Noire

"Gonna be level with you, this fortune is best left unknown. Trust me, you'll be happier for it."

Only one dragon has been exiled from this clan. Only one dragon has been ordered to be killed on sight, and only one dragon cannot find refuge in even the darkest of the town.

Abuse of power. Reckless endangerment of the clan. Kidnapping. Engaging in illegal forms of magic. Treason. These are among many of his crimes.

---

Noire was an eccentric, though that alone was not cause for suspicion. He had received the role of an Archiver, a high rank in the clan given to trusted dragons to monitor the clan and their needs. His specific role was to keep track of the names of all dragons who had ever been in town. He was allowed to bypass certain security measures due to his position to accomplish this.

But under his calm demeanor, Noire had a dark obsession. He collected strange materials, studied obscure rituals, stared out at the stars every night, searching for something that was forbidden to all of dragonkind-- a connection to the all-devouring Shade.

To fulfill this purpose, he turned to the darker underside of the clan and made an alliance with the most prominent smugglers, promising the secrets to the strongest spells for bringing him Shade-touched objects. But no object was enough for him, until he met Acolyte.

Acolyte was born from an orphaned Arcane egg in the last hours of a solar eclipse. She had an innate connection to her arcane powers, and an affinity for the night sky. A perfect representation of her element... and the perfect vessel to offer to the Shade.

Noire approached the young Nocturne one night under the guise of friendship, gaining her trust as he worked in the shadows to bring the pieces together in a cave below the clan. And once the preparations for his ritual was complete, he stole her away to use as sacrifice.

Just as The Arcanist had summoned the Shade from beyond, Noire summoned the Shade from his pieces, and he let the cruel magic eat away at Acolyte's. If all had gone well, the result would have been a creature who could've harnessed the Shade's power and wreck havoc across Sorienth--

but that never came.

One of the smuggler's guards grew defiant, and disrupted the ritual by destroying the Shade-touched objects and shielding Acolyte with her massive body. The result was Noire losing his focus, which freed the Shade and left it to scatter and infuse with the cavern walls. A terrible fight came after-- witnesses above the surface said the ground shook as though an Emperor would emerge.

An alarm sounded, and the guards raced underground; they found Noire in the midst of it all, wild with his delusions and covered in dragon-blood. They charged him, but he used the last of his strength to teleport away from his disaster.

He would have surely died, had he not found an acceptable vessel of his own. A young Tundra hatchling with no memory of his own yet, Arcane like him. Noire would live, and he would bide his time until he was strong enough to return.

---