Adelie

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Adelie
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You wind through the streets of Sanctuary, enraptured by the colorful tents and buildings surrounding you. Hawkers line the streets with their raggedy stands, shouting things like "Vegetables here! Vegetables! Fifty percent off!" and "Don't buy his vegetables, they're three weeks old!" The noise could be stifling to other dragons, but to you, it frees you. It feels welcoming.
Strolling down the streets, you peer into each and every window, marveling at what treasures these ordinary stores hold. Here a cozy cafe, there a room filled with beautiful paintings. But one shop near the very end of the block catches your eye: Glassblowing, the simple sign above it reads.
You ease the door open, surprised at how easily it glides inside and the lack of noise it makes. Gazing around, you marvel at the interior of the seemingly 'simple' shop.
The walls hold neat shelves that span the length of the building, covered in beautiful blown glass. There are vases, urns, and even some articles of jewelry strewn on a velvet slab. Spots of color splash the wares, and they catch the dim light and sparkle. But the most interesting thing about all these glass things is how they look so graceful, reminiscent of a seal swimming through water or a tree swaying in the wind.
Tapping sounds from the center of the room, and you whirl around to see a lanky female IceWing sitting at a desk. She smiles, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes. "Hello. My name is Adelie. How may I help you?"
This character belongs to Stardust. Please don't edit this page or use this character without her permission.
Coding (and wonderful filler text) by Cloud!
Adelie 	Adelie
 	
Artist 	Chipper!
Background 	Background
Creator 	Stardust
Owner 	me c:
Coding 	☁️
Attribute 	Weary
Element 	Beaten down snow
Animal 	Screech owl
Color 	Silver-blue
Song 	
MBTI 	INTP-T (the Logician)
Character 	Character
Age 	15 D.Y. (23 H.Y.)
Gender 	Female
Orientation	Hetero ace
Occupation 	Glassblower
Tribe 	IceWing
Residence 	Sanctuary
Allies 	Alluvium Herself
Enemies 	Almost everybody Other IceWings
Likes 	Being alone, quiet, the night, the cold, Vium, when dragons trust her enough to get close to her
Dislikes 	Her animus magic, crowds, heat, bad grammar, nicknames
Abilities 	Swift, good endurance, a talented glassblower
Weapons 	Frostbreath
Ships 	Alluvium x Adelie
Appearance
----
"Oh - I'm just here for a present for my friend," you reply, slightly startled by Adelie's melodious, yet carrying voice. "Maybe something green? She loves green."
She nods, and begins to bustle around the shop, collecting everything green she can see. The way she moves is hypnotizing - with a graceful gait, like she's swimming on land.
Her build is very lanky and lithe, and she's about average height. Although maybe a little more muscled than the typical IceWing, she's nothing too special. The odd thing is how her scales gleam in the light - she must spend a lot of time keeping them clean. It's clear from her posture that she's not the type of dragon who would ever fidget or slouch, her spine straight as a ramrod.
Adelie's silver-blue mainscales glisten in the dim lighting of the shop as she flits from shelf to shelf, bringing out hints of gray. Her underscales are a duller shade of silver, and they don't catch the light as much. However, her talons seem to be sharpened fiercely, and you gulp as you realize what those huge serrated claws could do to you.
Deciding to focus on a different part of her body, you look at her spikes and ruff instead. They are a shade of icy blue, so close to white that you mistook them to be that color for a moment. Her wing membranes are the same shade of icy blue as well.
You notice a small, silver hooped earring dangling through her right ear. It's also very clean - Adelie must polish it very often. Her eyes are the things that stand out most, though - they're a shade of electric blue that catch your, well, eyes. When she sees you assessing her appearance, she frowns in displeasure, and you quickly look away. Clearly she doesn't want to be stared at.
"I have these," she says, setting a pile of glassblown objects onto the desk. "What do you think?"
Personality
----
You pick through the vases, deciding on one of them - a graceful vase, its neck sparkling with trapped light. "This one is gorgeous," you decide. "They're all beautiful, by the way," you add, wanting to give her a compliment. It was truthful, though. These works are all eye-catching in their own way. She clearly has talent.
