Heretic - The Prelude: Kalith, The Dragon

One of the few lucky griathrim to live it's entire childhood along parents of the same kind, Kalith was born in a settling ship to a gentle but windy dawn in the 951AEF, after a memorable thunderstorm. Many took the occurrence as an omen of favored luck upon the child and prompted the parents to bename her "Kepesk-Larinngir", which in iokharic, the tongue of dragons, means "Storm-Tamer".

Most of Kalith's childhood took place in one of the many islands across the sea before the coastline of Menorias, where she made fast friendship with Wuhmmer, a half-celestial girl, who found on Kalith the sister she never had, sharing with her their mutual love for the heights above the clouds. While she grew fonder and fonder of her new friend, she couldn't help but to feel a growing sense of envy each time she saw how Wuhmmer soared to the sky to behold the sights she would have to wait for many years to behold. Stubbornly resolved to not be left behind, the gria lass would climb every day to the tallest cliff and throw herself to test the strenght of her still blossoming wings, taking a fleeting delight in the soft gliding over the winds of the shoreline. Nothing would detter Kalith from this daily routine, not even the threat of bad weather.

It came to happen near it's 30th anniversary that a massive thunderstorm would hit Kalith's island. It wasn't the first time the young gria would carry on with her daily practices despite an strong wind or a black cloud, but this storm almost seemed as taken from the very wrathfull whims of the gods, but the lass paid no heed and went on, and so it happened. As if accepting her challenge, the heavens casted a lightning, striking down Kalith to the seas. Rescued by her parents, Kalith remained bereft of conciousness for some days, even when her body had been restored with magic and medicine alike. In the third day, Kalith awakened in delirious weeping as her father held her fast, for the child tried to desperatelly grab something while her tears would rain and her wings flutter.

-"NO! DON'T GO! I'M SO CLOSE!! SO CLOSE!!! I'M ALMOST THERE!!! WAIT!!!"

Apparently fully recovered, the child would endlessly retell stories of her visions during her trance for days. Visions of an endless voyd of stars of all the colors in the rainbow and colors unknown to the words of mortals. Visions of distant worlds in the likeness of TayBalê, yet different in the most unthinkable manners, as dancing spheres in a sea of clouds of light, like spiral seas of blazing sands. Visions trapped on a door of stone guarded by archon and devil alike, hidden in the thin line at the horizon that separates the living and the dead, the dying and the unborn. Visions of a land behind the door, a province of symetrical beauty alight with  thunders of many colors, bent into straight lines framing object and dweller alike. Visions of a gentle hand and a sweet smile awaiting at the other side. Kalith would speak about these visions endlessly for a long time with a vivid fervour only matched by the sudden and newfound outbursts of arkane power that hinted at the awakening sourcerous nature of the girl. It was little after that the simpler days would go away.

It was on Kalith's 45th year of life that a young and handsome hume would come to the island of the gria, seeking to deepen his understanding of the might in the storms and lightning, and it was here that problems came, as while both Kalith and Wuhmmer took a liking for the young hume researcher, the gap in between the ages of the half-celestial and the gria became painfully evident. At first, getting to know about Kalith's incident with the thunderstorm, the young hume researcher, known by everybody simply as Bright, befriended the gria lass and the latter would agree to become Bright's test subject, as the hume claimed to be developing a way to channel the might of the arcane through means of craft and technology. One of those first experiments yielded an unexpected result that would mark Kalith for the rest of her life, as what was supposed to be a simple "siphoning device" for the arkane power of Kalith would grant her one of her most coveted dreams. In the very instant she allowed her nascent arkane power to pour on the device, the gria would be thrown into the sky with such an strenght that her frame would leave an small trail of white behind. Appealing to her instincts, her wings straigtened as incipient rudders and, before she knew it, it came to be: she was in the sky, amid the clouds, feeling the breeze of the wind like never before. She was flying. Finally, after a rather ungracefull landing on the water, Kalith would not cease to laugh in joy for about an hour and, in the next days, she and Bright would refine the model further and further, the hume completely sure that his invention would change the world, and the gria more and more infatuated of the hume who had granted her the power she desired with such a passion. However, as years passed, and Bright matured, the age distance in between hume and gria grew further and further, until one day, the hume would announce his official engagement with Wuhmmer who, by that time, had the looks of a fair maiden on her 17s, while Kalith, having already 51 years, seemed little less than a lass on her 13s. Heartbroken, and uncapable of facing any of the duo, the lass asked her parents for their blessing, as she resolved to seek solace in the skies that were now open before her.

For the next 5 years, Kalith wandered the world perfecting both her growing powers as much her airborne skills, meeting all sorts of people on her way, and learning a good deal in the topics of tactic and strategy. After all, she had spent all her early youth as a brash lass who would kick first and ask later, and such, according to her, had costed her a potential lover and almost her life, thought she didn't regreted the latter. With enough experience under her belt, Kalith migrated finally to the Keep-City of Ashturias with the idea of becomming a Judge Of Wings, a rare rank among the militar hierarchy of the hume, bestowed only on those capable of flight at the service of the empire, and so spent the next 3 years at the war academy until she was called to war in 1010AEF, far before her tutoring time was over. Those who flew mounted on chocobos alongside Kalith do remember well: she soared in wings of glory as a valkyrie of legend, fearless and gracefull, diving straight into the heart of the enemy ships, braving waves of deadly darts and blazing cannon fire alike with the grace of a dancing faery, yet unleashing the might of thunder upon the enemy as a goddess of ancient ages. Amid the destruction delivered by her hand, she still admits to this day that, never after, she felt so alive, for she felt, perhaps better than ever, the inner dragon of her heart unbound. That day, as she stood upon the smoldering remains of one of the many felled airships of Dunkell Erchffinder defeated army on the sunset, she knew this was her path towards that heaven of light behind the secret door of her visions. She would prove herself worthy in the eyes of Bahamut himself.

During The Years Of Unrest, having reached finally real maturity one year after the war, Kalith served unfailingly the Ashturian Army in the efforts of reconstruction and hunting down of lingering evils after the defeat of Dunkell Erchffinder. Nevertheless, the chaotic and personal way to fullfill her orders gained the gria a grudge with her superiors, who began to fear that, in absense of war, the dragonspawn could turn from ally to threat herself. As such, even when many of her surviving comrades always backed and supported her as the heroine of war she was, Kalith renounced to the Ashturian Army as the title of Judge Of Wings was denied to her upon the grounds that her ability to zealously uphold the law, as a judge is expected to do, was seriously questioned in 1018AEF. At such time, after claiming her war bonus fee and, in a last act of symbolic defiance, Kalith renounced to her earned citizenship and signed herself as a clanless game hunter, possibly the most succesfull case of such a solo career in the recorded history of Ashturias.

Well respected among most game hunters, and friend of many who "agree to disagree" with the actual "way of the world", Kalith prepares herself for an upcomming demonstration and contest of the Aerial Cavalry where she plans to demonstrate, once again and before the eyes of everybody, that "The Blue Dragon", as her comrades would call her, and none other, is the rightfull owner to the title of Judge Of Wings.

-"So be it! Take back your rights and titles, your loves and flatter, your praises and worship: I have no use for them. The world that awaits for me in the horizon is far grander than your petty kingdom and anything your feeble mind can muster, for I am Kepesk-Larinngir and the sky is my realm!"
Kalith, The Dragon.