Sergei

A walking corpse, animated by the eyeflowers that appeared in the Grove some time ago and have now taken firm root.

He knows he's dead, in the sense that he's lumped with the other shambles and they're definitely dead. But he doesn't really seem aware of what "dead" means, owing to the fact that he's a "living" contradiction to the word. He considers it to just refer to a certain kind of dragon: Sergei thinks of himself as dead in the same way he thinks of himself as bogsneak.

He doesn't remember his death, and isn't entirely aware of what that means, so he doesn't really know he's been reanimated either.

Most of the Grove treats him like any other shamble (as something between "fearsome warrior" and domesticated animal"), except the necromancers, who actually treat him with more respect because they're more aware of exactly what he is. Namely, an avatar of the Grove.

Most of his original personality remains. Unlike most of the other shambles around the Grove, he wasn't animated by a necromancer, but by the Grove itself. In many ways, he's still himself. He's not being puppeted by another dragon, and has free will.

Sergei has a special relationship with plants that goes beyond just identifying with them because his body is mostly plant. He's aware of them, in much the same way Paxid is, as living beings, and as a unit. The eyeflowers that keep him functioning grant him the "sight" (more metaphorical than literal) of the plants. In a sense, he knows what the Grove knows, and the Grove gets the benefit of his dragon senses, absorbing more information than it normally has access to.

Sergei takes his social cues from the other shambles because he considers himself one of them. So he's normally patrolling borders. As you can imagine, he's a very good watchman.

He spends a lot of his free time with the spirits. They're good company, and he doesn't understand why they shy away from most of the Grove. They have a lot of stories to tell, but he's not very linguistically inclined, so he paints his interperetations of those stories.

Art is subjective, and they're certainly very expressionist. They have a lot of emotion and feeling in them, with wild brushstrokes and surreal imagery. He's trying to capture an entire concept rather than a singular subject like a forest or a dragon, and while his audience (the spirits) approve, most dragons just see abstract art - which some of them do enjoy for that value alone.

Sergei doesn't really understand currency - he retained personality but no memories, so in some ways he's very childlike and naieve. He doesn't have much use for little bits of metal, but he'll trade his paintings for food, more art supplies, or things he thinks his friends might like. Some of the paintings he's especially proud of do decorate his home - a rough lean-to woven out of willow hedge with a single stone wall at the back.

The other dead dragons are a bit boring to Sergei. Most of them didn't retain as much personality as he did, so they act more like dumb animals. He enjoys spending time with them, because they're physically like him, but mentally he relates more to the living dragons. This, in addition to his eyeflowers, is the reason he ended up in the court of the Watchful. They accept the strange, those things which don't quite fit in any world. He's not really an Official Member of the Court, but he hangs around with them socially and is slowly absorbing their politics.

He trusts Glori and Saria the most. Glori because her body is also partially flowers, so he's inherently drawn to her. She's kind and motherly, and politically apathetic. Like most of the court, she's not a simple dragon. Sergei doesn't understand exactly what she is, but he doesn't need to. He relates to her strangeness. Saria spent a few lifetimes tumbling through realities and came out Changed. He thinks his charge is in the court, and is being as amicable as possible to anyone he meets until he finds out what that is.

Sergei definitely enjoys the way necromancers treat him. Anyone would, if Basic Respect And Decency were a rare experience. But he thinks of it as special treatment, and thinks the necromancers think he's special. They do, but not for the reason he thinks. He thinks they're his Friends. They're actually a little bit afraid of him. He's basically the physical embodiment of their own god. They'd be stupid not to be.

The Grove reanimated him because things have been getting Exceptionally Weird lately, and it's becoming clear that it can't just leave solving these various problems to the dragons, who are either oblivious or actively contributing to The Problem. The Grove decided that if you want something done right, do it yourself.

the Grove can feel powerful magics that are not its own encroaching on it, and if it doesn't do something soon, it will die. (Because the Grove is, basically, a living magical force embedded in the ground and the plants) The Grove's ultimate plan is to:
* Let Paxid know what is going on his own Grove
* Kick out the Source of the Incursion™️ (or kill it if a banishment won't stick)
* Give the necromancers a very serious talking to
* Rearrange its own boundaries (as enforced by a living bramble fence that is being manipulated and cultivated by Paxid and his ilk)

Sergei is vaguely aware that there are things he needs to do, the way you can walk into a room and know you've forgotten something but what did you forget?? The Grove is currently using him as a recon unit, and occasionally puppets him to communicate with Paxid. He's aware of the conversations, but doesn't really understand their implication. One day, the eyeflowers will take him over completely and use him as a conduit to expel the Incursion. Who knows what will survive of Sergei after that.

If he found out what the Grove planned, he wouldn't be able to do much about it. He could leave the Grove itself, but he'd eventually wither and die like a plant without sunlight. He'd most likely stay in the court, and formally join them. Does he have the willpower to turn the Grove's own strength against it? I'm not sure if he'd think to try. It depends how developed his sense of self has become by the time he finds out. If he's truly independent, and sure of himself? Yeah. He'd rebel against the forces that made him.

Right now, Paxid is working with the Grove to shift the boundaries back to where they should be. This all started when the edge of the Grove slipped deep into fae territory, but that went unnoticed for so long that untangling the magics will take work. Exactly one(1) trusted necromancer has been informed, and he's got his shambles patrolling the new, intended border. The current objective is to move the occupants of the Grove back out of fae territory before trying to banish the Incursion itself, so it has as little fae magics as possible to draw upon.

It's one of those lurching plans, that starts out slowly working for weeks and then everything happens in an afternoon.