Bloodscale

Personality: quiet, thoughtful, artistic, subdued, affectionate, comes out of his shell more while gaming.

Favourite Types of Game: slow and strategic, co-operative.

Hates: comments on his size, being interrupted while reading or painting, the markings on his body

Backstory:
Bloodscale can’t say he quite remembers what his life was like before. His Uncle Biblion says that dragons tend to block out the worst memories to protect themselves from them and Bloodscale can only assume that this is the case. His early life was bad enough that it left his growth permanently stunted and gave him an unhealthy fear of other spiral dragons. Everything before is hazy, blurry like watercolours that ran a bit too much. That it why it’s so easy to divide his life into before and after, the difference marked by one shining event that was so sharp in his memory he could recall every detail.

Bloodscale’s early life may be hazy, but he remembers the day he met his mother with crystal clarity.

The others had finally gotten sick of their resident living dark omen. Apparently having him locked up and left to starve and bleed was no longer enough. At first they tolerated him, even using his strange, almost supernatural, knack for finding things to their advantage, but they had roughed him up and locked him up when the blood-coloured runes got to them. That day, two of the older dragons (his birth parents? He couldn’t be sure, it’s not like they bothered with introductions) had thrown his cage outside and snarled and bit at him until he took off through the woods. They chased him for what felt like forever, trying to get him off of clan territory, he supposed.

He was so scared that day, so helpless. It was all he could do to run for his life and wish, with everything he had that he could find somewhere safe.

And like he always did, he found what he was looking for.

A dragon bigger than any he had seen before was leaping over his head before he could even process that he was barreling towards her. He stumbled and fell, twisting to see what was happening behind him as he hit the dirt. The big dragon was standing in front of him, hunched down as if ready to strike, her body a bulwark against his pursuers. More dazed and confused than scared now, he couldn’t understand what was said, but gathered that the big dragon was angry and the other spiral dragons were afraid of her. He thought, for a moment, that he should be afraid too, but before he knew it, he has been scooped up onto her back and carried off into parts unknown.

He fell asleep to her soothing reassurances that everything was going to be okay, that he was safe now.

When he next woke, his wounds were bandaged and he was nestled on a pile of cushions in the mane of another big dragon. Another hatching squeaked excitedly when he opened his eyes and the big dragon from before was suddenly by his side again, fussing over his wounds and red scales. His tears were dropping onto the pillow beneath him before he realized they were there.

He had been the most compliant dragon he could after that, never daring to step out of line. It took his family time to get him to realize that they wouldn’t hurt him, even if he messed up.

Now he lives happily as a member of the clan. His past left him much smaller and more subdued than your typical spiral dragon, but he barely minds any more in his day to day life. His Uncle Biblion introduced him to books and soon he was rarely seen without one nearby, with the pair spending hours reading together. The whole clan introduced him to games. He’s still a bit prickly about his size, but he secretly likes how it makes is easier for the older members of his family to carry him around just like they did when he was still a hatchling. He eventually took up art (particularly painting) and the atrium of the manor was given to him for his use, getting the light he needed for a studio.

Other Facts:

• He always finds what he sets out to look for. Even if he has never seen it before or would have no way to know where to look, he always ends up going straight to it. It makes him the designated searching for lost items in the clan (especially lost dice and game pieces).
• He has painted portraits of everyone in the clan except his mother Amethyst…or so it seems. In truth, it’s an open secret that he’s made one of her but can’t bring himself to show it to her because he doesn’t believe it captures how much she means to him.
• He and his adopted brother, Finch, are very close and somehow end up tied up in literal knots when they sleep snuggled up together.
• He is still uneasy around other spiral dragons unless he knows them well.