What she wants to act like.
What she has to act like. Fáfnir Iron-claw
Species: Dragonborn
Gender: Female
Age: 17
Height/Weight: 183cm/125kg (due to the added weight of her wings, scales, tail and claws)
Personality: Wise, proud, and dignified, Fáfnir Iron-claw is a hard woman to please. She demands the best from the people around her and tends to conduct herself with an air of superiority and grace, like royalty. She is pleased when praised or when her greatness is acknowledged but is quick to anger when someone does something to irritate her, offend her or, worst of all, hurt her pride. She is what you'd expect of a dragon, basically. Haughty and full of herself, yet undeniably proud and graceful with a wisdom beyond her years.
Of course, that's just what she wants you to think. Fáfnir is actually a very good actor who puts on a convincing public face she's practiced since birth to live up to the expectations of people around her. In reality, she isn't that smart, she feels uncomfortable when people give her too much attention, she's often awkward and at a loss for what to say, she likes playing videogames, eating junk food, watching old action movies and a bunch of other stuff that'll "rot your brain", and she has to practice all her lines and koans in front of a mirror so she can dispense them at any time like fortune cookies. Every part of her public persona is a carefully constructed lie. In reality, Fáfnir is just a very lonely individual who feels pressure from everyone to act a certain way and who hates her dragon blood for making her feel so uncomfortable living in her own skin. She wishes more than anything that she could just be herself, but she doesn't trust people either after years of being bombarded by insincere smiles and wary looks from people who were either trying to take advantage of her or afraid of her and showing respect only because they didn't want to make the monster mad. Still, she secretly hopes that one day she'll find someone she can truly be her awkward, dorky self around instead of always having to act like someone's stuck-up older sister or the class idol.
Bio: Born from a human male, an admiral in the navy, getting frisky with a shapeshifting immortal dragon (don't ask), Fáfnir is one of a dying breed. That is to say, a dragonborn (though technically this term did not exist for her kind until stories and games like D&D invented it and cash-cow properties and franchises like Skyrim popularized it). Hers was always to be a life of honor, privilege, and nobility, as was her right by birth. Merely by being dragonborn, she had inherited a destiny and a reputation, the pride of the noble and ferocious king of both lizards, wyrms and monsters.
And she
hated it.
Not at first of course. That only came gradually. As a child all the attention she received was really fun, and she was always receiving presents and getting to meet interesting new people (read as: offerings and worshippers/creepy people). But as she got older she started to realize that there were difficulties that came with being dragonborn, that her life was a contract with stuff hidden in the fine print that she'd unwittingly signed. People worshipped her and fetishized her (both in the academic/religious and sexual senses), treating her with far more respect than she knew how to handle or felt like she deserved. She had to learn to act with a pride, poise and grace that befit the dragonborn but didn't come naturally to her at all, and had to hide what her real personality was like in order to keep up public appearances. She learned of her own importance in the eyes of other people, of normal humans, and how even the tiniest and most insignificant actions she took in public had consequences in the lives of her admirers and devotees that she had to take responsibility for. To boil it down to its simplest explanation, she learned what it was like to be a celebrity and have to hide who you really are for the cameras.
The real Fáfnir has, by now, grown tired and antisocial, desiring either a person who will let her be herself, or to be left alone in a world that refuses to take their eyes off her. She has felt what it's like to be a human legend and a person of importance, and honestly? She could do without it. This has made her hate her dragonborn heritage and be uncomfortable living in her own skin, and she tends to dwell on the other uncomfortable or inconvenient aspects of being dragonborn, of which there are unfortunately many. She even has a list:
Dragon Weaknesses:-Her wings are large and awkward so she has to wear her dad's old naval jacket to cover them up, and they aren't strong enough to let her fly, only glide and hover short distances (she creates the illusion of flight by jumping high into the air using the strength in her legs)
-Her scales are bulletproof and tough as steel plates, but they itch, catch on her clothes and other things, and are a total pain to dispose of when she sheds them on top of being mostly useless in an age where violence between people is at an all-time low and fights with knives, swords and guns are rare. She also has a reverse scale located just above her coccyx that acts as a tertiary erogenous zone. She hates having people look at it, let alone touch it, and feels rather embarrassed and weirded out about the whole thing in general, like having a second set of nipples
-Needs to have special clothes and underwear made to fit her tail and wings as well as not catch on her scales, these clothes can get very expensive. She also has to wear gloves and long-sleeve shirts and trousers all year round to prevent herself from accidentally injuring people who bump into her and scratch themselves on her scales or her namesake "iron claws"
-Can breathe fire but it gives her painful indigestion and chronic acid reflux, feels similar to gagging or barfing, and it's hard to control as well as needlessly destructive and dangerous to the people around her. It can also happen accidentally like hiccups, which makes her a walking fire hazard
-Her roar is very loud due to the power of her lungs which have to expel flammable liquids at high speed like a flamethrower, but it also means she scares people without meaning to by accidentally raising her voice when she gets mad. The strength of her lungs also gives her a very deep, regal and intimidating voice which, while befitting of the image a dragonborn should carry, isn't very cute and isn't much to her liking
-Has difficulties with a primarily if not exclusively carnivorous diet, as gorging one's self on meat in company of others is not only seen as greedy, especially in places where meat is scarce, but can lead to health problems normal humans can't necessarily relate to, like a diminished sense of taste and the occasional difficult bowel movement
-Easily distracted by shiny objects and tends to hoard money instead of spend it (this is also why her house is a mess of old garbage she refuses to get rid of)
-Is cold-blooded (this is a
big weakness for her because it's often both dangerous and inconvenient, especially in a more modern age where everyone is in love with air conditioning)
-Her dragonborn blood makes her fiercely territorial towards others with the dragon blood, and she tends to unwittingly alienate anyone of her own kind who could potentially sympathize or understand her (not that she’s had the opportunity to meet many)
Dragon Benefits:-Good money sense, never a problem with finances
-People respect you, regardless of what you may or may not do or have done
-Can catch and grill your own food
-Doesn't have to worry about chronic back pain in the future despite her figure because her wings balance out the weight of her large breasts
As you can see, there's a bit of a disparity between what she thinks are the good things and the bad things in her life. Transferring to a new mixed school for mythological beings and humans, she expects to be treated much the same way she always is, and to have to smile and act dignified for the crowds of students with their cameras and their questions while they secretly talk about her behind her back in hushed, reverent tones, exchanging remarks of fear and disgust towards her non-human origin.
Quirks: She enjoys spending time with children and old people, who tend to be more honest and less wary and reserved around her. When she’s alone, she likes playing videogames and watching old 80s B-movies and sic-fi action flicks (she enjoys fantasy games and movies but tends to avoid them due to their frequently negative and somewhat uncomfortable treatment of dragons that tends to hit a bit too close to home with her)
Fish of Oblivion
