Maxence

Story

Maxence grew up in Nature flight in a cult-like clan notorious for its radically natural, exclusionist, and primitivist beliefs. There were no doctors, no cooking, no electricity, no buildings -- just dragons against the raw, untamed forces of the wild. For the hatchlings born there, having known nothing else, it was heaven. They were told stories that would keep them safe in the woods -- stories of other, evil flights that would take away their home, especially that of plague.

For the most part, it worked. The clan kept their numbers low enough to avoid over-straining the land, and Maxence happily did his part to keep everyone safe and happy.

Until he noticed, one night while scratching idly under his scales, that a vine was pushing its way out of his skin.

The clan elder told him he'd caught a parasitic vine, and that he needed to leave to avoid spreading it to the other dragons.

Maxence left right after he learned this. For months he lived alone in the deepest parts of the wilderness, feeling his energy being slowly sapped away as vines crept all over him as he slept. He wandered aimlessly, speaking to no one, frame withering from a healthy weight to something hovering around emaciated.

And then the leaves came.

He basked in the sun, wings outstretched, and for a while, his health improved. The relationship with the plant moved from something parasitic to something mutualistic.

Maxence would get the strangest urges to be around as many dragons as possible. He dismissed it as loneliness and kept to himself in the wild. When the first pink flower budded out of his chest, the urges intensified.

By now he'd traveled alone halfway across Sornieth. On one fateful day, while attempting to fly to the Starfall Isles, he accidentally landed in the Scarred Wastelands. The plague dragons there recognized the parasite claiming the nature dragon and, after a vicious one-sided fight, removed the original seed from Maxence's side, taking the plant's ability to reproduce. They then took Maxence's pearl to sell on the black market and left the pearlcatcher to die.

Custos, while exploring the edges of the arcane territory, found Maxence and nearly killed the plague dragons who'd stolen his pearl before returning it to him. By now, Maxence's wounds combined with the parasite sapping his strength was close to killing him. Custos, sensing Maxence would die if moved, made camp and nursed him to health for a few days before he was well enough to take back to the Coalition of Broken Glass.

Upon his arrival, Speculo nearly killed him, knowing of the parasite and beliving him contagious. However, upon seeing the wound where the seed had been clearly removed, she allowed him to live. Maxence has not left since.

Personality

Maxence is a nervous, jumpy dragon quick to assume the worst of others. However, once loyal to someone, he is unmoving in that loyalty. It's because of his loyalty to the nature flight that he's never tried to remove the plants attached to his body -- he's even grown sort of attached to them, despite his thin frame and cracked bleeding scales.

By extension, he is very stubborn, and he still doesn't fully trust flights other than nature and arcane. He outright avoids dragons other than Custos.

Despite all this, he can be quite an eloquent speaker, and while living with the Coalition has fallen in love with poetry. He's memorized dozens of poems from poetry books in the library and can perform them all by heart.

Likes

Nature
Gardening
Poetry
Hunting
Food -- he eats a LOT

Dislikes

Other flights
Fights
Other dragons staring

Clan
Gardener

He works in the fields nearby the mine, between coast and woods, growing berries and fruits and flowers for all the clan dragons. It's hard work, especially for someone eating for two for the rest of his life. Rarely does he have the energy to return to the caves to sleep, and instead opted for the cool dirt beneath the trees or in the middle of the fields. Eventually, Corinna had a gardener's shed built for him to sleep in. He works himself raw out of habit, not necessity, and refuses to compensate for his new body.

Despite not knowing the other dragons very well, there's something very satisfying about seeing them eat the foods he helped grow. When that happens, he feels closer to them than usual.

Relationships

Almost creepily loyal to: https://www1.flightrising.com/dragon/51767354
Pretends not to like but actually does: https://www1.flightrising.com/dragon/51656782

For the first month in the clan, Maxence would cling to Custos, doing anything he asked. When Speculo noticed this, she snapped at him so viciously he didn't dare approach Custos when she was around. However, he still is very loyal to Custos and does anything he asks. He also leaves a bouquet of flowers on the older dragon's bed at the end of every month, including some of his own flowers. He doesn't realize how uncomfortable this makes Custos, as Maxence believes he's simply paying back the favor for saving his life.

