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There was a she, once. Now there is only they.
Her name was not Xenin. They don't know what it is anymore, though Zanven will sometimes whisper it through her mouth, sadly, sighed and lost in the breeze through the trees.
She was from Lightning flight, always curious but never given opportunity. From her hatching she was considered exalt fodder, in a lower caste, and treated as a future servant of the Stormcatcher. Her curiosity turned to anger, ambition, and she turned to the profession of Soul Smoking, a loose guild with few interested in joining their ranks.
Now, the occupation of Soul Smoking is a quite unusual one: the dragon lights an Ancestral Incense, and inhales its smoke where a soul is present. The soul is inhaled into the Soul Smoker's body, and then exhaled into a glass sphere, creating a Wisp or Starsweeper. Recently, Baldwin has discovered a way of alchemizing wisps in large quantities, by fragmenting a soul and using the parts - usually mute or impaired in some way - mostly as decorative familiars. However, when an entire soul is used, the Wisp or Starsweeper may be used to predict, protect, or attract some aspect. Different Soul Smokers specialize in differently abled souls. Dragon souls are most potent, each flight producing a differently abled wisp, though some Soul Smokers object to the use of dragon souls. Beastclan souls are most often used.
As a Soul Smoker, she excelled. But her hunger for knowledge and for power drove her further. She read voraciously, devouring the methods, the theories, and she decided that nobody would underestimate her again. Eleven flights and eleven Imperials. She would smoke an emperor.
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Z A N V E N
He was the other student in her class. He had been born for the job of Soul Smoking, raised amid the ruins of the Hewn City, exposed to the souls that had not yet been claimed by the trade. He was still coming to terms from the fact that he would be trapping these souls, but his mentors knew what was Right, and if it was Right it was worth defending. He was righteous in the most direct sense of the word; anything against his beliefs was Wrong.
He discovered that Xenin had been studying the tome full of dark practices, a book wielded by necromancers and thus very, very, wrong. He confronted her, his larger size intimidating, and she panicked. He knew now, and he wouldn't hesitate to tell others. He had to be stopped. And then he was, and she smoked his soul and left behind his wide-eyed body.
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I S O K E L
They were engineers, and they were as entwined in each other's lives as it was possible for two dragons to be. He was quiet, but brilliant, mulling over a problem for days on end and coming up with fantastic solutions. She was quick, able to work through problems as quickly as the lightning hit the spires in the Shifting Expanse. A name was not all they shared. They worked together, lived together, and wanted to raise a family together. It was unusual for two Imperials to live in such close proximity, but this was the Shifting Expanse. Emperors were, for all the knowledge they possessed, literally unheard of.
Xenin targeted them. She resented her birth flight, resented the way these Imperials were allowed to rise through the ranks without fear of personally meeting their boss face-to-face. When she came for them, the Isokels were unprepared. The timid male stood up to Xenin; despite his mustered bravery, he was taken down easily. The female was slowed by grief; it felt as though her soul had been torn in two. And so it had: for their souls had to be smoked together, fused, as it were, into one.
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W R E N D A L
She predicted that Xenin was coming. She was loved by her clan, a grandmother figure if not a grandmother herself. She revelled in the spotlight, making predictions that were often hyperbolic and very dramatic. She was known across the Sea of a Thousand Currents as an oracle - or a fraud. Many believed the latter. She did have something, though, that very occasionally gave her some insight. When this particular feeling came over her, she predicted the end of her days and moved away from her long beloved clan.
Hidden in the currents, she missed her spotlight, aching to go back to her clan. She moved to the shallows, hoping to encounter someone who could bring her news. She was naive, certainly; she'd had no battle training, living in a clan that was peaceful. So she was taken very unawares when Xenin ambushed her.
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G A N E L O N
His mother was very leader-oriented when he was growing up, a trait that stuck with him more than the sympathies for Beastclan from his father. He felt a need to prove his strength, be the opposite of his father, whom he viewed as weak. He had to be more, be better, and part of that was putting on a vicious front. To his father's dismay, he warred against the Beastclan, taking on armour and battle stones alike.
There was one battle stone that he wasn't ready for. He was still too inexperienced to add the virulent spell to his abilities; for all his talk, he couldn't handle it. When he tried to learn Contaminate, immediately ivory lines traced along his scales, spreading through his systems and weakening him considerably. He fled, dripping mucous with every step, pitiful and afraid to show it, into the Abiding Boneyard.
Xenin found him there. He looked into her face and saw something not quite right, some twitch in the eyes behind the painted-on mask. (Oh Plaguebringer, he hoped that was paint.) He had tried to be so strong, but looking up into those eyes he merely whispered, "Please don't."
She did not treat him as an exception.
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L Y L A
Like many Ice flight dragons, Lyla from an early age displayed an interest in collecting. She collected pebbles, shells, and, eventually, weapons. As she aged her collection grew, until it turned almost into a hoard. She burrowed beneath the frozen tundra and made herself a highly-concealed lair, protected with booby traps, where she could enjoy her collection. She was highly suspicious about rogues or thieves taking her prizes, so she lived alone. She ventured out, occasionally, to claim more trophies from dragons or beastclan who died on the snowy icefield.
