Morass (OC for 'The Moss' by Cosmo Sheldrake)

Morass 	Morass
Background Info	Background Info
Tribe: 	SeaWing-MudWing
Age: 	6 Pyrrhian Years
Gender: 	Male (He/Him)
Father: 	Cyprinid (SeaWing)
Mother: 	Pebble (MudWing)
Sister: 	Agoseris (Hybrid)
This character was created for the song-based contest hosted by ScrollreaderTheTribird, found in this blog post here. 
 Art Here, Eventually: 
 Origin Story: 
Morass's mother had been the first one to notice that something was amiss. She had been sitting alone in their home on the outskirts of Possibility, waiting for her husband to return from the markets, when she noticed one of her eggs start to twitch in her peripheral vision. She approached it in some concern, but the motion ceased even as her shadow fell over it. From then on she kept a closer eye on the nest. Her fears promptly came to fruition, for over the next week the afflicted egg became ever the more sickly-looking. A series of colored splotches upon its surface popped up and quickly blackened into rough scars, while the entire shape sank in upon itself as if it were drying to the core. No longer able to hope that everything was okay, she took the rotting vessel to the renowned Doctor Whimbrel, an IceWing with a successful medical practice on the coast.
The doctor had hardly taken a single look at the tattered egg before enclosing it securely in an iron-wrought box cushioned with the darkest of seaweeds. His diagnosis was a most peculiar one: a chronic form of photosensitivity, so severe that any contact with the slightest sunlight or moonlight would damage the health of the dragonet. It was an incredibly rare condition, and so little was known in the way of treatment. At the word of the good doctor, the egg was sent away to the newly-built United Progressive Hospital of Pyrrhia, where it was placed within an isolation room entirely impervious to sunlight. There Morass eventually hatched, his confused eyes entirely unable to penetrate the darkness, and his waiting parents as good as invisible beside him.
His eyesight adjusted remarkably well over time, aided by the permission of candles and other artificial light sources within his chambers. He had the range of three separate rooms, one of them large enough for a very limited sort of flying and the other two furnished with a variety of scrolls and little wooden toys. Morass was placed under the care of the hospital staff as his parents left to care for the others of his hatching, although they did return to visit him on a regular basis. Despite his initial difficulties in the world, Morass grew to be an exceptionally healthy young dragonet.
As might be expected, his complete isolation from the rest of the world was not without impact. He experienced a crushing loneliness as he spent day after day in his dark enclave, relieved only by the brisk check-ins of an overworked doctor and the occasional visits of his family members. An outgoing dragonet despite his circumstances, he loved to talk with anyone he could about everything they were willing to. His most common interactions revolved around questions about the hidden outside world. He pressed his visitors for every detail they could provide, capturing every fragment of the greater reality they could describe and recording it in his memory with the utmost care.
Agoseris, one of Morass's sisters, was particularly willing to fill this role. She had dreams of being a great storyteller one day, and so she began visiting Morass often as they both reached their fourth year. The two of them became as close as only (at least partially) MudWing sibs could be. Morass would hang captivated from the metal perch in his flying-chamber, his awe-stricken expression lit by flickering candlelight, as his sister told him excitedly of the majesty of the waking world. He could hardly imagine the environment she told him about; this terrain of unimaginable complexity lying just beyond the little void that was all he had ever known. Agoseris told him what felt like legends about everything she had seen; from green-speckled mosses in the rainforests, to the drumroll of a rainstorm and the rising of worms, to the capture of sunlight by plants, to the orbit of the planets and the patterns of the stars. Best of all, she began bringing in little pieces of the world for Morass to examine. He would spend his time alone pouring over these artifacts of a distant realm, holding up one after the other to the flicker of the largest candle he had been allowed to light and admiring their every detail. Little beetles pinned in polished tins, preserved plant leaves with intricate markings, pictures of mountains and fragments of coral; he soon had amassed an impressive collection of what others would consider rubbish but to him was more valuable than any gold. This he kept neatly arranged upon a few desks and shelves in his bedroom, filed by name.
Yet all good things must come to an end. Agoseris arrived one day with a very dejected expression, and had hardly finished a half-hearted story before she broke into tears. "They're making me attend the academy, Morass!" she sobbed, burying her head in her talons. "It's halfway across the continent, and - and I won't be able to visit hardly ever. You have to know I would much rather stay here, but I can't. I don't know what to do - there's only a month left before the first day." He comforted her as best he could, although his own heart shattered at the news. They made the best of the time as they could, but it passed in the blink of an eye, and suddenly Morass was devoid of his only true company. The rest of his siblings had become students as well, and his parents had been conscripted into Queen Ruby's army in combat against the expanding Talons of Power. His remaining visitor was the doctor, who came for about an hour a week.
Category:Characters
Category:Work in Progress
Category:MudWings
Category:Males
Category:SeaWings
Category:Hybrids