Back­sto­ry

Tek­ka’s par­ents shared a Lair in the east when the Aegis attacked and killed them, rais­ing them as undead slaves of the Aegis. As undead they smashed their own eggs, but Tek­ka’s egg was missed in the smash­ing — it was small and blight­ed, and not expect­ed to sur­vive. Lat­er, a Gift­ed hunt­ing par­ty includ­ing Tigris Euphrates slew the undead drakes and found the unsmashed egg. They wrapped it up and car­ried it to safe­ty. Even after their sep­a­ra­tion, Tigris cared for the blight­ed hatch­ing, which she named Tek­ka, after a Sslik word “Tekkar” which meant ‘Bright’. That was 113 years ago…

How­ev­er as Tek­ka grew Tigris became very con­cerned. Tigris had taught Tek­ka to read, write, speak, learn, sing, draw, and make notes like bipeds do. The old Saris start­ed to feel she was teach­ing Tek­ka wrong, that the lit­tle hatch­ling need­ed to learn to be a drag­on, not a Saris in drag­on cloth­ing. Tigris felt that she was doing the young hatch­ling a dis­ser­vice. Tigris encour­aged Tek­ka to go out and learn drag­on ways, but Tek­ka did not under­stand and thought Tigris was reject­ing her because Tek­ka was not a Saris like Tigris. This sit­u­a­tion was resolved when Krim­son­flame and Falkor offered to adopt the ener­getic young hatch­ling as their own. Tigris asked them to please teach the hatch­ling how to be a true drag­on, some­thing a Saris could nev­er do. Tek­ka latched onto her new fam­i­ly, stay­ing friends with Tigris, but rel­ish­ing the feel­ing of belong­ing to a drag­on fam­i­ly and the love that came with it.

My Broth­er, My Friend

Ahh Tay­lus, Tekka’s adopt­ed broth­er. Tekka’s expe­ri­ence with her new broth­er has been a roller­coast­er ride of emo­tions for the young hatch­ling. When they first met, Tek­ka was elat­ed to have a drag­on fam­i­ly final­ly, to learn how to be a drag­on, that she had no idea some of the pol­i­tics going on in the back­ground. While Tekka’s adop­tion was okay with Tigris, Tay­lus was claimed by sev­er­al par­ents. Even­tu­al­ly this forced Krim­son­flame and Falkor to give up Tay­lus to anoth­er par­ent. Tek­ka was sad at this news, but assumed it meant she could still see and play with Tay­lus as a friend.
She was wrong. The next time Tek­ka saw Tay­lus, she tried to play hatch­ling games with him, but Tay­lus turned his back on her, say­ing he was­n’t ‘allowed’ to be near her. As he walked away he left lit­tle green blight­ed foot­prints behind him. Tek­ka was so heart­bro­ken she made the “Sad” carv­ing. She told her A’mea and A’meo about this, and they said they would fight to get Tay­lus back.

Then, sev­er­al weeks lat­er, Tay­lus came back wear­ing a strange bracelet, and no longer leav­ing blight foot­prints. He com­plained the bracelet was burn­ing him. Tek­ka hid, fear­ing fur­ther rejec­tion. Tay­lus sur­prised her and apol­o­gized to her, say­ing it was okay for them to play again. Tek­ka was cau­tious but hap­py and asked him about the bracelet.

Then things took a turn for the worst. Tay­lus explained the bracelet had been placed there by Falko­r’s uncle in law Rea­gle’s father Ryza­ak — a for­mer Aegis oper­a­tive now fight­ing for the liv­ing — and now Tay­lus could not take it off. Tay­lus then informed Tek­ka that Selarth had been inject­ing crys­tals of Blight into Tay­lus’s body. Tek­ka was utter­ly hor­ri­fied. While Tay­lus thought it was a fan­tas­tic game, Tek­ka knew that Blight and the Aegis had tak­en her orig­i­nal moth­er, father, and sib­lings (as eggs) from her in the first place, and per­ma­nent­ly marked her with gaudy bright green stripes. Tek­ka begged and plead­ed with him not to go back to Selarth. Tek­ka quick­ly deduced the bracelet was enchant­ed to not come off because it was hold­ing back the blight in an attempt to save Tay­lus. Final­ly after much plead­ing from Nyya and tears from Tek­ka, Tay­lus agreed to come and tell them if Selarth did any­thing else unusu­al, but refused to stop see­ing Selarth.

Tekka’s Quest for Wings

Tek­ka had been a hatch­ling for over a hun­dred years since the young and fresh­ly gift­ed Tigris found Tekka’s egg and it had hatched. Now, all these years lat­er, she was still a hatch­ling but had drag­on par­ents to teach her that learn­ing to fly and becom­ing an adult was not a mat­ter of lessons, ranks, or age — but doing the rites. Nyya, Krim­son­flame, and Falkor all cau­tioned Tek­ka not to become an adult until she was ready. Her A’meo and A’mea specif­i­cal­ly request­ed that she wait until Tek­ka was at least 50^th rank adven­ture and 50^th rank craft­ing before she under­went the rites of adult­hood. Bow­ing to their wis­dom, she agreed. So began her quest to reach those ranks and pre­pare her for the rites.

She lost no time get­ting start­ed, train­ing wher­ev­er any­one would teach her. Falkor, her A’meo, took her dad­dy-daugh­ter hunt­ing trips, where Tek­ka fought and roared with her A’meo as true drag­ons fight­ing, and Tek­ka real­ized that for the first time she tru­ly felt like a drag­on, not a biped in drag­on cloth­ing. She was a drag­on, and no one could tell her otherwise.

Helian or Lunus. The ques­tion nagged at her, and she wavered back and forth between the two many times. Though she had a rocky rela­tion­ship with her biped ‘nurse’ that raised her from egg until adop­tion, she had no ill will towards Tigris, and had no wish to hurt her or any oth­er Biped. In fact she felt Bipeds were her friends. But as a drag­on she fought with the Tooth and the Claw, and iden­ti­fied strong­ly with her Lunus father Falkor. The feel­ing of com­bat, using her own claws, and roar­ing made her feel strong. Not that she felt BETTER than bipeds… just dif­fer­ent. A dif­fer­ence that set her apart as a dragon.

