'Tortoise' was a female SeaWing who was introduced in The Lost Heir. She served as the chief representative of the
dragonet care position within the SeaWing Council until she was executed
by Queen Coral for failing to protect the Deep Palace#Royal
Hatchery|Royal Hatchery by having all her teeth pulled out forcibly
until she died.

## Description

Tortoise was skinny, with seaweed-green scales. She had tiny white
teeth.

## Biography

### The Dragonet Prophecy

#### The Lost Heir

Tortoise was first mentioned by Queen Coral while talking to Tsunami,
saying that she would have two more dragonets if Tortoise "does her job
right".

When Tortoise was guarding the Royal Hatchery, Shark offered her an
octopus to eat. However, there was a serious rule against eating in the
hatchery because the blood would attract sharks, so Tortoise left the
room to eat the food. In her absence, Orca's statue destroyed one of the
eggs and strangled the unhatched dragonet inside, leaving it dead.

Queen Coral later arrived with Tsunami and Anemone to check on the eggs.
When Tortoise saw the queen, she shrieked and dropped her octopus. One
egg remained unharmed, while the other had been destroyed and the
dragonet inside throttled. Queen Coral confronted Tortoise, who spotted
Shark in the crowd of watching SeaWings and pointed at him, explaining
in Aquatic that he had offered her the octopus, as she had not eaten in
days.

Queen Coral violently killed her in front of an audience as punishment
for letting one of her unhatched daughters die, first by ripping out
Tortoise's teeth one by one, and then by clawing open her underbelly and
smashing her head against the floor. Tsunami averted her gaze at that
point. Tortoise's remains were later cleaned up by Moray. Her death led
to Tsunami promising to guard her younger sister in the last egg that
had not been destroyed, since no one else was willing to. Anemone was
horrified, and Tsunami realized that if she did not protect her sister,
then Coral would kill her too, just like she killed Tortoise.