Mayday

Mayday
 
“what other buried sins do you hide?”
<noinclude>
Chasm of Moons	Chasm of Moons
 	
Wheatproduct 	Wheatproduct
Alias 	Numerous, her name forgotten
Status 	Presumably deceased
Age 	???
Pronouns 	she/her
Orientation 	Unlabeled
Tribe 	NightWings
Goal 	To exact her revenge
Residence 	Snowshank
Abilities 	Animus magic, fire
Loves 	N/A
Based on St. Elmo's fire/witchfire, for the Natural Phenomena OC Contest, created by Mezepheles. Do not edit or take any content from this page without explicit permission.
Moonchasm is an event shrouded with mystery in Snowshank's history. The stories passed down through generations have become so muddled that even the official record, censored as it already is, is poisoned with countless contradictions. Everyone remembers the three blood red moons.
No one remembers Mayday.
Appearance
 
Mayday was a NightWing, one that wasn't all too interesting at the time. Her scales were tinged with purple and blue, her underbelly only a few shades lighter. Her wings were a deep blue, like the sky after the sun has set but before the stars had fully settled in. They always were difficult to see on her wings, the scattering of silver sparse. Her black eyes were perhaps the darkest shade on her entire body. Her horns were only the slightest oddity, and even then not too surprising a sight on Snowshank's shores. They were more antlers than not, the prongs a steely blue.
She grew into a thin and malnourished dragon, gangly yet intimidating in turn. Those were details few noticed, at least compared to the gift the witchfire left behind—gleaming blue hovering over her horns, a glowing dance of light over her wings that split like lightning bolts. They seer patterns of black into her membranes, before the blue returns. Her eyes, black as they are, gleam. A thousand sparks await in them, ready to start a fire.
She is a luminescence not at all biological in nature. She is not quite nature itself, but she comes close—equally stunning and just as deadly.
Personality
 
Mayday was once full of undeterred optimism and a fascination with everything that she could not have. She was deeply curious and fascinated by the smallest objects, excited by a world that always seemed so much more interesting than what her life could provide. She wanted to have it all and she never quite learned to accept that some things were unobtainable.
For even when she knew, she never stopped wanting. She wanted to live a proper life, she wanted to learn and see everything she could. Even when it was all ripped away, that longing remained. Instead, it morphed into an ever growing sense of spite. Spite for the world, raging against everything she couldn't do and the one moment that changed her life into something even worse.
She was quiet and subdued, but never out of shyness or fear of the kind of dragons the prison tended to bring in. She stopped caring about much beyond anger. Like a child, she looked upon all that wronged her and demanded they suffer in turn.
She'd get her chance.
Skills
 
Mayday possessed animus magic, in the twisted form that it returned to Pyrrhia. It narrows the barrier between the living and the dead, leaving her able to hear the last lamentations of spirits that left the Earth. So too, can she use them—taking on their skills and powers in life as her own, burning through their residue to build her own strength.
The nature of her connection to the magic has left her with a particular affinity for storms, and they always seem to gather around her, even when she doesn't put in much effort to reach for them.
History
 