How­ev­er as she drew clos­er and clos­er to being ready for the rites, the dark storm clouds over the east and the dark allure of the blight con­tin­ued to draw her in, and she did not know why. She was con­fused between feel­ings of being a grow­ing young drag­onet and the feel­ings from the blight that was a part of her from egg to grown, that she could not tell what feel­ings were nat­ur­al and which ones were not. Slow­ly, the hyp­not­ic allure of the blight was slow­ly draw­ing her clos­er and she did not even real­ize it.

A Daugh­ter of Dralk

Months of hard work since Tek­ka met up with her new fam­i­ly and began to learn the ways of real drag­ons, she had final­ly met her A’meo and A’mea expec­ta­tion — 50 adventure/50 craft­ing. Then the tri­als could begin. But first a deci­sion had to be made. She liked the Helian phi­los­o­phy of work­ing with the Bipeds to defeat the Aegis. She had seen with her own eyes how much could be accom­plished when drag­ons and bipeds worked together…

…Tek­ka had also wit­nessed the fight­ing. Drag­ons that hate the Nakas. Nakas the hate the drag­ons. Nakas that hate oth­er Nakas. Worst of all… drag­ons that hate oth­er drag­ons. As a hatch­ling, Tek­ka had sug­gest­ed that her view­points would fall along Helian lines, and Tek­ka was asked “Are you a naka-drag­on?” The ques­tion res­onat­ed deeply in Tek­ka. She was raised by a biped for many years. She was taught to speak and act like a biped first. The drag­on tongue itself was a sec­ond lan­guage to her. Were all nakas good? No. Were some nakas evil? Yes. So were some drag­ons. Like Selarth, who had hurt her broth­er Taylus.

So it was in the lone­ly dark night, sit­ting at the pools of fire in Dralk, that Tek­ka remem­bered some­thing. Her A’mea, Krim­son­flame, was a Lunus. Her A’meo, Falkor, was a Lunus. And if she believed in only one thing… just one thing… she believed in her fam­i­ly. Lit­tle Tek­ka loved and trust­ed her moth­er and father. She was not a naka-drag­on. She was not a naka.

She was… a drag­on. A daugh­ter of Dralk. A Lunus.

A roar echoed through Dralk and Tek­ka shout­ed her deci­sion to the world. Not for their pol­i­tics. Not for dom­i­nat­ing the nakas. It was because of her A’meo and A’mea, because they were the only thing she real­ly trust­ed not to lead her astray. Could the bipeds gov­ern them­selves in peace? She doubt­ed it, but his­to­ry showed drag­on rule was no bet­ter. There had to be a solu­tion that involved every­one work­ing togeth­er, but the Helian were wrong too! Tek­ka was not a naka-drag­on. She could not… ever… pos­si­bly hope to be a naka. Her heart burned with fire. In com­bat her blood boiled with lava. She was a dragon.

NO ONE — biped or drag­on — could take that away from her.

So it was that at 50^th rank adven­ture, 50^th rank crafter, and 5 mil­lion hoard, and 113 years old, Tek­ka set upon the rites of pas­sage and set out to prove to the world what kind of drag­on she was.

The Rite of Passage

Tek­ka dove into the tasks giv­en her for her rite of ascen­sion with excite­ment and gus­to. At first she was deter­mined to fin­ish the entire rite in a day. She received a lot of help from Nyya, Sereamha, Iyre­vi, Aay­ron, Sagreth, and Eis­sa who pro­vid­ed guid­ance and com­bat sup­port against foes greater in num­ber than she. Tekka’s A’meo and A’mea’s instruc­tions to get to 50^th rank in her train­ing pre­pared her for both craft­ing and adven­ture chal­lenges. She was young, but not alone!

How­ev­er the chal­lenges of the rite were com­pound­ed by hor­ri­ble hap­pen­ings. Her friend Au’Rel had also been blight­ed by Selarth. He had guid­ed Tek­ka in her path and giv­en her advice and encour­age­ment, teach­ing her to trust in her instincts and to have courage, so him turn­ing to the dark­ness was a breach of trust for the young and impres­sion­able hatch­ling. She con­front­ed Au’Rel and asked him why he had done it — had Selarth made him do it? No, he explained, he had cho­sen it. Heart­bro­ken, she told Au’Rel that her trust in him was bro­ken and it was up to him if he want­ed to re-earn it or not.

Then she con­front­ed Selarth him­self. She threat­ened the blight­ed drag­on nev­er to harm her or loved ones again. She allowed that she could not stop those that chose it, and that Selarth had made some mis­takes in deal­ing with Tay­lus, but she made her threat very clear — not to hurt her or or her loved ones or there would be retaliation.

Then she talked to her lit­tle broth­er Tay­lus, the red toma­to-col­ored hatch­ling. Tay­lus explained that Selarth had been a friend to him long before any were his friends. Tek­ka explained that this was fine, that she was not angry with Tay­lus. Tay­lus explained that Tay­lus had not known the dan­ger of blight, and that he had asked Selarth to teach him. Tay­lus explained that Selarth had TRIED to dis­suade Tay­lus and failed. Selarth had even tried to remove the blight from Tay­lus repeat­ed­ly, killing the hatch­ing repeat­ed­ly in the process. Tek­ka explained that if Tay­lus want­ed to be friends with Selarth, that was fine with her, as long as he did­n’t try to hurt any­one. Her younger broth­er seemed to accept this concession.
Tek­ka jour­neyed with her friends to the land of Draak, the lost Drag­on colony in the east. Tek­ka was filled with deja vu as she looked at the blight­ed drag­on town, the pale hatch­lings, and the ghost drag­ons who haunt­ed the area. The feel­ing dis­turbed her great­ly. She con­front­ed Tigris about it, and learned that Tekka’s egg had orig­i­nal­ly been found in the ruins of Draak. Tek­ka returned there and griev­ed. Any of the ghosts could have been ghosts of her real par­ents. Any of the pale hatch­lings could have been her clutch­mates. Why had she, out of all of them, been Gift­ed? With her friends, they released as many as they could, and end­ed the Shad­ow Drag­on’s tor­ment over them.

