"Wounded and sickly... no longer."

The runt of a plague-born litter whom could barely withstand the contagion; Lingzhi is being treated by a healer dragon of the LRC, who carried him in a basket across the shadow domain and through to light; a place that is said to burn away disease.

Pockmarked from persistent childhood pestilence, he appears a little standoffish in personality mostly for lack of self esteem in his own appearance and skillset. He was nestridden intermittently throughout his childhood, his family doubtful that he would ever reach adulthood. His confidence has increased vastly since the gift of unexpected recovery; he lives as one cautiously born anew.

Lingzhi speaks fluent Virulanse, a rare plague flight language.

This nearly extinct language was once spoken by the dragon that became Luminax's Plague Head.





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attempted summary by me, for non flight rising audience

• Both these two lived in the same territory, which is essentially the continent's gigantic disease pit with a boiling cauldron of rot in the middle
• Lingzhi (white and red) was dying in a secluded village and had been dying steadily for years. He had resigned himself to death long ago.
• (His family aren't uncaring, but they are from an isolated, religious subculture, and had already grieved for him. There is a culture of expecting those who cannot withstand the might of the contagion to die; and with that, a sense of normality in his decline rather than desperation to find a cure for him.)
• Meanwhile, Wishloam (green) is a breed of dragon that are healing-orientated, but was born and raised as an orphan in the same plague-disease-rot territory as Lingzhi, leading to a life of quiet identity crisis. [Why did my people abandon me here/am I disgrace to them/etc.] He was driven to learn the unusual healing techniques of the region and became a travelling healer, moving from place to place providing services.
• They meet when a family in a village he has never visited tell him their son is close to death, and he should visit to make him more comfortable.
• Wishloam agrees to examine. He is struck by Lingzhi's lack of emotional reaction to his coming death; he thinks that Lingzhi might still be saved if he moves away from this entire place, to somewhere where the land itself isn't seeped in virulence.
• Lingzhi doesn't want to go and wants to be left to die without more false hope. He says as much.
• Their very similar ages, and a sudden sense that there is somewhere in Lingzhi a wish to continue living, lead Wishloam to conflate his own identity problems with saving this one individual; he thinks he can do it.
• Wishloam begins to persuade him; knowing he hasn't long to do so before Lingzhi is too weak to even try
• Lingzhi doesn't want to (the psychological reason is he's tamped down his own grief for a very long time. He's forced himself to be alright with his own mortality because he's had no other option, and to be suddenly told for the first time in years to have hope is reintroducing a pain he can't bear)
• It's a short and weirdly intense bonding, unintentionally selfish from Wishloam; he's using this to confirm to himself that he isn't shameful and evil to his heritage and he can save lives
• Wishloam gets through to him, staying up late through the night and eventually saying; if you die on route; what is there to lose? Isn't there something you want to do, if you do make it?
• [Dragon-wise, Lingzhi is a tiny breed so Wishloam carried him in a medical basket on his back. A bit harder with these human design, so I'm going

o say there's a beast of burden involved here.]

FROM HERE this starts intersecting with the more in-depth main plot of my dragons, so for sanity's sake I won't, but in short; the journey was really gruelling and they both nearly died at the end being eaten by a gigantic monster, Wishloam reflecting it was his fault they got into this mess, and Lingzhi on the verge of death thinks he should never have agreed to any of it. However, they were saved; and thus life begins anew. They have jobs!

Wishloam was right; the new territory they live in has prevented the disease taking Lingzhi's life. Lingzhi lives as one cautiously born anew; he speaks a rare plague language native to the subregion he grew up in, making him a valuable translator.

Separated from the plague territory, Wishloam continues as a healer but also appreciates the culture he grew up in and realises it's values; they both work for the same company.