Jormung

Growing up in the backbrush of the Carrion Canyon, Jormung's clanmates often loudly wondered aloud if the dragonet was deaf, as he evidently couldn't hear the Stormcatcher's commands to get back to work. One of the least industrious Lightning dragons and lowest energy Spirals you'll ever meet, Jormung may seem a walking knot of contradictions. His lack of work ethic remains legendary in the gorges where he grew up, evolving into some sort of local myth, a fairy tale to frighten hatchlings into zealous diligence, or they'll end end up feckless, clanless wastrels.

Granted, he's actually much better off than that, but Jormung hasn't bothered to contact his old clan since he was more or less dragged away by his friend Ladon- saying he left would be implying too much initiative on Jormung's part- so it's not as if they could know that. From their perspective, a young dragon from a modestly respectable family began slacking from his honest, contractually required work, and ignored all attempts to help him (and later, force him) get back on corporately-approved track. It was like watching a slow motion trainwreck, as one of their own sank into unspeakable shiftlessness.

From Jormung's perspective, he'd seen something his clanmates were blind to. It wasn't laziness that lead him to indolence- well, not entirely- but a lack of motivation. For all their hard work and dedication, it seemed to Jormung that his clan wasn't going anywhere. Day in and day out they were farming lightning for who-knows-what (certainly not them) and maintaining grid infrastructure that serviced who-knows-where (anywhere but there), with no sign of reward or reprieve.

Sure, the managers and execs from more prestigious lairs said it was a vital duty, all for the flight's benefit, yada yada yada, cogs in the great Lightning machine, but Jormung just saw dragons doing a whole lot of work for a whole lot of nothing. His family, for instance- they'd pledged their lives to the Stormcatcher, and dreamed of getting promoted to an exalted position working directly under the boss. They toiled without rest year after year, but never got anything for their efforts but empty praise. Jormung's kin were getting ground up at the grindstone, like a cog succumbing to wear and tear. Their rabid workaholism transformed into anger and anxiety as nothing continued to happen to them, and they pushed Jormung's clutch to work harder and harder.

At first, Jormung did what work he could, putting in a hard day's work daily. But when a relative suffered a mental breakdown from the strain, and received nothing but replacement for it, something in Jormung broke, too. His working pace slowed to a crawl. He slept past wake-up calls, napped on the job, started sneaking off early, and eventually stopped showing up at all, deaf and apathetic to all calls to get back to work. They could slave away to bureaucrats and a deity who didn't give them a second thought, but not him. Why bother?

So he did the only other thing he could, at that point- nothing at all. As a hatchling his family had encouraged him to work hard in service of the Stormcatcher, and discouraged him from doing anything else, so he had no dreams of his own to follow aside from not working. The only dragon who stood by him and tried to find a goal he'd actually like was his friend Ladon, whose scholarly Light clan regularly moved across the boundary in the course of their studies. Ladon was similarly dissatisfied with his lot, but unlike Jormung, was driven by this instead of depressed. They stuck together like an electron to a proton whenever Ladon was in the area.

As they moved through adolescence Ladon was kept busier by his clan, leaving Jormung with even less to occupy his time. His and his clanmates' mutual disdain built up until one day, after a heated fight with his family, Jormung stormed off into the desert, alone. He spent the next few years scavenging along the border, until his path happened to cross Ladon's again, and Ladon roped him into his scheme to journey to Dragonhome to… become heroes, or something? Fight skeletons? Befriend skeletons? Jormung tuned out Ladon's pitch when he first heard it, and after that just let his friend drag him along into… whatever it was he was doing.

When they reached the Diabase Demesne, his friend's diligence and (loud) enthusiasm for hard work almost instantly earned him the job of helping inspector Altena patrol the lair to protect clanmates and guests from crime. Jormung was planning on kicking back and sorta figuring things out as he went along, but Ladon wasn't having any of it and before he knew it, Jormung was working with him. They even befriended a few skeletons after all to his bemusement; turns out literal living fossils are a thing in Dragonhome.

When he puts in a bit of effort Jormung is pretty competent. He's actually a decent deputy, although decent is all he is. He does the bare minimum of what's required of him, and doesn't burn a calorie more. Sure, the job's all right and his boss actually sorta cares about him, but that doesn't mean he's going to let anything make him give it his all. He'd rather enjoy every moment of doing relaxed nothing that he can, have fun, trade some gossip at Logi's tavern, and put up with nothing more than Ladon's well-meaning attempts to get him some ambitions. Of course, he'll put in a bit of extra effort if it means whatever he does will ruffle Ladon's feathers somehow, and he's almost always down to join Ladon in doing something if their fellow deputy Zilant's also being dragged along. Like Ladon, Jormung's a bit concerned about their new friend, although he's quieter about it; he tries to piece together whatever he can about what's left Zilant so impassive, leaving Ladon to organizing the actual cheering up.