Name: Mihai'en
Age: 19
Race: Dragon
Looks:
Human Form Dragon Form
Bio: Mihai'en, né Byrne O'Leinster, was born as a human to a poor family in the fief of Dyfed, a smaller part of the greater country of Deheubarth. Isolated from everywhere else in the world, and stuck centuries in the past, Deheubarth operated on a feudal hierarchy, and Byrne was one of the many born into the gentry. The life of a yeoman meant that, as soon as he was able, he was forcibly conscripted into the army, and sent to fight his liege lord's war.
When contact with the more enlightened areas of the world occured only a few short years later, the peasantry of Deheubarth suddenly found themselves enamored with the progressive ideas of the new peoples: ideas such as public education, modern medicine, and, most strikingly, republicanism. The idea that the will of the people, embodied in the form of an election, rather than birthright, gained so much popularity that basically the entire continent went to hell.
Peasant armies sprung up seemingly out of nowhere, despite the attempts by the noble families in charge to suppress them. Iron scythes crashed against steel swords, and through the turmoil, Byrne found himself fighting in a peasant levy himself. What they lacked in skill, the armies made up for in sheer number. More and more, they began to win battles, and soon the kingdom found itself at the end of its rope.
It was at the siege of Lundovic, the capital of Deheubarth, that Byrne became Mihai'en, and the entirety of the war was lost. Lundovic, being a costal city, could not be properly sieged, as supplies could easily be sailed in from the sea, and being peasants, the invading army had no ships with which to blockade the port. Nonetheless, that the city be captured was the final goal of the entire campaign: the King himself was in city's palace, and capturing the king gave them another bargaining chip in enforcing their demands.
Having distinguished himself as a "not-completely-terrible" leader, Byrne found himself in charge of a small company. When the assault on the city began, a sickeningly high number of people found themselves riddled with arrows and crossbow bolts. The death count was nauseating, as well as one-sided, but eventually, the rag-tag army found it's way through the city gates, the central square, until finally reaching the famed Tower of Lundovic.
It has always been said that there is no crime greater than regicide. To kill a king or queen was the worst sin that could be committed, in the eyes of either God or men. As it was written and said many times before: A kingslayer received no mercy at the hands of God, and deserved none in the eyes of men. The man with the guilt of spilt royal blood at his door was said to be cursed forevermore; it's no surprise that dragons were always the villains in children's stories.
Perhaps, then, it was pure mischance that Byrne was the one who found himself in combat with his royal highness. During the final assault on the tower, chaos erupted, as people began the final push towards the highest tower, where the king and his family waited. As they reached the top, everything seemed to die down. The king stood there, sword at the ready, while his family hidin the corner.
For something so important to the present, and for something that defined what would be the future, it seems odd that the only thing that put Byrne at the front; the only thing that made His Grace charge at Byrne rather than anyone else, was pure happenstance.
Byrne fought as best as he could, but it was appeared that the two of them had equal skill: that is to say very little. Byrne was never much of a warrior, and the king had gotten on with age. They were both weak, but both very desperate. As their weapons sang awkwardly together, they fought with the determination of oxen. Though it felt like hours, the battle was over in just a few minutes.
It was decided by a few centimeters.
While everyone watched, he swung his glaive just too high, and just too far: the gaping hole in His Grace's neck gave testament to Byrne's failure. He watched in horror as the man gasped his last breath.
It was then that the pain started.
He heard the crack of his own bones as they began to break and re-adjust themselves. He felt his skin and muscle tear as his body stretched to inhuman lengths. He smelled his flesh boil as it hardened and scaled over. Worst of all, though, he saw the look on the faces of the men and women that he had fought and bled with: fear, mixed with a look of betrayal, as if this had been Byrne's true form all along.
Stone fell as his now-unfamiliar body outgrew the confines of the tower. People ran, screaming in terror at the beast that defined the fears of their youth. At this point, instinct overtook him, and he tried as best as possible to flee. He flapped the lumps on his back (which he presumed were wings) and tried to fly away, slapping away pitifully towards the ocean. He only got so far, though, until pain overtook him, and he finally collapsed into the ocean with a massive splash, and everything went black.
When he awoke later, he was in human form again, dried up on some foreign beach. He had no idea where he was, but with luck, it was somewhere that no one would recognize him: Deheubarth was only a small, backwards kingdom anyhow.
He spent most of his time after that in thought, though. This was his punishment: he was forever branded as some monstrous creature. His friends and comrades could only hate him, he had managed to lose what little hope was left for the war, and, worst of all, he would have to live the rest of his life with the knowledge and guilt of his crime.
But then, I'm not there anymore. Byrne thought to himself. Deheubarth was an ocean away and so, by extension, were his troubles. I could build a new life here. Happier, less conflicted.
So with a final look towards the future, Byrne O'Leinster died, and Mihai'en was born, in hopes that his new self would be better than the old.
Skills:
Glaive: He has experience with the spear-like weapon known as a Glaive, through his training in the army. He's not very good at it, but it's better than nothing.
Light Armour: He prefers to be lightly armoured, giving him speed and mobility, at the cost of adequate protection.
Dragon-Kin: He can shift from human to dragon forms, but he prefers the former, as the transformation is incredibly painful, and people tend to not like it when they're property is destroyed by some overgrown post-adolescent lizard. Apparently, it becomes less painful with practice, but the suffering never truly goes away. While he certainly is much more powerful as a dragon, he's far from invulnerable: from his exposed underbelly, to his elongated neck. Being a dragon doesn't give him any benefit in human form, but that also means that it's easy for him to keep his "other" form a secret to anyone without any magical talent. Speaking of magic, his scales don't protect him from it, meaning that it's dragon hunting season for any mage with a desire for a dragon's head on his doorstep.
Flight (In dragon form only): Given their size, dragons don't tend to be fast fliers, nor are they very graceful. Besides, flapping those wings gets pretty tiring after a while. It's gets you from point A to point B, though.
Roar: (IDFO): A dragon is already a pretty intimidating sight to most people, they're big and ugly. Add noisy, and you've got the holy trifecta for making a good number of people wet their pants.
Theme song:
Other: That puppy just ate a skyscraper!
I hate mondays.