Ilia
(#43244287)
Level 1 Pearlcatcher
Familiar
Death Seeker
Click or tap to view this dragon in Predict Morphology.
Energy: 0/50
This dragon’s natural inborn element is Nature.
Female Pearlcatcher
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Personal Style
Apparel
Skin
Scene
Measurements
Length
4.55 m
Wingspan
6.22 m
Weight
548.02 kg
Genetics
Obsidian
Metallic
Metallic
Obsidian
Alloy
Alloy
Jade
Runes
Runes
Hatchday
Breed
Eye Type
Level 1 Pearlcatcher
EXP: 0 / 245
STR
6
AGI
6
DEF
6
QCK
7
INT
7
VIT
6
MND
7
Lineage
Biography
i l i a | soulchild
There wasn't much that could invoke Ilia's passions. The Gladekeeper was a gentle presence that kept her safe, for a while, but there was never anything within Ilia that screamed home among the trunks and blooming foliage of the Veridian Labyrinth. She had her family, of course; a mother, a father, and a brother. A home that should have felt of it, but all Ilia had felt was restless. Uncertain. Like there was a fog lingering in her mind, but no matter what she did to lift it, that haze stubbornly remained. Her own personal plague, she used to think.
Ilia stares down at the water at her feet. It's a dark river, narrow at this bend where the shore pushes outward in a gentle slope. She can see her reflection rippling across the surface through the mist that touches the lightly bobbing water, and it reminds her of her time spent in that lush jungle, wandering and lost and disconnected. Tyga sits on a branch above her head, the emerald eye set in the center of his breast blinking slowly at her through his reflection. She watches him for a moment, caught up in her own thoughts of a past that falls back into the fog in her mind.
It was strange. Here, sitting on the riverbank of the Tangled Wood shrouded in mist and shadow, Ilia had never felt more clear. It was like part of her had been chipped off as a hatchling, and somehow, the witch had found it and put it back into place. She was whole here, no longer lost but complete and content. Here, she was no longer mistaken for her mother at every turn, nor passed by in favor of a brother who seemed far more comfortable amidst the brambles and brush than she. Blue was his name, Ilia recalls. She frowns slightly when she realizes she cannot remember the name of her parents, though. The mother who'd been her own twin, aside from the fragmented rainbows painted on the inner membrane of her wings after one too many times the two of them had been mistaken for the other. She can remember the shape and the color of her father and his fierce stature-- but no name comes to mind, and drawing a second blank surprises her more than she expected.
"Do you remember them, Tyga?" she asks the raven, and he shuffles slightly on his perch at the address. She doesn't know how he would, considering the death seeker had found her leagues outside her homeland on her search to find that something tugging in her chest, but now she's suddenly desperate to know if it's simply a blip in her memory or if, somehow, they'd never existed at all.
"They are real," he croaks to her, in that same raspy, unsettling voice of his. It never fails to amaze her with how perceptive and aware the bird is, and it's not the first time she wonders if his kind have some sort of telepathic ability they don't disclose to their companions.
Ilia nods. Of course they were. They had to be, or else she wouldn't be.
Though, that does raise the question of her fate entangled with the witch called Fade. The one who had seemed to draw her to this place, the one who had taken Ilia by the face and shared with her a memory that belonged to Ilia yet was not made of her own. Fade had known her in a way that even Ilia had not and welcomed her into this home--her home-- and had gifted her with a spell that assuaged the desire to free herself from her mother's image. She had painted gold filigree against the jet of Ilia's scales and scattered gold dust into her mane and tail fur. Now, sitting at the water's edge, she sees herself with runes inscribed across her face and ribs and gold swirled over her body in a beautiful design. No longer did she have the thick scales that tied her into that family of mirror images. Ilia was unique, and she was her own, and she was glad for it.
Tyga hops down his branch, closer to the water but still clutching the bark with his talons.
"She will answer if you ask," he says, and though it's said with a tone of mystery, she takes his ominous words with another incline of her head.
She knows. She knows all she needs to do is talk with Fade, ask her about those memories that are hers but aren't, and why after all this time, her journey across Sornieth had brought her to this place. To Fade.
But at the same time, Ilia is hesitant. Frightened, even, if she tries to name that uncertainty brewing in her chest at the thought. Though she feels safe and right in this place among these dragons, she knows there's something else-- something more-- to this feeling nestled behind her ribcage. That fog in her head hasn't lifted completely, even if she's found the home where she feels bright and whole. She wants the answers, but she also doesn't; this naivety is safe, because she can hide behind it and not worry about what new potentials and changes this truth might bring about. She's comfortable in this dark and she's too stubborn to stray out into whatever light Fade might shine upon her.
