Moonsnail

> Well, she thinks that everyone has their own unique ways of seeing the world. In a way that almost makes her want to carefully swap eyeballs with someone else each time she meets them, even if that means one day she's going to end up seeing a bunch of shadow monsters roaming beneath red skies and trampling on dead grass. But then again, the shadow monsters could be pleasantly nice and hospitable. She's met one like that in her dreams before. Very blobby, with a bunch of red eyes staring right at her as she enjoys her tea. Very pleasant in a conversation, not unlike you, though of course you're more fruit than shadow monster.
>
> **Moonsnail to Quail**

## Professional Status

### Affiliation

* Jade Mountain Academy
* Jade Winglet

## Personal Status

### Relatives

* Naticarius [Father]
* Cellana [Mother]
* Littoraria [Aunt]
* Lottia [Cousin]
* Collisella [Cousin]

## Misc

### Debut

11/29/2022 - Great Hall

**Moonsnail** is a young, blind SeaWing dragonet who lost her vision when she was very young. Born in the bustling ocean community of Trenchtide, Moonsnail had been exposed to the lives of dragons of many different walks of life, and had been in love with the concept of life and the individual ever since. But where is her place in the world, exactly?

Moonsnail is currently portrayed by seraphdove.

## Appearance

Moonsnail is a small, soft-featured SeaWing with a quite distinct appearance. She has pale purple scales with a darker purple spot at her rump, outlined by swirling silver and silver spots. Her feet as well are dotted with white and pink, and her tail fades from pale purple to light pink to dark indigo. Her eyes are light purple in color and are noticeably clouded.

## Personality

At first, although she may seem somewhat reserved and quiet, Moonsnail is genuinely a really friendly dragon and one who’s always willing to make new friends. Soft-spoken and insightful, Moonsnail seems to live up to her rather whimsical-sounding name. She often has a very dreamy look to her, often speaking in a hurried, but whispery voice, though Moonsnail is a very open-minded young dragon, one who does not believe that all understanding of the world is contained within the cold, hard facts of educational scrolls or schools, no less in the ordinary. She does not see a singular answer, but many answers, each with their own value and validity. She is someone who wants to observe the universe and stars, hold them in her hands, and ask them to share all their secrets with her. She’s always willing to try something new and see what works for herself, always hypnotized by those uncharted territories and vague answers.

Introspective and ever curious, Moonsnail is someone who wants to understand the world around her and understand her place in it as well. She is motivated to find her authentic self and to fall in love with every aspect of her life. Wanting to come across as whimsical and an old soul, but so very desperate to learn and understand. She has really strong belief and faith in things, perceiving the world and understanding it through a more spiritual lens. Moonsnail wants to understand the world, yes…but perhaps, more importantly, she wants to be seen by it as well.

Moonsnail is very emotionally honest as well. Although she does come across as quite distant and hard to read at first, and she can be, she is expressive in her strong emotions and will be very direct when she has to be, in the way she can be, even being more temperamental than she may seem at first. And perhaps it could lead her to being a bit overly honest when she gets too comfortable around people, sometimes misinterpreting when she’s ‘close enough’ to someone to speak what’s on her mind. She does have that tendency to believe she’s ‘close friends’ with someone after having a friendly conversation with them twice, or that she’s still ‘close friends’ with them when she hasn’t consistently spoken with them in months. So she sometimes says things out of nowhere that may get her a few looks. Though still, in a healthy mindset, Moonsnail is willing to share deeply personal and potentially shameful things about herself, if only just to further understand the truth of her experience and come to terms with it.

Due to her past experiences with social ostracization and bullying, much of Moonsnail’s sense of self has been built around being different from other people. Despite appearances, she is indeed very self-conscious and very aware of how she acts in a social situation. There have been many times in Moonsnail’s life where she had been rejected and cast away when she so badly wanted to be a part of something, and so she ended up comforting herself in her individuality, insisting upon it, even. Everything must be done on her own, in her own way, on her own terms, though Moonsnail does desperately wish for true and real connection with other people, wishing that she could carry herself with the easiness and confidence of other dragons.

Behind her pursuit of knowledge and understanding, Moonsnail fears for her ability to really connect with other dragons. And she loves the world and the dragons in it, she loves them deeply and believes it’s so fascinating. So full of grief and joy and rage and love, an eternal dance that she’s been so enamored with ever since she was born, but she is unsure how to join that dance herself when she feels unseen by the participants, always left wondering if they would change the dance to make room for her at all.

She’s certainly a very ‘silent sufferer’ kind of dragon. When upset, Moonsnail has the tendency to go silent and not verbalize her frustrations. She may say simple words such as ‘blue’ or ‘rain,’ but otherwise Moonsnail would not be able to verbally convey what she’s feeling when she’s upset. This also comes from her very lonely childhood, so Moonsnail is a lot more used to just carrying her burdens by herself and seeing how it goes. Although it may seem as if Moonsnail has these feelings under control from the outside, on the inside they’re very intense–she’s just not sure how to properly convey them. Unused to having the support of others, Moonsnail would retreat back into her mind where she feels more capable.

