Chokecherry (Song Contest)

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It Starts With One
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An egg was hatched to the LeafWings at high noon. One single egg, on the day that the Tree Wars ended. From it hatched a dragonet unremarkable in all ways and appearances, until she lifted her head. 
Small, dark scales were spattered across her throat, each one gleaming like a drop of blood. When she opened her eyes, her shocked parents saw that they were a deep, unsettling red. They had backed away from their own daughter, unease brewing within their souls. The dragonet's markings were taken as an ill omen.
She was named Chokecherry.
Personality
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You Wouldn't Even Recognize Me Anymore
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At one point, Chokecherry had been a sweet dragonet. She was self-sufficient and quiet due to the fighting that happened so often at home, but she was genuinely kind. Her character was that of someone who could not help but help others, often at her own detriment. She felt the overwhelming urge to please. She was shy with strangers and could be slightly tart with them, but once she adjusted, she would prove to be a most reliable and sincere friend. 
Then her father ruined all of that by forcing her to come with him when he ran away to join the SapWings in the Poison Jungle.
Chokecherry retained her traits of independence and silence, but they were amplified. She spent so little time around other dragons, and spoke so little, that many of the SapWings believed her to be mute. When Chokecherry does speak, she is very terse. She is slow to anger and even slower to trust. She just seems very tired and sad, although there is a bite to her sadness, a certain harsh bitterness that seeps into the few words she may say. 
Now that she has escaped from her father's clutches, she is slowly healing. Still quiet, still independent, but she lets herself smile more often. You might even hear her give the rare, occasional laugh.
Chokecherry has a habit of staring intensely at each dragon she meets, studying them closely and memorizing their habitual movements and expressions. It can be rather unnerving if you're on the receiving end, to have those disconcerting red eyes stare at you for prolonged periods. However, if you stare back at her, she will drop her gaze.
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|-|History Part One= 
"Time Is A Valuable Thing"
Chokecherry grew up in the years where the Tree Wars were coming to a close, and the LeafWings were experiencing growing strife within their own tribe. Queen Sequoia had ordered all dragons to stand down, and retreat into the Poison Jungle where they could safely hide away. Her general, viewing retreat to be cowardly and useless, had refused to obey the Queen's commands. 
Conflict was unavoidable, and tensions were high. It spread throughout the tribe, permeated everyday conversation, and settled down wherever it could. It took root within Chokecherry's family and was nurtured with a poisonous care. It flourished.
Chokecherry's mother held a firm belief that the war was for a just cause, and she would willingly die for that cause. She was a soldier who served under the general, and who swore absolute loyalty to her. 
Chokecherry's father was a nervous, fearful dragon who had seen much bloodshed and never truly recovered from it. He had been hesitant about the war from the start, but now he was very much opposed it. 
He stole away in the middle of the night, and took Chokecherry with him. He had awakened her, had motioned for her to follow him outside. Groggy and bleary-eyed, with the trust a dragonet has for their parents, she had. There he had grabbed her, and clutched her to his chest, and fled deep into the Poison Jungle. He held her tightly. Too tightly for her to move. Too tightly for her to scream. 
Deeper and deeper they travelled, hidden by the darkness. They sped past clusters of bright flowers and verdant plantlife. They flew under the waving branches of strong, healthy trees; trees that the HiveWings had not yet managed to kill. At last, they alighted on the ground, with Chokecherry still in her father's grip. 
The pair were welcomed by Queen Sequoia into her tribe, on the condition that they first renounce the violent, bloodthirsty ways of the "PoisonWings," and acknowledge her followers as the true LeafWings. If they were to do all this, and then kneel before her, then they would be allowed to stay.
Chokecherry's father declared all this very easily, and found kneeling to Queen Sequoia to be easier still. But he had to force the statements out of his daughter, and pull and prod those stubborn words into existence. Bile rose in Chokecherry's throat as she knelt in front of the onlookers. 
She was aware of the hardened glares that the surrounding dragons directed towards her, of Queen Sequoia's fixed stare and of her father's anxious gaze; and her mother's words rang persistently in her ear. 
SapWings, She had hissed once, when Chokecherry had been very young. Hardly more than a hatchling. Strange that she should remember this so well. They would ignore a problem until it becomes uncontrollable. 
|-|History Part Two= 
"The Clock Ticks Life Away"
Chokecherry started her new life in this way. A forced promise. An unwelcoming welcome. She was cold, tired, and hungry. She shook from all three, but also from the crowd, with their disapproving stares and confinement. She did not realize how much worse it would get. 
At first, she tried to fit in. Her father pressed her to socialize with the other dragonets. So Chokecherry ducked her head and sat amongst the SapWings. She did not speak unless she was spoken to first. She tried to look harmless, friendly. It soon became clear that her attempts weren't enough to win anyone over. The SapWings treated her like a freakshow. The circled her warily, pinning her to the ground with their piercing eyes. 
She was trapped. She couldn't breathe. When they finally left, Chokecherry felt an immense relief. She gave up on socializing and withdrew from the dragonets. She saw no reason to continue when her efforts were fruitless. Her father took this as a sign of disobedience. He was enraged, and vowed to make her comply with his demands. 
Any resistance Chokecherry showed would be quickly extinguished by her father, any sign of rebellion was eradicated. He would always be in the same room as her, standing in the corner pretending to work on a project, but she could feel his eyes boring into her. 