Ironic, she thinks, for a shadow witch.
"I'll speak to her soon," she promises the raven, again. He huffs and clicks his beak at her, but he doesn't opine or scold her choice to avoid the issue for now. He knows, in due time, she will seek out the answers herself.
Ilia, too, knows this, and tries not to think of it.
----
Fade watches from a thin branch far above the two at the riverbank. The death seeker knows Fade is there-- he knows quite a bit, for a one-eyed bird-- but he doesn't acknowledge her, and she doesn't reveal herself. Though she's never spoken directly with this Tyga, at least without the presence of Ilia to buffer them, Fade and the raven have some unspoken pact forged by their connection to the pearlcatcher still gazing down into the depths of the delta water below.
There's a warmth crinkling in the remains of Fade's old soul. A recognition, a connection. Many of the dragons in her clan had evoked a similar response when Fade met them, and it's nothing new to a dragon who has cycled through the centuries and encountered other souls from her days past. But Ilia is special. Ilia, Fade remembers the most; it's typical to have the clearest memories of the life before the current, and sometimes they are so clear it's as though she has two consciousnesses vying for authority in her head. Some days Fade can wake and think of herself as that pearlcatcher, silver and glittering in her prime with a pearl tight in her claws as gleaming as her own scales. And then she focuses, and remembers the fight-- that bloody, terrible fight she'd lost to protect the young hatchling Ilia had once been-- that had ripped Fade's soul from that body and shoved it along to the next. To this one, a tiny fae with magic entrapped in the capsule running from throat to tail.
She remembers much of that life. Ilia had not been "Ilia" then-- it's a name given to her by the mother who'd laid her in this one, but not the name Fade had given her when her daughter had been born a hundred years ago-- but Fade still knows her. It's as though those little pieces of herself that break after every rebirth had somehow infused into the tiny thing that had been her child, and now the soul that she sees within Ilia is not only a product of Fade's previous form but of her soul, too, and it's what drives Fade to linger even when the pearlcatcher doesn't know it.
Fade knows that Ilia is scared. That she senses something deeper to their sudden connection; she had, after all, wandered from the safety of her jungle to scour Sornieth for whatever she felt pulling her toward Fade. And it had, in the end, led her right into Fade's waiting claws. She knows it's not quite what Ilia expected, and even still, may not be the answer she was hoping to find. But if there is anything Fade has learned through the thousands of lives she's lived, it's patience. She can wait. When Ilia is ready to learn the truth and embrace the reality of her existence, Fade will be there to welcome her daughter home properly.
Ilia stares down at the water at her feet. It's a dark river, narrow at this bend where the shore pushes outward in a gentle slope. She can see her reflection rippling across the surface through the mist that touches the lightly bobbing water, and it reminds her of her time spent in that lush jungle, wandering and lost and disconnected. Tyga sits on a branch above her head, the emerald eye set in the center of his breast blinking slowly at her through his reflection. She watches him for a moment, caught up in her own thoughts of a past that falls back into the fog in her mind.
It was strange. Here, sitting on the riverbank of the Tangled Wood shrouded in mist and shadow, Ilia had never felt more clear. It was like part of her had been chipped off as a hatchling, and somehow, the witch had found it and put it back into place. She was whole here, no longer lost but complete and content. Here, she was no longer mistaken for her mother at every turn, nor passed by in favor of a brother who seemed far more comfortable amidst the brambles and brush than she. Blue was his name, Ilia recalls. She frowns slightly when she realizes she cannot remember the name of her parents, though. The mother who'd been her own twin, aside from the fragmented rainbows painted on the inner membrane of her wings after one too many times the two of them had been mistaken for the other. She can remember the shape and the color of her father and his fierce stature-- but no name comes to mind, and drawing a second blank surprises her more than she expected.
"Do you remember them, Tyga?" she asks the raven, and he shuffles slightly on his perch at the address. She doesn't know how he would, considering the death seeker had found her leagues outside her homeland on her search to find that something tugging in her chest, but now she's suddenly desperate to know if it's simply a blip in her memory or if, somehow, they'd never existed at all.
