Carmen

Uh-oh, looks like this adventurous thief wandered a little too far from her home lair (149683, Gwendlfyn), and now she's off to see the world! If ever you feel the need to exalt, she'd really appreciate it if you could just return her to the home lair, or to the 'Dragons Off To See The World' thread, here. This is not necessary, but she would be very grateful!

Familiar: Emberglow Gem Guardian Familiar Protector of Fire's elemental gemstones. (Flameforger's Festival 2019 Holiday Item) 0 ~not included V.I.L.E. Acquaintance/BFF: Player Silver Kitsune Familiar The mask of the silver kitsune changes pattern with the phases of the moon. 9500 Lairs Stolen From: Gwendlfyn BlueEyesNeko Beliel BluetailDragon BlueEyesNeko LabyrinthianLost

Dragon Info: Carmen was born into the RavenRock Clan and spent her youth assisting the Clan's best detectives. Carmen is intelligent, charismatic, tenacious, and determined. When she sets her mind to something, it usually gets done. Carmen is secretive about the reason that she turned from the detectives that she grew up learning from to the thief that she later became. Befriended a Gem Guardian, named V.I.L.E., to guard her cache of stolen treasures and artifacts. Neither the stolen items or V.I.L.E. has ever been located. Carmen is an excellent thief, excelling at elaborate heists that make use of dragons that are friendly to her cause and distractions. Is often only seen from a distance as she escapes with her red wings, hat, and coat. Carmen enjoys taunting any dragon that is close to catching her, often leaving clues or giving them hints that lead to where she might be headed next. Carmen will defend herself if it becomes necessary, but she prefers to escape rather then engage in violence.

Notes: Items Stolen: Golden Idol (Gwendlfyn) Silhouette Scroll (LabyrinthianLost)

Carmen was born and honed her skills with the dragons at RavenRock. A promising and intelligent detective, Carmen went out on an investigation with a dragon investigator that was visiting her clan. Nobody knows quite what happened while the two were gone, but everybody knows the results. Rather than continuing down her previous path as a detective, she became a thief. She used the skills that she had learned as a detective and picked up a few others to inexplicably infiltrate RavenRock's tombs, stealing a priceless and ancient golden statue weighing thousands of pounds, with apparent ease.

The theft was only discovered because she left a note in the statue's place and a dragon wearing her red hat was seen disappearing into the distance, off to new places, new clans, and new treasures to steal.

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The statue is only the start. Thank you for being so accommodating. Can you guess where I'm headed next? I'm thinking someplace... Breezy and Blue. ~Til next time, Carmen

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Carmen crash landed into the wind flight, thankfully landing in a spot where it wasn't AS windy. Her bounty from the last lair threw off her balance when the breeze kicked up! Getting up out of the bamboo she crushed, she winced and held her forearm. Oh yeah..something was definitely not right there. She sat there for a while, gathering her thoughts, but also keeping an eye out. She was fairly hidden but, being in a new place, she didn't know exactly how hidden. Poking her head out of the bamboo, she ended up nose-to-nose with another dragon!

"Stupid!!" She thought to herself, "You let your guard down for one second and you didn't even hear this oaf!" Blinking and snapping out of the shock of staring into another dragon's eyeballs, she backed up, "Who are you??"

"I am Hermes, are you injured?? I saw you be blown down by the winds, I was hoping I'd find you and see if you were alright!" He genuinely looked worried. How cute.

"I'm fine, thank you. Now scurry off, I can take care of myse-!" She stopped mid sentence as the pain grew worse in her forearm.

"Clearly, you're not alright. Get on my back, I'll carry you back to the clan I'm resting in right now. They're kind, and they'll help you! I promise!" Hermes lowered himself down on the ground for her to get on. Carmen narrowed her eyes slightly, not wanting to trust this stranger...but if he's also a traveler, and knows the way to help.. She shook her head, trying to clear her jumbled thoughts. She would take his offer, play the victim, and get close to any goods in this clan. Then swipe and get the heck out of this windy hellhole! She begrudgingly climbed onto Hermes' back with her belongings and allowed him to carry her back to this clan he spoke of before.

The moment other dragons saw Hermes carrying Carmen into the clan, she was doted over and taken into the healer's den to get seen. The healer and her assistant deemed her to stay put for a while, she had badly broken her forearm in the fall. "Well that didn't go according to plan.." She thought. Hermes showed her to the Traveler's Den, where several other dragons full of wanderlust lived when they weren't enjoying the clan's amenities.

Hermes stuck by her for the weeks she was healing. And, dammit, she was starting to enjoy his company. It didn't matter how distant or annoying she was to him, he stuck by her side. Everyone in this clan was just so damn nice! On a sunny morning, Hermes, being all...adorable..came to her and asked her to nest with him. Um...what? This was NOT part of the plan?? So what made her agree??

Oh yeah. The plan. Get in, play the hurt victim (even if she WAS technically injured..), get close to whoever to get to the goods. Right.

They nested. They had two eggs. She played the excited role for Hermes' sake. He doted on them and her as often as he could. She almost felt bad for playing him. Almost. Definitely not feeling bad. Nope. Not at all. She looked at their eggs and felt a twinge of guilt. She couldn't stay here. She couldn't see how this ended, let alone let these hatchlings see her mistakes. She was in too deep, rookie mistake.

So she left. Early the next morning, she snuck out. Later that morning, she watched Hermes search for her all over, going back to check on the eggs constantly in-between searches. She didn't want them to see how it ended. But she wanted to catch a glimpse of their faces. She stayed hidden in the bamboo outside the nursery, above the clan on a small cliff, for days. Waiting. Watching.

