Lazuli (Lyra)

Lyra's OC for the Random Prompt Contest, prompts 11 and 16 - a character inspired by a time of the day and a favorite place. The time is 6 AM, the place a local cafe.
== Appearance ==
If you asked Lazuli himself, he would describe his appearance in these exact words: “Not exactly conventionally attractive, but who cares anyways?” In a sea of blue and green scaled, iridescent glittering SeaWings, Lazuli is guaranteed to catch your eye, but not in the “wow, he’s so pretty!” way – more of a “wait, is he really a SeaWing?” way.
One way or another, Lazuli’s egg came out swirling with light, minty green, darker leafy green, and various shades of a skyish blue – ranging from the bitterly biting air of the Ice Kingdom to the vibrant expanse of the Sky Kingdom. For a brief moment, as he began to hatch, his parents wondered, is this a RainWing egg? Worries were soon dispelled, however, as they saw the webbed claws and tail so typical of SeaWings. From his birth, then, Lazuli has had a streaked mixture of green and blue for his scales, which at first made him look like a clown, but as he grew older, the swirls lengthened, thinned out, and proportioned themselves, making him look like the dragon version of some pastel modern painting.
Compared to other dragons, that’s really the difference he hates the most. He may get compliments after the initial shock of seeing a weirdly-colored SeaWing wears off, but throughout his elementary and junior high career, he can’t count on his talons how many times he’s been called names for his looks. (Doesn’t help that his name implies he’s supposed to be just regular blue.)
Lazuli is small in stature and lacking in the muscle department, where other SeaWings bulked up years ago, he stayed exactly the same. Although he’s grown out of his gawky, limbs-all-over-the-place phase, his legs still feel a bit too short, his tail too long, his wings too droopy… at least he doesn’t have to fly all over the place. He’s more suited to water ballet than swimming, too, due to his aerodynamic frame – all spindly claws and graceful sloped curves.
His eyes are a light shade of honey lemonade, and in the dark, or in the water, they seem to glow almost as bright as his luminescent patches. Now, if only his huge glasses didn’t dull the color so much. His friends tell him that’s not the thing that’s throwing off the color, it’s the dark circles under his eyes, but Lazuli ignores them in favor of a screwed-up sleeping schedule.
You can find him, most often, wearing just black sweatpants and a t-shirt with some obscure show on it, maybe even a hoodie if the temperature starts to drop at night. At Spice and Sugar, he’s forced to wear a black button-up dress shirt with work-appropriate pants, as well as a rather loud apron. In the water, it’s too expensive to buy waterproof clothes, it’s a bother to put on a wetsuit, and it’s a bother to try to swim either way, so he goes without clothes, as do a lot of other SeaWings.
Fun fact: his ears are pierced by a lazulite ring each. He bought them with his own money to commemorate his adulthood - consequently, he survived on cups of instant noodles and cheap sandwiches for the next 4 months, and since he doesn’t take care of himself, when he’s not at work, he’s scuffed up, scales almost always a bit chipped, a bit dull.
== History ==
Warning for drug usage below.
Laz, for the most part, is just like any other SeaWing you can pick out from the crowd in Silverbay. Born into a big brood, older brother to a big brood. Two parents watching over their children. Through his childhood, his parents were a bit absent due to their jobs, although they were home whenever they could. A day was set aside for “movie night”, and that remains a big influence in Lazuli’s life - laughing at the characters, gasping and screaming at the right times, fighting over the seaweed snacks, Muiri’s deep laugh sending huge bubbles through their underwater home.
He went to school like any other SeaWing, too, and as one might imagine, he was bullied because of his scale colors. With a few interventions from the teachers and the principal, Lazuli got through his middle school years with nothing more than a few bruises and cuts, maybe a chipped claw. As he entered high school, it seemed as though he would become a regular office worker after graduating college, and while the thought of college itself wasn’t that scary to him, the thought of being just like everyone else was, in fact, much scarier than he thought it could ever be.
A promise was whispered in the dark, the day before he entered college, that after his first year, he would drop out. But promises can be broken. Under pressure from his siblings, wanting to be a good role model for his younger siblings, he stayed. Sometimes, he counts it as regretful that he stayed, because those were some of the most boring years of his life, and it all came to nothing. Sometimes, he counts it as great that he stayed, because there were some parts of him he might not have discovered if he’d left.
After college, he moved back home, not bothering to look for a job - until his mother, Arowana, recommended a newly opened shop to him. “It’s fun!” She said. “It’ll be good for you.” She said. So Laz entered his resume and was dragged into the fray that is Sugar and Spice. It’s been almost a year and a half since that day, and the Hills District still feels like a completely new city for Lazuli every day.