"They are real," he croaks to her, in that same raspy, unsettling voice of his. It never fails to amaze her with how perceptive and aware the bird is, and it's not the first time she wonders if his kind have some sort of telepathic ability they don't disclose to their companions.
Ilia nods. Of course they were. They had to be, or else she wouldn't be.
Though, that does raise the question of her fate entangled with the witch called Fade. The one who had seemed to draw her to this place, the one who had taken Ilia by the face and shared with her a memory that belonged to Ilia yet was not made of her own. Fade had known her in a way that even Ilia had not and welcomed her into this home--her home-- and had gifted her with a spell that assuaged the desire to free herself from her mother's image. She had painted gold filigree against the jet of Ilia's scales and scattered gold dust into her mane and tail fur. Now, sitting at the water's edge, she sees herself with runes inscribed across her face and ribs and gold swirled over her body in a beautiful design. No longer did she have the thick scales that tied her into that family of mirror images. Ilia was unique, and she was her own, and she was glad for it.
Tyga hops down his branch, closer to the water but still clutching the bark with his talons.
"She will answer if you ask," he says, and though it's said with a tone of mystery, she takes his ominous words with another incline of her head.
She knows. She knows all she needs to do is talk with Fade, ask her about those memories that are hers but aren't, and why after all this time, her journey across Sornieth had brought her to this place. To Fade.
But at the same time, Ilia is hesitant. Frightened, even, if she tries to name that uncertainty brewing in her chest at the thought. Though she feels safe and right in this place among these dragons, she knows there's something else-- something more-- to this feeling nestled behind her ribcage. That fog in her head hasn't lifted completely, even if she's found the home where she feels bright and whole. She wants the answers, but she also doesn't; this naivety is safe, because she can hide behind it and not worry about what new potentials and changes this truth might bring about. She's comfortable in this dark and she's too stubborn to stray out into whatever light Fade might shine upon her.
Ironic, she thinks, for a shadow witch.
"I'll speak to her soon," she promises the raven, again. He huffs and clicks his beak at her, but he doesn't opine or scold her choice to avoid the issue for now. He knows, in due time, she will seek out the answers herself.
Ilia, too, knows this, and tries not to think of it.
----
Fade watches from a thin branch far above the two at the riverbank. The death seeker knows Fade is there-- he knows quite a bit, for a one-eyed bird-- but he doesn't acknowledge her, and she doesn't reveal herself. Though she's never spoken directly with this Tyga, at least without the presence of Ilia to buffer them, Fade and the raven have some unspoken pact forged by their connection to the pearlcatcher still gazing down into the depths of the delta water below.
There's a warmth crinkling in the remains of Fade's old soul. A recognition, a connection. Many of the dragons in her clan had evoked a similar response when Fade met them, and it's nothing new to a dragon who has cycled through the centuries and encountered other souls from her days past. But Ilia is special. Ilia, Fade remembers the most; it's typical to have the clearest memories of the life before the current, and sometimes they are so clear it's as though she has two consciousnesses vying for authority in her head. Some days Fade can wake and think of herself as that pearlcatcher, silver and glittering in her prime with a pearl tight in her claws as gleaming as her own scales. And then she focuses, and remembers the fight-- that bloody, terrible fight she'd lost to protect the young hatchling Ilia had once been-- that had ripped Fade's soul from that body and shoved it along to the next. To this one, a tiny fae with magic entrapped in the capsule running from throat to tail.
She remembers much of that life. Ilia had not been "Ilia" then-- it's a name given to her by the mother who'd laid her in this one, but not the name Fade had given her when her daughter had been born a hundred years ago-- but Fade still knows her. It's as though those little pieces of herself that break after every rebirth had somehow infused into the tiny thing that had been her child, and now the soul that she sees within Ilia is not only a product of Fade's previous form but of her soul, too, and it's what drives Fade to linger even when the pearlcatcher doesn't know it.
Fade knows that Ilia is scared. That she senses something deeper to their sudden connection; she had, after all, wandered from the safety of her jungle to scour Sornieth for whatever she felt pulling her toward Fade. And it had, in the end, led her right into Fade's waiting claws. She knows it's not quite what Ilia expected, and even still, may not be the answer she was hoping to find. But if there is anything Fade has learned through the thousands of lives she's lived, it's patience. She can wait. When Ilia is ready to learn the truth and embrace the reality of her existence, Fade will be there to welcome her daughter home properly.
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Exalting Ilia to the service of the Lightweaver 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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