A flightless dragon rises with the wind...

Notes

color plant (?) Element Mineral Playing Card Pokemon Type Instrument (?)

#a0ceb5 (ish) Iris chrysographes Air / Light - VI - The Lovers Fairy / Flying -

song of...

Seventeen
Tomberlin

note: whoa! this section is super long! information here may be spoilerful, and will likely be cut back at a later date.

Pannotia

Iris was born Chrysographea Limniris, a divine priestess of the Gāḷi (False Harpy) dragon clan in the Hegde family, shortly after a patch of black irises had mysteriously appeared in the palace gardens. Contrasting the mysterious manifestation of the rare flowers, she was born with near entire hypopigmentation, leaving her unusually pale and greenish for her clan.

In addition, Iris was also often in poor health - tied to a rare lunar illness similar to lycanthropy among the Gāḷi. Showing signs far before being able to attain a dragon form, this had little effect besides leaving her weak and disoriented for a few days.

Iris only lived at the palace for a short time into her childhood before she was swallowed by an Acuity current.

Earthside

Iris is spit out by the current on Earth, in a field in northwestern Washington State, at the equivalent of seven human years old. She wanders for a while before being taken in by a local couple, who notice her inhuman qualities and decide to hide and protect her from the outside world. Her new parents grow possessive of her after repeated escape attempts, and their selfish intent over Iris causes them to slowly rot into demons...

Taking advantage of Iris's lunar illnesses, now thrown off by her distance from her home, her captors unknowingly manage to create a seal barring her from using magic and returning home. Under the seal, Iris begins to forget her life at the palace.

A year(ish) later, fearing that she would still find a way to escape, they move to an old neighborhood on the ridge nearby. At the new house, Iris meets her neighbor Teva, a girl the same age as her. They become very close.

Iris starts going to public school, but is otherwise very sheltered by her parents - she has never been to a doctor. Her mom especially is very hippie and overbearingly "alternative medicine" inclined. She doesn't have access to TV or the new-ish internet besides at Teva's house, where she spends a lot of her time, and where she feels her captors' power is weakened. Here Iris is introduced to anime and fantasy media, in which she sees her own childhood reflected. She cuts her bangs like Sailor Moon and gets really fixated on dragons. She also gains a fascination with cars, and years of assisting her captor father with his mechanic business is one of the parts of her adolescence that she remembers fondly.

Teva and Iris also often explore the neighborhood backroads, where one day they come across an abandoned white house, empty but seemingly untouched. For a while they play house, and later it serves as a quiet place to sit and talk. They become convinced that it's haunted, and Iris feels a possible connection to Sey through the house. Despite all their time to talk, Iris keeps her otherworldly nature hidden from Teva, as well as the seal binding her. She becomes unsure of her personhood, and whether she is actually from another world or not...

In high school, Iris struggles with identity as human and as something else. Teva grows distant, and the two drift apart. Iris joins some clubs, gets her driver's license, and considers college. She is asked on a date by her classmate Matthias, and Teva is crushed. Teva later confesses that she is in love with Iris, and, embarrassed, unenrolls from school and avoids Iris at all costs.

Iris spends the summer before her senior year between increased illnesses and thinking about love. Her lunar illness has grown more intense and unpredictable, landing her in spells lasting weeks at a time. She and Matthias have various issues - Iris has difficulty understanding relationships as a whole as anything other than friends. Iris is unable to reach out to Teva, who still refuses to speak to her.

Throughout October, Iris experiences her worst illness yet, and is grounded until November. Upon recovering, she goes next door to discover that Teva had moved inland to live with her father weeks before. Devastated, Iris loses all motivation to continue her life on Earth, and and begins to focus all her energy on breaking the demonic seal and returning to Sey. She navigates further erratic illnesses, as others begin to worry about her grades and motivation slipping. She focuses intently on magic channeling, and she and Matthias decide to break up due to continued communication struggles.

After feigning ill and focusing on her magic for weeks, Iris successfully breaks the seal and banishes the demons, regaining some of her power. She returns to the abandoned house and channels a gateway back to Sey.

Return to Sey

Iris steps through the doorway out of the house and finds herself in hills and trees familiar to the ones she had just left - but without a building or another soul around. She wanders the hills for a while, unsure of how to get home, before encountering a dragon. The dragon, Pauzhetka, remarks on her bizarre loss of language but agrees to take her home to the Gāḷi.

Upon returning home, the clan is overjoyed to have the fabled Black Iris return to them. However, she discovers that her magic is severely underdeveloped, and that she cannot properly attune to achieve her full potential. Iris is pressured by her family to leave behind her time on Earth and with Teva, which Iris is conflicted by.

Iris also meets her younger sister Hegde Riviniana Viola (Rivy), who grew up as a properly attuned priestess. Besides dragon characteristics, she and Iris look remarkably similar, with Rivy also having nearly exactly the same discoloration. Iris discovers that through mysterious warping by the currents, Rivy is actually older than her. Iris begins to see her sister as a mirror of her wasted potential, and what she could have been, and begins to avoid her despite her kindness.

For some time Iris attempts to attune and regain her magic to no success. She instead tries to live a fulfilling life in the palace without it as well as she can, works on learning the psychic dragon language, and gets really into fashion and sewing. From her reputation as the Black Iris she deepens her affinity to the color black. Her illnesses have once again regulated themselves and have become milder. However, she cannot shake the feeling that something is missing...