Ludovica

Ludovica- "famous in war" in italian



A veteran of her warn-torn village, Ludovica has never known peace. while the flights don't declare outright war, after the events of the seedscar her home was torn apart by attacking plague dragons looking for revenge against the flight that nearly doomed them all. Her youth became her training, and she found herself on the battlefield with her claws stuck in dead flesh far too soon.

Her home won, but lost everything in the process. Their homes were infested with diseased vermin and the air was choked with smoke as the survivors burned the infected bodies of the fallen, and Ludovica oversaw. Nobody remembered the hatchling she was before; most of the town didn't even recognize her now, with her bloodstained fur, raging eyes, and the tools of the trade she'd been forced to become the best in. Without family or friends still standing, she just started... walking.

Bandits fell. She learned that bounties would get her the money to have a roof over her massive head and food in her belly, and monster hunting were much easier to grapple with the morals of slaying other dragons. She roamed and gained a reputation as large as herself. but she never liked it - it was all she knew how to do, but she never liked the work, never liked the killing and the pain and the constant reminders. Eventually, her work led her into the company of other bounty hunters and warriors, crossing paths with the fellow travelers, and essentially becoming a member of the wider community of similar dragons. They would meet in the same bars and discuss news, swap stories, make merry - they never asked each other too many questions, as most came from similar pains to her, and they all knew it was better to not remind each other of their scars. But it was happier, even good.

She met a fellow obelisk, worked alongside him for years. He hailed from fire, the one place she wouldn't go because the smells were too strong and similar for her to handle, so they eventually were driven apart by mere direction. He had family to visit; an ailing mother, a younger sister, but before he left he confided a strange secret to her... Your desires can be fulfilled by dreaming of glittering gold. He seemed remorseful that he chose to share the information as he padded out of the bar, leaving her in the dusky candlelight to question what he'd said. It also made her think.

What did she want? She was only happy in the rare moments she got to spend with other warriors, since regular dragons usually wouldn't talk to her and her intimidating demeanor. She wanted to enjoy herself more - she wanted to like what she did, take pride in her battles and her scars, she wanted the fame she held to mean something inside.

She listed to that old friend, Baccarat - she dreamed of glittering gold. Quickly, the imagined coins twisted on themselves into dazzling lights, and she found herself awake outside of a manor of sin. The Luck of the Claw Casino, with Baccarat's tail flicking as he walked through the held-open door and disappeared into the mass of dragons. Even at his size, the dragons of every shape and size along with the sounds of music, singing, yells and cheers, clinking glasses and the beating of wings as beautiful performers sailed through the open hotel-like front foyer, between the different floors of this place.

It was overwhelming - she woke up with her heart racing, panicked by the unexpected encounter. It felt wrong to set foot in that dream.

But she was back in little more than 10 minutes. Isn't a casino a den of pleasure and pride? Isn't that what she wanted?

Turns out, they were more than just an escape; they were an employer. The mages that constructed the dream let the wealthy owners of the casino communicate with and magically contract their visitors for all sorts of jobs, transporting merchandise and completing missions that assist the casino in their profits in exchange for the emotions she'd lost from her shattered youth. With an inky pawprint, Ludovica eventually signed herself into their service, driven by curiosity and the "wrong" feeling that she could now identify as intrigue and genuine curiosity in this magical dream world.

The mistake she made with those stained paws, in that night... The casino drew her back night after night, being treated better than anywhere in reality treated her and feeling safe in the decadent walls of the mental world. And after a few months of working for them, as Baccarat did, and having some ugly encounters with debtors that she was assigned to pursue with the help of a magical scenthound necklace that they loaned to her for the task, she began to wonder why anyone would be so wary of these powerful dragons. Something had to be more sinister... Especially since she always felt like her hunts were being watched. She never turned the debtors over to authorities, instead being told to restrain them in secluded locations and leave them for pickup. Eventually she broke the rules, the curiosity they granted her getting the better of her rationality.

She watched as a spiral wearing the skull of a deer, hiding his face, snuck out from under houses, between shadows, and made his way into the drop-off point. She nearly missed him; he was incredibly sneaky, but she was perceptive from decades of hunting things down. She got closer and watched as he dipped a needle in a vial of (presumedly) poison, and slid it into the dragon's neck. The dragon was unconsious already but slackened, and she heard soft snoring from the awkward way she'd left the head sitting. The spiral then curled up next to the target and went to sleep. She found a good spot to hide herself elsewhere, in the woods just far enough from the house she'd dumped her target, and forced herself to nap to enter the casino and continue snooping.

Once inside she noticed just how quiet the casino was during the day, and how the employees that weren't tending to the few napping clients milled around with each other like old friends. As she flew up to the third floor where her contract work was discussed among other employees, she noticed a lot of dragons that she'd only ever seen in full golden costume filing through a door that wasn't usually there. But more importantly... she noticed how their edges seemed to wiggle in the light, shadowy and incorporeal. As they noticed her appear, their bodies snapped back to a solid state as they glanced between each other with concern, even fear.

Oh.

That was it.

They weren't dragons at all. She was willing to bet that those shadows she saw were their real forms, the forms of the shade. A type of creature she couldn't lay a claw on, that she left to the priests and mages. And here? There were DOZENS. If not hundreds! Each of her employers could bring down a town, and together... how many cities would be laid to ruin, how- Her sudden worry was interrupted by the sounds of a scuffle and then yelling as her target, the old metallic guardian, burst out of the door the shade was surrounding, and racing towards the balcony that she was flying in front of.

He never got the chance to leap off, as with a wingbeat she shoulder-checked him so hard he went flying back into the wall next to the door, breaking the plaster and crushing one of the casino employees. Under the weight the dealer burst into black shadows and smoke, collecting and reforming a few feet away and glaring at both her and the debtor with his many ruby-red eyes. The debtor was tackled and dragged back through the door as Ludovica landed, and as a few of the employees stepped back with concern she sighed and looked between them.

These were monsters, not drakes. But they gave her everything. A purpose she could believe in and care about, a steady stream of interesting work, a whole new light on the world she had only seen in apathy before them.

Even if they were evil, she couldn't give up the pay she got for her work. She dipped her head to her employers, muttering "We have no problems." And walking towards the door to see what was really going on with the casino. The employees, perhaps out of fear, didn't stop her. They couldn't die here, but surely they could feel judging by the eyed serpent's frustration and still-twitching clawtips.

She met Keeper, and learned of the souls that the casino burned. She saw the debtor in the magic circle with the fat bogsneak she knew as the top dealer for floor 2's high rollers, and casino employees she'd never met rebinding the guardian to a contract in front of them as he sobbed. A large candle on the table with the contract lit with a red flame, rapidly bubbling and sputtering as the hot flame lept onto the wax and incinerated a chunk of the wax before settling into the normal yellow light.

she watched as, when the wax disappeared, the guardian's face shifted to be wrinkled, sunken like he was sick, and his scales dulled in color: these candles weren't just souls... they were lives. She turned slowly and looked over the massive library, shelves soaring above their heads, but with no books. only candles. Only thousands and thousands of candles, of all different heights, of all different sizes, of all different lives being eaten away.

She decided she wanted something else on top of her pride. If they could do this, taking youth away... they should be able give it.

Pronghorn Hunter

Familiar

A lone pronghorn is a danger to both beastclans and dragonkind.

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