Appearance[]
'Beauty is for those who have it, and beauty, just like everything else, is a weapon' ~ Afterimage
Your scales are thin, like paper over her skin, and the lightest colour of all. They are like yellow ice, beautiful but so delicate, as if a touch would crack them. Burnt yellow sprinkled the brittle surface of your snout, freckles interrupted by a faint scar, barely noticed, as pale as her creamy underscales. So beautiful, but so near breaking.
Your wings were small, but none less beautiful, thinnest paper stretched across her bones, catching the dying light of the sun and glowing golden. You could never fly with them, but they are enchanting, like sand catching the light, the desert at daybreak. But sand is blown away too quickly.
Your eyes are such a warm, welcoming dark brown, full of kindness, but so soon they will go dark. Like your MudWing ancestors, they are shaped, and hazel flecks glow within, like gold, but so much more fleeting.
You would stand like a SandWing, if you weren't limited to a pile of cushions, mixing poisons. Your horns are like a MudWings though, bent over plants and vials.
You wear no jewellery, but you wouldn't need it if you did, your beauty not needing to be enhanced. You almost always wear those clawless gloves, trying to hide the scars that cover your hand, drops of burning plants from when you were more inexperienced.
A snake curls around your horn, marked in ink, its fangs dripping with poison, its pale green scales, inked so carefully, shining in the light. Black eyes stare from the top of the horn, at the snake's head, glinting with some unknown emotion.
Personality[]
If death had a throne, I'd take it - Aftermirage
Afterimage is a odd dragon, obsessed with death, suspicious of signs of love, and with many scars.
She regards everything as a weapon, beauty, love, and if she fell in love with somebody, or became friends with somebody, she'd furiously deny it. This stems from the belief left over from her days as an assassin, that there is no point enjoying life because it's just going to end. Yet she seems to be an attraction for love and pity, since her life is so fleeting that few can bring themselves to hate her. Undoubtedly dangerous, though she can't fight, can't even move becuase of her weak legs.
She is in awe of everything, despite how she refuses to say she is, gazing with wide eyes at sand and stars. Kept trapped so long, even seeing other dragons is a treat. It is only luck her liking for botany gave her a place, and she treasures that place dearly.
Shy of other dragons, hesitant to speak up for fear of not being able to speak, Afterimage envies other, more capable dragons. Those who can fly and run and fight. Those who aren't trapped, needing to be carried or otherwise transported if she needs to move. She's insanely proud of her position as a Cobra, though she'd never admit it, even if it's obvious to everyone around her. Taking it as a sign of acceptance, which she'd longed for since she was born, just being talked to brings a smile to her face, though she doesn't let it show.
She a talented actor, able to fake and suppress emotion easily, though not to the point she does it compulsively and it's a problem. Though she used to be extremely shy and attacking sweet and happy as soon as someone showed displeasure, she melts into her grumpy, quick-tempered 'real self' easily. Her unmasked personality is distrustful, and easily closed up so whoever was prying is met with a brick wall of a dragon. Full of sarcastic and mocking humour and easily hurt feelings, Afterimage is a jumble of a dragon.
Sensitive, she can get hurt easily, and takes praise to the heart, though she's even more hurt if she realises he compliments were mocking. She get get a big ego easily, though or deflates the moment she's criticised, even if it's just to help her get better. She's a hard worker, constantly trying to impress and improve, with losing her position a horrible prospect to her.
WIP
History[]
Everyone dies ~ Afterimage
Her mother, a SandWing loyal to Burn, fell in love with a MudWing in the aftermath of a battle, and as they helaed their wounds, one thing led to another. Now in egg, Afterimage's mother staggered to her old village, when everyone was shocked at her dragonet having MudWing features, which she blamed on her supposed mate having hybrid heritage.
Born with a defect leaving her scales paper-thin, her wings stunted and useless and her legs too weak to ever carry her, Afterimage was locked away, given only scrolls, which were entered around plants and poison on her request, to amuse her. Born in a village who didn't care for dragons who couldn't contribute, but didn't want to face the consequences of killing someone, she was ignored, and only rumours of ghosts were what the dragonets her age knew of her.
By night and day Afterimage studied her mothers schedules as soon as she was old enough to form a plan, and began bribing dragons old enough to know about her with promises of healing poultices if they gave her a certain plant. Having perfected an act that led her mother to believe she loved them, she offered her a poisoned glass of camel milk. Her mother died shortly after, cause unknown.
She stumbled the desert for days heat scorching scales that weren't as resistant to the sun as a full SadnWings, threat parched and stomach empty. A Sand Serpent found her there, though she could never muster to courage to ask who it was. She finished her training as a Cobra, thou she could never rise higher then that, since her wings and legs kept her trapped to her room. She's looking to try and make soemthing that could carry her around without using her legs, but she is yet to find one.
Is impartial on the Sand Serpents goal, happy to just be accepted. While she was there, it was discovered that it was unlikely for her to live past half the udual lifetime of a dragon due to her handling of a particular component of the poison she used on her mother, which contains a slow acting poison that would almost halve the lifetime of whoever dared touch it.