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Personal Style
Apparel
Skin
Scene
Measurements
Length
3.5 m
Wingspan
6.34 m
Weight
466.89 kg
Genetics
Tan
Poison
Poison
Tan
Toxin
Toxin
Terracotta
Glimmer
Glimmer
Hatchday
Breed
Eye Type
Level 1 Skydancer
EXP: 0 / 245
STR
4
AGI
5
DEF
4
QCK
9
INT
9
VIT
4
MND
9
Biography
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"I can see the way you look at me You can't see beyond the veil I can tell the way you run from me I'm not your perfect fairy tale And I am Conflicted by your hurt So let me share your pain Convicted for my church I was born in flames Addicted to my fate Watch as I devour Convicted for my faith This is the Witching Hour" ╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯ The city of Dhune was peculiar in that it permitted no magic. Absolutely none, by order of its king. Enchanted items were confiscated at the gates, and dragons barred from practicing even the simplest spells. When the law had first gone into effect some decades ago, it had seen Dhune almost emptied, as many had fled what they considered to be a harsh and unreasonable decree. Yet almost as quickly as they’d left, they had been replaced: by new merchants, scientists, and engineers. Magic or none, Dhune was still a great place of trade and learning. So travelers continued to come and go, and some even stayed. It was unusual, however, to have one stay in the slums—with a smile on her face, at that. Her name was Lorna Caraway, and she was a Fire-born Skydancer. She had been abandoned as a very small hatchling outside an orphanage called Blacksand Cradle. She had not been adopted, but she’d never resented that, for the orphanage had been a warm and happy place, a true refuge for its residents. Growing up there, she’d learned to care for the younger hatchlings, and she’d dreamed of founding an orphanage in the city of Dhune. She even had a name prepared for it: Caraway Cradle, after the place she considered her true home. It was a difficult dream, and one that took some time to realize. Lorna didn’t have much to her name, and the slum-dwellers at first regarded her with deep suspicion. But her gentle ways, her compassionate heart, slowly won them over. They learned to respect the Skydancer’s quiet strength, the warmth with which she embraced her children, and her determination to provide the best possible home for them. Lady Lorna, they began to call her, because amidst the squalor and hopelessness of the slums, her kindness shone forth, making her grander than any queen. She befriended many of these locals, and they, in turn, offered what aid they could. Shopkeepers discounted their wares, tailors mended clothes, and doctors treated the children for free. One of these doctors became her friend: Maerwynn, an Imperial whose stern, snippy demeanor belied a charitable heart. Dhune had lost many healers—and patients—after magic had been outlawed. The Imperial had been trained in the newer, non-magical methods, but few other doctors could match her skill—or her magnanimity. Lorna’s wards were among her regular patients. In gratitude for her aid, the Skydancer at times came to Maerwynn’s clinic and assisted with her own patients. Blacksand Cradle had not been a wealthy home, and she had learned many time- and money-saving tricks that Maerwynn had missed, such as which herbs to use or what food would best soothe certain breeds of dragons. The two dragonesses had soon learned to lean on each other. The work they were doing was good, yes—but it remained difficult, and showed no sign of easing. “Not while that empty-headed king continues enforcing his law,” Lorna thought bitterly as she followed Maerwynn into the clinic. A child had recently taken ill. He lay like a stone, listless and clammy. Pale feathers had already drifted from his wings to the floor. Lorna spoke to him, trying to engage him, anything to get a response. He smiled feebly back and fluttered his wings, but that was all. He went back to sleep after the Skydancer gave him some medicine. Outside, she and Maerwynn compared notes: If a similar disease struck the orphanage residents, they wanted to be ready for it. “I am glad to hear that the Caraway children are as sound as ever,” Maerwynn said. Her voice was, as usual, curt and clipped, but Lorna could sense genuine relief from her. “I’ll stop by for their usual check-ups next week. I’d rather have it tomorrow, but I need to make sure...That is, there are so many patients...Well, I’ll be there.” “I know you