Mkoya

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MKOYA
The Painted Demon

“You have known the deep earth, the polished caves, the pits of magma as fierce as the sun. You have slept, you have seen eons, you know that along your fragments you may gild and forget in silver again. You who knew smoke, who turned away from the sky, who tread roads spined with hickory and thistle, who sifted through pale sand to recover the stars… where do you sleep now?”

Ashen Lightning Glass

Minerals & Ores

When lightning hits sand, the result is a new trinket. (Special thanks to brain4puzzles!)

83

A brutal warrior, capable of killing most dragons by barely lifting a claw. She leads her tribe through the mountains, and surrounds herself with warriors, each as violent as the last. Her strength is beyond a dragon, and others in the tribe sometimes even compare it to that of a deity. She can sometimes be seen stalking prey, but her the devilish glint in her eyes keeps any dragon far from her. She will fight for her comrades, but does not really consider herself to be close with any dragons in the clan. She is considered a demon in battle, and if necessary she will use any trick she can to gain the upper hand, and loss is not a word in her vocabulary.

Mkoya has always believed in survival of the fittest, abandoning her parents soon after hatching. Her mother believed in brains over brawn, and her father was a medic. She knew that they would not be able to teach her how to survive in the real world. The real world was painful. The real world didn’t care about you. The real world will kill you. Mkoya knew that from a very young age.

She ran from their clan, away from “peace over violence” and “violence is never the answer”. She ran until her feet could not take it any more. Then she realised that she was lost. Her wings had not developed enough to fly, so she couldn’t fly to see where home was. She was lost, deep in a rotting forest. The trees were bare, the bark rotting, and no creature could be heard. She thought that no creature could live here, but she was obviously mistaken. She was far from home, she wanted to go back, she wanted to see her family again. She wanted to see her friends again. But her thoughts were interrupted by a tall figure, towering over the small hatchling.

She jumped back, startled by the tall creature. She looked up and her eyes locked with the fire-like glow of the creatures eyes. The creature morphed into a demon, one of which no dragon nor human had ever seen before. The demon floated above the ground, and leaned down to see the coatl’s petrified face. Mkoya regained her aggressive posture, and growled at the creature. But the demon didn’t even flinch. It just floated there, and made her an offer she couldn’t refuse. They offered to make Mkoya have the strength of a deity, in exchange for control over her soul. Mkoya instantly accepted, knowing that she had physical limitations below that of some other dragons that she had met. She wanted to be stronger than her siblings. She wanted to be stronger than her friends. She wanted to be stronger than them all.

When the demon took control of her soul, Mkoya’s wings instantly grew strong enough to fly, and she felt herself grow stronger with every passing second. But the positivity in her eyes had vanished. Her kindness had changed to the need for power. The dragon had become an empty shell, her eyes glowing but not because of anything alive.

Mkoya raised her wings and shot high up into the sky. She saw where her old clan was, but she didn’t feel any reason to go back. She couldn’t remember anything, just that it is a dragon-eat-dragon world. She turned to face the large mountains next to the rotting forest, and flew toward them. When she landed, aggressive looking creatures circled around her, Bonepickers, Scalebacks, Tatterwing carcasses, and more, all growling, and all about to pounce. But Mkoya didn’t feel fear. She couldn’t feel fear. She couldn’t feel anything. She reared back, standing on her hind legs. She let out a low growl, warning the animals, but when they did not back down, she opened her mouth, lined with dagger like teeth, her tongue lit with a blue flame. Some of the animals fled, knowing that they would be scorched, and they were exactly right. Mkoya lit the ground around her on fire, the animals could hardly take the heat of the bright flame, and as they ran, an egg rolled up to the coatl. She didn’t know what made her do it, but she picked up the egg, and flew to the top of the mountain.

She took care of the stolen egg, and cared for it as if it was her own. When it hatched, she treated the hatchling as a comrade and taught it how to fight. That hatchling was going to be the first of many that joined Mkoya’s tribe of warriors. Some dragons say that if you leave a dragon egg on the side of the mountain, it will vanish, and return a warrior.