Regina
(#67585258)
Level 25 Wildclaw
Bismarck
Armed Flight
Click or tap to view this dragon in Predict Morphology.
Energy: 47/50
This dragon’s natural inborn element is Plague.
Female Wildclaw
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Personal Style
Apparel
Skin
Scene
Measurements
Length
4.78 m
Wingspan
6.92 m
Weight
517.55 kg
Genetics
Tarnish
Savannah
Savannah
Sanguine
Blend
Blend
Sanguine
Glimmer
Glimmer
Hatchday
Breed
Eye Type
Level 25 Wildclaw
Max Level
STR
126
AGI
8
DEF
5
QCK
58
INT
5
VIT
11
MND
5
Biography
NOT FOR SALE, TRADE, OR LENDING
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Putting on a Brave Face
There it was again. That smile.It haunted her even in sleep, the memory of it cutting through her slumber like a knife.
What hurt most wasn’t the fact that it was so far away, no....It was the fact that once, it had been hers.
A sky shining with promise, a hot summer day. She needed more paints for her latest projects, and decided to head to the nearest trading outpost. Darkness was looming on the horizon, deeper than ordinary night, but she shrugged it off.
“I’ve made this trip many times. I’ll be back before full dark.”
And off she went, unconcerned, a carefree smile on her face.
The trading post was its usual hive of activity, and her trip was a good one. She quickly found her paints and brushes, but lingered for the conversation, the song. Whispers exchanged with new acquaintances— “Maybe we’ll meet again?” A flared feather-crest, the wink of one scarlet eye. And the same smile, charming all she’d aimed it at.
“It’s like a weapon,” she mused as she headed home. “You could knock somebody off their feet with it!”
(And she certainly had, more than once...)
A rumble—the darkness had caught up to her. It brought with it rain and thunder, and lightning spearing into the muck. The Wildclaw cursed, her bright feathers now sodden and ruffled, and looked for a place to hide. She found a small overhang and crouched beneath, waiting for the rain to stop.
It kept going and going, so loudly that its rumble filled the world. So loudly that it blotted out all sound. She normally would’ve heard the scrape of jagged scales against stone—but she didn’t hear it today.
The sand ripples with them. Beware when you’re out at night...
The only clue of the shattered serpents’ presence were their eyes, lit in a sudden flash of lightning. They writhed out of the earth, mud dripping off their spikes and fangs.
Like others in her clan, the Wildclaw was a capable fighter—but what could she do against so many ravenous creatures? She dispatched one, and two more took its place. More of them, and more...They drove her back against the overhang. Lightning flashed again, illuminating the terrain beyond, and she looked, hoping for escape—
Instead, there were still more serpents, drawn by the scent of carnage.
The rain washed away many things that night. It washed away sound. It washed away spilled paint. It washed away blood.
But it couldn’t wash away the pain.
Dawn broke slowly, its red light bleeding into the sky. By that dim glow, the Wildclaw staggered back into the lair, and she was not immediately recognizable.
"Regina?!" one of the sentries gasped—but even then, it took her a moment to recognize that he was addressing her. It wasn't just because of the pain, which clouded all awareness like a dim, fiery fog. It was also because she'd never heard her name spoken like that—with disbelief and horror, almost as though she were a monster rather than a clanmate.
"Why is he looking at me like that?" she thought blearily, for she had always been an esteemed member of her clan, and had known nothing but admiration and deference from her fellows. This look, though, from a mere sentry...It was one of utter revulsion.
Other Wildclaws came to her and tended her wounds. She received only the most rudimentary assistance from them; after all, they haughtily declared, that was the Plague way. If she could not recover on her own, then perhaps she did not deserve to.
She heard their words only dimly, as she drifted in and out of darkness and then was left alone. Pain was her constant companion—that and the reflection that stared at her, specter-like, from the mirror over her nest. She really did look like a monster, a phantom from the Ghostlight Ruins, perhaps, with her head heavily swathed in bandages, her red eyes burning between them.
Bit by bit, the bandages came off. Regina stared at the damage, her heart slowly sinking. What was the Plague way: Only the strong survived?
That was correct—but her clan was exacting even by Plague standards. It was not enough to merely be strong and survive—one's appearance had to be pleasing to the eye as well. If one was not pleasant to look at, then one could no longer be a part of the clan: It was that simple.
So simple, and also so cold, so callous. Regina had always been confident, and she'd clung to that, thinking that as a native of her clan, she was safe from their persecution. But no—now that they disliked looking at her, they decided that they disliked everything about her. Even when she professed that she just needed time to heal, that she could still hunt and craft as well as any of them could, they forced her out. It was hard to tell at that point which hurt more: the raw wounds on her face, or her shattered confidence.
