Amethyst

The Tribe was very young when Amethyst was a hatchling and essentially penniless. She grew up used to scrimping and hunger, never knowing if their leaders would provide for them. Terabithia and Sirka were young then too and a few bad decisions left their tribe in poverty. She grew deeply resentful and bitter of the vulnerability and hardship that she endured. Running away from home as an older teenager, she was eager to rebel against all that she grew up with and have a more exciting life. She longed for wealth, for power, to be something great, and those desires reached above her immature conscience. She found a group of common but very ambitious thieves and together they sought power. At first, she delighted in all that they gained but as they took on larger and more lucrative jobs with no regard to what they were doing she grew ashamed of her life. They eventually gained the wealth she thought was her greatest desire but it proved empty. Even the greatest luxuries sickened her to the core when she remembered the terrible price of the suffering and exploitation of others that bought them. More often than not it was death that built the empire of her once-ordinary thieves guild and it was death to escape it. She was powerless: powerless to leave, for she would be hunted and killed by former-allies and enemies alike, powerless to climb out of the pit she crawled into. Riches would never be enough to them. What they truly longed for (and, to her horror, a part of her longed for as well) was raw power. To be more powerful than anything. To be respected. To be feared. They unearthed a darkness that they believed could satisfy their deepest cravings and make them great. It did, even more than they realized, but at a surpassingly terrible price. It changed them: their identities swallowed up in sudden and intensified rage and desire for destruction. It made them beasts, monsters, wraiths of pure evil. It made them greater than any ordinary dragon, and no ordinary dragon could stand in their way. These horrific creatures terrorized and destroyed many before, finally, they were captured by a power greater than themselves after an attempt to ravage the Southern Icefields. They were kept in frozen agony in a fortress devoted to locking away horrors such as themselves.

All that their numbed minds could comprehend was endless pain and endless cold that seemed to freeze their blood and stop their hearts. But conscienceness seeped back into the ghastly creature that, what felt like a lifetime ago, was named Amethyst. The power of Ice had been subdued for a spell after losing a series of important battles in a war with the other flights of Sornieth. All forces had been directed to protect what was most valuable and this fortress, meager in comparison to the far greater ones, had been stripped of its more important prisoners and then tossed aside. She perceived that her heart beat still, though weakly, and her blood was not frozen. If she threw her will into it she might even be able to break free and continue whatever destruction that her corrupted heart desired. Even greater power could be hers. She could be above all and crush all beneath her feet.
“But it will only lead to death,” a foreign warmth brushed against the edge of her conscienceness, “the very death that you continue to give yourself to.” Perhaps she was willing to make that risk. She would destroy and then be destroyed, but not without hard-won satisfaction.
“There is no satisfaction in the snare of death,” the whisper said, “nor freedom in shackles.”
“But even if I would choose differently, I couldn’t escape it,” she replied.
“Not alone, but you are not yet alone,” the voice grew warm, “your freedom is won,”
“I deserve death,” she admitted and for the first time since the darkness took hold of her she felt a deep grief. Perhaps she didn’t know all that she was doing, at first, but she did it all the same.
“Yes, but redemption is at hand, and freedom with it. But it requires sacrifice.”
“Anything,” she said.
“You must become weak. You must become humble. The hatred in your heart cannot remain. It is death.”
“Help me,” she begged, but even before the words were fully formed the strength was given. The warmth stole over her heart and the darkness in her heart began to be overcome so that even its desires were more hollow to her ears. She could move her limbs, if only a little, but even as she tried the strength returned to her dormant body. The room about her was shrouded in darkness but she was guided out of it by the light and the creeping cold in every room was staved away by the warmth. She was brought into crisp air that was far more welcome than the stale sort of cold within the fortress and sunshine that burned and dazzled her eyes but made her suddenly glad and giddy.

