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Description

Aksenthis is a long, tall, but frail dragon. His dull, flaking gold scales hang limply on a body that is mostly just skin and bones. His bright, blue eyes are set deeply in his long-snouted head. Atop his head are two boney stubs that were once horns.

Aksenthis's wingspan is nearly triple the size of most dragons, but the leathery membrane of his wings is full of tears, and he can no longer fly.

Personality

Aksenthis is an old warrior who values honor above all else--and considers himself to have very little of it. His deep self-loathing is matched only by his loathing of the human races. Aksenthis's only hope lies in the few wyrmlings on Airy Mountain, whom he hopes to see grow up to be warriors capable of driving back the humans.

History

When it was beginning to seem clear that the humans posed a threat to the dragons' way of life, Aksenthis was a young hunter in the West Hills Gold Clan. The West Hills Gold Dragons were known for their ferocity in combat, which they usually treated more as a sport than as a means of survival. All of them were afflicted with an irrepresable bloodlust, but they channeled that bloodlust into something positive by each living by a strict warriors' code of honor.

At the time, most of the dragon clans were content to stand back and observe the humans' activities, curious to see what they would do. The West Hills Gold Dragons felt that this was foolish, and went to war early against the mammalian invaders. The gold dragons harried humanity for many years. Aksenthis, then barely more than a wyrmling, fought with particular ferocity, and became known across all of dragondom as one of the West Hills' greatest warriors. His appearance on the battlefield was often enough to cause human warriors to desert their armies in fear.

However, the humans were too numerous, too clever, and seemed to devise more and more effective weapons every year. It was not long before the West Hills Gold Dragons lost ground to them. Over the course of ten years, the clan was reduced from twelve-thousand dragons to less than two-hundred.

At last, the humans discovered the location of the gold dragons' weyr. In a great battle, they assaulted the weyr with thousands of soldiers and hundreds of knights, the knights armed with the finest Dwarven weaponry. The surviving gold dragons, filled with rage and determination, resisted the siege for weeks, and felled many of the invaders. One by one, though, the dragons were being killed.

Dissatisfied with the way the battle was going, Aksenthis disobeyed his father, the weyrlord of the West Hills Gold Clan, and flew out to face the enemy army's leader head-on. Dodging the arrows of the human army, spewing fire down upon the enemy was he went, he reached the tent of the elflord who led the invaders. Aksenthis challenged the elflord to single combat, and the elflord accepted.

Aksenthis and the elflord (the latter mounted on a flying horse) dueled in the air above the siege-camp below. After several minutes of neither doing much harm to the other, the elflord flew his mount right beside Aksenthis's head, and attempted to behead the dragon with his sword. Aksenthis backed away just in time, and the elflord's blade missed--merely slicing Aksenthis's two horns clean off. Aksenthis roared in pain, and the bellowing sound of it shook the ground for miles around. With the dragon recoiling, the elflord flew in and aimed the tip of his blade fright for Aksenthis's heart.

Suddenly, a jet of fire flew at the elflord, who hurried to dodge it. Aksenthis's father, backed by all the remaining gold dragons, had come to rescue his son. The elflord himself retreated, but ordered his army to open fire upon the dragons, who were no longer safe within their weyr.

The gold dragons fought valliantly, but they were outmatched, and soon all were killed--except Aksenthis, who managed to defend himself, albeit only while taking many more wounds, some of which damaged his wings and rendered him unable to fly. At the last moment, the elflord returned, and commanded his men to stand down.

"You fought beautifully, lizard," the elflord commended him, "Go, tell the rest of your kind what has happened here, and never return, and I shall not take your life."

With that, the invaders razed the weyr and marched away. They left Aksenthis, dreadfully wounded and barely able to walk, where he was. After a few days, some dragons from another clan found him and brought him back to their weyr.

As the humans advanced over the years, pushing dragonkind further and further back into the wilderness, Aksenthis sank into a deep depression. His clan was extinct, and it was because they had tried to save him from his rash descision to duel the elflord. What was more, the enemy had denied him the honorable death of a warrior, allowing him to live after damning his people and then being defeated by a cowardly enemy.

Aksenthis moved with the other dragons in their exodi, but never fought himself. Now he lives with the rest of them on Airy Mountain. He has lightened up a bit, and now advises younger dragons on the art of war. He is one of the oldest dragons on Airy Mountain, and possibly in the whole world.

He has decided that he will get a warrior's death, but not until he knows it can help his people reclaim what they have lost.

Aksenthis's Story