"Thanks," Adelie says stiffly, taking the vase out of your talons. She packages it up quietly, placing it into a box and padding it with paper. She's clearly not much of a talker. But you are.
"So," you begin, leaning forward on the table. She leans back slightly, as if she doesn't like physical contact. "So. How are you doing?"
"Fine," she says in a monotone, but you catch a hint of surprise that you initiated the conversation in her voice. "I'm just..." She hesitates, sparking some frustration inside you. This dragon is aggravatingly private. "Well, how are you doing?"
She's asking that to turn the conversation away from herself, not to be polite, you grump internally. But there's still that hollow tone in her voice, echoing with sadness, so you decide to keep going. "Great," you say. "It's nice and sunny outside. I hope it'll stay that way for the rest of the day."
"It won't," Adelie says quickly. She glances through the window. "There's probably about a 78% chance of rain in the next four hours. So, odds are..." She shrugs. "It won't," she repeats.
She catches you staring at her. "What?" she says defensively. "I like logic. It's much better than hoping and praying for things anyway."
There's resentment beneath her voice now, and you catch on to that. "Why's that?"
Adelie lifts and drops her wings in a noncommittal gesture. "Hoping doesn't get you anywhere. You have to depend on luck too much. Now, logic... numbers are solid. They won't back out at the last-minute. They're reliable, routine. I like that."
She seems to be warming up to you now, and you smile with triumph. Apparently, she just takes a little longer than most dragons to open up.
"Your goods really are pretty," you say again.
"Thank you." Her voice is proud, taking victory from the things she's done. "Sometimes other dragons criticize my goods, but I don't want to change them. They're mine, aren't they? That's their opinion. Frankly, I'm a much better glassblower than them. I don't care much about what they say."
"Does it get boring?" you ask, tenting your talons. "Just... sitting in here all day?"
"No, not really," Adelie assures you. "I'm not much of a fan of socializing. The big crowds outside make me nervous. Besides, the routine in here is a big comfort to me. When I can predict what's going to happen next, the same things unfolding every day, it... makes me feel safe. Spontaneity and change are just unpredictable."
You stare at her, your entire appraisal of this IceWing shifting. Curiosity overtakes you. "Doesn't glassblowing require fire? You're an IceWing, so...?"
Immediately, the wall is back, slamming down over her eyes. Her voice is halting once again, private, hiding the things she doesn't want you to know. But when she speaks, her tone is heart-wrenchingly lonely. "I don't want to talk about that," she answers in a choked voice.
"Come on," you prod. "It'll be okay. I promise I won't judge."
Strengths & Weaknesses
----
"I..." she begins. You smile encouragingly, expecting her to explain her history, starting with her hatching.
"I am a really fast flier," she blurts. Both of you know this was not the right track to go down. But Adelie barrels on. "Probably one of the fastest in this town. I trained a lot, when I was growing up. So I can excute more loops, fly more miles than anyone."
Adelie continues as you watch in slight puzzlement. "I have good endurance too, better than most IceWings, right? And, of course..." She picks up a scrap of paper and breathes a cloud of smoky ice crystals at it. You catch a glimpse of her serrated talons and jagged tail tip too, terrifyingly sharp.
"I guess my weaknesses..." She hesitates for a long moment, then barks a hoarse laugh. "I suppose my weakness is that I can't admit I have any, hmm?" You nod gingerly in agreement.
"If I had to decide, my weakness might be talking about my past," Adelie relents. "Because... well, I don't want it to be the past yet. At least, some parts. Other parts... I'd be very happy to never think about again."
This is her true weakness, you realize. Adelie can't deal with her emotions. Like, at all. She has no idea how to. So, you decide to help.
"Care to explain?" you ask lightly, though the words are loaded.
History
----
"My beginnings were almost disgustingly normal," Adelie says with a sigh. "I was hatched to a pair of middle-class IceWings in the middle of the Ice Kingdom. I grew up like a normal dragonet... except for the fact that, well, I was an animus."
You startle at this phrase. Suddenly, your eyes are sweeping around the shop, wondering what she could have enchanted. And, of course, wondering why she said "was" instead of "am."
