Aquila (Ribbon)

Antagonist of a fanfiction I will be writing fairly soon. Feel free to make any minor changes.
== Appearance ==
"Other tribes don't know how good they have it. Skywings are all giant walking targets with our colors, no matter where we are." - Aquila
Aquila is a rather large Skywing, easily being a head or so taller than a good majority of other Skywings. Due to this, Aquila is rather slim and doesn't show a lot of muscle on her. However, this does not mean that she is weak in any sense of the word. She is actually quite strong, being only slightly under par with most other Skywing soldiers. 
Aquila looks a lot more vibrant and outstanding than most other Skywings, and often sticks out in a crowd if you know what to look for. Her scales are a clear shade of scarlet red and her wing membranes as well as eyes are a gold color. Her underbelly is a typical yellow.
Just like Scarlet, she has a bit of an obsession over jewelry, and often wears strange combinations of various jewelries when not in battle.
== History and Background ==
"It's not about what happened before, it's about who wins in the end, and I have every intention of winning." - Aquila
Aquila started out as most other dragonets would, small, innocent, and ignorant of the worlds inner workings. However, it wouldn't be even a few a years before her view on the whole world became skewed.
Aquila started out as nothing but a thought experiment, "If dragonets are hatched and taught a very strict set of ideals from birth, would they become the dragon the ideals came from?" Scarlet thought this was the perfect opportunity to create the perfect heir, one that wouldn't fight back, wouldn't develop an undesirable personality, and one that embodied herself and her ideals in every way. In other words, a clone or ghost of herself. Scarlet wanted her rule to essentially last forever, even beyond the grave.
As soon as she was able to comprehend language, she was thrust into political studies of Scarlet's ideology, government form, military actions, anything and everything Scarlet ever did as queen. Aquila was almost never away from Scarlet's side, and soon, Scarlet turned into Aquila's everything. She dedicated her whole being to serve and please Scarlet, craving her attention and praise.
Aquila was generally kept out of the public eye though, because she was being made into essentially a clone, or the closest she could be to a clone. The public would have to genuinely believe that she was Scarlet later down the line.
For the most part, it worked. Aquila accepted all of Scarlet's ideals as basic facts of the world, and talked constantly about becoming just like Scarlet when she grew up. However, as with every other dragonet, it was only natural that she would do exploring of her own outside of what she was taught. She would sneak out and go to public libraries, and read as many scrolls as she could about anything. Though it seemed most of the time she went to libraries, she would always read excessive amounts on political ideologies and history theoretical and otherwise. Aquila would spend hours at a time reading these abstract scrolls on how the world worked and how it should work until eventually, the fact that she'd accepted her whole life didn't seem so much like fact more than it seemed like a strong suggestion.
Of course, Scarlet deeply disapproved of this, and soon enough, Aquila would find that the library she usually visited ceased to exist. The librarian that would smile at her and strike up friendly conversation with her also seemed to disappear along with the library that he ran. Aquila never figured out what happened that day and never suspected Scarlet because of her deep devotion to her.
Aquila became very conflicted after that, and would often ask questions on what she had learned before in that library. Of course, her instructors would always deny and redirect, and would brush it off, often calling it enemy propaganda and misinformed authors. As she was given such answers though, Aquila became more and more obsessed with what her instructors might be hiding from her.
Eventually, Scarlet stepped in, and taught Aquila herself, and in an instant, all of her questions were gone, but the imprint and damage had already been done. Scarlet considered Aquila a failed experiment for the most part, but still saw her as a fanatically loyal daughter that was ready to do anything for Scarlet. It is no exaggeration to say that Aquila would die trying to fly herself to one of the moons if Scarlet demanded it. Also, for the most part, Aquila embodied a lot of Scarlet's ideals, but would never pass off as an exact clone of Scarlet, making her a better candidate to inherit the throne than Ruby. Because of this, Scarlet kept her close, but never revealed her existence, just in case she needed to pull a trump card.
