Nerwen

NERWEN
THE WRAITH


Nerwen has lived for years innumerable, more parasite than dragon. Unable to truly die, reborn time and time again until she is sick of the living. Each time she approaches the gulf of death, she can never cross. Her essence instead draws itself into the nearest clutch of eggs, taking the place of one yet-unborn hatchling, eating its soul to feed her own survival, unwanted as it is.

She has become cuckoo in dragon's clothes, watching the ebb and flow of countless lives. Once, long ago, she was a dragon like any other, brought to life by some elemental god- she cannot remember which, it has been far too long. Once, long ago, she laughed with her compatriots, rejoicing in the life given to her. But her companions all, one by one, withered and died with age and war and disease, leaving her alone in her unnatural long life.

Her heart has hardened with the centuries and then eroded, vanishing over the years like stone weathering away. Her stony countenance betrays nothing, and there is no longer anything left to betray. Nerwen has known so much, so many- her heart is already a graveyard, it is pointless to become attached to yet more dragons she will simply see die.

Unable to die, she has seen far too many loves and children and waste away with age while she remains unchanging. After centuries of such, Nerwen no longer cares for other dragons, or the world around her. Now, she merely waits for the end of all, her eyes fixed on the faraway day when this world finally crumbles away and takes her with it.

Isolated and cold, Nerwen stalks the nighttime roads as a wraith draped in starlight, a creature of wrath and ruin, terrorizing the unwise and unwary and punishing those who hunt the vulnerable in those dark hours.