They returned home to find Au’Rel in great pain. Selarth had ripped all the blight from Au’Rel and tor­tured him. Tek­ka and many oth­ers flew into an angry rage at the news, cap­tur­ing Selarth. Tek­ka used her Phy­lac­tery on Selarth, just like she had with Lem, Kaa, and the Shad­ow Drag­on. Selarth even­tu­al­ly escaped, but at least her friend was free of the Blight.

Over the pre­vi­ous few weeks Tek­ka had become aware of an odd­i­ty with her blight­ed green stripes — they glowed bright­ly when­ev­er Tay­lus was near. This made sense, as they were both blight­ed hatch­lings, she thought noth­ing of it. How­ev­er with Au’rel she touched him and her stripes did not glow with blight. Tek­ka real­ized that this was a pow­er few oth­ers had — to detect the pres­ence or lack of blight in oth­ers! She had dis­cov­ered the first of her Blight Pow­ers. Unfor­tu­nate­ly she had to touch the per­son to use it.

Lat­er, Tekka’s A’meo Falkor used his pow­ers to try and remove much of the blight from Tay­lus. Part of the process required him to request that Tek­ka kill her broth­er. She was uncer­tain and tear­ful about it, but did as her A’meo asked. As she did so, her talons sunk into Tay­lus’s flesh, she felt her body absorb­ing some of Tay­lus’s blight into her own body. She pulled some of Tay­lus’s blight out of him, and into her­self. Tigris was able to res­ur­rect Tay­lus, though they were not sure if Tay­lus was ful­ly cleansed. That remains to be seen. Tek­ka, how­ev­er, fell ill. She real­ized this too was a Blight Pow­er of hers — to con­sume the blight of oth­er peo­ple, tak­ing it from them into her­self, mak­ing her­self very ill in the process. Final­ly all the rites were com­plete, and her teach­ers were pleased that Tek­ka had passed all their tests and were ready for her to ascend into adult­hood. She wait­ed for all her friends to be ready — those that helped her on her rites, and for her friends and fam­i­ly — Krim­son­flame, Falkor, Tay­lus, Ica­bald, and the oth­ers to all be able to come to the Peak of Storms and wit­ness Tekka’s life enter it’s next chapter.

Ascen­sion and Aftermath

It took some time, but final­ly Tek­ka was able to gath­er togeth­er her A’meo, A’mea, and a dozen oth­ers — friends and fam­i­ly — to wit­ness the event. Tek­ka ascend­ed soon after her 114^th birth­day on the Peak of Storms. In atten­dance was Iyre­vi, a young pink male hatch­ling with some blood mag­ic and a miss­ing fore­limb who ascend­ed the same day as Tek­ka. Iyre­vi had tried to help with Tay­lus before the mat­ter was resolved. Iyre­vi’s father Ssis­cor had helped cleanse the excess blight from Tek­ka when it made her ill. Iyre­vi’s moth­er Sereamah had assist­ed in Tekka’s rites. Tek­ka often spoke to and was good friends with Iyre­vi’s sis­ter Nyya. They had been good friends for some time — Tek­ka con­sid­ered Iyre­vi as her best friend. There, on the night of Tekka’s ascen­sion, she took Iyre­vi to meet her A’mea and A’meo.

Krim­son­flame asked Iyre­vi what his inten­tions were with her daugh­ter. Iyre­vi and Tek­ka were flab­ber­gast­ed and speach­less. Nei­ther had real­ized their friend­ship had gone beyond mere friend­ship to that stage. The two were stunned into silence.

Tek­ka knew of Iyre­vi’s past men­tions and glow­ing descrip­tions of Xef­fer. Xef­fer was Falko­r’s ex-mate. Tek­ka had warned Iyre­vi of this… of why Falkor had left Xef­fer. The fol­low­ing morn­ing after the ascen­sion, Tek­ka called Iyre­vi to meet with her pri­vate­ly. She asked Iyre­vi to choose between her­self… and Xef­fer. After that meet­ing there was no word from him from days, but he was seen dot­ing on Xef­fer. Tek­ka was afraid of what Xef­fer would do to Iyre­vi, but was pow­er­less to stop it.

Tek­ka had made Iyre­vi swear — before the stat­ue of Drulkar Him­self — that they would remain friends regard­less. When not-so-lit­tle-any­more Tek­ka came home to the fam­i­ly’s lair, Tekka’s A’mea was angered by Iyre­vi’s appar­ent choice. Tek­ka felt hurt and hard­ened her heart, blam­ing her­self for not see­ing the warn­ing signs soon­er. Krim­son­flame warned that Iyre­vi would be back… and when he did… the boy would have to go past Krim­son­flame first… to get to her daugh­ter. Tek­ka sur­round­ed her­self with the love of her fam­i­ly, uncer­tain who she could trust.

Love’s Labors Lost

Krim­son­flame was right in the end. Tek­ka pres­sured Iyre­vi to choose — her or Xef­fer. In the end Iyre­vi chose Xef­fer. Xef­fer reject­ed Iyre­vi, and Iyre­vi — heart­bro­ken — came to Tek­ka. While want­i­ng to com­fort him, Tek­ka knew full well that she was not Iyre­vi’s first choice. She knew she was bet­ter than sec­ond place. She knew she deserved bet­ter than run­ner-up in her mate’s heart, and desired to be num­ber one in the heart of the male she mat­ed her­self to. Tek­ka tried to explain this to the heart­bro­ken and con­fused Iyrevi.

