something is Wrong with mel since he's born. and it becomes unavoidably apparent by the time he's old enough to properly use soul magic... because he can't. all he can do is breathe fire, and his ability is so heightened because of a physical oddity among the titanium lineage that he manages to inherit, not because his magic is powerful. he's the only member of the titanium family to lack soul magic in the entirety of its recorded history.
his mother's reputation is blemished, with him being the stain, and she assures he acknowledges his fault. she still coddles him in moments of sobriety that catch mel offguard, and he never trusts anyone to be kind to him again after those moments. his father doesn't bother looking at him when he's seperated from mel's mother to rule the underground colonies. his older sister tries to help, but mel is too embittered by the fact that she has everything he doesn't to accept it. he chases away any dragons who wish to be his friends with his aggressive behaviorisms, believing he's proving to himself and the world that he was right all along because no one sticks with him in the end, believing that it was meant to be regardless of how good or bad he chose to behave.
he lives his entire childhood in a shroud of emotional solitude, channeling his accumulated rage into something he believes is worth trying to work at. if he can't do the things others around him can, then he'll be so good at the things he can do that it blows everyone else out of the water. he's doing this for attention, and he knows it, but he chooses instead to believe he's doing it for the sake of revealing the truth about the world to everyone around him. his mom won't look him in the eye, and he's fine with that -- it's always been the case anyways.
he's desensitized to death already, being raised in dragon society that still performs brutal executions on the regular does that. training comes easy to him, being gifted with incredible physical prowess and the determination to further those abilities bumped him up to the top of his class, as well as inflating his ego a great deal. he can do something, he can finally do something that others can't and he's overjoyed to let the world know.
so he does. he kills his classmate in cold blood, using techniques he had made himself to beat the dragon in aerial combat and leave their corpse mangled among the pointed stones below his resting-tower. he's not discreet, they find it, but he's such a good liar that everyone believes it was in self defense. they see, even after such a supposedly traumatic experience, he's raring to go.
he gets his wish -- his mother notices. he is allowed to participate in the awakening trials. he swallows his bitterness over the fact he's not even allowed to prove himself because they skip all of the soul-magic trials in favor of booting him to the last round, and for that he's grateful.
he completes his trial, a fight to the death against a crystal copy of himself. he is abhorblooded. no one knows what that means, not even mel. but he's finally got something of his own, something he alone can cherish. he's clawed his way to the top and can see the tips of the mountains grazing the clouds from above.
the ensuing eruption of chaos from the koboreals sends his mother into a frenzy, and he's forced into lockdown. a too-young koboreal with too-hot fire and too-bloodied claws for someone his age has gotten a power that no one in the kingdom has ever seen before, no one in recorded history has ever seen before. they fear him, his mother fears him, and even deep down some part of mel fears himself. the outrage is too great for him and he decides upon taking time to himself, away from the dragons who know too much.
he does unspeakable things, now free from the restraints of the dragons who feared him. smoke fills his head, whispering to him things that he swears are words, but he doesn't think too much about it, even when it clouds his vision too, turning it red with blood.
okay. i Dont know how to Finish thi.s im just having Mel Thoughts.
basically i think the reason seaskimrs in trout's era have weak magic is because of how magic has been dwindling. because the awakening trials are what channels the power of one's soul into their abilities, mel HAD no well to drink from... so he had to make a well of his own, which is where his vampirism comes from. he forces draco to get it too by manipulating her into performing the awakening trial, and by extension oryx. and over the course of this time, all of them have taken so much magic from so many souls that what TROUT does is LITERALLY SUCK MAGIC FROM PEOPLES SOULS UNINTENTIONALLY... but she already has so fucking much stored in her soul. and the gimmick with trout's era is that . BECAUSE their magic is so weak...they channel all of their soul power into a physical entity, usually a weapon, and bond themselves to that item.
and because trout's soul is so fucking full to the brim with magic, her weapon is near world-ending levels of destructive. instead of trout herself being able to shapeshift (also an abhorblooded gift,) her weapon is... and BECAUSE ITS APART OF HER SOUL... oryx can speak to her through it.
speaking of oryx, i think oryx being a doctor is funny because he's. got no magical abilities. so he does everything the old fashioned way (or rather new fashioned way because they always used healing magic until oryx came along) and has written dozens upon dozens of books that have helped countless of seaskimrs during trout's era.