"Needless to say, there was a lot of pressure on me," she continues. "Even though this was the life I was literally born for, I felt stifled, all the dragons constantly asking me what I would gift the kingdom when I came of age." She swallows. "I'm not a naturally creative dragon. So I had lots of difficulty figuring out what to do. I took to taking long flights outside whenever I needed to think - which was often."
"Then, one day, I found a MudWing." You laugh, figuring she was joking, but the steel in her eyes quiets you. "A MudWing, of all creatures, lying in a cave, badly wounded and frostbitten from the winter storm raging outside. At first, I wanted to leave him there. But something drew me to him."
"I started a fire. An IceWing, starting a fire." Adelie pauses to think. "That was probably my first rebellious act. I did it to warm him up, and soon, he began to thaw. I tended to his wounds as he introduced himself as Alluvium, a merchant on a market flight who had been swept off course terribly."
Melancholy settles into her eyes, as far away and heavy as a storm front. "I came back to talk to him every day. Even though he healed, he stayed, and I kept coming back. We talked every day, about life, about death, about everything in between. And over a few months..." She shrugs helplessly. "We did the unthinkable. We fell in love."
You listen intently, enthralled by her tale.
"He was charming," Adelie explains. "Vium had this amazing sense of humor, and he could make anyone laugh. He never failed to cheer me up. The storm caused damage to his already-weak lungs, and his fireproof scales really didn't do anything to stop the snow." She seems to realize she's rambling and breaks off that train of thought.
"I was foolish back then. I thought my animus power gave me higher status, even though I had never used it yet. So I brought Vium into the castle, thinking the other IceWings wouldn't mind." She heaves yet another sigh. "They did. Of course they did. Why wouldn't they?" Adelie stares off into the distance for a moment before coming back to reality.
"Anyway, I became the laughingstock of the kingdom. An IceWing, falling for the lowliest of tribes? It was unheard of. I heard whispers about me everywhere I went. Even my own parents... they disowned me, declared I wasn't their daughter."
"I'm sorry," you whisper.
"What's past is past," Adelie answers briskly, though it's clear she's not over it yet. "Anyway, I started getting tired of it. Vium and I shared a room, so we sat up all night talking about this problem. We came with so many things to do - acting nice to everyone, acting mean to everyone, anything in between - but nothing worked. We were still treated like outcasts."
"Finally..." Her throat seems to close up. "I began to entertain the notion of running away. It would wrap up all our problems so neatly. Except... would it? Everyone would remember me, tell the tales of The World's Most Stupid IceWing to their dragonets and their grand-dragonets and their great-grand-" She stops herself. 
"I used my animus power," she says quietly. Adelie taps the hooped earring she wears. "I enchanted this to erase any mention of Vium or me from the entire tribe's memory. I'm a ghost to them now, a phantom. My own parents wouldn't recognize me."
She sees your horror-struck expression and smiles wanly. "The things we do for love."
"Vium and I moved to a little cottage in the foothills of the Claws of the Clouds. It was so far away from my home, and a far cry from everything I had experienced in my life, but those were probably the happiest months of my life anyway. We lived peacefully away from everybody, taking walks and flights over the breathtaking meadows." A tear slips from the corner of Adelie's eye. She doesn't seem to notice.
"One night, a fire roared through the foothills while we were sleeping. Vium followed his instincts of self-preservation and made it outside before realizing I wasn't with him." She's crying now, great heaving sobs that are ugly to look at, but so cleansing for her. "He came back for me, even though I was just stuck behind a table. That great big idiot threw away his life for me."
Adelie shudders with grief. "His fireproof scales protected him as he wrapped his wings around me and ran outside. But his weak lungs... they failed him, finally. All the smoke and ash got to him. He drew his last breaths as I drew my first."
After a few long moments, she collects herself slightly and stops the flow of tears. "He died for me," she says quietly, her voice overflowing with emotion. She sweeps her wing around the shop. "So I moved here, where there was far more opportunity, even for a stranger. I use fire in my daily work to remind me of Vium. And that life is short. I don't want to forget him. Ever."
Relationships
----
"Sometimes I wonder what my parents would think about this," Adelie says, surprising you. You expected her to stop talking and shoo you out of this shop. "Especially my dad. He was really quite strict, and a stickler for rules. I'm sure that if he knew what I did, he'd disown me. We fought a lot, back home."
