//jazz hands
i'm pretty much starting over with this guy
if you've met him ICly in the past, disregard it pls
no need to match muse!! this is mostly just introduction
tl;dr - just read the last 5 paragraphs


Nobody knew where he came from.

One day there was silence. The next day, there was still silence, but... the being that came with it was purple. Bright - ridiculously bright - purple. Feet plodded through the undergrowth, leaving faint imprints in the damp earth below. Empty, bright cyan eyes stared straight ahead, carefully trained on their peripherals to spot any predators that may be lurking. Insects buzzed loudly all around, their unique sounds and song reverberating through the tall jungle canopies overhead. Birds that chimed in only added to the symphony of sound.

His surroundings were wildly unfamiliar. Although his head was high and his expression was blank, his knees were weak and his hands shook when he lifted them. Any living creature he heard could be feet or miles away, but they all sounded the same. They screeched in a threatening tone, as if warning him to leave their lands. However, that was preposterous. Sentient animals would not make the sounds these feral creatures did. They had no conscience. No emotions. They only felt aggression and fear.

Where he yielded from was far, far from this place. All the way out in the mountain ranges, near a small and familiar forest. From a shallow cave wedged into a stone wall on a rocky outcrop, overlooking a lush valley. Not from here, in the shady, humid, and damp jungle, where he had little luck finding food he knew to be safe to eat. A parched throat quivered with a reflexive swallow.

He was purple. Bright purple, as previously mentioned - and covered in scales. He was a dragon. Not a large, fearsome predator spoken of in myths and legend, with the power to breathe fire and the hobby of burning down villages and hoarding treasure. No, he couldn't breathe fire. On top of that, he was small, almost runty in size. Up to his shoulder, he stood only a little taller than three feet; four feet max, if his head was included. His wings had deep purple swirls on them, and his belly was of similar color. Upon his back he carried a lumpy canvas bag tied shut with rope. The only belongings he had brought with him. He was strong, but his body was exhausted. There was little time left.

Scratches and scrapes littered his body, but there were a few notable injuries that seemed to have come from a fight, namely a bite mark in his shoulder, and a long scratch mark down his back, hidden by the bag. Medical knowledge was not among his array of intellect, and it was obvious in the way the wounds were beginning to fester. The pain that itched and burned through the older wounds was persistent, but it seemed to not bother him at all as he continued on his self-induced journey.

All at once, sunlight began to shine through the trees as they thinned out, and he found himself on the shore. The broken tracks he had been following dipped down into the water, stretching on for as far as he could see, ending at the small green line on the horizon. Approaching the water, sand caked his muddy feet.

A moment of debate brought him to sit down, sliding the bag off his back to rest. Very little thought was put behind his long trek to this place. Something had told him he couldn't stay at his old home anymore. He briefly thought of the two corpses that lay on the cliffside where he once resided, and contemplated whether scavengers would have picked the bones clean by now. Yes, likely so. A twinge spiked through the now-exposed wound on his back, which had begun to ooze blood again after the rough bag slid off.

Walking down to the water's edge, he took a moment to wash the mud and sand off, then sat back so they could dry. Tainting the bag with filth wasn't preferable.

After about an hour had passed, the dragon finally pushed himself to his feet again, working the bag onto his back with help from his wings, and began to wade into the water that covered the railroad tracks. At its deepest, he found the rippling water brushing his belly.

The three-mile travel was laborious, the strength of his body already expended from the week long journey it took to arrive here. The further out to sea he was, the stronger the waves that buffeted and tugged at him. He once nearly fell over into the water, and he raised his wings to stabilize and protect his belongings.

By the time he arrived on the other shore, the sun was deepening to a red haze and grabbing at the horizon. He clambered up the gentle slope, away from the water. Against his will, his knees buckled, the bag falling off. Rather than trying to stand up (he couldn't seem to succeed at the task), he laid quietly in the sand to collect his bearings and calm his swaying vision.

