Scheele

“Well may the fascinating wearer of it be called a killing creature. She actually carries in her skirts poison enough to slay the whole of the admirers she may meet with in half a dozen ball-rooms.”

---

Scheele was born to create. That is the purpose she placed into herself and how she wished everyone would remember her by, but it was a goal difficult to achieve, she put the effort anyway.

She was birthed in one of the desolate and dry, infection ladden territories of one the many clans devote to the Plaguebringer. The bright colors of her hide and wings a chaotic contrast to the land's putrid and pale reds and flesh-like tones, her parents knew not what could have made her be the way she was but kept their doubts to themselves. The rest of the lair weren't as easy going of that and kept a vigilant eye on this hatchling and her development.

As years went on, Scheele found herself attracted to the greens and nature, the complete opposite of her own element; she dreamed of foliage, of bouquets and laces of blooming colors unbecoming of a plague dragon, strapped across the dead trees scattered across the clan. She dreamt of shades of green so vibrant and lively and despite wishing with all her heart, she shunned her desire in fear of what the rest of the clan would think of her.

As her mind granted her images of beauty and fed her future of green and life, her body was brewing death.

Her condition began without notice, newer scales acquiring a bright tint of green running from head to tail, bright at the center but subtly fading to more deeper an natural at the tips, something below her lungs and above her stomach grew and pulsed as it's contents were grinded to dust. Scheele never felt the changes as strongly as they should have been, so by the time she was spitting the forsaken green dust like saliva she felt nothing but elation in her naive mind thinking she could bring forth her wish somehow. That afternoon she gathered as many dry shrubs and barks and smeared and painted the pieces with the substance flowing from her, it was a meager attempt but it could work for the time; once confident enough with it she showed it to her parents. They took the gifts with doubt and reprimanded her for bringing the hideous green objects but kept them as their color was enchanting and unique among their place, of course they wouldn't admit to that and so Scheele hid any future attempts.

Her parents had become attached to the pieces, their tones almost an exact replica of the hues one would find at the territory of the Gladekeeper -something they could only dream to see-, it was like a treasure from beyond to them, but they could never say that lest they wished to risk exile or worst from their fellow clanmates. Despite the beauty of the faux plants and petals they couldn't beging to understand that what laid in the future could be worse than the most tragic punishment.

The more they kept around the pieces the more they fell to the infection, ironic in a way that plague dragons could succumb to any but it was not an infection of the natural kind, it was poisoning, toxic, fabricated, something one wouldn't have thought of; their claws and scales rotting to green that they desperately tried to cover them in cloth of bandages to not bring attention from their clanmates. Soon the wounds would open to rashes and boils each as painful as the last, their bodies felt as sick as they were rotting and it hadn't taken long before others took them to inspect. Sometime later they passed away with green bleeding from them, struggling and shaking saying they could only see green.

Scheele was no fool to her parents illness, but couldn't pinpoint a reason for it, still as innocent as she was the first time she would hide small dyed trinkets and pieces in hopes to cheer them up or at least take their minds off their struggle. As her parents suffered mostly in silence she chose to continue until the last day were they were forcefully taken away without so much of a goodbye. She fought to get to them but was easily pushed away, later that day her parents were dead and she found herself in the center of a storm of accusations.

They called her a traitor -brainwashed- and a murderer and she could do nothing but shrink in herself as they choose to lock and chain her until a proper punishment could be declared. As she laid there alone, dragons from the clan inspected her parent's belongings and the pieces of her creation, reviling the green tint that surrounded them. They touched and snatched and broke fragments to determine the origin of it, unknowingly spreading the infection between each other.

Scheele couldn't determine how much time has been going since her imprisonment and she was caring less and less as time went on. She grew as bitter as the dust behind her tongue, that she eventually grew more aware of, she felt the toxicity in her blood and body and drowned on it with gusto. Once every while she would get a sick pleasure when gossip reached her enclosure of someone falling ill or dying from tinkering with her and her parent's belongings for far too long, she drank from that pain she couldn't see like it was the sweetest water, ready to spit it back at them once they decided to let her go, that is if they were foolish enough.

By the time she was finally being dragged back from her cell she was no longer afraid of repercussions, she took the chance and lunged for the first intentional kill, biting and tearing anything that crossed her path, leaving behind a path of green and red she managed to escape and leave the clan to die by themselves, and her poison if she had a word on the matter.

She wandered and braved the wasteland until reaching the borders the Sea of a Thousand Currents. Once done she made her new goal to finally live free, but she needed funds for that. Still with the bitter taste of poison and blood, she brought herself to do menial jobs to keep herself alive, none lasted as long as she would have wanted, many clients falling ill by being near her (something she could only attribute to her condition but never made express to avoid troubles), others cursing her for her mere presence giving out a "sickening" aura (something she mocked but also partially agreed to due to her place of origin, which many didn't took well).

As she saw her opportunities dwindle, she turned reluctantly to her old craft but this time with a darker purpose in mind. She collected pieces and trinkets and clothes and dyed them with her signature green to be sold to unsuspecting travellers, stripping them off their gold in exchange of a piece of art in that bright and lovely green, never disclosing it's origin to anyone as she collected enough to move before anyone came back to her for falling sick. Her scheme expanded beyond her own vision, going from trinkets and tools to materials and food, eventually just selling pure vials of her green under the table to dragons that didn't question her material and just wanted a quick "solution" for a problem she was never interested in knowing, it was all business. All in all, she was living off better than she would have thought.

Despite all the success, she found herself longing for more, she felt lonely, no one staying close to her if not for business alone and it frustrated her to imagine her life ending as lonely as she was during her imprisonment. She wanted more than just a mere biz conversation and trade but how could she? Everyone she was around for for too long would possibly die by her own produce without any way to heal.

On one of her many travels she found the solution to her dilemma: a couple, with a similar case like her! they found her pacing near their place and invited her to stay; she wished to decline but she could smell the familiar bitter deep under the various fragrances and perfumes they used on themselves. They said they left their respective clans but took refuge, a fairly separate one, amongst other dragons -a smaller lair it seemed-, they seemed...happy? She couldn't tell too well but they seemed content enough with her and so she choose to stay but keeping her business side hidden, just in case.

Maybe one day she could show them and help her out with the business.