"Am I really so hideous?" she asked herself, as she trudged away from her clan. It had rained again recently, and she paused to stare into the pools of water at her ruined reflection. "Am I really so loathsome now, simply because of this face?"
She passed the middens where her clan dumped their refuse, and spied something on the ground: the skull of some unfortunate creature, picked clean. She scooped it up and settled it gingerly onto her face. It abraded her wounds somewhat, but she could bear the pain.
When she approached a crossroads later, the travelers encamped there willingly spoke with her, though they remained wary. The children, however, took one look at her skull-shielded face and ran off screaming.
"It's the skull," she told herself. "It's the skull, not my face, that looks so frightening."
The thought comforted her, and she decided to keep it on.
She had always been sociable and reveled in being the center of attention, but as she had predicted, the skull mask turned aside most glances, and many dragons' questions went unsaid. In the past, she would have cheerfully struck up conversations, maybe even spun a dramatic story out of thin air. Now, though, she was glad for the obscurity, the silence.
She did not always go unnoticed, though. Other dragons, fighters especially, were curious as to why she wore the mask. "The skull of a beast you've slain?" they asked her. "A trophy from another fighter? An ancestor's heirloom, maybe?"
The story prompts lined themselves up before her, yet she could not give them wings. She mumbled excuses instead, and turned away so that no one would see her, no one would ask her more.
Too many fighters, too many survivors in Plague, all wanting to hear her story...but she wasn't ready to share it yet. Perhaps this was no longer the place for her. She had to get away....
"We're accepting passengers to the Sunbeam Ruins!" A stranger's call reached her ears. Regina turned, saw a blue Imperial standing by one of the docks. A sign reading Passengers Welcome! bobbed over his head, buoyed by Wind magic; he gestured towards a mercantile galleon with a Pearlcatcher figurehead.
"One-way trip only, no stopovers, and we'll dock at Lanternlea Port. D'you fancy yourself a fighter?" The sign flipped over to reveal passage rates. "Sign on as a ship's guard, and you can travel for a discounted rate!"
"Ship's guard?" Regina would have passed him by, but the words of the Plaguelands murmured in her mind—
"You are still strong," they whispered—not in the sneering voices of her former clanmates, but in the tones of something far older, far wiser. "You can still fight. And nobody looks at a guard's face—they're far more interested in her skills. And you still have skills, do you not?"
So she doubled back to the Imperial, and told him she was interested in the ship's guard offer. He didn't bat an eyelid at her strange skull-face, "Though we'd like to see if you can really fight. Just as a precautionary measure—we might run into some hairy situations out there."
He directed her towards a Guardian lounging nearby. As the Guardian lazily got to his feet, Regina stared—his skin, underneath his mane, was heavily spotted with the old, puckered scars of some wasting disease. It looked as though he'd overcome it, though. His armor rattled ominously as he lifted a paw. "Defend yourself, fellow Plagueling," he rumbled.
The Guardian struck, not to injure, but simply to test her reflexes. Regina managed to evade his claws. A few more minutes of this soft, sparring dance—more like a warm-up, really—and he nodded in satisfaction. The Imperial beamed again. "You'll do. Right up the gangplank, lady, and Simon there will take your payment and show you to your berth..."
Regina ascended the gangplank. It wobbled a bit beneath her, or perhaps she was just heady with the thrill of success: "I've done it. I can still fight! I can still...!"
The ship eventually set sail, heading around the continent towards the Sunbeam Ruins. As the crew had warned, the journey wasn't without its dangers. There were monsters in the water, and marauding Beastclans and dragons. The crew fought them off with the ease of long practice, though they also welcomed aid from their passengers.
Regina in particular fought fiercely. After weeks of grappling with her injuries, and her subsequent expulsion and loneliness, it was a joy to feel strong again, to be trusted and admired. The other dragons had looked upon her with unease at first, but as the weeks at sea passed and they all got to know each other better, the walls began to come down. The Wildclaw steadily regained her usual cheer and gregariousness, and if not for the strange environment and the skull sitting heavily atop her face, she could lull herself into thinking that the past several weeks hadn’t happened, that she was still part of a clan....
After each tussle, the captain went around, ensuring that everyone and everything aboard was still intact. "Take it easy, everyone," she said after one such skirmish. "Especially you, Regina. You seem a little out of breath."
The Wildclaw was, but she didn't let it show. She straightened up and grinned brightly, almost defiantly, back at the Imperial.
"We're nearing our destination. Why don't we settle up?" She turned and headed towards her cabin, and a moment later, Regina followed.
The room was quiet, its wood-paneled walls shutting out most sounds. Captain Mara settled atop her cushions and nodded towards a smaller pile. "Have a seat. And will you not remove your helmet? The weather does seem rather stuffy today."
