire Clan was referring to her as their princess, some more jokingly than others, and some as no joke at all.

Loke, her adopted older brother, falls into the latter category. He was one of the few who never minded Fritha's manipulating, cajoling and bossy ways, seeing as he noticed how everything always turned out much better if you just listened to her. Not to mention that she gave him good opportunities to get into justified fights in the name of protecting her... even if she did not really need it, seeing as she was growing up to be a good warrior in her own right.

Still, she very much appreciated having her own personal champion, and after Loke's magical accident and Fritha's two blood-brothers left the Clan – Utheri to start his Search and Ewart to join the Lightweaver's forces – the two entered a brief, hormone-fuelled relationship. After their first clutch had hatched and left the Clan, though, they mutually decided that they were better off as siblings, and not lovers, and went on to find a new equilibrium in their relationship. They will both admit that it was a bit awkward at first, but they managed to overcome that fairly quickly (helped along by the fact that Fritha met a rather charming young Tundra) and rapidly grew closer than ever before as they turned their focuses on their career paths.

Fritha, determined to use her persuasive talents to the benefit of the Clan, immersed herself in the Library, reading up on psychology and diplomacy, as well as the history and customs of the other Flights. She loves her father, she really, truly does, but she admits that he is not the most well-spoken or accommodating of dragons, even if he is honest, to the point and gets things done. So she decided to help him by fielding the negotiations and business meetings for the Outpost Clan in his stead, assisted every now and then by Asfrithur; the pair has so far been met with nothing but success.

Fritha refused to allow herself to stagnate, though, and made a point of still reading everything she could get her claws on in her subjects of interest. Apart from making sure that she was never caught unawares by any new developments, this also gave her a good excuse to meet with and talk to Loke, who had become something of a grumpy Library hermit and was spending almost all his time (both waking and sleeping) sequestered away in a distant, mostly undisturbed corner of the labyrinthine Archive passages underneath the main halls of the Library. Fritha had tended to chide him for this and tell him that he needed to take some time away from his research into the hidden, mysterious principles behind the magic that governs Sornieth, but when her parents broke up and slowly tore themselves into pieces of what they had once been, shredding her world as they went, she admitted that she was grateful.

Not right in that moment, of course. Hindsight is always perfect vision, and much that she believed then, she now knows to be false.

Like her belief that her beloved parents' unhappiness was her fault, for never feeling the urge to Search and find a Charge, or that she would find a Charge if she just tried hard enough; if she just worked a little harder, flew a little longer, looked a little more closely. In the words that Loke oh-so-eloquently shouted at her when he had decided that enough was enough:

“It's not your bloody fault, you ******* moron! Now stop killing yourself! This is not what Mother and Father would want for you, if they had enough brain cells left between them to realise what you are doing to yourself, Princess!!!”

While... crass, he was right. It was not her fault. She could not help that she had been born without a Charge, without something, someone or some place that beckoned to her soul, to her magic, and told her “I am important.”

And she was killing herself. She was barely eating or drinking, and not sleeping at all; not doing anything but search and work frantically, thinking that if she could just find her Charge - if she could only prove that she was a healthy and strong Guardian - it would somehow reverse and repair what damage had been done to her parents' relationship and to their hearts.

And it was most certainly not What Odin and Frigga wanted for her. They believed that they had failed her, and not the other way around. They believed that they would continue to fail every single offspring that they bore. They believed that they would bring unhappiness and misfortune upon them, just by bringing them into the world. If they had been aware of Fritha's actions, it would have hurt them even more than they already were, to see her so desperately Searching (or at least trying to Search) and yet so miserably failing.

She did not know this at the time, nor would she have believe it, had she known. So she saw it as a betrayal of the worst kind for Loke to not only refrain from supporting her, but to actually actively trying to stop her from her self-appointed duty. She lashed out, and her similarity to her completely shattered and insane mother in that moment was terrifying, even to her usually unafraid brother.

Panicked, he did the only thing he could in his new, smaller and frailer body; he summoned all his magic, pulling every single scrap out and, when realising that it would not be enough, risked his life by tapping into the corrupted laylines beneath the Hewn City to fuel the spell – no, the wish, rather, because this was not a carefully constructed, structured thing; it was pure, uncensored desire to make Fritha better, to make her stop hating and slowly killing herself.

Against all odds, it worked.

Fritha shrank, her ribs finally receding from sight as her mighty war-fins melted into her; her spines turning into a mane as she grew feathers and fur to replace her hide and scales.

The whole Clan rushed to the rooftop garden where the confrontation had taken place, tense and ready to fight, thinking that the massive amount of raw magic that had emitted from the place might have been an attack. Instead of Beastclans wielding some new, unknown weapon or an avatar of the Shade, though, they found the two siblings – Fritha only barely recognisable from her magical signature – passed out on the ground.

Puzzled and worried, Freyja and Regin carried them in and with Ithunn's, Nattr's and Fenris' help made sure that whatever Loke had done to Change Fritha – because it was clear from the way his magical signature was lingering over her that it had been his work – had had no negative effects on either of them. It was fortunate that they did, too, because Loke had used himself as a filter for the tainted magic he had drawn from the Hewn City Laylines so that none of it would affect his sister, who was already weak and susceptible, and made even more so by the Change he forced upon her.

The Shade had already started to take root in him, and it took all of Nattr's considerable skill, strength and willpower to pull it out, even as he was supported and bolstered by Dagr and their unicorn familiars. If Freyja and Regin had not continuously poured their healing magic into Loke during the extraction, however, he still would not have made it. But they did, and he pulled through, albeit somewhat changed. His birth colours had left him, leaving him even further from the Mirror he had hatched as, but as he woke and saw Fritha healthy, albeit in an exhausted slumber, he could not bring himself to regret it.

He was somewhat apprehensive of what her reaction would be once she awoke, however.

He need not have worried. When she finally woke two days later and Loke could not stop the words “And the sleeping moron awakes! Please tell me that you found your brain again somewhere in dreamland, because I swear that if you keep trying to kill yourself, I'll have to resort to drastic measures,” from tumbling out of his mouth, Fritha laughed.

It was a croaky, slightly hysterical laugh, and tears were spilling from her eyes, but it was a laugh.

The first laugh anyone had heard from her since her parents had broken up years ago.

It was the start of her recovery, and while the process was long and arduous – getting used to an entirely new body can never be called easy – she never complained, not even once. She found a new joy in life and in flying.

So much of the latter, in fact, that she now spends the majority of her free time up in the air, cruising on some pleasant upwards draft with her familiar on her back and “The Elemental Treaties” or some other, similar, rock-heavy book in her claws.

She still takes the time to delve into the depths of the Library to talk to her brother regularly, though; not even a third coming of the Shade would have been able to stop her from that.

• Fritha's name means "peace", "beauty" or "beloved".