You try to nod in sympathy, but she's moved on. "I still loved him, though. Loved him like any daughter would love her father. He was always there for me, even when we argued. My mother was the same way. She was a lot calmer than him, more tolerant, but she still knew when to speak up."
"I knew I could talk to her about anything," she says with a far-off look in her eyes. "Whenever I had a stressful day, she was there for me, telling me everything was going to be okay. To be honest, I worry about disappointing her more than my dad."
Adelie tips her head. "I had a friend, too. Her name was Flurry. She was excitable, energetic. We clicked on the first day of school and started doing everything together." She fiddles with her talons. "A few years later, she moved away. Sometimes I wonder if my animus spell reached her. I guess, deep down, I hope it didn't."
"Why don't you go find her?" you ask, puzzled.
"Well," she says, grasping for straws. "I don't even know where she moved, and it would take a long time-" Seeing your face, she gives up. "I suppose I'm scared of her reaction. I, the most loyal IceWing in grade school, left my tribe for a MudWing."
Her face goes distant. You recognize this look. It's the face your friend makes whenever he talks about his boyfriend. "But moons, Alluvium was perfect."
"We were soulmates," she rhapsodizes. "Maybe we didn't know it at first glance, but we figured it out quickly. We threw away everything for each other. He gave his life for me." This time, her smile doesn't look as teary. "He had this... ability to cheer anyone up, make them smile on their darkest days."
Adelie laughs. "See, there I go again. The rest of my past could be considered sad, but thinking about Vium brings me nothing but joy."
"Do you have any friends here?"
She hesitates. "Well, not really. My customers are the closest things I have to friends, I guess. As a glassblower, you don't really get 'regulars,' like at a restaurant. I don't usually connect deeply with anyone I meet, not like Vium or Flurry. But every once in a while..." She smiles at you. "I get someone like you. Who listens. Granted, I've never spilled my entire past to anyone. But you're an exception."
Trivia
----
The two of you sit in contented silence before Adelie breaks it. She points to a nearby closed door. "Can you go over there and get a clipboard? It's close to the door." She wanders around the shop, putting the goods she picked up back in their respective spots, using a system of organization that only she seems to understand.
Meanwhile, you open the door and are confronted with an aggressively neat office. "Wow, everything in here is..." Arranged in perfect rows, by name, color and shape?
"I organize things when I get stressed," she explains. "Helps me find some comfort in the confusion."
You pick up a clipboard with a paper attached and walk back over as Adelie does the same. She plucks a pen from the tabletop and begins writing something down in neat, cramped handwriting. "Taking inventory," she says to you.
Pushing the paper and pen over to you too, she asks you to sign it. As you do, you notice the deep purple color of the pen, and, indeed, that it's the same color of the majority of items in this store. "You seem to like purple."
Adelie sighs dreamily. "It was Vium's favorite color."
"I hope he's happy, wherever he is," you say impulsively, returning the items to her.
She snorts slightly. "I don't believe in anything after death. He probably just disappeared, his soul with his body. But..." A shrug. "I am sure he's resting happily."
"Well, thank you for everything," you say after a beat of silence.
She nods. "Nice chat," she answers as if she didn't just explain her entire life history to a stranger.
You ease the door halfway open and start stepping out - but you turn around, cocking your head at Adelie before you go. "You should find her, you know. Flurry, I mean."
She smiles, and this time, it fills her eyes with happiness too. As you walk out onto the street, you hear one last thing from this lonely IceWing, said quietly but filled with conviction.
"Maybe I will."
Gallery
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F121F1DE-5FDE-46EA-95EB-78D53C41E305.png|Jadabase colored by Wolves!
SilveryIceWing - ReverbtheDragon.png|By Reverb!
Adeliexalluvium aesthetic.png|Beautiful Adelie x Alluvium aesthetic by MKDragonet!
1564632775369.png|Joy Ang ref colored by Adrestia!
EBE77359-9857-425E-A2FD-557E3C88F493.jpeg|By Sal!
Category:Females
Category:IceWings
Category:Animus Touched
Category:Characters
Category:Occupation (Merchant)
Category:LGBT+
Category:Content (LivVirtual)
Category:Work in Progress