will. Thank you as always, Mae. You’ve done so much for the children already.” Maerwynn’s immediate response was a sigh. She looked back at the patient’s room, a brief moment of distress for an otherwise stoic soul. “If only we could...If only we were allowed to—” Lorna pressed a hand against her forearm. Immediately, Maerwynn started to relax, her expression becoming almost dreamy. The tension was flowing away...or being siphoned away.... “If only we could do magic.” That was what she wanted to say. Lorna had heard the same lament in Dhune many times before. But always spoken in hushed voices, for it was dangerous to disagree with the king’s laws. “Thank you, Maerwynn,” the Skydancer repeated. “We’re always grateful for your help. I’ll see you next week.” “Of course.” The doctor straightened up. She looked down at Lorna’s paw, where it still pressed against her dark brown scales. In an undertone, she cautioned the Skydancer, “You’re getting better at that...but you should still be careful. The King has eyes everywhere, you know.” “I’m always careful,” Lorna chuckled, and with a final nod, she headed out into the gathering dusk. As she glided home, she briefly looked down at her palm. Golden runes still flickered upon it, the remnants of a calming spell. Magic. As a tiny hatchling, Lorna Caraway had arrived at Blacksand Cradle with nothing but a book. But what a book! Old and weathered enough to have a presence of its own, with a locked clasp that no amount of prying could undo. A book that couldn’t be read was uninteresting, and young Lorna stuck it in a crate beneath her bed and soon forgot about it. It stayed largely forgotten as the years passed and she grew up, all the while nursing her dream of helping the children of Dhune. One night, a few weeks before she was due to leave the orphanage, Lorna awoke. There was a strange rumbling noise coming from beneath her bed, and as she dragged out the old crate, she stared, stupefied, at the locked book. It was trembling, as though it were about to explode. Light streamed from etched patterns upon the cover, the silver clasp— Which popped open with a loud click! the moment she laid a hand on it. Her heart in her throat, the young Skydancer began leafing through the pages. Their contents leaped out at her: dizzying diagrams, sigils and spells... Lorna had evinced no magical aptitude before. It was one of the reasons she’d decided to go to Dhune: As a dragon with next to no magic, she’d figured she would not have much trouble living there. But over the next several days, she found that she was able to cast these spells with ease—even the ones that she instinctively knew were too complicated for most dragons. Had the book transferred some of its power into her? Or had it merely unlocked what had been there all along? Lorna decided that it didn’t matter. She had magic now—and laws or none, she would continue pursuing her dream, and make a difference for the better in Dhune. The slums of Dhune were stalked by dozens of strange diseases. Some of the afflicted recovered, but others—too many—did not. Lorna had been covertly practicing magic for some time now. The healing spells she practiced were minor, subtle: easier to hide from the king’s witchfinders, who sometimes raided the slums in search of magic-users. These dragons were branded as “witches”, a title that would have been ordinary or even respected elsewhere, but was a vile epithet within the walls of Dhune. Maerwynn was the only other dragon she’d confided in, but even she did not approve, and eventually she suggested that Lorna stop using magic entirely. This had come as a shock to the Skydancer, and while the two dragonesses remained civil towards each other, largely for the sake of their patients, their friendship never completely recovered. Still, Lorna had to concede that Maerwynn did have a point. She had to keep her magic secret, not solely for herself, but for the sake of the children. What would happen if she were discovered? Would they simply be abandoned, left to fend for themselves again? Or would they be seen as her accomplices and put to death, as so many “witches’” clanmates had been? As the seasons turned and the slum-dwellers’ plight worsened, Lorna realized she would have to do more. “Perhaps this power came to me for a reason,” she thought one night, as she pored over the healing enchantments written in the spellbook. “Perhaps I’m meant to do this.” It started quietly, as all rebellions did. When children complained of feeling unwell