It wasn't easy to find her, but once Xenin got there it was essentially over. The traps were made useless, twisted with some dark magic, and the large and heavy doors were broken off their hinges. Lyla relied on her traps, trusting them, and was horribly unprepared. She was lanced with her own prized sword, and her soul was collected neatly.
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S T R I V E N
Striven's comrades prided themselves with capturing poses of action: scenes from the great battles of lore, always the same battles. Striven, however, decided to use his sculpting skill for a nobler craft: learning the names of and building memorials to the fallen. He had done Feelar the Brave, and Draxta the Hearty, and was even attempting the unknown Imperial described in the Ballad of the Halls of Glass.
He was old, and he was thin, but he was still wiry. His leathery skin hung loose from his bones and his beard hung to his toes, but he had proven himself capable of survival upon the cracked, dry, earth. He had outlived his family, and had outlasted his lucidity.
When he glimpsed Xenin's wavering figure through the heat, the gaunt white bony figure with bloodstained fur reminded him of his purpose. "Death!" he gasped, and accepted the challenge. If he were to defeat death itself, his job would be completed to the fullest degree.
He died thinking of the family he would see again. The incomplete eyes of the unknown Imperial watched emotionlessly.
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C A I A T R A
An inhabitant of the Crystalspine Reaches, Caiatra was the founder of a pacifist religion based on meditation and astrology. She was enamoured with the stars, going into meditative trances to be closer to them. She lived alone, but often had visitors seeking her services to divine the answers to their questions. She was very calm. Her lair smelled like incense and tea and the coolness of stone.
She did not know she had enemies, but she was well prepared. When Xenin came, her calm demeanor slipped away and was replaced by a berserk rage and an urge to live. She fought surprisingly hard, using telekinesis and runes, and turned her lair and much of the mountain she lived on to ruin. She wanted to live and was willing to sacrifice everything for that desire. Xenin took her down anyway.
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C A D E N
Caden had always taken his interests to heart, and very soon his interests included hearts. He had a knack for the grotesque, and as a hatchling had too much enjoyed playing with his food. As he aged, he began to create what others would call monsters, abominations: two-headed skinks, chimeras, hippalectryons. These were his only companions in the bramble where he resided.
He had shaped this bramble into a maze, filled with riddles and games and tricks of the light. He lured wanderers into the maze and tested them. If they emerged victorious in the games, he would direct them on their way. If not, Caden got a new toy - he still played too much with his food.
Luck was not on his side when he lured in Xenin. She cheated at his games, saw through the smoke and mirrors, but could not fathom the answer to his riddle. When he came to claim his prize, a chase ensued through the maze. Xenin blasted it apart around her, and slew him instead.
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T E O L U N
She was a young druid, growing up in the wilds of the jungle. She lived in a small, close-knit tribe of mostly Wildclaws, the only Imperial in the tribe. She was the daughter of a healer but a warrior at heart. She painted her face and hunted things that would otherwise try to kill her. She was thin, used to thinner rations, and built for survival.
The tribe was networked to other clans in the area, and it wasn't long before Xenin tracked them down. It happened in the night; a rustle in the leaves of the trees became roaring and fire and monsters streaming out of the bushes. Amphitheres and Manticores and even an Overcharged Silverbeast decimated their lair. Their eyes were dark and they sported recent wounds: the work of necromancy. Teolun was separated from her tribe and, though she fought mightily, Xenin took her alone and in the dark.
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G E R O N I M O
He was a Wind dragon, and as a Wind dragon he was always moving. He had seen the whole of Sornieth, and had borne children to continue his journey. He was sociable, but severed all ties once he moved on. It was hard to tell whether he was running to or running from.
He knew this clutch would be his last. It was risky even defending his children, so he took them and hid them away. Xenin found them though, as she had found them all so far. He faced her down. He knew what she had come for. "Run!" he hissed to his children, and then, for once in his life, he stayed.
It bought them only a little time.
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E L A D R I N
She was only a few days old. She had hatched on the fiery plains of the Ashfall Waste, and loved how the ashes drifted from the sky and then dissolved on the breeze. She loved the heat rising through her paws, loved - although was still practicing - the way she could produce tiny puffs of flame. She was a dragon full of love, and she was just beginning to learn about the world.
Her father was telling her stories about the world and how you could predict the weather from the taste of the wind when the Pearlcatcher showed up. She took her father's warning, running as far and as fast as she could, but Xenin soon caught up. Eladrin knew she couldn't run farther, and despite her passion, despite her fear, she turned and faced the monster that Xenin had become.
Xenin was past the point of no return. She no longer felt empathy, no longer could justify the importance of her quest for power compared to the life she was about to take. But still she committed the ultimate atrocity, coldly and methodically as learning theories from an old necromancy book.
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Having smoked the eleven souls, something in her snapped. The sheer force of the emperor rising in her caused her pearl to disintegrate, and she became them: she is no longer there.
They fight for control, an emperor's mind chaotic and knowing nothing but destruction. Occasionally they becomes one, a fragment of the dragon's soul momentarily gaining the upper hand.
Their purpose varies. Sometimes they seek out Imperials, either to warn them or to tempt them into joining their ranks. Sometimes they try to die, to seek release, but they are never successful. And sometimes, just sometimes, they lament having sought such power.