Mayday grew up in an era of Snowshank where the ports were more numerous and the trade fruitful. Her family lived near the coast, her parents laborers that moved goods on and off the boats that ferried goods between the island and Possibility. Although she started helping at a very young age, Mayday never took much interest in the logistics of the job. Instead she was far more invested in watching the boats navigate their way through burbling waves.
She would often wade into the water herself, tasting the salt in the air as she wattled along the pebbled beaches. Shells and bone often washed onto the shores. She'd pick them up and trade with sailors for all sorts of treasures found further out at sea. Her overflowing collection only ever grew, even as her parents lightly pressed her to let some go.
Those boats were crude at first, born of necessity when the flight to the convenient proved too dangerous. The air was always restless around Snowshank, prone to sudden storms. Something with a large and solid hull always fared better under high winds and icy rain than a dragon in flight. However, as Mayday grew, those unpolished designs evolved in turn.
She first saw a proper ship at four years old, already working alongside her parents. It was outfitted with sails white as the Great Ice Dragon's wings and likely just as large. Work on the dock was... fine, but it was dull and paid little, not that she was ever clear on where the shiny little coins went. It was all too familiar, the same rotating crew and ever the same cargo. This was new. Fascination turned into obsession, and she waited vigilantly for it to appear over the horizon, carting fruit and exotic meats she'd never get to taste.
The view was enough.
Except it wasn't, not really, not when she found herself reaching for it without thinking. She'd been taken fishing by one of the locals once, back when the port was smaller and emptier. They had gone so far out that fog hid the coast. She had looked down southward, hoping against hope to see Possibility materialize before her. She wanted to see something new. Could she have that?
She learned that the ship often visited other places she couldn't imagine—a rainforest so warm that water hung heavy in the air, a desert made of sand finer than the island's beaches, a kingdom with mountain peaks that would dwarf the volcano at Snowshank's heart. She wanted, no, she needed to see it all.
Sneaking onto the ship wasn't a smart decision, but she never gave the consequences much thought. When it docked, she slipped right on with nothing more than a glance to ensure no one was looking. All she brought was a curated portion of her collection—beloved shells and trinkets from the sea. Of course she was caught. However, young and stubborn as dragonets could be, she refused to leave. Instead, she ran, making wild circles around the deck as the ship turned back to the port.
It was another one of those days where a storm was brewing. Few other ships were ever tall enough for it, but upon the yards supporting the sails, the air started to glow. Witchfire.
She didn't see it, not until after she'd already clambered up the masts. Not until her talons were already swathed in the unfamiliar light. It usually wasn't dangerous, necessarily. It wouldn't have meant anything, except that perhaps Mayday was in the prime position to take a lightning strike.
However, that candle holder broken decades prior had long relaxed its grasp on animus magic. It seeped into the soil, coalesced in ever more concentrated pockets in the environment. Oracle and Perception gleamed in perfect circles that evening. Mayday had long made herself vulnerable for the magic to latch onto, with how often she wandered the beaches, with the treasures she held close to her chest. The moons always made NightWings stronger. In the unnatural glow of the witchfire, the magic reached out.
And she reached back.
The crown heard about oddities like this quickly, of course. It took mere days for Mayday to appear before the queen herself, still shaky and frightening herself with her own newfound glow. Of course it was magic, what else could explain this? Mayday was welcomed into the palace, whisked off from parents she'd never see again, treated with an excess of lavishness.
This wasn't quite what Mayday had been looking for, but the palace was beautiful and everything so foreign and different from what she knew that she accepted it nonetheless. At first, she wasn't quite sure why she was there.
The animus IceWing gifts. The queen wanted them back, abandoned when her ancestors split off from the Ice Kingdom and founded Snowshank. It quickly became clear that Mayday couldn't provide these tailored spells. Her usefulness quickly found its limit, and she was... not quite disposed, but shoved aside. Whatever new comforts she had gained were shuttled away, off to be spent on something more worthwhile. She grew angry, upset, a child that didn't understand what was happening.
Mayday very quickly proved that although not useful, the magic was still dangerous. She didn't too much damage at all—a couple scratches on a guard she particularly hated—but the demonstration was more than enough.
With that, the rest of her privileges were removed. They left her to rot in a prison cell. They never did tell her why.
Those were her next few years, listening to the muttering of other prisoners and only ever growing more bitter. Among the voices of murderers and thieves, dragons pushed to the extreme by desperation, or greed, or fury. The dead only ever whispered the lessons they learned in endless loops. The prison ensured that they only had the worst to believe in. It painted a picture that disgusted her, compared to all the little joys she thought she knew as a child. There was nothing good in Snowshank. She wanted to tear the entire thing apart.
Mayday hated the crown. She hated Snowshank. She hated being ripped from everything she wanted, and she never learned how to deal with that. Her emotions were just as trapped as she was, and they threatened always to boil.
When the brightest night came, she could feel the thrum of power in her grow to a keening pitch. The moons always made NightWings stronger. The tides rose to greet them, and Mayday did too. She split her prison to the light of a lunar eclipse, Imperial, Oracle, and Perception, cloaked in the red of so much blood.
Moonchasm, they called it. Mayday would have her revenge.
Relationships
 
- hates everyone lol
- probably doesn't remember her own parents very well at this point
Category:Characters
Category:Work in Progress
Category:Content (Mezepheles)
Category:NightWings
Category:Females
Category:Subtype (Moonborn)
Category:Status (Legend)
Category:Deceased