One of the things that end up hurting her most is her tendency to nurse old wounds and hold them very closely to her heart. In a way, she has become so attached to these feelings of longing and loneliness that Moonsnail has trouble seeing the better qualities in herself, or to accept peace of mind and comfort when she feels that it could invalidate her yearning. She does have her own deep-rooted anxieties, namely in that she always has this impending feeling that she’s running out of time despite her youth.

Never fully at peace with herself, always seeing something in others that Moonsnail finds lacking in herself. When she looks inward to herself, it may look more like a kaleidoscope–every changing and dynamic. Sometimes, Moonsnail will come to terms that that is the draconic experience–other times, it is overwhelming for her so she ends up keeping feelings as “her” and rejecting other feelings as “not her.”

With that in mind, Moonsnail is still an open-minded and creative dragon, one who is always willing to nurture and encourage the ‘true self’ in both herself and in others. She brings sensitivity, sensuality, and an emphasis on the importance of truly understanding yourself and coming to terms with your flaws. At her best, she is profound and expresses both the personal and the universal, inspired and self-renewing and so willing to transform her experiences into something truly valuable.

She believes that, regardless of what may happen, there is divinity in everything.

## History

### Early Years

Moonsnail was born in Trenchtide and was raised alongside her cousins in one household. Growing up, Moonsnail had always been fairly strange, sometimes staring at others for too long, speaking in a voice too low, or just saying some rather strange things that tended to unnerve the dragons around her. Perhaps needless to say, Moonsnail was not popular with the other dragonets, and often found herself being rejected from their cliques or drifting from friend group to friend group, always being more of a tolerated accessory instead of a core part of them.

Outside of school, Moonsnail often found herself going off alone whenever the home got too overwhelming, or when she felt too sad when she believed that her family did not understand her as much as she wished they would. She would find a place overlooking some areas of Trenchtide, and watch the dragons that passed her by, taking note of them when they interested her (which they almost always did). Watching the other dragons in her life, Moonsnail longed to understand them and to see the world through their eyes, a longing that only ran deeper as she grew up and still felt out of place in the community around her.

Things only got more difficult for her as Moonsnail lost her sight when she was around two years old. Afflicted by a sudden illness, Moonsnail was bedridden for weeks and when she finally recovered, she found that she had also lost her sight from the illness as well, and now had to learn how to navigate the world around her without it.

Although Moonsnail would go on to accept her blindness as a part of her, she had initially been anxious about losing her vision. Her family became much more overbearing, and Moonsnail still wanted to get away from them.

Of course, her blindness was seen as more of an inconvenience to her teachers instead of something they had to accommodate, having rarely dealt with blind students before. With her new anxieties, both at home and at school, Moonsnail did worse in school than she did before and fell behind badly on her grades. Eventually, she was recommended to go to Jade Mountain Academy, as a last attempt to fix her academic record before she may fall behind and never catch back up.

*More to be revealed soon...*

## Relationships

### Naticarius

Naticarius is Moonsnail's father.

Not much is known about Moonsnail's relationship with her father yet, but she has a very difficult relationship with him. Disagreements between them were common, and Naticarius was often very protective over his daughter without understanding her, even more so after Moonsnail became blind. Moonsnail doesn't hate her father, and still has affection for him and a desire to understand him, but she does not know where to start in truly being able to see eye-to-eye with him.

### Quail

Quail is the SandWing in the Gold Winglet.

Moonsnail met Quail on the first day of school, shortly before the orientation took place. They engaged in a friendly conversation in which they both quickly developed an interest in each other, with Quail being intrigued by Moonsnail's unique mannerisms and Moonsnail wanting to understand Quail as the first dragon who seemed to like her despite (or for) them. Although their conversation was interrupted by Headmaster Xylorhiza's speech, they went back to talking soon after it was over and seemed to quickly become friends.

Moonsnail likes Quail a lot and is very interested in them, hoping to understand more about how they see the world as they proceed in the school year.

### Storm

Storm is the SeaWing in the Quartz Winglet.

Moonsnail met Storm and had a brief conversation with him shortly before their art class took place. Storm was rather offput by the way Moonsnail spoke and acted, and although Moonsnail was initially a bit disappointed, she did not show it as she was used to it. She expressed in interest in getting to understand Storm more, until their conversation ended with the beginning of class.

Although Moonsnail has not found much of a connection with Storm, she doesn't mind him and also wouldn't mind talking to him more.

## Trivia

* The base used for Moonsnail's reference was made by PlasmaWolf2016 on Deviantart, and she was designed by seraphdove.
* Moonsnail is bisexual.
* Moonsnail has distant NightWing ancestry from her father's side of the family.
* She tends to refer to herself in the third person.
* Moonsnail was named after the Naticidae, common name moon snails.