Velona

"I stood guard in front of his cell regularly. Made sure no one visited, and that he didn’t leave. He was old and strange, violent too, I was told, but what could the old dragon really do behind bars? It was a job, I thought. Nothing would happen to me, I thought.

How naive I was.

When I stood guard during the night, that’s when I really noticed his odd behavior. Talking and fidgeting in his sleep, mumbling in tongues I couldn’t understand. There’d be pauses, as if he was waiting for responses. I chalked that up to just be that he was crazy, and it was just gibberish.

When he was awake, I’d find him staring at me every now and again. I couldn’t see much of anything under his mask, but I felt his stare. I didn’t think much of that either at first. Not until the coughing began.

It starts with a cough.

Such an innocuous symptom. You could blame it on a number of things. Allergies, dust in the lower levels of the castle, a change in temperature...you never think too much of a cough. If you cough enough to grow concerned, you’d see a medic, and they’d tell you it was just one of those things. That you were fine, and there was nothing to worry about.

But every time I coughed around him, he’d immediately turn his gaze to me. Again, thought nothing of it. In hindsight, I see what he was doing. He was watching his handiwork. Observing to see how my symptoms progressed, what he should change or intensify. I was his unwitting test subject, a guard turned guinea pig. Every day I stood guard, he was using me.

One day I felt dizzy. I thought I was just tired, at least until I coughed again at my post. I covered my mouth to be polite. When I took my claws away from my maw, I saw black fluid staining my palm.

Slowly, my eyes met his, horror sinking its talons into my heart.

He was smiling."

---

Notes:

- The first to become infected with the calamitous disease crafted by this world's Sarial Vesh. Velona was formerly the guard that watched over his prison cell in the Scarred Wasteland.
- She survived the disease against all odds, but due to the deteriorated state it's left her body in and the friends and family it's taken from her, some distant part of her wishes she didn't pull through after all. That's not to say she wishes to die, because that's not true. She only wishes she could be as strong as she used to be, and that her loved ones made it as well.
- Others say it's a miracle she made it through, to which she'll respond with a terribly sad, bitter smile and say she's not certain if it was worth it.
- Nowadays she's one of the leading forces in the search for a cure with Jonas. Her new immunity to both parts of the sickness - true sickness and the Shade portion, have been able to at least give the crew a starting point for the cure. She's very proud to be of use in this way, and hopes that no one else will ever end up like her.
- She's also one of the few people to force Jonas to take breaks for his own sanity. "You won't be able to help anyone if you don't help yourself first." She reminds him. She also jokingly adds that he doesn't want to look as much of a mess as her, now does he?
- One of her favorite things now is taking warm baths with medicated water for her skin. It soothes the old, ruined skin, and usually she nearly falls asleep in there.
- Though Yersinia is usually disturbing and not all that pleasant to be around when he's in one of his frenzied moods, Velona admires his brilliance in working on cures and concoctions to boost the immune system. He may be a little unhinged, but she can appreciate the good he brings to the table as well. And surprisingly to her, he treats her as a person and not just the crew's "patient zero".