Phyria

WIP from the Annelids of the Stews

A Queen with no kingdom still sees reason for her crown.

Phyria was to be a Queen. By birthright, her egg was to hatch at the heart of her infant colony, she was the Princess born of the Hive-Queens of Norn. But she woke not to glittering spires or loving servants, she hatched not in lavish luxury with workers ready to teach her the art of rulership.

She hatched to ash and bitter smoke, to ruins and hollow shells littering the streets. Her birthright taken from her, her future gone. She was the Queen of Dust, The Mother of Could-Have-Beens. She took to her new task well. Genetic memory gave her what she needed to know to survive, and what she needed to know to be hurt. She knew with every fiber of her being the loss that happened here, in her burnt kingdom.

She scavenged her own cities to survive, searching for what could have done this to her glittering people. What could have choked a green world to grey ash.

She has grown in the ruins,in the wreckage,in the dust and soot. And as her people do, she has adapted to her environs. The iridescent child that would have been a fine, gentle Queen was devoured and replaced by an ashen moth, a predator, a survivor. She will find what burned her kingdom, and she will lay her eggs in its heart, singing to her children as they sup on the destroyer of her could have been world.

Physical Description: Phyria is six and a half feet tall, and her dusty moth wings extend to her ankles when folded down. Her body is gray, flecked with white, and clothed in powdery down. Her white hair covers her human-like face, cascading down her back and long enough to cover her chest. Her tongue is a long, flexible proboscis studded with wicked spines, and her eyes are an angry orange. Her teeth are sharp, her body is sleek and deceptively powerful. Her feet are two-clawed insectile things, her fingers ending in wicked talons. But even for all her monstrous features, the basic template is human, and she often wears a long shawl to cover her body and keep her warm.