Carrion

Carrion

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Carrion is a butcher who provides all the meat for the Clan of the Striking Bolt. The clan doesn't have the choice whether or not to purchase his meat, but visiting dragons do have the option of stopping by his butcher shop and purchasing his cuts of meat. Yet they scarcely do.

It turns out nobody wants to buy meat from a shop called "Carrion's". It also turns out that becoming increasingly insistent about it and putting up signs everywhere insisting that the meat he sells is DEFINITIVELY FRESH and NOT COLLECTED CARCASSES doesn't do great things for his business, either. Even when the clan vouches for him, since he provides all the meat for clan meals and it's always fresh, he can't seem to bring any business to himself. His name just brings up bad memories for all of his customers and deters all his business, especially when combined with his absolutely terrifying appearance.

Most of the clan has given up on trying to support his business in front of visitors, but Bernice hasn't, and she's still rooting for Carrion. Because of this, Carrion sees her in a very grandmotherly way, and spends a lot of time with her. Bernice is always a shoulder Carrion can leave on, and is his strongest ally, closest friend, and the closest thing he still has to family in the Clan of the Striking Bolt.

He "still" has to family, because he had another dragon he saw as family once, too. Once, he saw Poxann like a big sister to him.

When Poxann was a youth and traveled through the Scarred Wasteland to try and figure out what she wanted to do with her life, she stayed with a clan of Plague dragons, and befriended the dragons within that clan. This included the dragons who would one day become Carrion's parents. When Poxann decided she wanted to be a guidance counselor and left the clan behind, Carrion's future parents stayed in touch with her.

When they had their son, and Carrion decided he wanted to voyage into the world, they nudged him towards the Clan of the Striking Bolt, where they knew Poxann was. They knew she would love their son and take good care of him while he stayed there. And they were right; almost immediately after he arrived, Poxann adopted Carrion as her own little brother, and the two were inseparably close. She was his cool big sister, and she was always rooting for him.

But after seeing him fail time and time again, and fail to convince dragons that his business venture was legitimate and fresh, she tried to give him the hard truth that maybe he should call it quits and find a new venture in life. This attempt to lay down a cold truth erupted into a massive argument, and the two's relationship was never the same.

Carrion hasn't really talked to Poxann since that fateful argument, but he regrets everything he said immensely. But even as he slowly comes to terms with the fact that maybe she was right, he finds himself unable to swallow his pride and admit that to her. He can't bring himself to apologize, even as he finds himself crushed by the truth.

He considers changing his name on a nigh-constant basis, but thinks about everything he would have to change in terms of paperwork, or thinks about how his parents might react to him rejecting the name they gave him, and he can't bring himself to go through with it, even though it's harming his business.