Anya Wyrmblood

Anya Wyrmblood

Courtier Summer Mantle ••••

Freehold Status ••

Fairest Draconic, Riddleseeker

Played by Irina

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Mask

Standing at a statuesque 6', Anya is a beautiful and predatory woman, with wavy dark brown hair and eyes. She carries herself with a confidence that verges on arrogance. It is obvious from her build that she keeps herself in good shape, and she dresses to flatter it.

Mein

Anya appears taller, with her pleasantly manicured nails now becoming glistening bronze talons. When she speaks, equally bronze fangs glint inside her mouth, accenuating the sharpness of her smile. Dark purple scales sweep back from her cheekbones and forehead, although her face retains some humanity in the underlying bone structure and the presence of a wild mane of hair. She walks with the poise of a predator, steps measured and calculated.

History

Anya never lived a particularly privileged life, but her early life was pleasantly comfortable. A curious child who found as much delight in books as well as sports, she spent much of those first years in the company of her sisters. She was the youngest, although not by much. Although the sisters had little in common, particularly as they grew older; the family were very close and worked exceedingly hard to get where they were.

It was Anya’s ambition to become a teacher - once, that is, she overcame the child-like desires of being an astronaut, jockey or at one point, a cowboy.

Though the youngest in the family, Anya was the first to leave the family home- although she didn’t travel very far at first. She went to college, and later university in her bid to succeed. Despite her eldest sister’s teasing that she would grow up to be a dowdy bespectacled woman, Anya nonetheless became an English teacher.

Whilst in her first year of teaching, when she was getting into her stride and saying goodbye to her first ever class as they ascended the school ladder, she met her husband, marrying him a year later.

And life continued…idyllically. They had children, whom they were proud of. Anya’s work was coming along swimmingly; and she and her husband balanced wonderful careers with caring for their children.

It was after Anya had said goodnight to the kids that the…thing came from the hedge. She had rationalised the snarl at first, thinking it to be a rapid dog. What Anya had not envisioned was being dragged, through her garden sanctuary and toward the hedge that surely had not been there before.

Surely what was in front of her, what had stolen her away, was not a dragon?

It was larger than she had thought, several metres high when it sat back on its haunches. It reminded her, for all the world, like the typical European sense of what a dragon was: dark green scales, reclining atop a mountain of glittering treasure in a cavern. She began to step away, eager to leave and allow logic to prevail. And the damned monstrosity breathed fire. Fire!

Needless to say, Anya was not allowed to leave. The mouth of her prison - a dark and dank cave, tall enough to house the dragon and his treasure - was guarded by her Keeper. She was set to work, polishing each little thing, from large diamonds to the smallest nugget of gold and sorting the piles afterwards. There was no respite, until they shone.

The dragon would leave occasionally, and she quickly realised why- he would return of an evening, his stomach full after a hearty meal of sacrificed maiden. Anya realised, eventually as she allowed the less logical side of her mind to begin calculating - she was probably safe from being eaten. After all of her reading of childhood books, fairytales had told her that dragons only ate virgins.

And she was a mother.

The monotony of tending to the dragon’s endless trove was broken only occasionally by riddles. Her keeper quite liked riddles, and enjoyed the torment of setting her something obscure to figure out, with the promise of a break or a morsel of food if she succeeded.

And as the time dragged on, her spite grew. It was easy for the hate to smoulder in a place like this. And slowly, over a time that was now indeterminate to Anya, her very being began to change. It was purely psychological at first. Cruelty began to show through, her calm and polite manner of Before snatched away.

And she began to enjoy the riddles, began to crave the excitement of something new to figure out. This…seemed to please her Dragon Keeper, and he encouraged it. Where once it would have repulsed her to hear the pleas of the innocent folk; now it pleased her. Perhaps on some level it pleased her only because it meant she was not being tormented, if he was concentrating on them.

Not that the reason why mattered. And slowly, as the time passed, her physical appearance began to alter as well. The appearance of scales should have scared her; but it seemed…right that this should happen. The talons made it harder to scrub and cleans the jewels, but it made tearing things apart so much easier. And the wings? Well, who didn’t want to soar high above in the blue skies above the pine forest surround?

Once her change was sufficiently complete, the Dragon Keeper allowed Anya to accompany him. And how miraculous it was! The scent of the Eternal Forest, her new home, was so welcoming! So too was the sight of the mountain in the distance. And when she first set light to the denizen’s homes…well it was all their fault of course, for not producing a suitable offering.

And best of all, it pleased her Keeper to see her become like him.

Eventually he began to allow her to hunt alone - at first, as he watched from a distance to ensure she did not attempt something stupid. But occasionally she snatched offerings herself, burned a denizen here or there. But some of those denizens were sick of being afraid all the time; and they began to fight back.

It was on one of those days, when she was about to wreak havoc on the insolent mites, that a middle-aged denizen rose from the crowd of terrified people. He wore his defiance like a cloak. Something about him evoked some long lost memory. The way he stood, brandishing his weapon, jaw set with determination. For the first time it…hurt…to inflict pain, on him at least.

And as he fell to the floor, pain written across his face, Anya remembered another face.

Before she was fully aware of what was happening, Anya flew. Not, this time, in the direction of the cavern - but far away in the opposite direction. When her wings grew tired, unused to such a long distance of flight, she began to run. Soon brambles and briars scratched at her scales, tearing them from her body one by once. She barely realised it when hair began to tangle in the branches, barely acknowledged the appearance of two human legs instead of four scaly limbs.

The physical aspect of herself that she had come to know with such familiarity was torn forcibly away- until she emerged, sunlight too bright in her eyes; the distant sound of car horns honking familiar and yet alien at the same time.

She stumbled here and there, finding her way eventually to the Summer Court. Something about them called out to her; and she welcomed it with open arms. Over time, Anya began to learn more of what she had become. The information fuelled her every step, and she began to wander. Until she arrived in Sacramento, and her search ended.