Regina was rather slow in complying. Her initial instinct was to say that no, she did not want to remove her helmet...but a deeper emotion, a deeper pride, told her to pretend she was unaffected. She eased it off, keeping her expression as cool as possible.
Deep inside, however, relief overwhelmed her when the Captain’s calm expression remained unchanged. But of course—hers was not always a peaceful life; she'd probably seen worse injuries aboard her ship. Still, she murmured, "You probably ought to get those wounds checked. Some of them still look a bit raw."
"Oh, these are nothing to a Plagueling. I'll be right as rain in a few weeks." The old pride, the old bravado, still simmered beneath Regina's scales.
"Even so, it wouldn't do if they got infected. Our physician can at least help you clean and dress them more thoroughly." The Imperial pulled a ledger from a nearby shelf and compared it with records in her logbook. She asked a few more questions about the times Regina had assisted the sentries, other tasks she'd helped the crew with, and so on. Mara noted down the information carefully, ink gleaming on her onyx claws. Regina didn't really see the numbers; she held onto the feeling of the conversation instead, how casual and easy it was. No more awkward questions; the Captain's earlier observations had passed swiftly, like a squall.
"It was a pleasure working with you, Regina. Thanks for choosing to travel with us."
"My pleasure, Captain." The Wildclaw couldn't help pressing a paw against her own cheek. There was another wound there, still tender—though the pain was decreasing day by day. In fact, in the battles she'd fought as of late, the pain seemed only like a distant memory....
"You’re welcome to join us on future voyages. Or if sea travel isn't for you, you might speak with our recruiters and combat trainers. You are a strong fighter, and the clan could always use someone as stalwart as you."
"Could they?"
Regina didn't realize she'd spoken aloud until Mara's brow furrowed. The look the Imperial gave her was one of genuine puzzlement.
And then her dark face relaxed into a smile. "Ah, but of course—"
"And here it comes." Regina didn't know what exactly she was expecting, only that her heart was now sinking in dread...
...and then it was her turn to be puzzled as Mara continued, "You've never been to the Sunbeam Ruins, have you? How short-sighted of me; you wouldn't know whom to ask."
"Oh, no. It isn't that. I was just..."
What had she been thinking of? She remembered scarlet eyes peering down at her, lips curling in disdain. Once-beloved voices brushing her words aside, saying that it didn't matter if she could still work, still fight. Saying that it didn't matter even if she was still strong.
But out here, beyond her old clan’s walls...
"I'll give you my Guardian's name. He's the clan's Chief of Security; he and his team are always on the lookout for capable fighters. We need trainers in particular, since we accept a large number of exalt hopefuls every month..."
"Won't a written recommendation be better? In case he doubts me, I mean."
"Even if he thought you were lying about sailing with me, why would he doubt you?" Mara gestured broadly to the Wildclaw. "As I said, you're a capable fighter. You've got mettle, my girl, and that's all anyone really needs."
As she spoke, she wrote the aforementioned Guardian's name on a fresh slip of paper. She pressed this into Regina's palm with another flashing smile. “Have a lovely day, dear.”
Regina took care to put her helmet back on before she stepped outside. Some of the other dragons had commented on this before, and they did so again: "The battle's over, you know. You can take it off if you want."
"No, I like to always be prepared for anything." It was a skimpy excuse, but she could say it more convincingly now. The Captain's words echoed comfortingly in her head, drowning out memories of old clanmates' voices. Regina doubted she would ever forget them entirely—they had wounded her too deeply for that. Like the scars on her face, the damage would remain...
"I see the Beacon! We'll be at Lanternlea soon!"
...but her scars didn't demean her, and they would not limit her. She rubbed a paw over her skull helm, comfortably this time, as though she were stroking a beloved pet. There would be times when she would remove it. There would be times when it would stay on.
But whether or not it was shielding her face, the smile underneath, at least, would be genuine.
Random little headcanons:
- Used to belong to a wealthy Plague family that prized all the usual Plague attributes, plus physical beauty. Bit of a snob, tbh.
- Went out to run errands one day, was horribly mauled by some monsters. Dragged herself back to the lair.
- Left horribly deformed by the attack and was kicked out of her clan. Drifted around a bit before ending up with the Disillusionists.
- Now works as a combat trainer, specializing in self-defense. Works well with kids and specializes in coaxing shyer trainees out of their shells.
- Hides her scars and deformities under her skull mask.
Thanks for reading!
Lore Thread / Clan Directory
"Theme" music graphics made by Diamondsuits. All other graphics and art link to their sources.
Lore Thread / Clan Directory
"Theme" music graphics made by Diamondsuits. All other graphics and art link to their sources.
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Exalting Regina to the service of the Lightweaver will remove them from your lair forever. They will leave behind a small sum of riches that they have accumulated. This action is irreversible.
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