Krim­son­flame was upset, and demand­ed her daugh­ter have no con­tact with Iyre­vi or Iyre­vi’s a’meo Ssis­cor. Through Iyre­vi’s sis­ter Nyya and moth­er Sereamha, Tek­ka and Iyre­vi com­mu­ni­cat­ed this devel­op­ment, and Iyre­vi admit­ted he nev­er real­ly had any feel­ings for Tek­ka in the first place. That sealed the deal — Tekka’s last ray of hope was shat­tered. Tek­ka let him know that she wished he would go and live a long hap­py life. She kept her A’mea’s wish­es and made no con­tact with with Iyre­vi. She could­n’t. Tek­ka real­ized that this whole thing had been the work of a young female hatch­ling’s love for a boy that did­n’t want her.

Her heart shat­tered, Tek­ka with­drew from the world, sur­round­ing her­self with her fam­i­ly — her only con­so­la­tion. Tek­ka hard­ened her heart, real­iz­ing that this had all been her mak­ing. If she’d lis­tened to the signs soon­er, she might have got­ten off with­out the heart­break. How­ev­er Tek­ka had real­ly loved Iyre­vi, and real­ized she had to let him go. Tek­ka buried her­self in the love of her fam­i­ly, in her craft­ing and stud­ies, wor­ship of Drulkar, and the puri­ty of the hunt. She detached from the world, heart­bro­ken, and hard­en­ing her heart.

The Dark­est Night

Tek­ka start­ed to come out of her depres­sion and heart­bro­ken state through a com­bi­na­tion of car­ing for her ‘lit­tle broth­er’ Tay­lus and her par­ents — Krim and Falkor — get­ting bond­ed (mar­ried). Some­thing seemed to click with Tek­ka at the wed­ding that made her feel her fam­i­ly was more com­plete, more real. Tek­ka also revealed she had seen oth­er things in her own future using the spe­cial Charged Obsid­i­an Mir­ror she had made dur­ing her rite of pas­sage, things she was not ful­ly ready to talk about yet. Tek­ka seemed to have a direc­tion again — a new goal. She knew what she want­ed, after the wed­ding. Tek­ka did­n’t tell any­one what it was, but she was ready to step up and work for it.

How­ev­er almost as quick­ly as san­i­ty returned, she almost lost it when her fam­i­ly start­ed going bonkers on her. Tek­ka com­plet­ed her train­ing in drag­on adven­ture and craft­ing. In the process she learned of a the­o­ry — a pos­si­ble cure for a blight drag­on such as her­self. A skilled pri­mal­ist could replace the blight ener­gy in her with pri­mal ener­gy. Tay­lus had tried to remove the blight from her sis­ter by her request and not suc­ceed­ed. How­ev­er since Tay­lus’s ascen­sion, he seemed to be falling down a slip­pery slope, turn­ing more and more into a crea­ture of pure blight. Tek­ka was not hap­py with Tay­lus or Selarth, but there was noth­ing she could see to do except try to be there for Tay­lus. See­ing what was hap­pen­ing to Tay­lus, she asked a skilled pri­mal­ist friend to do the ener­gy replacement.

Doing so almost cost Tek­ka her life. It was done on the roof of the heal­er’s tow­er. It was so painful that Tek­ka lost her foot­ing and fell off of the heal­er’s tow­er while in a state of shock. She was found uncon­scious. Sev­er­al days passed before she was healthy enough to resume her nor­mal activ­i­ties. All her blight… and her blight pow­ers… were gone, replaced only with a white glow in her eyes. When Tay­lus found out he recoiled, unwill­ing to be any­where around her. Hor­ri­fied and in shock, Tekka’s depres­sion deepened.

Last but not least Krim­son­flame had accused Tek­ka of speak­ing ill of the fam­i­ly and there was a threat to force Tek­ka to leave the fam­i­ly. Tay­lus refused to be near Tek­ka, yet claimed — ignor­ing all state­ments to the con­trary — that Tek­ka did­n’t love him. Tek­ka han­dled it with truth, calm words, as best she could. How­ev­er the idea that the fam­i­ly that had tak­en her in, made her bet­ter, would now reject her, was more than she could bear.

And on a dark dark night, with pri­mal ener­gy cours­ing in her blood, some­thing inside Tek­ka snapped.

Vyrid­i­un

A few weeks before Tek­ka had gone to the peak of storms for some soli­tude. As she lay at the peak, some­one appeared at the peak as if out of thin air. He called him­self Vyrid­i­un, and claimed to be Nyya’s genet­ic broth­er. He said he had come back from some oth­er world to find his sis­ter. It took him some time to find Nyya, and some more time to prove his sto­ry as true and not some hoax.

He also pro­fessed his love for Tekka.

Still vul­ner­a­ble after the breakup with Iyre­vi, Tek­ka did­n’t trust her heart. She want­ed to believe every­thing he said, but she was now inca­pable of believ­ing blind­ly. How­ev­er the more time she spent with him, the more she start­ed to won­der if she loved him back or if her heart was play­ing tricks on her again like with Iyrevi.

Trust

Tekka’s mind had been giv­en great clar­i­ty by the pri­mal ener­gy cours­ing in her veins. Every­time she loved some­one, they turned on her. Love was start­ing to mean betray­al to her. That was a bad and dan­ger­ous asso­ci­a­tion. To her real love… had to mean that she could total­ly trust some­one. Krim­son­flame’s base­less accu­sa­tion, Tay­lus’s dis­tance, all brought Tek­ka crash­ing to the real­iza­tion that they want­ed it that way. Look­ing back over Krim and Tay­lus’s behav­ior, both were con­vinced that either the fam­i­ly was falling apart, that the fam­i­ly would leave them, or that they were unloved. Despite being told — and shown — repeat­ed­ly that it was­n’t true, they believed it SO MUCH, that Krim and Tay­lus’s actions were start­ing to make it true.