//OOC

He laid in the sand for quite a while, which was admittedly unusual for the reptile. He found himself lost in his mind while he waited for his body to resume normal function. When the scent of blood and a stranger began to attract attention, the dragon seemed to blatantly ignore the tiny cat that approached - or, rather, perhaps didn’t notice. His eyes were open, but they stared ahead, glazed over from the contents in his head that he currently dwelled on.

It was only when the second feline approached, this one much bigger, that he responded. ”Yes,” he said curtly, voice devoid of anything that might suggest suffering or feeling. He offered no indication as to who he was responding to. Abruptly, he pushed himself upright, staring into the abnormal tiger’s bicolored eyes, summing up whether or not she posed a threat to him. No, she only seemed opting to assist him. Much appreciated," he continued in his monotone voice. His expression did not show any appreciation. "I do not have any medical knowledge." Turning his head away from her, he peered out over the crystalline blue sea, tracking the rails all the way to the faint mainland on the horizon. He laid back on his side again.

He had never been injured much when he was younger. His mother had given them a few pointers on how to hunt, but when she was present, there was never any real danger. After she left them, any injuries he obtained were mild, and were treated by Jiqari, one of his two sisters. Quietly in his mind, he replayed a gruesome scene, thinking again about how they had responded in the moment. Amazing. The bite mark in his shoulder twinged again.

Another tiny cat approached him. This one also had wings, like the tiger. They were green. He watched the child in his temptations, who stopped himself short. You're like me. Hardly, he thought. Nobody in his family was green. Or a cat. Goldie and Keona. Cyan eyes flickered over to the tiger and other tiny cat. He focused on the one that had approached first. Her eyes were clouded, and she had asked a blatantly obvious question. Blind? The tiger had asked if she knew what berries smelled like, rather than looked like. He concluded that she was blind.

Another cat approached. This one also had wings. Three out of the four cats here had wings. Was this a common part of this island's population? Was the blind one just an oddity? Eyes scanned over the newcomer. Something about her was off. She was clearly sentient, but he couldn't quite figure it out. Regardless, he said nothing as she offered her services as well.

//oh!! he's not actually huge! he's roughly the size of a tiger, like goldie (willing to bet goldie is bigger than him tho)
specifically he's 3'3" (about 1 meter) tall

His theory that this island was inhabited by nothing but cats with peculiar traits was almost confirmed by now. A new one had joined the fray. Rather than wings, this one had four eyes. And a split tail. For a moment - a little longer than a moment - he stared at her, while she stared at him. This seemed to be the one with the most medical knowledge. Enthusiast? No, that didn't seem to be the case.

Was he an enthusiast? Not for medical knowledge, no. Would any knowledge seeker be considered an 'enthusiast'? What drew the line between the distinctions?

He let his thoughts fade into the back of his mind, to be resurfaced at a later date. Listening quietly to the ocelot's words as she sat beside him, he said nothing. Her words were blunt, almost empty. Like him? No, not quite. She still had something he didn't. What? What was it? He still couldn't figure out what it was he lacked, what would finally allow him to fully understand the feelings of those that lived around him. Or, perhaps, to feel those emotions himself. That was what unsettled anyone who spoke to him - he had no emotions. He had nothing to relate to others.

The dragon stared intensely at the healer cat. Perhaps he would inquire later. She was the closest case to his own that he had met in his whole life. Had she been born like him? Had she found the answer that he could not?

"Yes," he answered to her instructions. The reptile laid still while she worked on the bite on his shoulder, and memories flashed back to the set of jaws that had inflicted it. He could still feel the snap of a neck in his grip, the collapse of the body on the stone.

Twisting his head around to get a better look at her, he said, "I am unfamiliar with the wildlife in this location. As such, I have not been able to hunt in a sustaining manner, and water has been a rare commodity." His voice had a light rasp. "I do need both." For another minute he was quiet, feeling the sting and burn of his cuts and scrapes as they were treated with the liquid called moonshine. "My name is Ska'arq," he added.