OC Backstory Prompts: Crystal
Three small scenes depicting very different periods in Crystal's life. Stranded in a conflict that's slowly killing her, a secret moment with her brother in her young childhood, and days spent at the Temple in a small, safe interim.
Author's Notes
I posted these on Tumblr years ago, before even writing the first chapter of Remnants, for an event about fleshing out your OC’s backstory. I tried to avoid scenes that could actually crop up in the series, but in reality I very well may end up repurposing them. Things may also turn out completely differently.
There aren’t so much spoilers for Remnants as implications that could lead you to draw some spoilery conclusions, so read at your own risk.
Prompt: Introduction
My name is Crystal. But. You probably know Spyro better than me.
Always getting herself involved.
They’d swarmed the town quickly, though she’d been watching the dark creatures surrounding it for a while. At first out of curiosity. Then, maybe, Spyro’s voice still niggling in the back of her mind.
Three years ago, they told us that we were the only ones who could defeat the Dark Master, so we set out to try… And, well…
There weren’t many outlying towns around Warfang left; the ones she’d stumbled upon had lain either abandoned or utterly destroyed. Not this one. That’d be their last mistake, at least if she didn’t intervene.
Let’s just say it isn’t going so well.
Crystal glanced back towards the forest, rising to her feet and taking a step towards it. Twisting herself up in this mess wouldn’t be good. Word spreads quickly. People talk, and talk, and maybe something happens to her that she just isn’t ready for.
So it would be best to just turn around and go home, whatever was left of it. But…
But.
Even now, it’s hard to let go of the past, and that voice in my head always trying to make me do the right thing. Just wish I knew what the right thing was.
It was easy, painfully easy, even for her. Full-grown dragons quickly fell to the Army’s sheer power, but her, some fifteen-year-old scrap who could barely keep a hold on what little elemental power she had, sliced through them like it was nothing.
But those dragons had grown up sheltered, like she once had been, finding safety in little havens that never stayed safe for long. Not her. This was all she seemed to know anymore.
One of the creatures was descending on some small dragon, a kid, its cleaver already lifted and swinging down. Before she knew it, Crystal had launched herself into a gust of wind, colliding horns-first with the creature and goring it. It was dead by the time she could shake herself off.
Crystal slowly rose to her feet, glancing at the kid. They were staring, eyes wide, slowly tracing up from her purple scales to her face.
“Who are you?” they asked, voice hoarse. Eyes watery from the smoke staring up at her like she was some kind of angel.
Crystal’s laugh was short, terse. Like she didn’t quite know how to answer that question anymore. Like, behind the words, there was a deeper question, one she wasn’t ready to answer yet.
“No one special.”
In a moment, she was gone, riding the wind towards where the next wave of the army was approaching.
My name is Crystal. But that doesn’t matter anymore.