She was no fool — Tek­ka had no desire to stay around peo­ple who active­ly WANTED to break the fam­i­ly apart. At first Tek­ka made it a protest. She stayed… because it was the best way to buck what was hap­pen­ing. To sit down and refuse to be removed. But as she watched Tay­lus will­ing­ly destroy his rela­tion­ship with Sev­era (Nyya’s daugh­ter), Tek­ka could not bear to watch her fam­i­ly mem­ber’s self-destruc­tive behav­ior any longer, and walked away back to her moth­er’s lair to rest.

Some part of Tek­ka was still a lit­tle hatch­ling that des­per­ate­ly want­ed to be loved. How­ev­er she was an adult now, and Tek­ka knew this was not the kind of lov­ing fam­i­ly that she had want­ed — one week hap­py, the next angry and full of betray­al. It would not take her long for this man­ic cycle to destroy her.

So what to do next? Tek­ka decid­ed to wait and see what Krim would do. If Krim would come to her sens­es and apol­o­gize, or throw Tek­ka out. The deci­sion was then up to Krim. If Krim apol­o­gized, per­haps the fam­i­ly could be sal­vaged if she could estab­lish a rela­tion­ship of trust with them. If not, Tek­ka would be bet­ter off on her own. Tek­ka set­tled her­self in to wait for that response.

Either way… Tek­ka would win.

The Dark­ness Within

It had awok­en deep in Tekka’s mind, but just laid dor­mant, wait­ing for the right cir­cum­stances. The Pri­mal Essence deep with­in Tekka’s mind final­ly came to life.

Krim­son­flame final­ly con­tact­ed Tek­ka to let her know that she was sor­ry about blow­ing up for no rea­son. Krim cried about being a bad moth­er and a poor exam­ple. Tek­ka had NO IDEA what she was talk­ing about and only could guess that Krim had lost the egg she had been car­ry­ing. But it was only a guess. Krim told Tek­ka to be strong…

The next morn­ing, still puz­zled, Tek­ka returned to dralk to find Tay­lus lay­ing at the Dralk Shrine uncon­scious. Try as she might, she could not wake him. Arborinthi­an the plant drag­on was there. Tek­ka ques­tioned him, and the more she heard, the angri­er she became. Sev­era, Tay­lus’s love and pos­si­ble future mate was scream­ing in pain. Tay­lus went to save her, encoun­ter­ing Ardorr. Ardorr had been con­tract­ed by Tay­lus to find a way to stop Tay­lus’s slow blight­ed decay turn­ing from a drag­on into some kind of blight golem. He was only con­tract­ed to research it, not to act. Ardorr had drugged Tay­lus with seda­tives and drained Tay­lus of all his blight with­out Tay­lus or any­one else’s per­mis­sion. Ardorr was assist­ed by Arborinthi­an. Ardorr attacked Sev­era and Tay­lus. Tay­lus was killed, forc­ing him to recall back to his bind­ing shrine, where Tek­ka found him — in a coma.

Tek­ka flew into a rage, threat­en­ing to mur­der those that had hurt her pre­cious baby broth­er. Arbor at least tried to help heal Tay­lus. Tek­ka ordered a mes­sen­ger to find Selarth to pro­tect Tay­lus — while she and Falkor went to con­front Ardorr. At first she spoke to Ardorr pri­vate­ly. Ardorr claimed he had been try­ing to help. Tek­ka could­n’t fault him for try­ing to help, even if Ardor­r’s meth­ods were sav­age­ly bru­tal, arro­gant, and flawed. His tone when speak­ing to Tek­ka was con­stant­ly arro­gant and made Tek­ka even angri­er. But at the last moment when she about to fly into a rage and rip Ardorr apart.… she stopped.… and spared his life. Tek­ka tried to get him to agree to nev­er talk to or touch Tay­lus again, but he would­n’t even agree to that.

So, hav­ing got­ten no agree­ment from him, Tek­ka went to her A’meo. She told her A’meo what had hap­pened. A crowd quick­ly formed. An angry crowd. An angry crowd of peo­ple who loved Tay­lus. Tek­ka, Falkor, Sev­era, Nyya, Sha­greth, Rea­gle, Selarth, Aurel, and Ssis­cor all ral­lied togeth­er against Ardor­r’s evil. Ssis­cor heard all the sides of the affair and passed judge­ment, killing Ardorr. The evil drag­on’s body spewed poi­son all over so Tek­ka set about cur­ing it, and acid-flame sprayed the corpse to get rid of the poi­son. Tek­ka nev­er touched Ardorr until after he was dead, and after left the body with Ssis­cor to make some­thing more use­ful of him.

Tek­ka went back to car­ing for Tay­lus. His mind was addled, com­plete­ly brain dam­aged by what­ev­er Ardorr had done to him. It final­ly took Tigris to heal his mind and bring Tay­lus ful­ly back to con­scious­ness and real­i­ty. Ardorr had been revived by the drag­on Yukii — the same one that had cleansed Tekka’s blight. Ardorr was try­ing to con­vince every­one it was­n’t his fault that he hurt Tay­lus and Sev­era, that it was all Tekka’s fault. Tek­ka and Tay­lus swore off Ardorr for his lies and deceit, nev­er to speak to him again, and if he ever talked down to the fam­i­ly or hurt the fam­i­ly again in any way… they would exe­cute Ardorr again. As many times as it took for Ardorr to stay dead. Tek­ka was incensed and enraged over some­one harm­ing HER clan. No one hurt her fam­i­ly and lived to tell about it.

No one.

The Sleep­er’s Charge

Tek­ka had, in secret, been study­ing the rites of the Ancients. She had spo­ken to Nyya about it, and Nyya encour­aged her not to, stat­ing that Nyya did not feel Tek­ka was ready. Tek­ka took this under advise­ment, but stud­ied the rites any­way. She did this for two rea­sons. First­ly she was curi­ous — anx­ious to learn any­thing and every­thing new she could get her claws on. Sec­ond­ly she want­ed to know what about the ancien­t’s rites she should be pre­pared for, to get an idea how long she should wait.