As a gardener, it's only natural he'd develop a close relationship with the clan cook, Aurantiaco. She often comes to him with seeds, requesting certain things, acting like... herself, which Maxence pretends to be annoyed by. They often get into verbal spats. Aurantiaco is delighted by someone who doesn't instantly give in to her playful rambunctiousness. Maxence is quietly horrified by the fact he actually enjoys having her around and takes out his frustrations through their fights, which only further encourages her.

He has a deep platonic love for his familiar, a flower nymph he met in the woods when he was alone. It loves nestling in his flowers and keeping him company, and the two often have long conversations. She encourages him to think differently or take risks, two things he has a lot of trouble with. He often recites and reads poetry to her.

Quotes

"For she is the east, and Juliet is the sun... ah!"
"S-shut up! I don't like you at all!"

Theme Songs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iONZBjTtQHo




I wrote a story to get this dragon

"Don't," Maxence hissed as the stranger dragon looked at his wounds. "Don't. Don't. Leave me. Let nature run her course, let me erode into the soil--"

"Where's your pearl?" The stranger interrupted. Maxence said nothing but squirmed under the larger guardian dragon, heedless of his wounds scraping in the dirt. His throat produced a low-pitched whine without his permission, and he clamped down on his tongue to stop himself.

"Don't," he said unintelligently, and immediately felt the urge to slap himself on the forehead with his wing. The stranger eased off the pearlcatcher. Maxence immediately attempted to fly away, getting two feet off the ground before he crashed, muscles trembling and hot, too exhausted to move.

He felt, rather than saw, the stranger approach again, too weak to turn his head.

"I thought I was out," Maxence babbled. "I know Nature flight isn't supposed to land in The Scarred Wasteland, but I thought I was out, in Starfall Isles so I landed, and pleasedon'thurtmeagain--"

"I'm Arcane," the guardian said, stepping within Maxence's line of sight and lowering his head, pink eyes clearly visible. "Let me help you."

Maxence burst into tears.

"You can't-- they took my pearl, you can't help me!" Maxence wailed, breaking off into sobs.

The stranger glanced at Maxence's wounds. Then, with a mighty beat of wings that cooled the pearlcatcher's feverish face, he was gone.

Maxence closed his eyes, heaving. The stranger had decided to listen after all-- it was kinder to let a pearlless pearlcatcher die.

But... he was still in plague territory. His body, his bones... he'd always wanted them to go to the green glades, the new leaves. But better anywhere else than... plague.

Trembling, he found purchase in the dirt and heaved himself up. His back leg, he suspected, was completely shattered from a desperate mid-air fall. No matter. Most pearlcatchers could walk on three legs with ease. He limped forward, yelped when his lame leg was jostled, gritted his teeth. One step. Another.

He would not die in plague.

It was slow. Dusk became dark. Maxence jumped at every small sound, breath quickening. His bones ached for rest, but he did not stop to sleep, fearing it would be eternal. One step. Another. His tail fluff, once his carefully groomed pride, dragged in the dirt.

A swoop of dragon wings.

He gasped, and lowered himself to the ground, motionless. His green and brown scales, he knew, were perfect camouflage in the leaf litter.

"I'm back," A familiar voice rumbled. Maxence hesitantly opened his eyes.

A pearlescent gleam--

A white orb--

Before he knew it, he was up, snatching his pearl from the guardian dragon, cradling it to his chest, gripping it so hard it hurt. He rocked back and forth, whimpering, and did not protest when the red dragon wrapped his dusty brown wings around the pearlcatcher.


As the dragon pulled out healing herbs and bandages from a satchel, Maxence did not ask about the blood on his claws.