When he first moved, the strain of living on his own so suddenly, and how he stood out like a sore thumb in the fashionable and rich district pushed him towards the clubs and the delirium-inducing drinks, the hooded dragons holding a world of swirling, nauseous color in a white pill. His new friends managed to pull him out of the rabbit hole just in time, though, and now he lives in a cheap apartment a block away from Sugar and Spice, just waiting for his big break.
h, but how much he wants to move forwards. This life is so stagnant, but what more can he do? Does he even want to move forwards, even as the path crumbles beneath his feet? Even as there is, most definitely, something waiting at the end of the rainbow for him?
== Personality ==
Lazuli has a rather… different outlook on life than his friends. Kyma, for example, loves life. She lives on the edge, never looking back, never thinking twice. Carmen, too. But Lazuli? Yeah, he can be as spontaneous as Kyma, but he’s also two times more tired and pessimistic than any of them, including Mare. He does love making unique jokes, but half of them revolve around his sexuality, and the other half are references to obscure shows or scientific principles.
He’s also brutally honest and straightforward, which makes some of his friends say that he has no tact with other dragons. Just one of the reasons he isn’t allowed to handle customers and is instead regulated to prepping food. One day, Lazuli hopes, he’ll get out of here. He’ll sit at the top of one of those towering corporate buildings and command his own empire of metal and electricity.
Sarcastic, scatterbrained, and quite selfish, too, Lazuli almost always thinks of himself first when acting, and others second, putting his own wishes above somebody else’s. And while he’s very smart, he’s also clueless about how other tribes actually work, and just how different the many cultures of Pyrrhia are, making him bad at dealing with dragons (whom he didn’t want to deal with in the first place) and social interactions in general (he’d prefer to be a loner anyways).
Through all of this dragon’s messy personality, he thinks quite highly of himself and would never let someone else’s disparaging comments get him down. One would not be wrong to call him arrogant, even, especially in areas that he excels in. But as soon as something goes wrong, well, it’ll be a few hours until he’s back to normal. Lazuli isn’t a talkative dragon by any means, and when he’s mad - or has a grudge against someone - he doesn't talk to them. At all.
He still has a big heart for all his friends, though. Once you earn his trust, you can be certain that he would kill for you - not die for you, of course, he’s way too cautious to do that, but he’s a protector regardless. Even the closest of his friends aren’t trusted with any secrets about himself he has, and only a few members of his family know. Secretive and closed-off at some times, cocky and confident at others, sometimes he wonders how anyone deals with him.
The burn of alcohol and the rush of adrenaline that comes with it frees him from those thoughts. When he first moved to the Hills District, he felt like a country hick, fresh from the water, surrounded by cool and judgy dragons that were ten times better than him. Clubs were his only escape, until his friends convinced him otherwise. Now, he’s careful about alcohol, especially after Kyma got him to a renowned bar at one of Silverbay’s hip new clubs and… well, it took a few days to repair what he’d drunkenly done. Everything’s fine now, but that is one incident that Lazuli will regret for the rest of his life.
He wants something to do desperately. But there’s nothing to do, no way to move forward, no way to see the end of the road again. He’s lost what he so valued earlier in life - the ability to see what he wanted, and where he was headed, and now, when he looks back, there’s no way home, to start again. Only a black chasm. No way forward, only a blinding space.
== Relationships ==
=== Family ===
Arowana: Lazuli’s mother, once a professional swimmer, now coaches aspiring competitive dragonets at a local pool. She loves her job, though it doesn’t bring in much money, and is always very motivated. She encouraged her kids to swim, but none of them except Euclase and Azuri kept at it for longer than a few moons. Somehow, she knows Selene.
Muiri: Lazuli’s father, works in the Coastal District at a clothing company as head designer. Brain always full of ideas, it is Muiri that gave Lazuli his imagination and wandering thoughts, though Muiri can apply it a lot better than Lazuli at the time.
Phosphophyllite: Lazuli’s brother from the same hatching, nicknamed “Phos”, he’s strict, serious, and rather close-minded compared to his two siblings. He works at an office job and keeps getting promoted, having a distant relation to his family, much like Percy Weasley.
Euclase: Lazuli’s sister from the same hatching, nicknamed “Eu”, she’s in college and hopes to graduate soon, majoring in economics and minoring in environmental studies. She loves science, but is still bubbly and very self-confident. She does competitive swimming as a side hobby and is rather good at it. She always encourages Lazuli to do his best.
Idocra and Ioli: Twins from the younger hatching, both are tricksters and sarcastic, much like Lazuli. They do not get along well, although all of them have an affinity for physics. One of Idocra’s ears is torn badly due to a fight they got into.
Larima: His younger sister, nicknamed “Lari”, from the same hatching as Idocra and Ioli, a self-branded “genius” who is studying at the same college as Euclase, majoring in neurobiology. They have a sort of rivalry where they try to invent better devices than the other.
Azuri: His younger brother, from the same hatching as Larima, in his second year of high school. He is the leader of his school’s swim team and a great swimmer, a lot more athletic than most of his family. He shares the same tired attitude as Lazuli, and they get along very well.
=== Friends and Enemies ===
Aurelie: The RainWing assistant manager of Sugar and Spice, also supply manager, she is very tough and Lazuli doesn’t like how she’s always yelling during busy hours. However, he grudgingly respects her for her tenacity and competence.