Everything changed once Peril was born though. Scarlet no longer payed too much attention to Aquila, and was slowly put out of her mind once Scarlet had a new pet to toy and experiment with. Aquila developed a burning hatred for Peril, and it only furthered her anger that she couldn't strangle Peril to death. Not because she would be burned, but more because Aquila knew Scarlet would be mad that Peril was dead. It went from Scarlet visiting Aquila less, to Scarlet sometimes visiting her, to Scarlet no longer acknowledging her existence. For Aquila, her entire life shattered, and she became lethargic and sickly every day, not finding much reason to do anything With her life anymore. She started to question why she even continued to live. Scarlet was her everything, and she was taken away by Peril. 
At this point in her life, she reached a radical paradigm shift. She started to dedicate her life to bettering herself in every way she could imagine, no reason to it except that one day she might finally surpass Peril, and once again become Scarlet's one and only. She found it frustrating that she worked so hard for Scarlet's attention, and yet received none, and Peril gained all her attention by simply existing. Soon, she dedicated became obsessed with Peril, studying her incredibly closely. She plotted and lied in wait, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. She became incredibly calculating and patient, in contrast to the happy and bubbly dragonet that she used to be. 
However, one day something happened that completely changed and ruined her plans. The Dragonets of Destiny showed up, and were held prisoner, but one of the dragonets seemed to stick out to Scarlet. Glory. Aquila felt a familiar twinge of jealousy and intense anger as she laid her eyes on Glory, and how Scarlet paraded Glory around. When Glory attacked and hurt Queen Scarlet, Aquila became absolutely livid, and made an oath to herself that she would one day find and end Glory, no matter how long it took and what it took to accomplish it. 
After Queen Scarlet was put into exile, Aquila quickly followed in suit, once again becoming Scarlet's most trusted ally. Aquila felt at peace with her, and didn't care what happened next, as long as she got to be loved and acknowledged by the one and only Scarlet. 
When Scarlet died fighting to retake her throne from Queen Ruby, Aquila was absolutely devastated. In the end, the only thing that gave her purpose was to carry out the final will of Scarlet, and revenge against all who wronged her in the past. 
== Personality ==
"Peace comes to those with the sharp claws and the sharper minds." - Aquila
Aquila is a very cold and calculating dragon, and often has a plan for everything. She has an uncontrollable desire to control and perfect everything that she possibly can. Even when things seem to be thrown out of control or completely derailed, she already seems to have a plan. She always somehow remains one step ahead, as if she had future vision.
To her enemies, she is ruthless, and not in the mood to leave survivors. She is cold hearted, and does what she does without rhyme or reason. Aquila is a fanatic, and is absolutely obsessed with retaking the sky kingdom. No amount of talking or reasoning will change her mind, and if she claims she has changed her mind, it is almost certainly all a part of the plan.
At times of major emotional stress, she can become incredibly hot headed and irritable. However, instead of a normal fogging on rationality as it does with most dragons, her mind becomes even sharper, and her intentions more clear. Never under any circumstance, should you make her angry, for she simply grows in power and wit.
That being said, it is actually incredibly hard to anger her to such a level. Often times, she is level headed and down to earth, and never gets angry, even in the presence of her worst enemies. However, there are two exceptions to this, Glory and Peril. However, it could be possible that if she ever met these dragons again, it could make her completely snap.
It goes without saying that she is an incredibly strong willed person and a formidable leader for her rebel group. If she were to someday come into power of the Skywing kingdom, she might become an unstoppable force of change.
However, Aquila isn't always like this, in fact, as a friend, she is an incredibly amiable and likable dragon. Very much unlike Scarlet, she has an undying and unwavering devotion to her friends and comrades, often willing to do anything to keep them out of harm's way. She less so prides herself on the progress that she is making against the Skywing kingdom, and more so prides herself on how none of her allies has been killed in action yet.
She trusts her closest allies, and they trust her in return. Though to Aquila, they are not simply allies, every single dragon in her ragtag group of rebels are family. She knows all of them on a personal level, and they know her. Knowing this, it really becomes no surprise that nobody has deserted or betrayed her.
