Daemon

Daemon was born in the Shifting Expanse, a land which was no stranger to foreign energy. In his youth he played with other hatchlings as most do, but within mere weeks it became clear that Daemon was not like the others.
It was Daemon's father who recognized the symptoms from his own youth in the Starfall Isles. Electricity ran towards him, but never out or away; near batteries and technology they crackled and sputtered, and Daemon became more frantic. Small lightning spells became whirling storms in Daemon's claws, and the prodigious strength first thought a blessing were soon realized as a curse when crystal shards, glowing with energy, began to emerge from between Daemon's scales, as menacing and beautiful as the gleaming silhouette of the Arcane lands.
The growing unease came to a head when, on a furious night lit by lightning, Daemon was struck. Instead of collapsing from the sky, Daemon found himself possessed by the sheer energy within him, and fell into a madness. It lasted until Daemon tired himself into exhaustion, after which his father gathered him up and set him to rest in their lair.
When Daemon awoke, he found himself given a task; travel to the Starfall Isles for aid. Daemon's father could not help him, nor could any of the dragons native to the Shifting Expanse. It was only in the land where his sickness was born that he could discover its cure.

At first, Daemon had little luck.
His fearsome appearance did him no favors. Even in the Starfall Isles, where strange magic was in the air itself, his shard-ridden hide made others avoid him. It was a desperate Spiral that found his help in a quiet sect of dragons late on a starry night in the Observatory.
At once the dragons there recognized his plight. They brought him in for the night and went to work straight away, planning and casting around him in a net of spells to test his limits. While at first sceptical, Daemon grew to appreciate the little gifts and trinkets through which he could channel and cleanse himself of the uncanny, surging power.
A former lightning dragon showed him how to charge batteries at a touch. With focus he could make flowers bloom and wither, could pull earth from the ground as it did at the Focal Point, and through this he found the gift hidden in the curse. His powers could do amazing things, and when he was ready to travel again, he was sent south along the shore, to seek out Arcane clans in need of help.
-
For a time, Daemon travelled and used his power to aid those he could. He never settled - there was still that unease that he would be ejected due to his curse turned blessing - but he was fed, warm, and safe, even out on lonely roads in the dead of night. He found a passion in the spells and magic that came so easily to Arcane dragons, and practiced daily both out of interest and necessity.
It was during these travels that, one eve while making his way across the Windswept Plateau, Daemon found himself ripped from his sleep by the shouts and cries of dragons. He had come to find that the Wind god's lands could be as inhospitable as they were flighty.
Surfacing from his temporary lair, he found himself staring up towards a massive tornado. Dragons - many older, and more experienced, than he - flapped furiously against the gale, trying to save what fractions of their homes they could. He soon found the source of the calls. Sequestered in a small balloon, screaming for help, was a hatchling.
He didn't have to think about it. His wings flapped, and in a single beat, lifted him towards the storm.
The hatchling spotted him during his descent. Never before had Daemon encouraged his ability to suck power from others, but suddenly he wanted it desperately; anything to assist him in navigating the magical wind that battered and bruised his form. He twisted and twirled in an attempt to avoid those brushes of air he could not fight through. It served him well, and soon enough, his claws clamped down on the strings of the tyke's balloon, pulling the basket close to his chest.
Pulling back on his curse was more instinctive, and the hatchling breathed a sigh of relief once he did. Carefully, ever so carefully, he began carrying the child towards the closest native.
An Imperial, not as maneuverable but twice as able to withstand the winds, flew over. Wordlessly, Daemon handed the strings to the Imperial, who carefully cradled the child to her chest and nodded solemnly in thanks.
So preoccupied with watching them leave safely, Daemon never saw what hit him. The moment it struck him, his world went dark.
-
The ground was cold beneath him.
When he found the strength to open his eyes, Daemon figured out why. It wasn't ground; it was ice. It was the pure, frozen ice of the Southern Icefields, which had been frozen since before he was born and would remain frozen long after he passed.
Carefully murmuring a healing spell, Daemon rose to his feet. His wings were not lucky; he could feel tears that only time would heal. Folding them to his sides, he took a deep breath and began casting propulsion spells. Judging by the sun and the crags spiralling out of the distant coast, he and his ice-cold boat were on their way to the Fortress of Ends.
-
Never in ten eons would Daemon have expected to find something so precious in the frigid land he'd found.

The first few days had been difficult, until he had found forest. A small one, simply edging the Fortress of Ends, but a decent hunting grounds. He satisfied himself with the occasional insect and rationed meals of the shrubbery. Despite his efforts, he found nobody until Dhamballah.
She was a flurry of activity familiar to any Spiral, but on a scale he hadn't seen in any but himself. And it was no wonder - it took him some time to convince himself that the glowing, violet shards emerging from her back were the same curse that he bore.
When the brief hunting scuffle was over, Daemon emerged slowly. Dhamballah, still riding the heat of the battle, noticed him immediately. She watched him carefully, and silence reigned too long for comfort.
"...Hello," he said, when he found his voice again. "I'm afraid I'm a little bit lost. Do you know your way around here?"
-
Daemon and Dhamballah were fast friends.
It was strange, being able to speak so openly about his curse, to someone who knew exactly what he meant. Though it appeared Dhamballah had had a harder time of it - shunned and repeatedly blamed for faults not her own, he felt his own fears of rejection getting smaller. It helped that Dhamballah had promised to introduce him to her clan and the order of knights of which she was a part. Anyone who could know and accept someone with the curse was someone he wanted to know.
He was first vetted by the Knights - kindly Myran and powerful Keitha met them before he even spotted the lair's entrance - and then led below. Clan Maroke was warm and welcoming, a collection of dragons both impressive and skilled, and he found himself fitting right in. His skills never went to waste, were it to spar with the Knights or simply to power up the little contraptions Isato seemed to like making, and somehow he simply never left.
So long was he there that, when approached by Myran and a hopeful Dhamballah about becoming one of their number, he didn't have to think twice. 'Travelling Researcher' didn't have half the appeal of 'Arcane Knight'.