Makaria

Macaria in her younger years. Don't know if I like the name Macaria anymore though, so may name-change her (maybe just change her to Makaria).

fam: king quillrunner, winter sphinx, Frigid gem guardian?

MACARIA DUMP (mostly canon, but might be changing a few things as I go):

• Basically, she's born to two Exalted parents, one being Ice and the other Shadow, in the Tangled Woods. Now, this is where I should mention that while it is not uncommon for Exalted dragons to mate with other Exalted dragons, in order to keep the power strong, it is very taboo (and pretty much forbidden in some cases) to have one Exalted dragon have hatchlings with another Exalted dragon of a differing element. So Macaria's parents had to go into hiding once they had Macaria's egg.
• They fled to the Southern Icefield after being found and continued to raise Macaria (she hatched in Shadow). There, her and her parents settled down in a small, remote village in an evergreen forest near a large mountain range and hid their Exalted status from everyone (idk why exactly they decided to go back to Ice, even though one of the families that are looking for them is there, but I need them in Ice for future events soooo...I'll figure it out later)
• Long story short, Macaria grows up pretty normal and becomes good friends with a light blue Skydancer, who's family is apparently looking for someone special who they can take with them to their home in the mountains. A bit weird, but they're kids Macaria doesn't really think much about it.
• Okay, but here's the problem when mixing Exalted elements - the hatchling gets both those elements' powers (sort of like a dual element), although usually one is stronger than the other. So, Macaria has both Ice and Shadow elements at her disposal, and the problem is that things can get very out of control. Which is why her parents were very strict in telling her to never use her magic or anything like that and to just keep to herself.
• This backfires though, and a lot of the other kids in the village don't want to play with her or let her be in the group...so she uses her powers to impress them and make them pay attention to her. It's mostly harmless, with her just freezing a few things with the blue SD (who I've been calling Robin, he's her best friend who sticks by her all the time), but one day she tries to make a big ice sculpture to impress a bigger group of kids (they were all playing in a clearing where there was a large icecliff above them). Unfortunately, because she hasn't had the chance to practice, it breaks or something and scares the other kids. In a last ditch effort to fix it and make the kids like her, she turns to the icecliff and uses her magic to carve a little smiling dragon into the cliffside. This makes the kids hesitate, but then a huge crack rings out and the top part of the cliff breaks away and hurtles towards them.
• Avalanche! Her carving caused cracks to widen and break, and although no one died, some of the kids got injured. The parents raced over after hearing the large crack of ice breaking away, and when they got there they saw Macaria with both an Ice emblem and a Shadow emblem above her head, revealing her Exalted status (she had tried to stop the snow from falling on them so she pulled more power from her reserves, causing the emblem to materialize). All the dragons were shocked and outraged that she had powers like that and had been hiding them. Robin stayed by her side until his uncle, Sacrum, pulled him away as her and her parents fled back to their house. Sacrum had found the special someone they were looking for...
• Parents start arguing a lot, not sure what to do and if they should run again, but to where? And how? Macaria is scared and knows she messed up and that her parents are angry at them (though in reality they're more angry with themselves).
• Eventually, a few days later, in the middle of the night her parents quickly take her out of the house and start rushing to the edge of the village. The other villagers are also out for some odd reason, and all they seem to be doing is glaring at her. At the edge of the clearing, there awaits Sacrum and a nervous-looking Robin, along with a few other SDs. She's suddenly shoved forwards by her parents and given to Sacrum. At first she's happy, because she gets to see Robin again, who she hasn't seen in a few days. But then when she looks back, she sees that her parents have turned their backs on her and were retreating back through the bushes and trees, leaving her. She's confused and hurt, and Sacrum simply says that they didn't want her anymore because of her dual elements, but we want you. You're special to us. (This all sounds weird and doesn't make sense but don't worry! It will soon!)
