ELDRIT, FEMALE, SHE/HER, DEMISEXUAL, 363 is a DRAGON in Hollywood. Some say that they resemble GAL GADOT. This one is known to be TENDER but can be TROUBLED. They work as a PARALEGAL. They have TAKEN their oath with The Society. We hope that you’re prepared to do what you need to for fame.
I.
Sand dragons are small with serpent-like bodies; incredibly elusive they live their lives in the unforgiving desert in packs of 3 or 4. Excellent diggers they can go deep into the hard ground and find water, making oases of life sprout in even the harshest conditions. Eldrit grew up in a clan made up of her older brother and his mate, her older sister and herself since parents usually took off to start more families once hatchlings were self sufficient.
II.
It was a happy life but it wasn’t easy. Even for dragons, resources were difficult to come by, seasons were merciless and time moved slowly. They were defenders of the flora and fauna of their land and mostly they didn’t want their kind to go extinct. Eldrit and her thunder hid in razor sharp mountain ranges, caves and wherever they could, sometimes for years, months, or days. Their existence was nomadic and home was not a place but a feeling. Eldrit adored her siblings and constantly showed it, she was an affectionate and amicable reptile: she learned very fast, was easily pleased: they said that whoever ended as her mate was going to be lucky. Eldrit had no problem to wait for the one.
III.
The desert lands had always been territories full of magic and sand dragons were highly coveted specimens for those privileged enough to know about them. An energized enough sand dragon had the power to turn anything into diamond with their breath. Eldrit grew up distrustful of everyone and anything that wasn’t a member of her family, a paranoia that had been engraved in her genes for centuries and centuries.
IV.
It was Eldrit’s obsession with honey that set off the beginning of an endless nightmare. Her sister had been long gone to form a family of her own and the rest of the clan had been on the move to locate more sand dragons to maybe find a mate for the youngest. Eldrit wandered off to sample a honeybee hive. Careless, carefree, captured.
V.
She didn’t see them or smell them until it was too late. Their scent wasn’t that of regular humans. Some of them had fire like her. Some of them had water and air. Some of them turned into animals. They said words and made things happen. They put heavy chains and shackles around her legs, pinned down her wings, she couldn’t open her jaws to call for help, to defend herself as they took her far away from any kind of home she had ever known.
VI.
Eldrit was thrown into an ornate golden cage in a fancy marble palace where dozens of faces got to gawk at her every day. She got enough sustenance to exist but not enough to be able to break free from the chains. She had seen mountain lions and camels in local towns suffer similar fates as hers but never a dragon. Never a seemingly untouchable, magical being like her. She did not understand. Why couldn’t she free herself? Apparently the beings around her had magic too.
VII.
The sand dragon spent years and years captive as a glorified zoo animal for greedy beings to parade and brag about. Every so often she was forced to showcase her powers and turn things into diamond. But inside, Eldrit was losing the battle, weakening, not made for life in captivity.
VIII.
That was when they noticed and started tampering with her heart. Showing her kindness in the form of presents; sweets, fruits, little trinkets, honey. A bigger enclosure. More sunlight. Lighter chains. Sand. A family of mice to break the isolation. Her first collar was so pretty, covered in diamonds that complimented the peach and gold hues of her scales. She barely felt when they locked it in, dazed by the wine that had been poured in her water. She still had a chain that tethered her to the marble floors of the palace at all times, but it was just the one. Just the one.
Little by little, Eldrit was being tamed, her instincts fading to adapt to a new way to stay alive. However shameful it was, she wasn’t even aware.
IX.
One day, without much knowledge of what was happening as she had been captured so young and isolated from her kind for so long, the little sand dragon was forced to mate. The deed was nothing short of terrifying for Eldrit, with a feral dragon that was brought to her enclosure and she never saw again. But because of that, she got her biggest reward: an egg. It was beautiful; sparkling like the diamonds she could make with her breath. She was sure it was going to be a boy like her beloved older brother and she started referring to him as her ‘little prince’.