After those few days, small squeals came from the nursery. She watched all of that day, seeing the two pearlcatchers snuggle up to Hermes, both almost identical to him, but the same breed as her. Hermes kept them close, a sad look on his face. She left shortly after hearing their names on the wind. Harvest and Meteion. She came to steal some goods, but instead, she stole a heart. And crushed it.

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Carmen’s heart felt heavy in her chest as she left behind her two offspring and the love of her life. She’d made a stupid mistake and now she was paying for it. Carmen knew she needed to get her head back in the game and somehow found herself in the Southern Icefields, particularly the Snowsquall Tundra where there were quite a few clans she could thieve from.

She traversed through the heavy snow that blanketed the ground, the trail had been cleared at one point but was already knee deep as the snow drifted all around her. Carmen hoped that it wouldn't be too much longer before she'd find some shelter from the elements, a nice fire to warm her joints, and a belly full of good found was sounding rather appealing right now. A few feet ahead she could hear a pair of dragons chatting back and forth and a rush of excitement raced down her body. Drawing closer she found it to be a small bogsneak and an obelisk picking bright, red berries off of a nearby bush. Carmen hoped the pair would be able to help her out or at least give her directions and in return there was no better way of thanking someone than unloading them of their most valuable items.

Another successful attempt and Carmen felt a little more like her normal self. Holding the coin bag in her claws that she skillfully swiped from the female obelisk who called herself Callisto. She'd be long gone before the ditzy obelisk even realized it was missing. And since she was quite the opportunistic thief she managed to swipe a necklace off the brother whom Callisto called Quasar.

Tossing the coin bag repeatedly in her claws for a few minutes, she was definitely starting to feel good about herself again and the sound of free money ringed happily in her ears. Stealing the coins from Callisto had been too easy, although she was sure if she’d told the female that she had nothing to her name she would have just handed them over but where is the fun in that? Now, she just needed to set her eyes upon something more than a pretty necklace and a bag of coins.

Carmen trudged up the hill and her eyes lit up with excitement as the next prospect laid out sprawled before her.

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The last few heists had gone less than ideally. Apparently word was spreading about her, because two clans back-to-back turned her away at a glance. She had to leave the Icewarden's realm altogether to let the heat on her calm down. Instead, she traveled far to the north, and to Dragonhome. While the earthen terrain wasn't the most... habitable, it still hosted some of the largest and oldest cities in all of the world, so things were already looking promising. However, Carmen decided to push her luck and went for a newer settlement; Cragenmire City.

It was fresh - so much so that it was only in recent months that proper shops had sprung up in the underground metropolis. Most of the city's money came from tourism. More specifically, the fact that it was a hub for traveling dragons. Some were merchants, others bakers, a few warriors even. Upon arriving, Carmen found herself spoiled for choice. But she didn't want an easy heist - she wanted a real, proper challenge. That's why she targeted, of all places, Scripted Sanctuary. The unassuming library wouldn't be most thieves' first choice, but Carmen scoped the place out and found it to contain, among many informative books and traveler's tomes, magical scrolls.

There were a few obstacles. The first, and biggest, was the librarian. Frigga was a kindly dragon, but took her duties very seriously. She hovered over any dragons that looked to be leaving with her goods and promptly and politely stopped them. That was avoided easily enough; a good distraction or clever timing could solve it. The other problem was the tea shop. Oyatsu House was located inside the library, but it was run entirely separately. That meant working different hours, and the owners, even as they cleaned up for the evening, often did sweeps of the shelves to make sure everything was in it's place and no one was still inside.

Carmen concocted a plan to counteract all these factors. She set her plan in motion by lubricating Oyatsu House's flooring in a particular area, making one of the customers trip in an extravagant fashion and spill tea everywhere. This drew the attention of the tea shop owners, as well as Frigga, who left her post to investigate the chaos. Carmen used this chance to slip by and into the section containing the magical scrolls. Unfortunately, her ruse didn't last very long - she had to take a scroll, and fast. So, she swiped a silhouette scroll and booked it out a nearby window, ignoring the confusion left behind her.

While she was making her way to leave, she bumped into an interesting tundra. He introduced himself as Occulus and was strangely keen on speaking to her. Carmen was baffled to find that he knew who she was, and even more shocked to learn that he didn't despise her for her heists - instead he admired her! He wanted to learn under her, according to him, and offered his own home to her so she could stay in the city but keep hidden her treasure. Carmen reluctantly agreed, and for the first time in her life since her first hatchlings so, so long ago, found her own heart being stolen beneath her very nose.

Occulus was funny. He was weird, no doubt about that, but despite his oddities and morose appearance, he was socially awkward and kind of a dork. Normally, Carmen would rob dragons like him blind. But something about his unwavering faith in her kept her from doing just that. Though she hated being cooped up all the time, she enjoyed spending time with him and, before long, could no longer imagine life without him. When Carmen finally gathered the resolve to confess these feelings, Occulus had the gall to be surprised - he thought they were already in a relationship! Sometimes, Carmen really wanted to smack him. In an endearing way, of course. And, on that night of confessions, Carmen for the first time told someone else why she became a thief. She'd never write it down, of course. But he knew, and he was alright with it. All of it.

Carmen knew then that she would be staying for a long while to come.

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Lairs Stolen From:

149683, Gwendlfyn
200004, BlueEyesNeko
2095, Beliel
388288, BluetailDragon
200004, BlueEyesNeko
570686, LabyrinthianLost