• Okay I'm running out of time to write but basically then they take her to a secluded island or something that is surrounded on all sides by icecliffs that almost seem like they grew that way. That's where the whole 'family' lives and they raise her and train her in using her powers. Robin and her ramain good friends, but it becomes clear fast that Macaria is needed, more than wanted. They need her Exalted magic to open a crumbled Fortress on the island - an old branch of the Fortress of Ends that broke off at some time...oh yeah did I mention the island floats and moves around? It's sort of like a glacier, but there's trees and stuff that can grow on it. So it used to be closer to the Fortress, but broke away for some unknown reason and floated off.
• Anyhow, when Macaria is grown up, she is tasked with opening up the frozen doors of the fortress. In this time she's grown to hate her 'family' and life, as they are abusive and clearly only want to use her to get whatever it is that's inside the fortress. Her power is all they wanted. Even so, Robin is still her only genuine friend and she sees him as a brother. They support each other through the strict, militant training and harsh words of Sacrum and the others.
• Before she opens the fortress, she learns (somehow, still figuring it out) that within is a pendant that houses a fragment of The Shade. She realizes that if she can open it, and then get her hands on the pendant before them, she can turn it all around and get herself and Robin out of here with. ... Oh yeah, I forgot to explain she can't just leave with her two Exalted magics. Well, besides her being manipulated to the extreme, whenever she would try to fly up and over the icecliffs, it would seem like she wasn't moving at all, or the cliffs were getting progressively higher. It seemed inescapable for some reason (again, I'll explain soon). So with the all-powerful pendant though, she thought she could get out easy.
  So she breaks in using her Ice Exalted magic (she hadn't been training her Shadow magic at all, since she was told time and time again that Shadow magic is weak and useless), and she finds the pendant. Her and Robin had been planning this moment for months, years, and so when Sacrum tried to take it Macaria took it instead, placing it over her head.
• Instead of a rush of power like she expected, she suddenly felt empty. The hum of elemental energy she never felt before left her, and she suddenly had no connection to either Ice or Shadow. She was...elementless, Null. Though she felt no connection to the elements/deities anymore, she did still feel the ability to use the elements. Just...in a different way.
• Though with this null sensation, she also feels as if thorns that had been wrapped around her mind were being cut back and burned. She suddenly remembers everything:
• Her mother and father hadn't given her up; they had been killed after being lured out, and Macaria had been taken. The village people weren't out and glaring at her, but desperately trying to flee a blaze that was burning down homes and giving their attackers perfect cover to strike and silence the whole village.
• The icecliffs weren't growing or anything like that either - it was all in her head, all manipulation of her senses that made her think escape was impossible, when it really was.
• This is the true power of Shadow magic; memory manipulation and sensory manipulation. The reason why it suddenly stopped working was because The Shade acts as a barrier to all elements, so anything elemental that is affecting her would be nullified.
• With all these memories bombarding her, she doesn't notice Robin who runs up to see what's wrong, since she had frozen in place. But she's so caught up in the memory of her parents being dead behind her as Sacrum grabs her to fly off, that when Robin grabs her in the same way she snaps and claws him.
  It's by accident, but that doesn't lessen the damage. Robin dies quickly at her feet as she had gashed his throat, and she almost can't believe that this is real, what just happened isn't a memory it's real.
  So she panics, freezing all the 'family' members to the ground by their feet so they can't move as she feels so devastated over what she just did to her friend, the only one that had really cared. Sacrum is still hissing and spitting, demanding that she gives them the pendant, but in a n instant Macaris feels a rage come over her and she sends and icicle through his eye, killing him. It terrified her a little bit, with how easy it was to do that.
• In the end, she picks up Robin's body and flies away with him. Her wild emotions accidentally cause all the icecliffs to shatter, as the Shade seems to boost her powers tenfold, and she gets bumped mid flight by falling debris and has to drop Robin's body. He falls deep into the falling ice debris, and that's the last that Macaria ever sees of him (though in my mind, he lands peacefully in some miraculous clearing in the debris). As for the other dragons on the island? Well, she doesn't truly know or care what happened to them, but they all got crushed.

