Stardust's subject for Gossamer's Phoenix Project!
Name: Arion
ID: 3298-S
Gender: Female
Base Tribe: RainWing (60%)
Added Genes: Large blue butterfly (21%), vesper bat (13%), frill-necked lizard (6%)
Appearance: Arion's build is mostly draconic, small and lean with little muscle. In fact, she's pretty shrimpy compared to most of the other subjects, barely able to lift half of her own body weight. She's built mostly like a RainWing, with the body, legs, tail, and head. However, that's where things start getting odd. Her scales are exceedingly small and numerous, like lizard scales - they're quite dull, seeming to absorb light instead of reflecting it. Her mainscales are dull gray, while her underscales are silvery-blue, extremely close to white. In addition, instead of spines, Arion has pale cream-colored fur speckled with latte brown: small tufts of it marching down her spine and along her snout and neck. She has the huge brown-gray ears of a vesper bat, tufted with fur and sticking up from the sides of her head to help her echolocate. Furthermore, instead of normal RainWing wings, she has the wings of the maculinea arion: butterfly shaped and delicately thin; they are a gradient from light blue to dark gray and speckled with black-and-white spots. She has dark gray butterfly antennae as well, sprouting from the top of her head. Finally, around her neck is the creamy-brown ruff of the frill-necked lizard; usually she keeps it folded neatly like a chunky scarf, but if she feels threatened, she'll unfurl it to a surprising size and hiss at the provoker. Arion's eyes are onyx-black, always scanning her environment warily.
Behavior: Arion almost never talks, and the only vocal noises she makes are hissing or growling. She prefers to fade into the background and often lurks in the corners of the room, never speaking, just waiting. Although the scientists have tried to get her to communicate more than once, she always refuses, just backing into the corners of the room and fixating them with baleful eyes. Her muteness seems to be a personal choice rather than a physical disability; it has been noted that she used to screech quite a bit as a hatchling but stopped as she matured. Arion rarely shows emotion and is well-experienced at concealing her inner thoughts. It's nearly impossible to surprise her, as she's very guarded and reserved, both physically and mentally. She's fairly distrustful toward other subjects but surprisingly compliant toward the scientists, usually obeying their orders even if she secretly disagrees. The RainWing refuses to give up her dignity and would never dream of begging for something; even if her life depended on it, she would probably try to beat the odds alone. She's actually quite contemplative on the inside, sometimes dreaming about what the world could have been like if everything hadn't happened. However, Arion doesn't really believe that the subjects could ever escape: she's fairly content with the way things are. Not necessarily happy, but she doesn't believe in change. She's incredibly determined about the things she wants to accomplish, although again, she usually doesn't show it.
Brief History:
- Egg was donated by a normal RainWing couple who truly believed that this project would succeed; as a result, they didn't have many qualms about handing Arion over
- Grew up pretty normally in the rainforest enclosure
- Over time, she began to speak less and less, stating once that it didn't matter what she thought
- The rest of her life passed uneventfully
- Has never attacked anybody to this day
Other Information:
- Hyper senses (sight, hearing, smell)
- Can regenerate and heal herself abnormally quickly
- Able to go long periods of time without food or water
- Echolocates decently well, although not as skilled as other subjects/actual bats
- Normally-aged subject
- Prefers meat over fruit
- Probably bisexual, though I'm not sure yet
- Actually has a fairly husky voice from disuse
- Average intelligence
- Isn't interested in romance (yet)