Ardent, the faded spark

General Character Information

Name: Ardent
Gender: Female
Age: 7 years
Sexuality: Bisexual
Species: Pureblood Fire dragon
Dynasty: N/A

Character Appearance

Height: 10 feet
Length: 17 feet
Appearance: Ardent’s scales are largely deep black, similar in appearance to coal. The ‘largely’ comes from that fact that the scales that reside directly over any of her major arteries and veins are incredibly bright, almost orange, and shimmer incredibly slightly, giving the impression of magma slowly flowing. The brightness is directly linked to the amount of blood pumping and the importance of the blood vessel. Over her heart is the ‘center’ point for this spider web of lines, the appearance of pool of magma. While the brightness is mostly constant, if she consciously thinks of dimming it, it dims, to a shade of black slightly lighter than the rest of her scales. Her form is that of a classic European dragon, with very little in the way of adornment. Her head has only a single frill, reaching from just behind her eyes to several inches down her neck, and roughly 10cm in height. This frill is kept in shape by several large spikes that the frill itself is strung between, each roughly 15cm in length. Her wings, one of her most striking aspects, are almost opaque and black, able to completely block out sunlight. This is countered by the bright lines covering the surface of them, each blood vessel in her wings shining like molten steel. While usually extremely bright, they can still be dulled by actively thinking of them dulling. Her talons, oddly enough, seem to be metallic, a light silvery colour, much softer and duller than most dragons, owing mainly to her young age.

Shockingly and often-times surprisingly, Ardent has a number of wounds, in varying levels of severity, her only saving grace being her heritage, her internal temperature too high for the majority of infections to survive for long. The most obvious of these, and the one which is most impactful on her survival is a long gash, just under her left wing, which cuts down into her muscle. Partially healed, although prone to breaking open, it removes her ability to fly for any more that 5 minutes. Even this short jaunt is terribly taxing, and will often end with shaky limbs and extreme pain along the damage side, often severe enough to force her to rest. There is a number of gashes along her front left thigh, received from a large bear that attacked her while she was fishing. While healed over, the scar tissue limits her movement in that limb, making running and sprinting dangerous, that limb not able to achieve the same speed of movements or accuracy, often causing it to be slightly out of synch with her other three legs. The maximum speed of this sprinting is 8 MPH.

Personality and Traits

Personality: Ardent, at first, is extremely cautious and weary, far too used to being hurt and cast aside, especially by her own kind, to trust them easily. While not rude by any means, she will try to keep the topic of conversation (if she is engaged in one) away from herself and anything relating to her or her personal life, believing that people only care about such things to use them against her and hurt her. These traits are somewhat at odds with her younger age, but due to her abandonment and being forced to survive alone, she is far more mature than she should be, not allowed the happiness and safety of a regular upbringing, something she secretly craves, forced to rely on herself for survival. If someone does manage to crack the aloof shell around her, they see a much different dragon. Her coldness, distance, all of it stems from her yearning, her craving and desperation for someone to take her under their wing and care for her, something she’s never experienced (or at least, not remembering). This extends to anyone who manages to break down her defenses, but is affected certain things. She has trouble trusting, let alone being near much larger dragons (3x and up) her size and adults, her view of such people coloured by her own experiences and dealings with a select few, which have left her scarred, in some cases both mentally and physically. If she trusts someone enough (a rare and seldom long lasting thing), she will exhibit extreme fondness for them. Bringing them small things, like flowers, or shiny rocks that they might like, to fish or other small animals, as a gift. As well as this gifting, she’ll happily be close to them, cuddling under wings, sitting on paws and backs, hugging and nuzzling, any way she can try and get the contact and returned fondness she so craves.
Hobbies: Collecting shiny rocks (I mean, who doesn’t like them?)
Stargazing (She loves just watching the night sky move overhead. Nice and calming…)
Fishing (It’s her only real way of getting meat, seeing as she is subpar at best at hunting things like deer.)
Carving small wooden things with her claws (Boredom killer)
Roaming (She searches for somewhere to belong)
Interests: Seafood, other than fish (A rare treat indeed!)
A family
The sky (if only she could soar among the clouds…)
Dislikes: Larger dragons (Scary, unpredictable and untrustworthy.)
Fish (Just because it’s her hobby, doesn't mean she actually has to like it.)
Being alone (She won’t admit it, ever, but she hates being alone.)

