Blackmore

The era of Ice Melt was always a endearing era for the creative IceWing to explore. It was a land of myth and fantasy, the era before the age of wonders when the animus gifts were given. It was an era of strife, vagabonds, knights, clans, and endless grasses.

The Monarchy was as dead as it could be following a war with the desert dragons to the south and the viziers were itching to claim the throne as theirs, the only thing stopping them was the children of the now deceased royal family. The greatest road to power is through using your time as a regent until the designated heir is old enough to rule. Another problem to be solved was that there were plenty of dragons old enough for the task, and to remove them hard shipped them out as far as they could. Sending them to live with family in other Queendoms, set them up to marry others, sent them into the military under strict orders. or as in the case to the eldest prince of the late Queen and King, sent to reside in a tower prison in the middle of the sea between the now Where-The-Whales-Leap-At-Dawn township and on the island of Geese.

Blakke Mor - now formally known as Blackmore through translations - was 6 when he arrived to the island and imprisoned. They knew he could've married and had whatever daughter he brought to instantly land on the throne as the eldest, thus he received the harshest sentence out of his sisters, brothers, and cousins. the viziers wanted the longest reign possible to the attached themselves to the newly born Rāh-dēor - Roe-Deer modern - and played her like a puppet on a string for years.

Blackmore's imprisonment only lasted 4. No longer considering herself a prince nor even male by this point, she wouldn't matter in the grand scheme of things as no one remembers her anymore except the dragons she saw everyday. Thus it was a perfect time to escape the isolation and begin experiencing life again without the blood ties to the throne.

Upon stepping food on land once more, they come to realize how much the tundra has melted the further south they traveled. Buildings made of stone and thatch over ice, boats needed for fishing and parties raising Caribou as the seals and bears are dying out. it was a drastic shift in time and the tribe has thoroughly changed without her.

Good. She could play the vagabond.

she traveled from hither and yonder playing odd jobs and the soul who lost work as a seal hunter as the oceans became more exposed. They worked on fishing boats, they built houses, the help paved roads. They spent about 8 years roaming the raw grass fields, to the south, to the east, to the west, to the north, and back down to the south again. By the time they were a fully mature adult at the age of 16, they were met by a group of traveling knights without borders. They hailed from all over Pyrrhia and their goal in this very untamed time was to protect others and seeing Blackmore was in need of another job, they took her in to train her.

She roamed with these dragons but across the continent now, slaying monsters, catching thieves, acting as escorts for noble dragons. She learned how to make weapons, how to forge armor and scalemail, to use a variety of weapons, and most importantly how to kill. Traveling without a calendar made the year swoop by fast, day after day you loose track.

It has been 33 years since Blackmore had left the tower. And on that fateful year it reunited with a sister.

Her sister wept upon seeing the faces of the dragon who escorted her and her husband. After all these years of being banished and unknowing of the fate of her generation, someone had survived and it was standing right in front of her. She had wept for hours to see her sister alive and out of the Queendom after Roe-Deer took power. Blackmore didn't take quite the same inkling of gratefulness after becoming jaded in these 33 years, but for her sake it stayed with it's sister for a little longer as her grief spilled from her for days. Finally when no more tears could be shed, an idea was purposed. Why not take back the Queendom, after all Blackmore for all intents and purposes was the rightful heir to the throne stripped before they could ever challenge.

Blackmore wasn't a fan of this idea and continued traveling with the knights. Only for a few months later to be jumped by other IceWings, faer reunited sister included. For the first time in years a family reunion had taken place and Blackmore was surrounded by everyone in her generation begging for her to take the throne as she was the only one who. would stand a chance.

After holding her hostage for several weeks, fae relented and accepted the deal and began their trek to the tundra.

Everyone around her was brimming with hope and faith now that independent royal blood would be back to control the Queendom once again. No matter what they said Blackmore stayed silent and allowed them to blabber and argue openly about what they were hoping to get. Asylum, power, and a ear to be heard because of the nepotism. But they did know who Blackmore was, they only thought they did. These actions of blatant corruption and social climbing disgusted and revolted Blacknore. The cycle was happening all over again and then and there she decided that she would prevent that, but showing her family who Blackmore truly is.

They rested for weeks on the border waiting for all banished loyalists to converge to retake the palace from the now adult Roe-Deer.

And they succeeded in storming the castle and once they're face to face to Roe-Deer, e everyone held their breaths for an exchange of words from the two parties. The discussion began, but it was two slowly and everyone spoke for Blackmore and Roe-Deer as if they were nothing but a jewel to show off and barter.

That's when Blackmore enacted her plan.

What allowed the crowd to finally exhale was when Blackmore made her way through the crowd, walked directly up to the cowardly Roe-Deer, and cleanly slashed her throat to spill blood on the stone floor.