When she had gone to Falkor and Krim and asked them about the Adult rites, they had sug­gest­ed the 50^th com­bat and craft­ing rank­ings, and Tek­ka had fol­lowed those to the let­ter. Now Tek­ka was 100 com­bat and 100 craft­ing ranks and there was no where else for her to go… but to the Ancients rites. There was also the mat­ter of Tekka’s lit­er­al age. She was over 115 Istar­i­an years of age. She may still feel like a hatch­ling, but she knew full well that she had seen enough years of life in Istaria to qual­i­fy for ancient­hood. What else could she POSSIBLY be lack­ing to be READY for the ancient rites?

Well… except for the fact that she felt young and pret­ty as an adult, and did­n’t real­ly look for­ward to look­ing old…

…though grow­ing big­ger appealed to her. Secretly.

She final­ly found the answer when she first vis­it­ed the Rift. The dimen­sion of noth­ing­ness. The Realm of Void. As her spir­it form stepped into the Void wastes for the first time, her thoughts drift­ed over her life to date. Her moth­er, pos­si­bly hav­ing lost her egg. Her broth­er who, along with his love Sev­era, had been attacked. Tay­lus had been killed by Ardorr and Arborinthi­an. They had been exe­cut­ed for their crimes, yet still lived! Was there real­ly no jus­tice? Was there real­ly no way to win the war of good over evil? If not what was real­ly the point of liv­ing? Was there real­ly any point to life at all? Were they noth­ing more than mass­es of ener­gy and meat hov­er­ing about Istaria…?

…until final­ly Tek­ka met the Sleeper.

Sec­ond­ly only to Drulkar him­self, the Sleep­er’s size alone caused Tek­ka to fall to her knees before him. The Sleep­er had been await­ing her. Tek­ka asked him how Tek­ka would know if she was ready to ascend to ancient­hood. The Sleep­er sim­ply replied that Tek­ka was already ready, and had been for some time — the rest was up to her. Tek­ka asked about life — if the Aegis fell and rose right back up again, or the evil drag­ons that attacked her broth­er were exe­cut­ed and got right back up again, what real­ly was the point to liv­ing? The Sleep­er calm­ly explained that these things were there to serve as a reminder that each drag­on much act as a pro­tec­tor of Istaria. The Sleep­er gave Tek­ka a charge — to pro­tect Istaria. Though oth­ers may dis­agree with her, or find her ways unpop­u­lar, she was instruct­ed always to fol­low her heart about what was right and wrong and act as a defend­er of Istaria.

“Return to Istaria in my stead, Tek­ka. Defend her against the rav­ages of those who wouldst work ill upon her lands and inhabitants.”
Tek­ka arose, pri­mal ener­gy cours­ing in her veins. “Iea under­stand.” was all she said.

Tek­ka Mid­night­flame had learned her per­son­al pur­pose for liv­ing. Her mis­sion in life. Her quest. Her charge, as if from Drulkar Him­self. Tekka’s spir­it returned to her body with a new found sense of pur­pose and a bet­ter under­stand­ing of her­self. She final­ly felt ready to com­plete her Ancient Rites of Ascension.

An Ancient Rises

The Sleep­er’s Charge rang in Tekka’s head. She would NOT let down the charge giv­en to her by the drag­on sec­ond only to Drulkar him­self! With the help of Tsar­goth, Shym­mer, Tar­rant, Alaysar, and oth­ers, they com­plet­ed the last of Tekka’s rites and vis­it­ed the throne of Drulkar him­self. She returned with the Rune of Ascension.

A gath­er­ing was called that night at the home of Shym­mer and Tsar­goth. Well over 15 gift­ed showed to give their sup­port to Tek­ka, includ­ing her A’meo, Tay­lus, Nyya, and her uncle Rea­gle. Tek­ka had proven her worth to her­self. Tek­ka had proven her worth to the coun­cil, to the Ancients, to the Sleep­er, to Drulkar Him­self. Final­ly, at 116 Istar­i­an years of age, Tek­ka Mid­night­flame final­ly joined her fel­low Ancients.

The evening did not end there! As Shym­mer and Tsar­goth served food and drinks at the Ascen­sion gath­er­ing, her Uncle Rea­gle knelt before Nyya and propsed to be bond­ed. Nyya accepted.

Tek­ka returned home that night, and felt a feel­ing of peace, tran­quil­i­ty, and hap­pi­ness she had nev­er felt before. Things were final­ly back to nor­mal. Every­thing was as it should be. Now… it was time… for Tek­ka to turn her atten­tion to the east. Time to face the Aegis, and work on the charge she had been giv­en. It prob­a­bly would­n’t last, but for one night Tek­ka was deter­mined to enjoy true hap­pi­ness and peace with her A’meo and lit­tle broth­er under her wings.

Sui­cide In the Family

Tay­lus had got­ten into a good rela­tion­ship with anoth­er one of Tekka’s child­hood friends, a hatch­ling named Sev­era, daugh­ter of Nyya. They seemed hap­py togeth­er, but Tek­ka encour­aged Tay­lus and Sev­era to wait until Sev­era ascend­ed to adult­hood to pur­sue one anoth­er for­mal­ly. They did so, but things did­n’t go quite as planned. On the night of Sev­er­a’s adult­hood ascen­sion, Sereamha warned Tay­lus and Sev­era that they would have to take steps to ensure that their young would not be blight­ed vam­pire hatch­lings. Sereamha even pro­vid­ed a means through which this could be done, through their friend Yukii — the same one that puri­fied Tek­ka with Iyre­vi’s help.

How­ev­er Tay­lus chose not to take Sereamha’s advice. He want­ed his hatch­lings to be blight­ed vam­pire hatch­lings, for some rea­son that baf­fled Tek­ka. Instead of fight­ing for what he want­ed and for Sev­er­a’s love, he chose instead to destroy him­self. There was even rumors that Tay­lus was aid­ed in this by his own moth­er, Krim­son­flame. By the time Tek­ka found them, Krim­son­flame was gone and Tay­lus was dead. Tek­ka incin­er­at­ed his remains and spread the ash­es in the Dralk ocean beneath the stat­ue of Drulkar.

