Do the DOD play any role in the AU? I'm super obsessed with this tbh your writing is elite!
funny you should ask....
character batch 2: electric bugaloo
When Sunny escaped the mountain, she finally had the sunlight she needed as a SandWing and the moonlight she needed as a NightWing, so her adult (dragon equivalent of)plumage came in with different colors.
She suffers from chronic baby face and stunted growth. I headcanon some SandWings can drop their tails like some lizards can, and her tail is still growing back from when Darkstalker rose right in front of her and scared her half to death. The scar on her wing is from Kestrel and the others are from recent fights.
I did two sketches of Clay, I'm not 100% happy with either of them. I'd like to redraw him and make it so you can actually see the jackalope look i was going for in the second drawing. He's a healer (kinda, he wasn't fully trained when all this started, but any skills are better than none in an apocalypse.) that helps dragons with donated supplies the DoD receive. He has patches for each of the DoD on one bag, and I'd like to put something for his bio sibs on the other bag. Tsunami signed his sling back when he first got it. Almost all his scars are from Kestrel. He uses his wings to help him walk/balance sometimes. The only reason he lets himself sleep whatsoever is so he'll be awake enough to help injured dragons. Sometimes desperate dragons ask him to help someone beyond saving, he keeps notes for dragons they never got to say goodbye to in case he runs into them. He never lets himself forget the names or faces of anyone who doesn't make it. I'm so excited to write him, I really miss the dragon he was in book 1.
STARF! im using his cutie cuff design because i love it... basically my explanation is that moonborn NightWings (even if they don't actually get those powers) hatch white/silver and then their normal coats come in soon after hatching, but being raised underground messed it up. He's always been paranoid, and running around lawless Pyrrhia as a celebrity while also blind is just doing wonders for him. /sarc. He's very distrustful and hates staying in one place too long.
Fatespeaker! i originally wanted to make her real freaky looking but that didn't fit her and she wouldn't cooperate anyway. She's based on a jumping spider. She's started doubting her "visions" and is wondering if she's even useful at all, so she's doing everything she can to be. (Hunting, scouting, taking less food and water, ect.) Since she isn't very well known she often "scouts out" settlements and rebel groups to make sure it's safe before the DoD go in.
When Darkstalker first rose, Starf, Fate, and Tsunami were still at Jade Mountain, Glory was in the rainforest, and Sunny and Clay were in the Mud Kingdom discussing how to make JMA better for sib troops. Tsunami, Starf, and Fate were the some of the first dragons Qibli gave enchanted earrings to (three for them, three for sunny, clay, and glory.)
Darkstalker can't enchant you without your permission, but he can get into your head since he was hatched under a blood moon and psychologically torment you until you give him permission. And even if he doesn't get that in writing to make it permanent, just a bit of acceptance can put you under his control for at least a while. So it's just safer to have the earrings that keep NightWing powers from working on you and keep animus magic from touching you. Since Darkstalker can and does often enchant the rain itself, it's not even safe to touch water without one.
Starf, Fate, and Nami were kinda just sitting around at Jade Mountain waiting for Sunny and Clay to get home, until Nami went on a whole tirade to Starf about how she doesn't want to deal with any of them anymore and left. Starf and Fate didn't believe a word of it and left to follow as soon as they could, but only managed to get themselves lost for a few weeks before they found Clay and Sunny, who had found JMA empty and gone looking for them. They headed to Queen Thorn (who'd lost control of most of the tribe) for protection and help, but Thorn had to kick all of them except Clay out because her dragons couldn't feel safe around NightWing blood. All she could offer them was a minor surgery to implant the earrings right into their scales so they couldn't be taken away, which they accepted. (that's what the little stitches are.)
Now they travel around Pyrrhia from rebel group to rebel group. (rebels are dragons who refuse Darkstalker's control.) Starflight writes plays (usually about heroic historical figures) which Sunny and Fatespeaker act out using masquerade-type masks to differentiate characters. Starf is pretty introverted and tries to avoid their audiences, and Clay helps whoever he can. They're considered national treasures to a lot of Pyrrhians, so pretty much everyone is either out to get them for one reason another or doing everything they can to help them. They're a bit healthier than most rebels since they receive a lot of donations. (which is also where Clay gets his supplies.) Their main goal is to find Tsunami and Glory, so they're making their way east to their kingdoms right now.
Princesses Tsunami and Glory!!!
When Nami was still with Starf and Fate, a certain someone who was originally gonna be in this batch before i changed my mind stole one of the earrings they were saving for Clay, Sunny, and Glory. Tsunami knew her friends all needed the protection more than she did and it wasn't safe for them to be around someone Darkstalker could get into. But they'd never let her leave, even to keep them safe. So she pretended to get fed up and snap with Starf and gave a whole rant being as mean as she could saying she was tired of them, brought up just about every fight they'd ever had, twisted every opinion she'd ever shared to point to her hating them, and then stormed off. She replaced the stolen earring with her own, took a dreamvisitor to keep an eye on her friends, and disappeared into the night.
One of Darkstalker's first acts after becoming king of the NightWings was to take over a second kingdom. In order to gain the trust of his NightWings and gain control of those who stayed with Glory, he conquered the rainforest without mercy and made every captured RainWing a second-class citizen like the NightWings originally wanted. Those who escaped didn't fair much better since most of Pyrrhia views them as less than dragon (or at least very easy to control), so it's common at big rebel gatherings to see a RainWing being auctioned off in exchange for resources as servants and/or venom farms. Princess Glory, only heir to now-dead Queen Grandeur's throne, managed to escape Darkstalker, only to be caught and sold by SkyWings. (Since RainWings are really good at mimicking voices, she uses a male voice to avoid being recognized as Glory.) Nami saw Glory being sold at an auction and had to use her dreamvisitor to buy her. Now they're travelling together. They've had to turn to crime to save up resources for survival and buying RainWings to free: Tsunami "auctions off" Glory, and then they team up on the buyer and steal all their excess resources along with the payment.
Kinkajou!!! Like a million people have asked me about her :3
Before Turtle's death, he had enchanted Darkstalker to forget about him using skyfire and some of Darkstalker's scales from under the mountain. He tried to cast the same spell on Kinkajou, but used skyfire and some of Jou's blood instead since he couldn't get anything of Darkstalker's and hoped it'd work the same. This tied the spell to Jou instead of Dark, though, so instead of a blindspot in Dark's vision, it's more like a forcefield around Jou, and now no one can remember her. Not even Turtle to fix the spell. Now he's dead. At first, Kinkajou thought this spell would be great and help her save the world, but being a living ghost has its effects. She's stopped preening her feathers and taking care of herself, and is questioning if she's even still alive. It's not fun anymore.
Turtle felt his sense of dragonhood dissolving into the ocean like a mist of ink. If no one saw you, were you real? If no one spoke to you, how long could you go on existing before disappearing completely? -Book 9
you can pry my fugly scene-ish jou and chimera sunny and starwhite from my cold dead hands
also a lot of rainwing auctioneers wear masks which is very convenient to prevent Tsunami from being recognized