There was a collective exhale, and there was nothing but screams.

There hasn't been a bloody transition of power since Blackmore's own mother took the throne some 90 years ago, and all of the younger courtesans didn't know how to react or how to even begin to process this. The body fell to the floor and Blackmore stepped around it to take her spot on the throne.

She ruled, no one wanted her to ascend this way. But she did it regardless.

What followed was a collective fear and outrage from the empowered noble families as they began to swarm the queen and demand her to step down or leave. Many of them didn't believe that she was actually royal, spreading rumors about who or what she really was. Waves and waves of dragons came believing those rumors and attempted to kill the usurper and warlord that has taken the tundra.

For eight weeks the floors of the stronghold were stained blue with blood of challenges and assassins. Blackmore wasn't easy to kill or sway, but ultimately people became complacent as she began to change policy and allowed more room for change and development due to her lack of care. She didn't star wars, she didn't ban or hinder average life. The tribe relented and just accepted her illegitimate rumors be damned. She slowly became adored by the commoners for her no nonsense policy of the gentry class and strung them along on tight leads.

What cemented her place was making alliances with SeaWings and SkyWings for mining operations which allowed the transfer of ore in exchange for fishing and hunting rights to the tundra. Everyone was prospering and skirmishes where quickly snuffed out with a loyal and well treated army. Corruption was far and few as everyone that crossed Blackmore wrong were found dead at her throne within the first few years of her sitting on it.

Although a problem had been formed.

despite having such direct power and advantageous changes, Blackmore would vanish for days spanning months on end with no word where she could be found. Despite being in her 50s, she still kept this rebellious, aloof, and anti-tradition behavior as if she was still a dragonet being dressed up by mother. rejecting concerns about heirs, marriage, alliances, anything and everything about what was thought to be the far future. But in reality Blackmore knew they were trying to chain her down and control her, having many long and short flings as her years as ruler. Living freely with no care in the world.

But a side effect of her aloofness was a consequence of health. She refused to live any other way that roaming floodplains and mud which removed all immunity she had to disease the older she grew. It wasn't noticeable or too detrimental to her quality of life until she was 80s and still keeping up with her lifestyle. One day she developed a horrific wet cough that shook her chest and she was bed bound for 2 weeks. It took many guards to hold her down and made her comfortable as they removed her armor.

But it was all for naught. As soon as Blackmore could stand she was back out on the hunt like an old hound.

She was stricken again by illness and was out of consciousness for multiple days and the word spread like wildfire amongst the Nobles. For too long they were inflicted strive because of Blackmore and if her health is heading for the worse then now is the perfect time to avenge their parents and kill her once and for all.

But as it was true for her entire life. Blackmore wasn't easy to rid of.

Many assassination attempts were thrown at her both in the highest of health and the lowest. A body double breaking into her room to stab her in her sleep was only meant by a figure who always keeps one eye open and was disposed of quickly. Another tried poisoning her... Multiple times in one night only for her to consume it and continue her business as if it were nothing. Another - more famous attempt - was a grand hunt where they tried burying her in a mudslide only for her to dig her way out of the dried sediment none the wiser. One dragon eventually got her, stabbing her chest and leaving a wound that took months to heal, but was never able to as her time was running out.

The conspirators were getting desperate as everyone and everything that was thrown at Blackmore were torn in half every single time. They hired and spent so much of their wealth on professionals but they cannot get around her. Desperate times call for a very desperate plan. They openly admitted what they were trying to kill Blackmore and invited her to join them in public to discuss it.

And she really came.

In the hall of the largest Tavern Blackmore stood before the nobility expecting one last desperate attack. They offered a discussion instead and she humored them, they wanted peace in return of exile. Blackmore merely chuckled and noted how they poisoned her drink once again and any offer was directly thrown off the table because of this. Tables were flipped and a crowd had all but ran away as blood was about to be shed again.

But it was Blackmore's blood for the first, and only time.

One of the nobles manged to reopen her stab wound from the weeks following up to this moment and stunned her, and another came running up to the queen with a axe. With one clear and clean swing her head was gone from her body. They've done it. They've killed her.

They had no choice but to take her head and show it to the crowd as evidence. No one neither cheered of jeered for they were stunned. Their head of state for the past 40 years was dead and now there was a vacuum. No one knew who should rule anymore. And in the days leading up to what would become a grand civil war, the only thoughts about Blackmore was about her body and head 

No one knew what would happen to the body and no attempts were ever made to find it, but her head was kept as a trophy for the upper class. Sitting above mantles, doorways, amongst trophies of game, over thrones and tables. One point being looted and taken by the SandWings before being returned once again to sit amongst the other queens of the IceWings that followed her footsteps and fate.

No one remembers why she was beheaded in the end, but ultimately she was able to achieve more immortality than any other monarch.