Tek­ka Broken

Tek­ka took her broth­er’s death very very hard. She had giv­en her heart to Iyre­vi and had it burned. She then trust­ed her heart to her broth­er in a broth­er-and-sis­ter­ly way, and had it burned in this hor­ri­ble way. Tekka’s heart was fur­ther hard­ened. She could not trust her heart with any­one. Tek­ka felt that every­one and any­one would hurt her in the end. She was bet­ter off alone, she concluded.

What fur­ther com­pound­ed the mat­ter was a con­ver­sa­tion between her old nurse Tigris and Tek­ka. Tigris cor­rect­ly point­ed out that Tek­ka still looked after Iyre­vi, hop­ing Iyre­vi would come around some day. Tigris chas­tised Tek­ka, say­ing she was wast­ing her life wish­ing after some­one who did not want her, and that she should go out and meet oth­er drag­ons. Stunned and pained by the truth of her words, Tek­ka con­tin­ued to retreat inside herself.

With­out her A’mea or A’meo to dis­cuss the mat­ter with, Tek­ka picked up her things and left her A’meo and A’mea’s lair. It was about time, she was an ancient now. She found a lair for her­self, a place for her to rest and feel shel­tered from the rest of the world. A place she could call her home, and only hers. A place pro­tect­ed from the heart­breaks of the world. A place where she could safe­ly watch the pass­ing of the world around her. Per­haps… here she could keep her heart safe from the world, and escape the mem­o­ries of the past.

She lit­er­al­ly want­ed to bury her heart far beneath the ground in hopes of pro­tect­ing it from being bro­ken ever again. Thus­ly Tek­ka began to with­draw from main­stream Drag­on society.

Tek­ka Today

After some rebal­anc­ing some of her pri­mal ener­gy after ascen­sion, Tek­ka began to improve a lit­tle. How­ev­er to this day she still lives apart — away from the drag­on com­mu­ni­ty. She is an aloof old wise­woman-drag­on, who only emerges when she is need­ed. She is rarely seen, remain­ing large­ly in seclu­sion, pre­fer­ring only to inter­act with the clos­est of friends, or answer­ing ques­tions from those who seek out an ancient and wise drag­on for her wis­dom, naka and drag­on alike. Her lair is dec­o­rat­ed with mem­o­ry carv­ings of her own cre­ation. All the walls are carved in runes made with her own claws and puls­ing in pri­mal pow­er. Her lair is a place of pow­er. Her wis­dom is old and valu­able, for those will­ing to seek her out. She has nev­er mat­ed, and may remain that way forever.

She spent some twen­ty years apart from soci­ety, med­i­ta­tion on her pri­mal ener­gy based abil­i­ties, teach­ing Niathra, and focus­ing on get­ting over her feel­ings regard­ing Iyre­vi who nev­er returned her love, her broth­er that self­ish­ly destroyed him­self, and her moth­er that helped him do it. None of them were wor­thy of her. After her 20 year seclu­sion, Tek­ka looked much much old­er than she had when she left — almost as if her ancient age had tak­en it’s hold on her, despite being gift­ed. After 20 years of self-med­i­ta­tion, she had gained wis­dom. She was not Tek­ka the Blight­ed any­more, but Tek­ka the Elder… Tek­ka the Wise. She has been spend­ing per­son­al time with Tsar­goth Runeclaw in secret off and on over the years, final­ly for­mal­ized in a for­mal bond­ing cer­e­mo­ny lead by her Kier’ameo only recently.

Char­ac­ter Information

Per­son­al­i­ty Traits

• Bright, artis­tic, and gen­er­al­ly hap­py young drag­oness, she likes to keep lit­tle spell rune shards carved with pic­tures from her life that she likes to call, her “Mem­o­ries”. She tends to be perky, boun­cy, lov­ing to chase and tus­sel with oth­er drag­ons her age. Any adult or ancient drag­ons gen­er­al­ly earn her awe and respect, large­ly by sheer mat­ter of their size. She longs and dreams of being able to fly some day, almost to the point of an obsession.
• Strengths: Pos­i­tive, Ener­getic, Lov­ing, High­ly Intelligent
• Weak­ness­es: Blight, Undeath, Lone­li­ness, Alienation

Known ‘Mem­o­ries’ carvings

• “Broth­er” — Tek­ka and Tay­lus chas­ing one anoth­er and playing.
• “Belong­ing” — Tek­ka between Falkor and Krison­flame, at the edge of a pond, with the moon overhead.
• “Night” — Tek­ka sit­ting on the seashore, look­ing up at the moon, which is reflect­ed on the water.
• “Help­ful” — Tek­ka assist­ing Tigris in plant­i­ng a tree.
• “Death” — Tek­ka fight­ing some skele­tons, next to the body of a fall­en hatchling.
• “Sad” — Tay­lus, back turned to Tek­ka and walk­ing away, Tek­ka hang­ing her head sadly.
• “Adult” — A piece of art on a large gran­ite slab depict­ing Tek­ka lead­ing adult and ancient drag­ons in flight at her Ascen­sion ceremony.
• “Reject­ed” — Anoth­er larg­er gran­ite piece depict­ing a tear­ful Tek­ka watch­ing an unmarked male and female nuz­zling in the distance.
• “Fam­i­ly” — A piece on a large slab of mar­ble done in col­or with dyes inks mark­ing col­ors, it illus­trates her fam­i­ly — Falkor, Krim­son­flame, Tay­lus, and her­self, all smil­ing. Some of her best work at the time it was done. Gift­ed to Krim­son­flame as part of the bond­ing gifts on the day Krim bond­ed to Falkor.
• “Sui­cide” — Anoth­er large piece on mar­ble of Tek­ka spread­ing Tay­lus’s ash­es in the sea.

