Anima

The dragons of the Starfall Isles were a smart group of individuals, versed in magic and science and capable of creating explosions with only the things found on buffet tables. Which meant that it had taken about two weeks for them to figure out how to summon and commune with ghosts. The ghosts knew they were doing it, the same way a fish knew when someone approached them with the intention of delivering food, and so they were more than happy to cooperate from their side of the void. After all, it’d been a long time since most of them had been able to interact with the land of living, and boy, were there some seriously interesting things they could poke there.

Of course, it’d help if someone had the ability to teach Arcane mages how to practice safe magic, but considering the last time a Pearlcatcher from the Sunbeam Ruins attempted to lecture them on the importance of rules and ended up weeping hysterically, it’s likely not something that can be accomplished without backups, contingency plans, and a couple of failsafes or weapons of mass destruction thrown in. In any case, there was nothing stopping the Arcanites from continuing on with their summoning plans. Not rules, not morals - not even the Arcanist himself! Though the fact that the Arcanist was less trying to stop them and more encouraging them probably doesn’t help.

To be fair, it really was an impressive project. A giant rune, scrawled in the center of your usual conveniently placed cemetery, marked in places by giant crystals that may have been illegally harvested and smuggled from the Crystalspine Reaches. Scholars from all over the Starfall Isles had arrived to speculate what was sure to be the greatest achievement of that week, along with a handful of dragons from other flights who’d come to see how the Arcanites planned on annihilating the world this time around. Songs were sung, the gods were praised, popcorn was sold by an enthusiastic Shadow Spiral, and everyone was in good spirits as the summoning began.

Meanwhile, in what is known as the Underworld, a single Skydancer was wondering how her life could possibly get any more boring. In the land of the living, death had been glorified as something akin to a reward, as good deeds would supposedly get you to heaven and bad deeds would send you to hell. Well, that idealistic situation was far from the truth. In reality, the land of the dead was basically like the land of the living, except there was no life or living. Ghosts were generally just stuffed in a giant, empty void, where they lamented their bad fortune for all of eternity and occasionally played poker with imaginary cards. They couldn’t touch anything, and they couldn’t create anything, either.

All in all, it was a very uninteresting existence, unless you somehow found a way to enter the land of the living to terrify the spines out of the nearest unlucky dragon. The Skydancer was pretty sure that even terrifying the living dragons would lose its thrill sooner or later, which would leave those escaped spirits back at square one. Either way, she figured that she was stuck in eternal death, and nothing interesting was ever going to happen.

Or maybe it would. She’d heard talks about some Arcane mages attempting to summon ghosts, but she’d always been suspicious of Arcanites when she was alive. After all, it was due to one of their experiments that she died in the first place. Not that she really remembered. She’d been too young. Well, who was she kidding? She was still young. But still, an Arcanite had been involved in her death. She held no grudge, but still, she wondered...

The same time the young Skydancer was pondering her death, the Arcanites above in happy living land were going through the final stages of their spell, which involved imbuing a floating crystal with enough dimensional spells to create an entirely new universe. As the crowd watched in awe, a bright beam of light shot from the crystal, striking the ground at their feet. Immediately, the air began to swirl, the earth turning murky as it spun into a physically impossible whirlpool. The audience began fleeing as the Arcane mages chanted in unison, inviting the dead to join them.

And the dimensions shattered.

A flood of spirits erupted out of nowhere, screeching and wailing in excitement as they burst into the land of the living. They were free! Free to sing, to breathe, to see the light of the sun and the moon! In every direction they dispersed, flickering in and out of sight. The Arcane mages rejoiced, until they realized that none of the spirits were stopping to speak with them. Then they began panicking. An endless swarm of the dead were creeping back into the living world, and the head researcher had a gut feeling that this was going to take more than a few papers to explain to the rest of the flights. Immediately, she ordered that the rift be sealed, the crystals used in the experiment to be destroyed. Her disappointed underlings went to work as members of the audience pitched in by both running away from and chasing after the ghosts.

