basil i. nightworn

AGE

OCCUPATION

GROUP

DRAGON

personality

positive: 

HONEST
LOYAL
ADAPTABLE
FEARLESS
TOUGH

negative

BLUNT
MERCILESS
VOLATILE
IMPOLITE
HARSH
MISERLY


habits: 

likes: eating, sleeping, swordplay, gardening, cooking
dislikes: being woken up, reading, smart-mouths, spending cash, people messing up her garden


Basil is a heavily guarded soul, she speaks little and does even less - working in the shadows. Whenever she speaks, there is depth and gravity. She is a honest, hardworking person - having changed heavily from her youth filled with blood and thievery. 

Of course, older and wiser - she laughs a little more, smiles a little more and has become a rather welcome model among Dragonriders. Although she spends most of her days training with Corautmors, she has time now to explore other hobbies. She gardens with patience, often soothing her temper by treating her own special garden and cooking with spices and herbs she grew herself. One would hardly recognize the girl from her youth to the woman she grew up to be. 

She's still harsh and volatile, making up for her impolite manners by being brutally honest and incredibly fearless - a warrior and leader all in one. She offers advice to those who need it, a rather strict teacher but a good one all the same.

history

Nightworn is a rather infamous name and just like a shadow, it's history trails Basil often. To have met a Nightworn is to have danced briefly with death. Her grandfather was a mercenary, her father a thief. Her mother's history is unknown to Basil and never had she the time to delve into it. 

No, her childhood is a sweet one. In fact, there was never a point in her life where she was sweet. Perhaps she dreams of a point in her time when she could hear someone call her 'Sweet Basil' but she wakes up with a cold heart and only confirms that she makes up the dreams to make herself feel better. Oh no, Basil never got to be sweet.

She was left alone as kid, starving with ribs poking through her skin and eyes as cold as the night themselves. She broke her fingers trying to steal coin until it was as easy as breathing. She learned to fight with her teeth and nail and when that didn't work, she learned she was a wolf in human's clothing. She learned to be merciless. She learned to sprout fangs and claws, to howl underneath the full moon and make the men turn around and run. She was good at it.

At twelve, she bought her first sword. A real one, not a dagger or a letter opener. A real sword that as light as air but could cut through armor and skin. She named it Bonechiller and it never left her side. She had her share of scars, in particular a nasty one that cut across her chest in an x although she refuses to admit how she got it. It only darkens her eyes and sharpens her teeth and many know now not to ask.

She was sixteen, master thief and killer for hire when smuggling eggs became a thing. She wasn't much of a smuggler, but soon she was hired to protect the cargo. Basil never did have that much of a moral compass - whenever she had the chance to swing it the right way something would come along and point it in the opposite direction. She did this for years, dabbling in stealing coin and gems. 

As she got older, she got darker - blood staining Bonechiller and herself. She wasn't scared of her nightmares anymore and the dreams of 'Sweet Basil' had long since disappeared. Eighteen - she found joy in only the sound of broken bones and the whistle of a sword in the air. She dabbled in cooking and counting coin for she had just become her name. She was worn in night.  Her last shipment, although she didn't know it at the time.

A clutch of eggs waiting to leave the island, and she waited for the ship to arrive to take them away. Sword in hand, she heard a crack, the sound of something breaking. Precious cargo and she turned around and there it stood. A baby dragon, with eggshells still on it's skin and bright eyes that never left her own. It's a joke now but at first, Basil hated this dragon. It ruined the entire scheme. They were found, the eggs never left and now she had a dragon that followed her like another shadow.

She tried to get rid of it, getting lost in the woods, to trying to sell it. But it always came back - happy from the forest, chains on it's feet. She screamed, she snapped - she was a murderer for god's sake, and why wouldn't it leave her alone?

"Why is it, that whenever something good happens to you, you are so quick to dismiss it?" The dragon asked, silencing her. "Nothing good happens to me, nothing without price." She answered, the years of being left on her, of fighting and starvation finally settling on her shoulders. She had called it a bane of existence and although she still despised it, she now stopped trying to get rid of it. She was approached not that long afterwards by the dragon riders - welcoming her half-heartedly into their keep. At first, she refused but the dragon's optimism and rather annoying cheer grated on her and soon, she conformed.

She trained on her own, teaching the dragon how to fly and fight - wrestling the dragon herself even when he grew to be too big. It was three years before she finally asked it's name. He laughed, something she heard quite often and replied, 'i was going to ask you the same thing.' At first, she nearly called him Bane but at the last minute, decided against it. Corautmors. The name rolled off her tongue. 

Over time, she opened herself - little by little. Her dedication, her prowess, her strength soon overshadowed her bad habits. Although she remains miserly and pessimistic, she has changed. She rides an orange dragon as bright as the sun and smiled when they named her senior rider. 

WRITER