Lihira (Thalassic Wings)

## Lihira

Lihira as an anthro.

Lihira was born in the shifting expanse, and inherited an opal infection from her parents. Opal is a similar disease to gembound, only instead a petrifaction and odd growth on scales, it can also progress into the joints. While many clans treat it like a disease that needs to be treated, some find the illness to have enrapturing beauty. Alas, dragons are all too partial to the shimmer of gems.

When she was young, Lihira was a rowdy, snapping hatchling. She was very competitive, and wrestled with her siblings almost non-stop, making quite a nuisance of herself. She wasn’t born to be a fighter- she and her siblings had Opal, which meant they potentially could lose limbs to the disease, and made for poor warriors. Her birthclan were planning on selling Lihira and her siblings as opalescent dragons as hatchlings, to be pampered for life. This would not to be the case, however, as the lightning dragon market was raided by beastclans. After selling her siblings, the longnecks recognized her fighting spirit, and decided to train her. Explaining what she had been, she was deeply frustrated that the her birth clan denied what she saw as potential. So, the young drake chose to both be beautiful--and dangerous.

For a long time, Lihira took up a fancy sword- a beast clan weapon- and fought against her birth flight viciously. She raided food stores, stole hatchlings, and ambushed both patrols and hunting parties. But with time, her anger cooled. She began to understand that most clans were not like the one she was born to. Between missions, she took up correspondence with a dragon named Abalone from the fire flight, finding out about the dragon through. The sky dancer began to grow unsure of her motivation, and as her disease progressed, feared that she wouldn’t be able to keep this up forever.

When Lihira got a letter back from Abalone informing her that her friend had been sent away to the Water Flight, she made up her mind--she wished to see a bit more of the world. Bidding the longnecks adieu, she set out for Abalone’s new home, very concerned for her delicate wildclaw friend’s wellbeing. She had been late to get Abalone’s previous letter due to the beastclan postal system being much slower then the Wind Flight delivery system, so she arrived around two months after Abalone had been taken to the water flight. She found herself stuck at the shore, unable to enter the water. Agitated and waiting on the beach, a friendly spiral noticed her, and forwarded her message deep below the waves. After about an hour, Ablone crested from the waves, shaking water from her feathers. She was delighted to see Lihira, quickly pulling her friend into a tight embrace. Giving Lihira a breath stone, the two of them swam far between the waves, all the way down to were Thalassic Wings sits.

Back then, the wildclaw Calypso reigned over the Thalassic Wings as it’s sole leader. She used intimidation and power to lead the clan, and it left many dragons in the clan uncomfortable, put-upon and miserable. Lihira worked with some of Abalone’s friends to overthrow the clan matriarch and attempt to rule the clan themselves. When the day finally came, Lihira fought Calypso in a ceremonial fight to decide who would rule the clan. It was a tough fight—despite being half-blind, Calypso was able to sense movement in the water and had a inimitable defense. Calypso’s strength had always been her raw offensive ability, but Lihira outmaneuver did her, finally scoring victory with a risky gambit—using her petrified arm to block a fatal blow.

Just when Lihira reached adulthood, her Opal progressed into her left arm, turning it completely into opal. The arm was removed, and re-carved into manikin-like series of joints. With a small electric appliance, she was able to move her arm again. Since, her gembound has spread to her chest, part of her face, a few patches of her tail,  but only taken two toes and another finger. Lihira refuses to act like her disease is any kind of problem, but is secretly concerned for her livelihood.

For a while, she would not tell her clanmates of the danger Opal posed to her life, but after she collapsed one afternoon, Abalone hired a doctor from shadow for the clan, one who had gotten an education in the Arcane flight. Now, Lihira’s opal is stabilized, and the warrior has much more energy.
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