She was weaker than she had ever been in her life. Her wings still bore the shackles of the fortress and its tips were irreparably frozen through so that she could no longer fly and her hands couldn’t grasp a sword with the skill that she once had but she felt more joy than ever before. Something about her had changed from her former life, and she found that she was utterly unrecognizable to those that she once knew and free from fear of them (but she never saw any member of the once-prominent band of thieves she was part of ever again. Whether they remained in the Fortress and in their corruption or found the same freedom she did, she never learned). Wanting to do something of value, she helped the clans in war-torn areas rebuild their homes and lives in the ways she could. Some of them were drawn to her, a soft-spoken, strong-spirited and an altogether unusual character and traveled on with her. She learned that many of the survivors from the places that she once destroyed when she was a monster had been captured and taken as slaves. A sudden fierceness came upon her and she and her new, still-forming band discovered the location of a group of slavedrivers and raided them of both slaves and riches. All of the money was given to the slaves, so that they could have the means to live freely again and make their own way in the world. Some of the former-slaves used their freedom to join her group and she found herself to be a leader of sorts. She cared for her group with all that she had and realized that there was nothing she loved better than freeing slaves and marauding their captors. When they learned that the traders most often took to the seas they purchased themselves a boat and followed them. They became pirates of a most peculiar variety: plundering slaveships and gaining freedom for the captives. She became known as Captain Amethyst, and their ship, The Liberty, sails on to this day. It has become a safe haven for those escaping a life of crime or bondage, for no one from their past would dare to harm a dragon under the protection of Cap’n Amethyst and her crew. Joining her crew has brought redemption for those who were afraid they would never be able to have a good name again. Amethyst’s name itself is met with either great love or great fear - only a few have tried to harm those under her protection, and they suffered for it. When enraged by evil, her quiet strength becomes burning intensity, and to be at odds with her is a perilous thing.

She returned once to the Tribe of the Endless Dusk after many long years apart, and discovered it to be thriving and prosperous. She confessed her wrongdoing to her parents and they, glad to see their daughter again, forgave her in time. She was no longer the prideful and angry teenager that had left them, nor the corrupted and murderous creature that she said that she became. As she stood before them: the spitting image of her father, with mangled wings and a gentle gaze, they scarcely could recognize the Amethyst they knew at all. But they loved all the same, and delighted in her changed heart. Her heart had become one that was full with love and always pouring itself out, as peaceful as a brook and as fierce as a blade. It is not uncommon for her to be scarred or injured from the battles she fights with those who seek to do others harm, but she wears them proudly. Larimar was pleased to find that her daughter had her same fire. Amethyst’s sister, Agate, spends many long hours with her. She helped her sister regain much of her further strength and Amethyst owes every inch of her sword fighting ability to her beloved sister. Though Amethyst forgave Terabithia and Sirka for their past wrongs, Sirka remained suspicious of her. When she returns after many long seasons of sailing she may slip in secretly and stay in the Underground so that he is unaware of her presence. Larimar and Xenti are angry at his behavior, but Amethyst understands his paranoia that the tribe he loves and protects with all that he has would be at risk. She is grieved, but understanding. And for that, her parents will never fully understand her.

Her time spent in the Underground has made her a friend of Beastclans and she may often free Beastclans that have been forcibly indentured to dragons. She has no talent for language, though, and may even bring Everwinter on her Beastclan-related escapades as a translator to communicate with the freed captives and find their families. Her natural sensory abilities as a Skydancer aid her in comforting the truly broken, and she weeps with pain that she feels as her own.

Amethyst is happy with her life, sometimes overwhelmingly so, but she is still haunted by her past. The guilt is overwhelming when she remembers the scars that she had once left in the land and the families that she had broken, and killed, especially before her wraith-time when she was fully aware of her actions. It keeps her awake some nights. When the guilt tries to accuse and destroy her in that dark stillness, the voice brings light and hope and peace. It has stayed with her, sometimes guiding her, and the Speaker has become a dear friend. Sometimes his voice is the only clarity in her storms. Sometimes the same murderous rage that marked her time as a monster and once controlled her lurks within her, almost rising. That haunts her the most, knowing that while she yet lives the deep wounds to her spirit that her darkest time had inflicted on her might never be healed. And, sometimes, she looks at her broken wings and sighs and longs to fly once more. But she always remembers the freedom that so many experienced from her because she knew what it was like to be under bondage and didn’t want others to experience the same, the smiles, the love that she feels that has tied her to so many, and the overwhelming joy that her dearest companion speaks into her heart when dawn feels endlessly far away. Her heart soars, then, higher than any wings could take her and Amethyst is content.