With her friends, a lot of her old personality starts to shine through her seemingly cold and serious exterior. She once again becomes light hearted, and always seems to have some scroll in her claws. She often enjoys discussing philosophy and politics, and is always eager to get into a friendly debate. She has a huge soft spot for raptorial birds, and has a small collection of all kinds of eagles and hawks, who she often spends time playing and flying with in her down time. She has named and memorized the name of every single one. While she doesn't force her men to remember the name of every single one, she will shoot glares at anyone who confuses their names, friend or not.
However, whenever things get serious again, it's almost like she becomes a different dragon.
Due to Scarlet's influence since her birth, she has become fanatically loyal to Scarlet, dedicating everything to her. Due to this, it is often hard to discern where Scarlet ends, and Aquila begins. In many ways, she is similar to Scarlet, with only slight differences. This caused her to get the nicknames "The Ghost of Scarlet", or "The last remnant of Scarlet." 
Aquila has a strange fixation on winning, and often can't stand it when she loses. At everything that she does, she does to win. Due to this mindset, it doesn't matter who the opponent is, Aquila will always try her hardest. She never over or underestimates her opponents, and prefers to display her best right out of the gate. 
When Aquila does lose, she is the very definition of a sore loser. The only difference is, she is a very patient and very conniving sore loser. Added with the fact that she holds on to grudges for very long spans of time, she can be very scary if she loses hard enough. She may seem calm with losing, but on the inside, she's probably planning an elaborate plan that will take effect three months later. 
== Abilities ==
"Weak leaders use their soldiers to fight and die for them. Strong leaders do the fighting and the dying themselves." - Aquila
Aquila is incredibly skilled fighter and isn't afraid to get into a fight, two incredibly dangerous attributes to top an already smart and conniving leader. Her fighting style consists of a series of quick, brutal, and painful swipes and takedown maneuvers that simply outclasses any kind of fighting style that is taught in any army. However, unlike most fighting styles, it has been specifically aimed towards Skywings, and is dominantly non-lethal, though accidents may occur. This is due to the fact that she conducts a majority of her guerrilla operations around the Skywing Kingdom, and is not necessarily aiming to kill Skywings, due to her deep loyalty to the entire Skywing tribe.
Aquila learned a lot from Scarlet, and it shows, she uses a lot of the same techniques to manipulate and control dragons. However, her approach begins a lot more muted than Scarlet would. She genuinely gains the trust of dragons in order to gain allies, but in reality, it is all about the end result, no matter how much she might actually care for the lives of her friends. When her time comes to rule the Skywing Kingdom, she intends to enforce a rule of fear once again, similar to what Scarlet has done in the past. Similar, but not the same. Even she recognizes the flaws that come with Scarlet's form of reign (begrudgingly so) and intends to implement a form of control so complex and so convoluted dragons won't even know they are being tightly controlled.
== Relationships ==
Scarlet - Aquila devotes her entire life in the honor of Queen Scarlet, and absolutely denies to accept Queen Ruby as legitimate. She would do anything for Queen Scarlet, even if it meant death for herself. In the presence of Queen Scarlet, it is no stretch to say that Aquila will do absolutely anything. Without Queen Scarlet, she is volatile and unpredictable.
Dreamcatcher - Currently in the process of trying to make Dreamcatcher an ally. Aquila thinks that with an experienced spy like Dreamcatcher, she can get the upper hand over every single enemy she has. Not only that, but she sees Dreamcatcher as relatable, which she thinks will make him a lot easier to control and manipulate.
Quetzal - Aquila recognizes Quetzal as a considerable threat with her influence on Dreamcatcher, but for now does not consider her to be too relevant, and is simply trying to avoid her.
Cazador - Cazador is an old friend and mentor to Aquila. He was one of the closest people to Scarlet, and would teach Aquila in political and psychological science when she was younger. Cazador is almost like a father figure to Aquila, and she loves him and cares for him deeply. Now that Cazador has grown to be a bit more frail than he was back in his prime, Aquila has took it upon herself to protect and take care of Cazador. Cazador is one of the last things that really keeps her grounded. Without him, there is no telling what she might do. She usually acts like she doesn't care for him though, in order to make herself look more professional. Category:Characters
Category:SkyWings
Category:Females
Category:Work in Progress
Category:Content (RibbonRaptor)
Category:Status (Leader)
Category:Status (Rebel)