Known Hatch­lings of Tsar­goth and Tek­ka Runeclaw

1. Lei­iphyr­ia Runeclaw
2. Niathra Runeclaw
3. Ryluth Runeclaw
4. Nol­la Runeclaw (Adopt­ed)
5. Dav­Ed­ward Runeclaw (Adopt­ed)
6. Ahnaise Runeclaw (Adopt­ed)
7. Thani­sis Runeclaw (Adopt­ed)
8. Saiaith (Adopt­ed)
9. Ryka Runeclaw (Adopt­ed)
10. Dhrix Runeclaw (Adopt­ed)
11. Asmerth Runeclaw (Adopt­ed)
12. Banen­deem Runeclaw (Adopt­ed)
13. Vivis­tix Runeclaw (Adopt­ed)
14. Dra­gan­tha Daekar (Adopt­ed)
15. Fayre Runeclaw (Adopt­ed)
16. Galde­thriel Runeclaw (Adopt­ed)
17. Igna­cia (Adopt­ed)
18. Ignashia Sun­rise (Adopt­ed)
19. JadeIvy (Adopt­ed)
20. Glim­ithrie (Adopt­ed)
21. Kelis­ar Runeclaw (Adopt­ed)
22. Sier­rlen (Adopt­ed)
23. Xarzithann (Adopt­ed)
24. Auriel­ha DiNaam (Adopt­ed)
25. Arouraa (Adopt­ed)
26. Aki­nor­ra Vir­dante (Adopt­ed)
27. Mojo Runeclaw (Adopt­ed)
28. Exsia Runeclaw (Adopt­ed)

Tek­ka the Gifted

How is Tek­ka Gift­ed? Tigris’s cur­rent the­o­ry has been that Tekka’s egg may have been smashed with the oth­er eggs, but though still an egg was ful­ly formed enough to be Gift­ed though not even hatched, and returned to the point in the world where she was laid even as an egg. The undead moved on, think­ing she had been smashed, not expect­ing her to blink back into exis­tence unharmed. Tigris found her lat­er, ful­ly intact and took her egg home to safety.

Tigris has nev­er been able to prove or dis­prove her the­o­ry, but Tek­ka has nev­er known a time in her life in which she feared death. She has nev­er had to eat or sleep unless she want­ed to. The ener­getic young hatch­ling con­tin­ues to grow up, but con­tin­u­al­ly man­i­fest­ed the pow­ers of the Gift­ed, much to the cha­grin of the old Saris moth­er try­ing to raise a drag­on hatch­ling. Had Tigris not been gift­ed her­self, she might have gone mad. The fact remains that Tek­ka has always been Gift­ed from the moment she hatched. Though slight­ly blight­ed from those times of being an egg in a blight­ed area, she has nev­er known the sting of death — always repop­ping at her bind shrine. This is pos­si­bly why she was such a hap­py and boun­cy young hatch­ling… nev­er know­ing the true sting of mortality.

Phys­i­cal Description

Tek­ka has always had a blight­ed look to her stripes. The most visu­al­ly strik­ing fea­tures of her was her bright green blight­ed strip­ing. She has a pleas­ant light blue scale tone with the jar­ring bright green accent stripes that cov­er her body. In blight­ed places, the green stripes are said to glow.

Vital Sta­tis­tics

• Full name: Tek­ka Runeclaw (Tek­ka Mid­night­flame pre-bond­ing, ref­er­enc­ing her A’meo and A’mea.)
• Char­ac­ter Age: 140+ years Istaria time (2100+ days played)
• Matu­ri­ty: Ancient
• Col­oration: light blue with bright green stripes
• Reli­gion: Raised under the Church of Istara, but after adop­tion begins fol­low­ing the wor­ship of Drulkar
• Plot: None. Lives with Tsargoth.
• Tek­ka ascend­ed to adult­hood on real-world date June 5 2009, at 114 Istar­i­an years of age.
• Lan­guages: Istar­i­an Com­mon (first, pri­ma­ry), Eil­erten (sec­ondary, learning)
• Mate: Tsar­goth
• Spe­cial Abil­i­ties: Blight Sense — high­ly attuned to loca­tion and nature of blight­ed enti­ties with­in range of her line of sight.

Mem­o­rable Quotes

• “Iea find my stripes to be… ‘pret­ty’… in about the same way Iea find the hour­glass on the back of a taran­tu­la to be… ‘pret­ty’.” — Tek­ka to Taylus
• “And may Ssis­cor have mer­cy on your soul.” — Tek­ka, to Ardorr, when Ssis­cor exe­cut­ed him.

Parents/Siblings

• Bio­log­i­cal Moth­er and father: deceased
• Father: Falkor Mid­night­dream (adopt­ed)
• Moth­er: Krim­son­flame (adopt­ed, but estranged from)
• Par­ent Sta­tus: Bond­ed Mates (offi­cial)
• Sis­ter: Rayas Mid­night­flame (bio­log­i­cal daugh­ter of Krim and Falkor, estranged from)
• Broth­er: Tay­lus Mid­night­flame (Adopt­ed, but deceased)
• Uncle: Rea­gle Flame­spray — Nyya’s mate
• Kier’ameo: Ica­bald Percival
• Sis­ter: Krisha (sis­ter-in-law? bio­log­i­cal daugh­ter of Krim­son­flame and Shashomaru (deceased), estranged from)
• Sis­ter: Vix­ana Euphrates — Bio­log­i­cal daugh­ter of Tekka’s old nurse, Tigris Euphrates
• Aunt: Nyya Silentwing
• Uncle: Vyrid­i­un Silentwing

Places of Note: Any­place with rain or storms. Storms fas­ci­nate her, almost hyp­not­i­cal­ly. Some­times she can watch them for hours on end, as if being drawn into their chaot­ic ener­gy. This includes the type of storms that tend to hang around blight­ed areas.