MEDULLA

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"Xeno"

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*A dragon asks you why you wear so much blue jewelry. You tell them that it shows your status as Consciousness. Nobody knows what color your scales were before you turned, and you intend to keep it that way.
*On one of the rare occasions you venture out of you hive, you come across an unsuspecting dragon. You try your best to remain unnoticed among the shadows, but your bright red eyes give you away. Noticing the drip of black, metallic liquid from your mouth, she asks if you're alright. You assure her that you're fine. She insists she give you a quick check up anyways. The second her claws brush against the corruption dripping from your mouth, her scales wither and start to fall away. Underneath, all that is left is an inky black shell. Eyes glazed over, she looks up at you, as if waiting for a command. This is the only way anyone ever listens.

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Thrashing and squirming, crying out to my parents, I made any and every attempt I could to get out of the bonds holding me tight to the dark, cold, and slick metal wall. I was terrified. All that I knew was that this was not home. This was not my warm, cozy nest, with my three brothers crowded around our parents for food. All I knew was that I was no longer safe. I couldn't see anything; then again, I'm not sure that there was much to see, nor that I really wanted to see what was around me. There was a eerie, unnatural humming about the entire place, and the constant clack-clack of claws on metal was heard through the walls. There must have been hundreds, if not thousands of dragons around me; why didn't they help me? Did they not know I was here? Or did they simply not care?
Suddenly, light flooded the room as the doors were thrown open, even if only for a second, and I got a brief but horrifying glimpse at several other dragons, all bound to the wall like I was; all unconscious, sickly, and with rapidly blackening scales. One of the bound dragons, colored an unnatural void black, started to move, just before the room was once more plunged into darkness. The click of claws against the floor moved towards where I had seen that dragon, and from there came a strange hissing and buzzing, followed by a sharp crack.
Then, there was nothing but that soft, eerie humming once more.
I started to struggle again, until sharp, ice-cold claws slammed into my neck, effectively stopping any of my movement. My jaws were forced apart, and foul-tasting, frigid liquid was poured into my mouth. Whoever was in front of me (was there two of them now?!) shut my mouth, trying to force the liquid down my throat. I gurgled, and used the last of my measly hatchling strength to whip my head to the side and spit the remainder of whatever that stuff was at what I hoped was my attacker's eyes. They screeched, a horrible, alien noise, and their claws slipped off my neck, colliding with the main part of my bonds and cracking them. I bolted, sliding between the legs of my captors, and ran towards what I hoped was towards the exit of this awful, nightmarish, maze of a place. Blank-faced, void black dragons came pouring out of a hallway to my right, so I took a sharp left, barely avoiding grasping claws. And there! There was the exit, right ahead! The humming grew louder, and started to morph into what could almost count as words. Just as I burst out the exit and back into the sunlight, I could finally hear it:
"D̵o̶n̴'̷t̷ ̶l̷e̷t̷ ̷i̶t̴ ̸e̸s̶c̷a̷p̸e̷!̷ ̶K̴i̴l̷l̶ ̶i̵t̸!̶"
The voices gradually faded as I ran further away, but I couldn't quite get them out of my head. My body, my mind, they felt... new. They felt strange. They felt...stronger.
As I continued to run for my life, towards any semblance of safety once more, a single blue scale shed off of my back.
Underneath it, my new scales were a foreboding, void black.

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One of two leaders, or CONSCIOUSNESS, of a Hivemind. He leads and army of drones, aiming to bring about a more perfect version of dragonkind. (view species sheet for extended lore)

Improperly assimilated as a hive CONSCIOUSNESS as a hatchling, he roams the world simply searching for a place to fit in. As he grew older, it became apparent that if he wanted such a space, he would have to make it himself; thus, he started his own hive. He was constantly moving, his puny hive driven out of any home he might have found by fearful dragon clans, until he finally crossed paths with another CONSCIOUSNESS, who begrudgingly decided to take him under her wing, and become one hive. He is a host to run most of the autonomous functions of the hive, while CRYPT works with the active functions.

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