#perscitia

Perscitia: the absolute genius in introducing tactics, and then going into politics for betterment of all dragons. (Off screen: poor girl abandoned early on by a sorry excuse of a captain.)

Dulcia: Temeraire’s wing mate in the formation. Small, cute, got manic trying to save her captain Chenery from a dragon so big she was only the size of his head.

Minnow: feral, clever, never been harnessed never gonna be harnessed. Creates her own messenger/delivery business. Landed on Temeraire in front of Laurence bc she was curious what made him special. Also questions the Aerial Corps practices and Wellington.

Elsie: Hollin’s dragon after what happened to poor Levitas (f— Rankin). She’s so sweet. She’d love to show you her pretty dinner plate.

Gherni: feral. Fighter but small enough so gets sent first to interact with soldiers. Also Ferris’s fam thought she was his when she popped by his family home. Apparently quite cute looking for a dragon ( in the dark—- then Temeraire lands and scares the humans who don’t get the scale of heavyweights)

Wringe: feral. Best fighter and bigger than the piratical Arkady, leader of the ferals (and he adores her for it!).

Kiyo: she’ll get you drunk and make you recite poetry. And water your fields to create extra harvest in the season.

Shen Shi: Chinese dragon, leader of the supply lines

Yu Li: Jade Dragon, super fast courier who spied on French to give movements to Laurence. Got so tired, he invited her into the manor full of military officials. They made a terrible suggestion. She couldn’t understand the language but was ready to back Laurence up when he was mad.

Molic: another leader of ferals, she’ll slyly (or blatantly) get extra food on behalf of her group. Connected Temeraire to Bistorta, as well as dozens of Lithuanian and Prussian ferals to join in war efforts.

Bistorta: key to finding missing egg. Got her reward. Lol was seen later wearing some of it.

Temeraire you are such a snob, she came up with all those mathematical equations on her own and you had to be taught them, how's that for her not being a great genius. So what if someone else "invented" them first- she had no way of knowing that.

It has been slow, dear Anon - Temeraire grows frustrated daily with the House of Lords and their, in his words, “useless dithering over old superstitions.” He has run into particular difficulties around allowing dragons into cities; their infrastructure was not designed with dragons in mind, but now that dragons are to be treated as workers, they must have access to such centers of commerce. Even though the Government is not entirely opposed to allowing dragons to have non-military occupations, they draw a hard line at allowing them into major human settlements. Some have even gone so far to claim it would “destroy all sense of civilization.”

(Temeraire has requested that I add that whenever he brings up Peking, or even the modifications made to Paris, those same people quickly become rather uncomfortable.)

Outdated notions notwithstanding, overhauling every shop, town hall, and road in London would be an expensive feat; even members of the House who are nominally not opposed to advances in dragon rights grow skittish when that particular price tag is brought up. Perscitia is insistent that such modifications would increase the city’s revenue in the long run, on account of the labor dragons provide and the quantities of food they would spend their wages on. However, such calculations are dependent on the idea that commerce will remain steady throughout the renovations and the arrival of dragons. Temeraire is confident that it will, at least in time; and after seeing China’s prosperity, I can hardly disagree, even if I am less sanguine about the average man’s capacity to become accustomed overnight to house-sized creatures walking about the streets.

It will be a long and arduous road to the future Temeraire so dearly wishes for; let it never be said that progress is easily won. Every inch we have gained is hard fought, but there is no fight more worth the undertaking than this one.

Yr. Obdt. Servant,

Perscitia: ...

There was nothing wrong with her.

That was the most important thing to remember — there was nothing wrong with her. There was nothing wrong with being cleverer than strong, nothing wrong with liking mathematics more than battle. It was the sensible way to be, and Perscitia prided herself on being sensible.

…but her old captain never even visited, once she had been sent to the breeding grounds and he had been reassigned.

She wasn’t defective. She was brilliant. She was a perfectly good dragon exactly the way she was.