Skills: Due to her odd scale colouration, and size, Ardent is incredibly good at hiding herself. By dulling her shimmering scales, she can blend in with shadows and hide in darkness (nowhere near as well as a dark dragon manipulating shadows, but enough so that a pursuer in a dark area, or at night, could miss her).
Surprisingly good long term endurance. While she can only sprint and run for short periods of time, she can quite literally walk for days on end, needing only short breaks.
Her breath. Usual for fire dragons, it’s duration is only a few moments (5-10 seconds), and reaches a measly 7 feet. While it is quite hot (almost 500 C), it is lukewarm at best when compared to the flames produced by older Fire dragons.
Flight speed is around 40-45MPH, however, with her wound, this is reduced to around 30.
Flaws: Her claws and teeth are both laughable, in terms of durability and the damage they can inflict. Her talons are soft, compared to others, unable to puncture scales, unless they were weakened by something beforehand, or of a water / sky dragon. Her teeth are much the same, only slightly better in terms of puncturing and toughness.
Her wing wound severely limits her ability to fly, to the point where it would be impossible for her to outfly any other flight capable dragon.
Toughness. She has none. As a child, if she were to get into a fight, her scales and body would be unable to stand up against any sort of attack, especially if the aggressor was larger than herself.
She can only sprint / run for short (less than 5 minutes) periods of time before needing to stop and rest, and even then, she puts herself at risk of tripping.
Small. Her most crippling flaw is her size. It’s trivial for larger dragons to simply pick her up, and short of breathing fire at them (useless if they are a fellow fire dragon), she can’t do anything to stop them.
Small spaces. She will hide in these if she absolutely must, but she is terrified of small spaces, mainly those that require her to have her wings pressed against her back to get into.

Family

Family: Parents, probably living off somewhere without her, or, hopefully, dead. No siblings that she knows of, or other living relatives.
Mate: N/A
Children: N/A

Extras

History: Reveal through RP / Write up at a later date (Yes. I’m being lazy).
RP paragraph: “Hello there… would you like to play?” The small hatchling asked, cocking her head and smiling up at the bird that sat on the branch above her. Head twitching, it sung out a short melody, before flitting away. Giggling, Ardent chased after it, along the ground. Singing another few notes, the bird once more jumped to another tree, as the young hatchling followed it listening to the song and smiling. This little ‘game’ continued for another hour or so, before the bird sung another, different melody, one which was oddly saddening, even to the hatchling, who had no clue as to what that emotion truly was. “Well. Goodbye mister birdy!” She called up, watching it swoop and dive gracefully in the air. Turning back, she followed the same path she had taken, having had the common sense to mark each tree the bird had dashed to with a clawmark. It took only a few minutes at a brisk pace for her to arrive back… to where her family should have been. “Mom?” The hatchling called, waiting a few moments for a response, before calling, in a much smaller and more wavering voice, “Dad…?” Waiting again, tears began to fall, as she shouted out, calling for her family who should have been there, begging for them to come back, wondering where they were. Collapsing onto the ground after what must have been hours, she fell into a restless and nightmare filled sleep, before waking, her childish mind assuming it had all been a dream. “Good morning Mo...m…” She chirped, her voice filled with happiness, this quickly snatched away at the third word, as she realised she truly was alone, her voice in the matter of a single sentence having gone from the simply and utter joy of a hatchling, to the despair of one who realised… they had nothing now. And no-one.

Approved!