Zinni

Zinni

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Zinni is from the first generation of Aethers who hatched on Sornieth rather than on the Astrolab. Her egg was flung into the Shifting Expanse when the Astrolab crash-landed, where it was found by the clan’s scavengers and adopted. She hatched alongside Fungus and Blister, who she considers to be her best friends and like siblings to her, and the feeling is mutual all around.

But something separates Zinni from Fungus and Blister. No, it’s not that she’s a Nature dragon to their Plague; she has never known the rivalry between the two flights. It’s that Zinni feels a certain connection to their home, moreso than the other two. She mourns the Astrolab, a home she never knew, and has done extensive research into what made it crash. And she has come to a conclusion: her kind’s love of paper was the downfall of their home. And if paper can crash the Astrolab, then paper could one day destroy Sornieth.

So Zinni has made it her personal mission to destroy all the paper in Sornieth, the only way she knows how to: by eating it. She is determined to fight fire with fire. If there’s no paper, there is nothing to tempt her kind. She is convinced this is the only way to save Aetherkind, and happily wolfs down paper for what she considers to be the good of her people.

Other dragons in the clan disagree. Many of them rely on paper for their daily tasks. Dragons like Divantae and Afterglow have learned to huddle defensively over their parchment while glancing over their shoulder constantly. Zinni has been completely and totally banned from the Hall of Records, and if she were to manage so much as a nibble Yecord and Luster would bring their wrath down upon her. Zinni is frustrated by her clanmates’ attempts to impede her, and feels that they are deliberately obstructing her from saving her kind. Zinni tries to hang around the artists of the clan, claiming she’s one of them because she’s making a change, but none of them truly believe this explanation, and as many of them work on paper, avoid her.

Zinni feels more connected to other Aethers than many of her kin, and is so full of hopes and wishes for her kind that these dreams have made themselves apparent on her body. Zinni is in favor of Cadfael’s revolution because she believes that if the clan switches to technology entirely, then that’s all the less paper that could bring the downfall of her kind. In her mind, this is her duty, and nothing and no one can prevent her from saving her kind from the evils of paper.