after playing elsewhere in the slums, she interviewed them: “Where did you go? Who else was there?” She stopped by slum-dwellers’ houses, often with gifts to cheer up whoever was sick. “Lady Lorna!” the dragons always greeted her, their tired faces lighting up with smiles. It was easy enough to get near the patient, exchange greetings with them, and let the spell she had prepared trickle slowly into them.... “Feeling better already? No, take it easy. Rest a few more days, and soon you’ll be right as rain.” She was so careful. She tempered the spells so that they didn’t immediately take. Some patients even relapsed, but only briefly. Only a few more days’ rest, as she’d advised, and soon, indeed, they were as right as rain. She made sure not to stay too long. She honed her craft, learned to cast healing spells in an instant. A whispered word, a brush of the talons. That was all she needed. And she marveled at how easy it was to change lives. To save them. It was unexpected, but perhaps not unreasonable, that for every life she saved, the anger within her grew. It sat in her chest, hot and painful as an ember, and it was directed at the king of Dhune. “This is his doing. That hideous law!” she thought bitterly as she soothed a patient. “The king enforces it even at the expense of the poor, the needy, those who barely have anything left to give! “He could ease so much pain with but a word—that’s greater than any magic I could ever cast! But he still chooses to let his people suffer. He chooses to grind them further down....” She didn’t know how it all fell apart. Was she noticed by a vigilant witchfinder? Was it a tip from one of the locals? Too many stories from too many dragons...maybe even one of her young charges? Or had she, in anger or overconfidence or desperation, not been as careful as she’d thought? Whatever it was, rumors about these healings soon made their way to King Euron. He, of course, did not see them for the miracles they were, instead viewing them as vile sorcery. And to root out this vileness, he did not send an assassin or even a witchfinder. He sent something far worse. A priest. “Say goodbye to Lady Lorna now.” “Not so fast.” The Skydancer winked. “I have...” “A gift?” the hatchling peeped, wide-eyed, as she dipped into her shopping basket. And his eyes grew even wider as Lorna pulled out a neatly folded robe. “’S jus’ what I wanted! So blue!” The Fae child buried his face in it, his frills quivering with glee. “How didja know? You gotta be a Fairy Godmother. I know you are!” “Perhaps,” Lorna said demurely. She exchanged a knowing smile with the child’s father (she’d visited several times before, and he’d mentioned the robe to her), and headed back to Caraway Cradle. It had been a hectic day. Several errands completed, several homes visited on the way— “And several more healed!” Lorna thought with satisfaction. Tomorrow would be busy, but she would face it with equanimity, as she always did— And it all came crashing down when she turned the corner and saw the dragons standing by the orphanage. The royal guards were familiar. They were posted everywhere, and she’d learned to avoid their gazes. But the newcomers standing among them— Splendid. Radiant. Their scales gleamed like jewels, and the cloth shrouding their graceful forms was luminous and soft. But the eyes with which they looked at her were very cold indeed. One of them, a Skydancer, sighed. “That one,” he murmured; and the most splendid of the group, a bespectacled Imperial, reached out for Lorna. It seemed to happen in slow motion: the guards closing in on her; the Imperial’s vast paw reaching out; and the locals, their faces tight with apprehension, backing away from the confrontation. Thoughts dropped rapidly through Lorna’s head, swift as grains of sand trickling through an hourglass. “I should run. I can hide myself. They’ll never find me then. “But the children? What will happen to my children? “The orphanage, this place, this city... “I can’t leave them like that.” So she remained frozen as the priest encircled her with his claws and the others leaped to bind her. They took Lorna Caraway to the dungeons, to be imprisoned in deepest darkness beneath the sands of Dhune. And there, as time continued trickling past, they began to destroy her. She was interrogated mercilessly. Caraway Cradle was raided, and many of her possessions confiscated, including her spellbook. “But what of the children?!” Lorna thought. She dared not ask about them, lest she cast suspicion upon