Name: Darinxur ("/dare · IN · zer/").

Gender: Male (he/him/his)

Birthday: February 22nd

Birthplace: The Abiding Boneyard; formed from the destruction of The Engine

Element: Arcane (retained Arcane Element from birth)

Occupation: Co-founder and second in command of the Violet Sea and the Star Council, loving dad of three

Mate

Children

Familiar

Cinnabar Plaguebringer

Familiar

A pocked statue, carved by the artisans of the Plague flight. (Riot of Rot 2021 Holiday Item)

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Biography

During the beginning of the Third Age, the destruction of the giant engine sent debris across every corner of Sornieth, and each piece of debris was endowed with the power of the Arcanist and each contained life within it. From a blood red sky, one of those pieces fell into the Abiding Boneyard, the domain of the Mother.

From the very moment the hatchling rose from the debris, he was surrounded by death; as he stumbled onto the disease-ridden grounds, at its feet were the fresh bodies of many Mirrors, trapped underneath the debris in which the hatchling had been born. Even though it had just opened its eyes, it understood the scene with hideous clarity.

The Mother, unmoved by the hatchling's age, put the child on trial for his unwitting crime against Her children, and sentenced him to spend the remainder of his life in the Boneyard; with no guardian figure, he was to either learn how to fend for himself in a land ravaged by bloodthirst and disease, or die by the fangs of the hungry denizens. The hatchling, not even able to speak yet, quietly conceded.

Life in the Abiding Boneyard was callous and cruel, just as the Mother had promised it would be; not helped was how quickly the news of the deaths he had unwittingly caused spread across the land, causing him to become a social pariah. Each day that the Guardian spent trapped within its walls of boils and pus was not without a fresh new scar against his shining scales, or without an onslaught of angry and razor sharp fangs aiming for his neck, usually in an effort to enact revenge. Even fewer nights were without an empty stomach, though whatever food left that hadn’t already been devoured to the bone by the dragons that lived there before him hardly provided enough sustenance to allow him to move the next lukewarm morning. Whenever the Guardian did manage to sleep, he'd often dream that he'd escaped from his confinement. and that he was in a safe and compassionate land; one where he was surrounded by dragons who didn't collectively despise him. But each morning, that illusion of comfort would shatter like glass as he took a single whiff of the rotten wind, and the pain would begin anew.

Despite it all, however, the Guardian survived. When he'd reached adulthood, he was a sight to behold; his hide, even as they were blemished by scab upon scab, continued to shine against what little sunlight there was. By this time, he'd slowly but surely began to earn the respect of the Mirror clans, as they were doubtless impressed with how he was able to able to survive in a land not meant for it. Joining multiple hunting parties and even establishing a few of his own, he became something of a pack leader, despite his difference. As the years dragged on and he grew in both size and power, he became one of the most feared dragons to walk the Mother's lands. Violence against him had diminished significantly; the Mirrors that he encountered either knelt at his feet, or they fled at the sight of his glimmering wings, and the few altercations that he did get into were over in mere seconds. Before long, the Mirrors began referring to him as "Darinxur", a word that meant "carnivorous" in their language, an indication of his newfound strength; having been given a sentencing at birth instead of a name, he allowed the name to stick. Even still, however, waking up to the smell of rotting flesh each morning continued to weigh on Darinxur's psyche, as did how the Mirrors treated him; he may have been respected as a powerful predator rather than declared a murderer, but in his eyes, being viewed as nothing more than a threat was hardly any better than being viewed as nothing more than evil. But now that he had a name, he'd could at least pretend that he was a true dragon, and not just an object of contempt. Thus, he continued to live, to survive each day.

It was that one humid morning, a morning where the air was so thick that you could cut it with your claws, when things truly began to change.

On his routine search for food, Darinxur crossed paths with a hungry and aggressive pack of Mirrors, no doubt on a hunt of their own. Their attention was not on him, however, but on two very small and very terrified figures; hatchlings, they looked to be, shaking and cowering as the Mirrors cornered them, leaving them with no escape.

They were weak. Afraid. Defenseless.

Just as he was.

The ensuing skirmish took a bit longer than the battles Darinxur had become accustomed to, as he rarely had to fight off an entire group of Mirrors, but after what felt like hours, the pack soon surrendered, realizing that they stood no chance against the Guardian. As the Mirrors fled, he rushed to get a closer look at the children he'd just saved; Spirals, the both of them were. Looking into their tired, frightened eyes, he could see that one of them was of the Water Flight, the other born of the Arcane Flight, but just like him, neither of them belonged here. How the both of them had ended up in the very heart of the Boneyard, he did not know; what he did know, however, was that he was to become the protection that no one would give him, and that night, the two hatchlings nestled together against the Guardian as they slept, Darnixur watching their shaking chests rise and fall.

During the following days, Darinxur began to train the two Spirals to survive in the Boneyard. It wasn't too long before they began to call him "father", and he began to see them as his children, even giving them names; the Water child he called "Meredith", the Arcane child he called "Indigo". Though he would accompany and protect the Spiral children as often as he was able, the two often had to fend for themselves, getting into the same struggles as Darinux had once endured — violence by Mirrors who saw them as intruders, and tossing and turning from hunger at night. Every day, their glittery hides, bare and vulnerable to the strains of disease that infested the land, shimmered against a pus-colored sky and showcased wound after wound as they struggled to survive at least one more day, just as their father had so long ago.

It was at this point that, for the very first time, Darinxur felt true sorrow.

He had long understood and accepted that his misery was perhaps deserved, but these hatchlings were sinless; they had taken no lives, committed no crimes, yet they suffered as much as he. So, one burning hot night, when his children finally fell asleep, he opened his maw and pleaded to the Mother, his voice echoing off of the pulsating remains that covered the Boneyard grounds.

“It is I and I alone who is responsible for the deaths of your children, so why must these hatchlings be punished? I will gladly remain in your ravaged domain until I take my last breath, but I beg, Divine Mother, that you set my children free.”

As the Plaguebringer listened to his desolate wail, She came to a realization at that very moment; he cared for his children, just as She cared for Hers. She then made Her final judgement; it was time for Darinxur's sentencing to come to an end.

"You are not without sin, but you are not without good. Thought I was blinded by rage, I see that now," She responded. "With my blessing, you — and your children — may leave these ravaged grounds."

Darinxur, with his still-sleeping children on his mighty back, silently treaded across the Boneyard for the final time.

Upon crossing the border, he did not look back.

For the next coming years, the three would aimlessly wander the regions of Sornieth; though he was more than grateful to be free, he knew nothing of the world outside of the Boneyard. Not helped was the fact that his birth was a result of a catastrophic Armageddon; despite his best efforts to find a place to call home, none of the clans he encountered welcomed him. Because Meredith and Indigo were not born under the same tragic circumstances, however, the clans were willing to take them in, and Darinxur, though saddened by the idea, was willing to hand them over to any clan who promised to take care of them, wanting the children to have a home, to live in safety and comfort. Despite several attempts, however, the two hatchlings refused to be separated from the dragon they saw as their father and their savior, and thus, they three continued to travel to land after land, the hatchlings clinging to his wings.

Then, after miles and miles of searching — searching for a purpose, for a home — they found what looked or be city in the waves of the Sea Lord's domain. The city seemed to be entirely abandoned; they saw no denizens, they heard no voices.

That is, until Meredith's voice echoed:

"Hey, what's that?"

There was a wounded dragon in the middle of the ghost town.

A dragon whose injured body glimmered with stars, just as his did.

(See Ella's bio for continuation!)