Most of the ghosts were captured and thrusted back into the Underworld with protesting wails, but many escaped, haunting the residents of the Starfall Isles with increasingly annoying screeches. The experiment was marked with the words “changes needed,” and the researchers went back to work trying to commune with the dead, though now that there were conveniently spirits in the living world, their life was going to be a lot easier.

Or so they thought.

For once done, it couldn’t be undone. The rift between the two worlds remains, despite all the sealing magic casted upon it. And every so often, a spirit either finds its way to the world of the living, or is indiscriminately pulled there with no way to return.

One of those spirits was a young Skydancer. Her name was - is - Anima.

---

It’s a mystery as to how Anima came to be in the clan, though everyone would agree on the fact they didn’t notice she was a ghost until a section of the clan lair inevitably blew up and she was left unharmed amid all the smoke. Once her identity as a spirit was claimed, nobody really did anything about it, either. She had enough connection with the living world to embody a form they could touch and cuddle, but not enough connection to do more than float around and hug everyone. (Though that might just be her way of getting out of heavy duty tasks.) All in all, she wasn’t the strangest thing the Arcanites had encountered in the last twenty-four hours, so they let her stay. After all, while she might be a ghost, Anima is also a hatchling, and a very fluffy one at that. Even science-mad researchers would feel bad at kicking her out.

In the clan, Anima is a medium and necromancer. Not only is she capable of summoning and - to an extent - controlling other spirits, she’s fluently versed in the art of dark and undead magic as well. She usually keeps her magic in reserve, only using it if cornered or if her clanmates are endangered. Then, she unleashes a shockingly cold wave of black magic that nullifies any incoming magical attacks and freezes the unfortunate invaders in dark, ghostly-colored ice. And if that doesn’t work, she simply strikes the ground with one claw, breaking the veil between the living of the dead, and drag her enemies into the Underworld through sheer will. It’s a bit old fashioned, she’ll admit, but extremely effective.

It’s a bit of a mystery as to how Anima can wield this type of magic. It might have something to do with who she used to be in life, or her time in the Underworld, but nobody knows for sure. Anima doesn’t know, either. All she really remembers is waking up on a pink spire of crystal, as if a giant gust of wind had thrown her clear across the Starfall Isles and straight into a crystal formation. She knew she had magic and how she could use that magic, but that proved to be the extent of her memory. In any case, such power is not to be belittled, and so her clanmates treat her with all due respect. When she’s using her magic, at least. Most of the time, the clan treats her like a hatchling and strives to protect her. Anima is fine with this, even if she knows she’s fully capable of protecting herself. It’s nice to be babied.

When she’s not wielding her magic to pull down empires and destroy entire armies, Anima usually floats harmlessly around the lair. Though she has technically been dead for several decades, her curiosity remains that of a hatchling, and she enjoys constantly experimenting with new things. Most dragons describe her as cheerful and scattered, as she has a habit of eagerly asking a question and then immediately being distracted by some other interesting bits and bobs in her general vicinity. This would be fine, as curiosity is the foundation of Arcane forays into questionable research, but some dragons find themselves unsettled by Anima’s loose morals. It’s not that she would throw another hatchling into Baldwin’s cauldron just for research, of course. But if throwing another hatchling into the cauldron meant being able to tear about reality and create a new form of magic? Well, she’s entirely for it.

Most of the time, she manages to keep her morals in check, and so her clanmates enjoy their time around her. Anima especially likes spending time with Night, as he is one of the few dragons who can keep up with her enthusiasm. She especially looks up to Amethyst, seeing the Fae as her role model and constantly striving to be more like Amethyst. Amethyst likes her too, though the Fae is a bit worried about the young (technically old) ghost’s interest in her rapier. It’s really just a non-magical and completely ordinary piece of weapon, but Anima is obsessed with it to a point where she’d once tried to possess it. This failed, of course, much to Amethyst’s quiet relief. She isn’t really sure what is motivating Anima to hang around her sword like a puppy waiting for a treat, but having a sword imbued with the soul of a curious and morally questionable Skydancer hatchling would bring more headaches than it was worth.

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