Doll Divine Witch-Guardian v2

Name: Maida

Gender: Female, she/her

Age: around 15

Origin: House Chagga, Paniya Island, Alskyr

Family: mother and father married happily, both working the docks; one older brother also working at the shipyard

Other: Maida has higher expectations placed on her since she was searched as a child

Height/Build: 5'6" and will be quite petite as an adult, willowy and slender

Hair: medium brown, usually kind of stringy but is full and takes styles nicely, cut short except a small braided bit she likes to keep apart

Eyes: brightly yellow, quite the oddity but this occurred in her grandmother and has been recorded thus for several alternating generations. She seems to think that this marks her as a special person, and she is not wrong. Her eyes are very large and attentive, almost too large

Appearance: pale skin with freckles, she does keep herself mostly covered but this is also due to her constant diving and swimming in the cold, choppy Chagga bay

Genetic Abilities: Maida is definitely a gifted child, she has always felt connected to the sea and to the life within it. Whenever she and her family took trips on ships from Paniya to Catena, she would stand dangerously close to falling off the deck but the Sea dragons in the area would be there, both her focal point and ready to nudge her back on board if needed. She also seems capable of survival in watery conditions, even if she did fall overboard (which she definitely has on occasion) she never comes out with more than a couple coughs, not even truly shivering with the cold waves.

Events or History: Maida was searched when she was around 7 years old, so she's been 'ready for this' for years and years. And though it was a flying dragon that searched her, she feels like it's going to be a sea dragon of some kind that she befriends. She's looking forward to having a life in the ocean, not just watching it from the shore, dock, or ship.

One thing she does keep a little closer to her heart is that she's quite afraid of a competitor on the docks, the ship yards are busy places, and when she was very young she got separated from her family, and was nearly thrown into a work camp by one of a visiting ships' crew. She doesn't remember the name of the ship, and likewise also doesn't know that her family had that ship forbidden from Chagga's port - they had to haggle for her return, an unthinkable method for a civilized ship port. So she keeps away from burly glaring dock hands, at least ones she doesn't know directly...

** from hatching **

Everyone was so happy to be here, Lantessama was a nice place, Maida decided. But she'd hardly been there a few days, when the hatching on the shore was announced! The hatchlings were so colorful, beautiful creatures indeed.

There were only two eggs left from the small nest, and when the first of them cracked open it was only after what looked like rapid hammering and flexing from within. The dragonet wanted out!

A bright violet-pink snout pierced the shell and not much later, the rest of the female hatchling followed, spilling onto the warm sand. The hatchling gave a little whine and a frustrated little squawk before she got herself up and over to where Maida was waiting.

The sand should be softer, she complained, Why doesn't grass grow into the sea?

"That's okay Lilou, you're more than sturdy enough to take a little sand. How do you feel about water?" Maida quite realised that her dragon might not be as sea-oriented as she'd expected her to be.

**

She did love basking on the shore, that was certain. Lilou's preference for grasses, and more than anything in the world flowers, led to Maida asking someone up in town about how to possibly plant such things in the sand or ... something.

Of course the look they gave was both confused and a little pitying, "most flowers require soil, not sand," they'd said. But then a woman nearby took a glance over Maida's now-slumped shoulder and spotted that brillaint flower-colored dragon's head and her flukes that splashed in the shallows nearby.

"There's a place on the north coast, called Thornbloom, you might be interested in visiting," she hinted.

Lilou perked right up at that, overhearing it through the bond with her rider. We were planning on taking that tour, Lilou said, and Maida could sense the sheer excitement from her half-grown bond. After determining the amount of swimming that would be needed, Maida gathered several packs (waterproof of course) and her diving gear. Her snug teal and green shaded diving leathers were nice and warm, comfortable, and while they didn't exactly keep her 'dry', they definitely kept her from being damaged by the chill ocean.

So they took a trip, swimming for several days with resting on the shore and deep diving for delicious fish meals (for both of them!). The trek from Chagga's sea took them around the sharp point of the mainland and into the Kshau Island's strait, and Maida kept notes about the height of the plateau she could see from the shore, knowing it was much higher what with the curve of the planet and all that math!

Eventually they rounded the farthest-west point of Paniya Island, and Maida had to take stock again. Numerous little fishing villages with their plentiful small boats were all over the place, but hardly a real town - and she was from the biggest city on Paniya after all. So even other large Houses were tiny to her. While she and her dragon had certainly set out with a trip in mind, it would be quite some weeks before they managed to reach Thornbloom!

**

"And that's why they grow so well," Maida proudly said, of her dragon's lovely garden. They'd set up a nook back at Chagga once the delivery had been made.

The delivery was of a large cart-load of soil, loam, and whatever else the locals at Thornbloom had decided would work properly and be readily cared for with the conditions across the island. That, and seeds, seedlings, sprouts, and full grown ground cover, all in a caravan that would trek 'the easy way' across that island. Their delivery only took a week to arrive, and it was to the surprised expressions of her family and the other dock-workers.

"If only we'd gone on foot," Maida chuckled, knowing that her dragon would sputter and trumpet.

I couldn't have made a two hundred mile crossing on land! I would dry out! The river only goes toward the south, too! We'd have had a mountain in the way!

It might have been worth it, though, because months before when they'd finally reached Thornbloom - after a six hundred mile coastline swim - the flowers and trees of the northern coast were visible even from shore. And though exhausted, Lilou hauled herself onto land and literally fell asleep in a field of brilliant flowers, the nearest un-fenced field she could find.

Of course they had to repay the farmers for the crop, but they told her as well - it was worth watching a full sized sea dragon like this rolling around, all but matching the flowers color for color. A trade was worked out, they would bring fish and get rid of a specific extremely dangerous plant that had started growing. Yes, it was a small variant on Rampage, and even Lilou claimed that it stung to the touch. She ripped it out with gusto, and they took the entire cart full of dirt and plant matter away to be burned. While Thornbloom wasn't a typical destination, it was definitely in need of such monitoring of their crops, so as a rider, then, Maida approached the local Sea council and informed them of this.

As long as I get to keep my flowers, Lilou bespoke with that particular kind of bliss she had when she was eye-deep laying on her back in the flower beds.

Lineage

Mates and Descendants