X.
But her little prince wouldn’t hatch and Eldrit could feel the impatience growing around her. They wanted him to hatch just as much as she did. Like a protective mother, she would get aggressive whenever anyone would get close to her egg. And aggression and Eldrit were two things unknown to each other. So they took him away. And for the first time in centuries, the sand dragon started getting her instincts back in the worst of ways: she was disturbed and unsettled, furious and terrified. She needed her egg back, to properly care for him and nest him so he would be safe and grow strong.
XI.
Her opportunity came one night as she was being lead out of her cage in chains to entertain guests at a gathering. Eldrit felt her little prince calling her from her egg and something inside of her just snapped. With the power of a dragon much bigger and powerful than she was, she broke from her bindings and flew to him in a frenzy of fire and ash.
XII.
It didn’t take long to find him and when she did, the little sand dragon was off into the night sky with her egg safely held in her paws. She had left a trail of destruction behind and she was unsteady on her wings due to lack of use and years of atrophying in her cell. But she was free, finally free. All she needed to do was try and find her way back home through the unforgiving desert, take her baby to safety, find her family so she could be whole again.
XIII.
It could have been days or weeks but Eldrit and her egg travelled across the dunes, hiding in caves just like she remembered. She had never been on her own in the wilderness, she hadn’t developed the skills of an adult dragon; she had been taken as a hatchling... Yet she was more determined than anything to succeed, to not let her little prince down
XIV.
The loud bangs and the net came out of nowhere as Eldrit soared across the clouds, happily imagining all the things she would do once her baby hatched. They hit her, it hurt. Next thing she knew, the ground was approaching very fast, too fast and she had no way of protecting her little prince as she plummeted out of the sky. They had been found.
XV.
Hearts are made out of muscle, so when they break they don’t make a sound. However, eggs do. Whichever one Eldrit heard was the loudest noise in the entire universe, it was deafening, it was maddening, it was infuriating, it was insufferable. The diamond looking pieces of eggshell were scattered on the sand and over sharp desert rocks, glistening under the moonlight and Eldrit’s little prince was no more. And if he was no more, then nobody else had the right to be.
XVI.
With fury and rage born out of the purest grief, Eldrit tried to fight off the monsters that had come back to imprison her but there was no use. She was outnumbered, weakened and injured, and everything had been in vain. The chains were back on in an instant and Eldrit barely had a chance to hold on to a piece of her baby’s egg before she was being thrown in the back of an armored truck. She was a dangerous creature now, a hostile dragon and too much of a risk to be kept as a pet. Her body would surely sell for a hefty sum.
XVII.
That was when Cressida and Estelle intercepted the hunters that intended on trafficking Eldrit. And of course, they saw the value of keeping her alive, even if without her little prince, her life had lost all meaning. Their proposals and explanations of their world in America made no sense, but in her desolation, the dragon just wanted to get as far away as possible from her prison. They spoke about possibilities and opportunities and other dragons... Eldrit’s weakness had just costed her baby’s own life, there was no way she could face her own kind again. She had to leave. And all she had to do was help them out when needed, like a good girl. Like a good dragon.
XVIII.
Los Angeles is ugly and nothing about the city makes sense to the dragon that now has to disguise herself as a human. The air hurts her lungs, clothes hurt her skin, their food hurts her insides, it’s so cold all the time. She has a job that she’s somehow good at; a paralegal at a law firm run by dragons who have been kind and welcoming of her despite of all her flaws. Her saving grace is her ability to learn things incredibly fast. She took to reading like hatchlings take to flying and there’s nothing inside a book that Eldrit doesn’t want to know; it’s an escape from the acidic grief that’s always consuming her. Quiet, overwhelmed and permanently confused, Eldrit doesn’t know how she feels about The Society, she’s just trying to take things one day at a time in this brand new world before she finds herself captive again.