Name: Reika Scarrow

Age: 23 years

Gender: Female

Appearance:

The first thing most people notice about Reika is how masculine she seems. Though she's only a little over five feet tall, she is nearly solid muscle, with a physique that an athlete would envy. Years of wrestling dragons into submission will do that to a person. Her arms are muscular and her shoulders are broad, with her hips slightly narrow for a woman. In full winter riding gear, it is easy to mistake her as a male, especially if she has her long hair pulled back like she often does.

The second thing that people often notice about her is the old, dark scar of a dragon fire burn on her entire right arm, from her fingertips to her shoulder and even reaching its tendrils of flame across parts of her chest and side. She has slightly limited function of her right hand as a result of the nerve damage from the injury, but had long learned to use her left to compensate. She usually wears fingerless gloves to protect her palms while riding, and in her winter gear, the scar is fully hidden from view.

Her skin tone is fairly dark, well-tanned from many days spent in the sun. Freckles litter her face and shoulders, concentrated on her nose and cheeks. A mess of curly dark caramel brown hair frames her round face, reaching to just below her shoulders, though she often has it pulled back into a messy attempt at a bun. Her large eyes are a light amber, catching the light at times to appear golden.

Her wardrobe choice is simple--functional. In the summertime, she is often spotted wearing thick canvas pants with lots of pockets, a lightweight tank top, and heavy boots designed with the stirrups of her chosen saddle in mind. Her gloves are a year-round staple; her hands would be perpetually marred by reins or dragon scales otherwise. During the winter, her summer outfit is supplemented with a heavy, hooded coat, canvas on the outside and lined with fur, thicker gloves, and a warm neck gaiter pulled up to her nose to ward off the worst of the winter chill.

Personality:

Bold, reckless, and fiercely stubborn. Reika is, to say the least, a very passionate person. She cares deeply for what she believes in, she's loyal to those she calls friends, and frighteningly protective when those friends are threatened. However, like most riders, she has no respect for the law, and even less respect, if it were possible, for the current king. She goes where she pleases, does what she wants, and scrapes by with what little money she gets from dragon sympathizers with odd jobs.

When it comes to the dragons themselves, she has survived as long as she has because of a mutual respect. There is an understanding that dragons will never be tame, or even close to it. Her own dragon would bite her the moment she turned her back. A dragon can never be trusted, and Reika knows better than most. But she loves her life, she wouldn't trade the chaos and constant danger for anything. She finds dragons dangerously beautiful, like flirting with death every time she straps a saddle to those razor-like scales. There's something about tempting fate that makes one feel so ALIVE.

History:
She was not born a dragon rider. In fact, considering the circumstances of her early childhood, her lifestyle is fairly shocking. Her village was destroyed by a wild dragon when she was five years old. Her parents were lost in the chaos. But the riders were there. They had tracked the wild dragon's rampage and tried to stop the attack before it happened. When their attempt to save the town was unsuccessful, the dragon riders stayed to help the survivors rebuild. When they left, Reika begged to come with them. The small tribe took in this orphaned girl, and taught her their ways, though she did not get her own dragon until much later.

Her first dragon was not a success story. She was sixteen, and not ready. The dragon was a fire-breather, the most common kind. He was not well-trained, and within only a few months, he became too dangerous to handle. When he caused the burns on her arm, the tribe made the decision to keep him from injuring anyone else. Since then, she has kept her distance from fire-breathers, but when a young venomous dragon was offered for trade by a neighboring tribe a year later, she immediately took up their offer.

Thus, she obtained Haaku.

Since then, she has invested countless hours of training, working to prevent any future incidents. She's been bitten enough times by her own dragon that she's nearly immune to the venom. Haaku, however, was one of the best-trained dragons in the tribe.

She had just turned twenty when the incident happened in the capital. Like all dragon riders, she was left stunned and saddened when a previously well-behaved dragon suddenly turned on its rider and went on to cause a trail of destruction across the heart of the kingdom. Her shock turned to horror as the dragon rider population began to dwindle. A neighboring tribe's dragon watering place was poisoned. Her tribe dwindled, one by one the dragon-rider pairs disappeared until it was just Reika and Haaku.

She's wandered ever since. It's been over a year since she's seen another rider. It's dangerous to meet up because two dragons together attract attention. Attention, in this kingdom, gets riders killed.

Dragon Information:

Haaku is a sleek, long-limbed dragon with large wings. Her scales, with razor-like edges that she can use as a defense mechanism by standing them up like a pinecone, are a deep matte black in color. Her narrow eyes are amber yellow, nearly the same color as Reika's but a bit more yellow. Her pupil is a catlike slit. Naturally, she is nocturnal, but she has adjusted to a diurnal life. Haaku is built for rapid flight. She is not built for stamina or brute strength, though even a weak dragon is incredibly strong in human terms. She measures around thirty feet from nose to tail, with a wingspan of forty feet. This is fairly small for a dragon, and Haaku herself is expected to grow more before she reaches her final size. She does have very sharp talons and teeth, but her primary weapon is her venom.

While her venom is not deadly, it is still a valuable weapon in combat. Within two to three minutes of being bitten, a victim will be rapidly consumed by delirium, severe vertigo and balance issues, and weakness which can progress to mild paralysis. These are accompanied, for most victims, by severe muscle and joint pain, and for some especially unfortunate victims, by vivid hallucinations and fever in later stages. Needless to say, being bitten by this dragon is something to avoid. However, the symptoms of poisoning will usually ease after about a day, and vanish completely after two days.

Reika is nearly immune to the toxin. If she is bitten, depending on the amount of venom, she can almost completely avoid the weakness and balance issues, but she usually can't escape the pain and she's going to be a little loopy for a bit. She can usually sleep it off, and the symptoms rarely last longer than a few hours for her.

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