He was always there, always watching. She never had a moment of peace to herself. It's for our safety. He claimed, but Chokecherry felt that the only dragon's safety he was concerned about was his own.
At night when he thought she was sleeping, he would creep up next to her bed and peer down at her face, assuring himself that she had not run away, had not returned to her mother and the PoisonWings. Chokecherry laid still in her discomfort. 
Eventually, it became too much. Years of constant supervision and obvious mistrust started to affect how she saw and interacted with the world. Everything seemed to be watching her, the jungle seemed to follow her every move. In her ears were whispered the taunts of plants. 
What a poor little dragonet she is, the grass sneered. Her worth is so doubted. The trees sang. She has no status, she is neither SapWing nor PoisonWing. The unwanted dragonet. The anomaly. She had no peace. She had no choice.
From then on, any plants that Chokecherry tended to would not grow. No flowers bloomed, no fruits ripened. It would all die. Her father was the first to witness this defect, and it gave him all the more reason to keep an eye on her. To lock her up, even, so that she would never be able to leave. There would be no escape. No one would know of her abnormalities.
It was by pure chance that Chokecherry learned of her father's newest project. He talked in his sleep. Between his nightly creeping and nightly mumbling, it was a wonder that Chokecherry herself ever slept at all. As it were, on this particular night, her father spoke of cages. Captivity. A place hidden far beneath the earth, with his daughter hidden inside. Chokecherry felt her heart seize. 
|-|History Part Three= 
"I Tried So Hard, And Got So Far"
The clock was against her. She had to think fast. There were few options for her to choose from, and all of them led to dangerously uncertain futures. She bitterly recalled the day her father had brought her to the SapWings against her will. Suddenly, an idea dawned on her. She knew what she had to do. 
Plants withered and died in Chokecherry's care, but she had studied them enough to know which ones were deadly, even when dead.
She stole away in the middle of the night, and left her father's body behind. She had poisoned him, had slipped it into his dinner when he wasn't looking. Enthusiastic and self-assured, with the confidence of a dragon who thought he had total control of the household, he had eaten with gusto. Chokecherry had administered just enough so that he would not die. She only needed time. She hurriedly grabbed her belongings and fled.
Back to the PoisonWings. Back to her mother. She raced through the jungle, retracing the course from her past. She had no doubt of her direction, the way was seared into her memory. She was surprised she could remember it so well. Chokecherry fervently hoped that she would remembered, or that the PoisonWings would at least be gracious enough to not kill her on sight. 
To her great luck, they did not. Perhaps they could see the desperation in her eyes, or sense the urgency in her movements. For whatever reason, the sentries spared her life. They simply ambushed her and bound her limbs, to render her harmless before she was brought before the PoisonWing Queen. They inflicted no bodily injuries.
Chokecherry had been isolated from the presence of dragons for so long that she had not known the old General had died. Her shock was apparent when she was faced with a strange, new dragon. Except, the new Queen was not a complete stranger. An old memory resurfaced, one from her long ago past. A dragonet she used to talk to, maybe someone who would've been a friend, if her life hadn't been ripped away. 
Belladonna. She recognized Chokecherry as well, realization had flickered across her face. Chokecherry saw it and almost wept with relief. She had been abducted and forced to conform to values she knew nothing about. She had been shunned by others, and made to feel like a display. She had faced persecution and mockery and injustice. She had been subject to the whims of her father for so many years that she had lost count of them. 
She was cold. She was tired. She was hungry. She was so many things and most of them were awful, but when Chokecherry saw the nostalgia in Queen Belladonna's eyes, she knew. She knew that, despite everything she had endured, she would be okay. 
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 Relationships
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I've Put My Trust In You
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Chokecherry is a reclusive dragon. She has few relations other than familial ones. She has a mother and a father. She dislikes her father more than she does her mother, and does not know if she will ever forgive him for abducting her. 
She does at least love her mother to some degree, however small that love is. She definitely prefers her mother over her father, but the truth is that she holds no great love for anyone. She's sort of socially and emotionally constipated. 
The dragon that Chokecherry trusts the most would currently be Queen Belladonna. She is grateful for all the queen has done to ensure that she has the easiest readjustment possible. Moreover, Chokecherry is grateful that the queen remembered her. 
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In The End, It Doesn't Even Matter
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Chokecherry was fortunate. Her story ends happily. Many don't.
After Queen Belladonna identified Chokecherry and had her relate the cause of her disappearance, she reunited Chokecherry with her mother. The reunion was awkward due to it's overwhelming nature, but both dragons parted from each other with tears of joy. 
Being around the tribe made Chokecherry uncomfortable. She could feel the gazes of curious dragons lingering against her scales. Her anxiety of being watched never did truly leave her. Belladonna allowed Chokecherry to take up residence in a remote part of the jungle, where only a select few dragons would know the location to.
Chokecherry had tried so hard to fit in at the behest of her father. He had gotten so far in subduing her, in restricting her however he wanted. He had disturbed her, made her into a quiet, fearful impression of the dragonet she used to be. 
In the end? Nothing he did mattered. She had escaped him. Chokecherry was finally, finally free.
When a branch is broken off of a tree, it will grow back. 
A forest can be razed to the ground, but it will grow back. 
You have no hold over me anymore.
Category:Characters
Category:Females
Category:LeafWings
Category:Content (LivVirtual)
Category:Work in Progress