Bayou

Bayou was born to a noble warrior bloodline, in a Clan full of such. An oft-repeated mantra she heard growing up went thus: "The pulse of rebellion bears the question: Can you slay your demons, and defy the Devil himself?" Bayou had always wondered about this. Military structures, as a rule, didn't often allow for independent thought, but Bayou had never been one to submit herself willingly to anyone or anything. The uncharitable called it a pathological insistence on defiance. The charitable among her called it an unkillable independent spirit.

The same thing that made Bayou an ideal operative-- she would die long before she broke-- made her nearly impossible to command. This didn't mean she'd voice her concerns aloud, but merely wander off and do what she wanted anyway. The only indication she found anything wrong with her home Clan's philosophy was when one of her siblings caught her giggling. "It's a bold bit of propaganda," Bayou noted softly, "to paint defying the devil as rebellion, when he invented the concept."

She'd known from the time she was young that she enjoyed the finer things in life, and also that nothing in life came free. To that end, as soon as she was old enough, she started training. Bayou was just compliant enough to learn the material-- her assertiveness could take a back seat to something she wanted-- but she never called anyone but herself Master. Fortnately for her, she found she loved battle. Unfortunately for everyone who trained with her, her uncommonly-strong precognition and grasp of magic awoke at the same time, and she weaved them into her battle style like strands in a braid.

There weren't too many questions, and nobody looked too terribly hard, when Bayou disappeared one night without so much as a goodbye. She was probably just doing what she wanted, like she always had. When reports of mysterious drownings came in on the border with the Gladeveins, nobody said much. Bayou's murky coloration lent itself to swamp camouflage. Easy to ignore that mossy log until it rears up to drown the pirate captain with a bounty on her head, or the plagueling who sent his patrols just a little too close to that wealthy Nature clan's territory...

No dragon is an island, though, or at least none can remain so forever. Bayou's luck ran out one day after a job gone bad. Price of pride, perhaps, or of becoming too well-known. Either way, the battered Imperial sank down to the murk at the bottom of the swamp, where the current tangled her body up with various weeds and gently carried her out to sea. She was fortunate in two ways: that she couldn't drown, and that the weeds and detritus camoflaged her body long enough for her elemental affinity to knit her broken body back together.

Weeks later, (...or could it have been years? Bayou had no way to tell) she found herself blinking awake. Someone was cutting the weeds away from her with a pair of rescue shears. Bayou pushed the water out of her lungs with a great big heave, her first breath of air burning after so long submerged.

"Gods help me... Gods help me, Tidelord sent me a broken one," the Skydancer muttered to herself, dutifully snip-snip-snipping away at the netting and detritus tangled around Bayou. "Don't try to get up, girl. You're in the Shifting Expanse and it's a few days before Rockbreaker's," she snapped, then returned to muttering to herself. "Gods help me... I told Him, I told Him I have no interest in being a priestess, and what does He do? He sends me a broken girl to rescue."

As soon as Bayou was free and working the knots out of her wings, the Skydancer none-too-gently grabbed her by the beard. "Listen to me, girl. I've seen a lot of dragons go down your path. Almost all of those are now dead, and all the extant ones are young. You don't have to like anyone. You don't have to think they're smart. You do, however, have to find someone to look out for besides yourself. That's what separates you from monsters and-- hey, look at me-- you can be up your own cloaca all you want about the philosophy of it, but cold hard reality is that monsters get slain. You wanna live? find someone, almost anyone, else to look out for besides yourself."

Unfortunately for the unsocial old hen, the first person Bayou chose was Octavia herself. Teaching the baby monster to have a heart wasn't an easy task, and it wasn't one Octavia was particularly suited to, but she was somehow able to germinate the seed of empathy that had failed to sprout in Bayou's youth. She started calling Octavia 'mama,' which touched Octavia's jaded heart in turn. Later, the reason Bayou would give is that Octavia was the first to try to direct her spirit rather than break it.

Bayou would never be a lovey dragon, but now that she knew she had the capacity for it, the few she loved she loved with a vengeance. She always seemed to gravitate toward women, and when a certain absolutely stunning Celestial Runner caught her eye, she clammed up entirely around her for weeks. At least until the storeroom door shut and locked behind them, trapping them together for hours. (Octavia still denies having anything to do with the faulty lock, even though the incident ended happily)

Generation 12 I am a Night Warrior! The Night Warriors are the descendants of Pulchrior, known far and wide across the land for their dark colors and fearsome elite training. If you're interested in knowing more about the generations project that is my heritage, please click the button! Night Warrior Lineage: Pulchrior >> Orion >> Asmira >> Nymane >> Carina >> Vaeros >> Lumina >> Faash >> Piper >> ViridianKnight >> XehnonVK >> SindarinVK >> Bayou