them and they become imprisoned, as she was. She never learned their fates; the inquisitors never spoke about them. Yes...better, instead, to let these monstrous inquisitors believe she’d never cared about the children. Then perhaps, they would be safe... “But didn’t they care about me?” She hated herself for thinking that. But here, alone and tormented, she couldn’t help it. She’d helped so many before: children, traders, laborers, even scientists like Maerwynn. Would no one try to aid her? Why had she even wanted to aid this city in the first place? Voices spoke from the darkness. There were so many accusations; Lorna nearly laughed at the ones that purported her to be the matron of an entire coven. She was accused of corrupting the youth, of spreading diseases of both the body and mind. “I used my magic only to heal,” she protested, her voice cracking with fatigue. She briefly considered mentioning Maerwynn, but no, she could not betray the doctor.... But where was Maerwynn now? All those long hours spent aiding each other...Wouldn’t her friend aid her now? The inquisitors thundered, “You have openly defied the King’s greatest law. This is treason of the highest order!” “The King!” Lorna snarled. Suddenly her face was alive with fury. Her eyes glowed in the darkness, and some of the inquisitors even backed away. The flinched beneath the force of her words— “His city is dying, and he is too scared...no, too proud to accept it! He lets his poorest subjects suffer, even though he can erase his foolish law, and lift his people up in glory and relief! “Is he really so mighty, then? Poor king, shivering in his silken robes; his people waste away and die while crying out for mercy! But he will not give it—though he could, with but a word.” The sneering laugh dwindled to a harsh, sharp whisper. “And you call me vile and monstrous instead.” The inquisitors were largely silent. From beyond the gates of her cell, Lorna heard them shifting uneasily, clothes rustling and talons tapping on the floor. And then the air changed; they had reached a decision. One of them—was it that priest?—spoke her fate at last. “Lorna Caraway, you have been found guilty of numerous charges, the most egregious of these being witchcraft and high treason. The laws of Dhune are clear: For these gravest of crimes, you shall be put to death, and all of your ensorcelled possessions destroyed with you.” There were some flames even Fire-born dragons weren’t immune to. The city’s alchemists had mixed highly flammable chemicals, which the pyre was doused with. These would burn so fiercely that in a matter of minutes, everything—wood, flesh, blood, and bone—would be nothing but ash. A swift death, certainly, but not a painless one. Nothing but the most excruciating punishment for the most heinous lawbreakers. Witches. Lorna Caraway was roped down upon the pyre, all her limbs firmly tethered in place. Her possessions were heaped around her, and all of them doused in those evil-smelling oils. The Skydancer saw her spellbook out of the corner of her eye, half-buried among more innocent storybooks and toys. She looked beyond the jumbled ruins of her life to the crowd beyond, still hoping, dimly, for a reprieve. Were there any familiar faces? Children, fellow healers, neighbors from the slums? She couldn’t tell. It didn’t matter. Help would not arrive. “Who was it?” she thought, as the magistrate continued reading the charges against her and the executioners lit their torches. “Which of these ungrateful wretches sold me out?!” So tight were the ropes binding her that she couldn’t struggle. But her mind raced, and she examined all her memories with the clarity brought on by impending death. Had Maerwynn sold her to the king? Or more likely one of the slum-dwellers, eager for some extra coin? She remembered the last house she’d visited, the children clustered around her feet. What had the little Fae called her—a Fairy Godmother? “No, child,” she thought as the pyre began to crackle. It was hot, so hot; she could smell it burning...could smell herself burning. Cries of horror were beginning to rise from the crowd....Maybe one of those voices was her own? She seemed to hover apart from everything: the heat, the agony, the frantic pleas for mercy. She was above it all now. She was above them all—as she always had been. “No, child, I am not a fairy godmother. “I am, indeed, a witch.” ~ written by Disillusionist (254672) all edits by other users
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