Exalted bloodline dump:
I have this thing in my lore called 'Exalted Bloodlines'. I'm still figuring out the details, but the basics are that Exalted bloodlines are far more in tune with their element than others and even have special elemental abilities. These abilities get passed down generation after generation, leading to whole Exalted lineages. These lineages are believed, by those that are more religious, to be granted this power by the deities themselves, and so usually garner a good amount of respect. If a bloodline is Exalted, they can cause an elemental symbol to appear above their forehead, although it usually only appears when they are using intense elemental magic.
Exalting as a game mechanic doesn't really exist in my lore - instead, I have these Exalted bloodlines. In theory, it serves the same purpose as exalted dragons - could serve as soldiers for the deities if they called them to fight. But really, in my lore, the deities don't fight with each other and there are only small skirmishes now and then. The big battles and wars happened hundreds upon thousands of years ago. A lot of the time, dragons start territory wars or fights 'in the name of said deity' when really this isn't true haha.
Anyyyyyyhow, my elemental reps are all Exalted bloodlines, which includes Wisp! Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of ideas for her yet. I'm pretty sure she's going to be traveling around and setting up small communities and outposts, creating dedicated delivery/message routes all over Sornieth. She also grew up in the Millmeadows, so was a bit of a farmer? Dunno. Still figuring it all out. She's an Exalt, so I have to figure out what that means for her.

Basically, I wanted magic in my story, but a controlled magic with set rules and systems. So normal, everyday dragons can still breath fire or use small elemental abilities (depending on where they were born), but they can't do much more than freeze a cup or water or burn a hand (again, depending on how they were trained and where they were born...some can only freeze a cup, while some, with training and a bit of natural talent, can freeze a whole lake).
So exalted bloods are the exception to that - they can do a bunch of stuff including, and not limited to, setting themselves on fire, freezing lakes, creating barricades of vines etc. They basically have a natural mastery for their element, though they still need to spend a lot of time learning how to harness it. I'm still not exactly sure how exalted bloods are created or where they originated, but I'm fairly certain it has to do with the Deities. When the Deities recognize a dragon for their strength or devotion to their god they exalt them, opening the dragon up to more of the pure elemental energy of the Deity. I imagine it like this: the Deities are like large reservoirs of elemental energy, and all of dragon kind get a small, steady drip from that reservoir. Exalted bloods though get a steady stream instead of a drip, giving them more access. As for exactly why the god decide to exalt dragons? Dunno yet. What I do know is that there are several extremely old families of exalted lineages that trace back for many generations. These families are usually quite respected by other clans, and even sometimes feared because of their huge power, especially by their neighbors (there is an infamous exalted Plague family that have dominated a large section around the Wyrmwound's edge. They are very feared due to their ability to harness deadly pathogens, so the whole territory around theirs is deserted). But yeah. Oh, but there are also rumors (some would even say they're myths or old-wyrm tales) that there are some exalted families who earned their exalted status through...other means, and not through the gods. Still figuring out exactly what that is, but I'm fairly sure it involves the Shade. I think that's all I have so far? An elemental symbol appears above an exalted blood's forehead when drawing a lot of power. Gigginox's family is exalted, and so are my various elemental reps (which I'm still reworking lore-wise).


Dump for later:
But yeah, he wanted the title of king and not duke because duke implies that there's someone above him (a duke only rules a small portion of land that actually belongs to the larger territory that's ruled by a king). And yep, that's why others dragons were more open to following and being ruled by Xandra, since he was already gaining favour before killing the duke - also, the duke wasn't in the best of standings with the public anyways, since he had made some questionable decisions and had been draining resources for frivolous things. Not to mention that dragons don't really like feeling that they are lesser than another, even a ruler, so with this duke acting so pompous and self-absorbed the people were starting to get very irate with him (there was a whole group of dergs who started their own hierarchy within the kingdom who wanted to split off from the duke's rule and start their own clan...yeah it's a lot. And that's where Tiamat starts to come in to, but that's a story for later). The duke was also trying to slowly move his way into the inner court of the king as well, so the king of the Empire (his name is Ignaae, pronounced Ig-nai) was getting increasingly annoyed by him and wanted him delt with soon. So, when Xandra killed him, it was actually seen as a pretty good thing, especially since he started ruling more efficiently and working in line with the king's laws and wants. But...bad things happen haha...