Carmen: A fellow barista, a SkyWing looking for tech opportunities in the big companies of Silverbay. He’s upbeat and almost always has a smile, but struggles with creativity blocks a periods of depression. Somehow, in the many moons between his hiring and now, Lazuli finds himself looking too much (thinking too much) at Carmen. Weird.
Selene: The level-headed NightWing manager of Sugar and Spice. A ruthless business partner who is almost always underestimated due to their size, Selene heads Sugar and Spice with endless amounts of passion and logic, shaping it into the thriving shop it is today. Lazuli admires them very much, and would like to head a company like they do, though Selene is often busy and rarely goes into the shop itself. Selene is friends with Arowana as well.
Kyma: A risk-taking SeaWing who handles customers along with Mare. She’s the reckless one of the friend group, always getting the other four to go out to the movies, or bars, but something about her is stabilizing and calming, so many people unwittingly trust her at first, before learning how she can cause destruction - including Lazuli, and he tries to stay out of all activities she proposes, though he still enjoys her company.
Mare: A serious and shy SeaWing, who, incidentally, is just as much as a geek as Lazuli is. They love talking about all things in the geek kingdom that they know and like, and with Mare’s stable and non-talkative demeanor, Lazuli trusts him a lot. They are very close friends
Mecava: Lazuli’s IceWing roommate from college, a scholarship student, now an upstart athlete. She was like Lazuli’s anchor, keeping him grounded when he was about to quit from the stress, and they still keep in touch to the day. Lazuli is a bit envious of her success, however.
Lila: A tiresome RainWing that frequents Sugar and Spice. She always requests for Lazuli to serve her, and she always requests the same super-hard-to-make drink. Besides getting annoyed from the work she makes him do, she’s also selfish and inconsiderate, and rude to Lazuli’s friends, which sets him against her.
Hydra: His SeaWing roommate, who is always out at the nightlife scene of Silverbay. If coming home drunk and reeking of some ungodly smell almost every night (with a giggling dragon waiting outside for him) isn’t enough, he also rarely steps up to his share of the chores, making Lazuli do all the dishes and all the laundry. He also leaves his clothes stranded all over their bedroom - well, at least his personality isn’t too bad. At least he’s paying the rent.
== Powers and Abilities ==
Considering Lazuli rarely exercises, and never takes care of himself properly, he’s still rather strong for a SeaWing. His tail is agile and like an extra limb, he’s able to curl it around objects close to him and bring them in, kind of like a monkey’s prehensile tail. In fighting… well, it’s not so useful as it is a burden, and rarely will Lazuli get a hit in on that, as in most situation it lies awkwardly, in the way of dragons, who trip over them and spill coffee more often than they would like to.
He can breathe underwater, as all SeaWings do, and hold his breath for a long period of time. He’s good at maneuvering through seaweed forests, and there are many interesting things lying abandoned in them. One of his pastimes is to swim out to the Cercania Grove, a few nautical miles southwest of Silverbay, and explore it, little by little. His knowledge of Aquatic is very good, better than most residents of Hills District, as he grew up in the Deep District.
Lazuli is rather paranoid of walking back to his apartment at night, after a late shift, and so keeps his claws constantly sharpened for extra protection. However, there’s only so much they can do, and considering that Lazuli is physically weak to begin with, that “so much” is “not much”. Usually, Lazuli keeps some sort of knife or spray in his bag, in an easily accessible place. He’s average at swimming, a little below average, but knows the ocean’s currents and how to ride them in a very efficient way.
== Trivia ==
-All his friends call him the Mom Friend™.
-Very well versed in the language of memes, although many of them are “too embarrassing” for him to use
-Loves coffee a bit too much, but dislikes tea. It’s not strong enough for him.
-He’s always very cold and very tired, and somehow finds the will to get work done.
-He’s also very overdramatic whenever he even stubs his talon, moaning about how the world is ending. Most of his friends have learned to ignore this by now. Though, he seems to show a lot less emotion for everything else…
-He’s afraid of cats and death. One day, Carmen wore cat ears to work on a dare from Kyma, and Lazuli was torn between laughing, blushing, and getting away from the cat ears.
-He wishes that his job would pay him more, considering the wacky and weird customers he is forced to deal with every day.
-His alcohol tolerance is low. Very low. There have been numerous disasters involving that, most of which Kyma has on tape, and all of which the group will never speak of. Especially the Big Wave nightclub incident.
-Kyma: “Ugh, the monitor isn’t straight again.” Lazuli: “I’ve never been straight.” Carmen: *stifled giggling*. Half the employees groan, since he can never stop himself from making those jokes.
-His family was inspired by the Weasley family from Harry Potter, his friend group by Voltron. Lazuli himself isn’t really inspired by anyone.
Category:Characters
Category:Content (Lyra the NightWing)
Category:Males
Category:SeaWings
Category:LGBT+