Firecoat

Clan Leader; Mountain Subclan Leader; Cursebreaker; Vetter of new arrivals; Trainer

General
Firecoat is old, but no one, including him, is entirely sure how old. He certainly spent a long time wandering the wilds of Sornieth alone, and is only gradually becoming accustomed to civilization. The comparative isolation of much of Ice Flight and the fact that the highly idiosyncratic Cindercone is Northslope's closest ally are not speeding the process.
Firecoat had some kind of bad experience involving the Arcane element or flight or the Arcanist before the founding of Northslope, but the nature of this is unclear. How much of that is due to stereotypical you-smell-like-an-enemy and in fact unremembered, and how much, if any, is simply undiscussed, remains to be seen. Regardless, he views all Arcane beings with utmost suspicion, and it takes long habituation without anything to promote it to get through this. The one Arcane entity that Firecoat anything like trusts is the Carmine Serthis with whom he was formerly paired.

Recent Events
Firecoat is disturbed by the fragmentary news of terrible happenings at Cindercone, and is determined to find out more. He has taken the Hainu messenger with him, seeking the only dragon in Northslope able to speak to such a creature. Unfortunately, Echinops seems nowhere to be found, and Firecoat has not bonded closely enough with the messenger to be confident of instructing her intelligibly.

*

Firecoat is trying to decide who else he might recruit to help find Echinops. He seems to have managed to throw off a Tundra's nose for tracking, and it is still unclear whether he has left the lairs or if he has simply hidden himself with the brilliance of three Nocturnes.
And there is the answer. He will ask the clan's Nocturnes to help him find Echinops.

*

Or he would have, had Arquen not approached him with dire news. An Arcane betrayal, in his own clan, which he did not see. He cursed himself for his distraction, and relegated the Cindercone disaster to lower priority.

He listened with the other leaders to his former companion, that one's new Tundra companion, Strychnos and Iznioch's story. Everything seemed true, and Arquen corroborated the story. Firecoat's first thought was to cast Impatiens from the clan immediately, but the consensus seemed to be that she had been at least partly enthralled. Given that, he and the others decided that she should be given until the last day of Fire Waning to see her error and seem penitent for the wrong she did in helping the traitor. If not, they would speak to an Earth clan, that she might go and be forced to make things up to the god that she abandoned.

Since, Firecoat has been inspecting around the clan, looking for any new emergences or pockets that were missed. He hopes also, having heard how the Carmine Tundra dispatched the Spiral, to train her in formal physical combat when she is up to it--which would have the added benefit of reducing her need to rely on her element.

*

Firecoat has spent the past while between seeking anything left by the traitor Spiral and training Ehre in physical combat. As the Starfall Celebration has gone on, he has become highly unsettled, much of which manifests as extra aggression in battle. Things half-remembered hover at the edges of his awareness, making him turn, expecting something to be there, and making his fur seem not to quite fit.

He has, however, been glad to hear Kavalia's message, though some parts of it are disturbing. He is quite glad indeed to hear of his clan's ally's survival, even if they were outright stolen by another god.

Combat
Firecoat is longer and denser than Oreamne, with short wings for his size, which leads him to be stronger but less agile than she is. Unusually for a Tundra, he finds building energy with smaller blows before channeling his Ice powers through a stronger one to be most to his liking. He has more recently learned to deliver a severe finishing blow with strength alone, though he still very much likes to use his elemental power in combat.

Familiar
Firecoat and the Serthis formerly with him have decided that to allow a telepathic connection to develop would be more awkward than it would be useful, so they have formally parted ways. The Serthis is still with Northslope, and has joined instead with Ehre.

With the arrival of Kavalia, the attempts to speak to the Hainu have become largely moot, and Firecoat has resumed his partnership with the harpy he was with before.