Coastal dragons
(Verusdraco sapiens litoribus)
Origins
Coastal dragons are considered to be one of the last "classical" subspecies to have evolved, in terms of time, making them semi-modern dragons. Their body color, one of the most showy and harmonious among all dragons, has specifically evolved to blend in with the color of sea and foam, and is unique in the Verusdraco panorama, shared, interestingly enough, only with some species of sea dragons (who have no relation to real dragons). According to some researchers, the costal dragons are descended from a very ancient population of gray dragons, that still had an antlered head at the time, which settled near the Diomede Islands, in the middle of the Bering Strait; this is mere speculation, but it is still possible that gray dragons and coastal dragons are related to each other.
Appearance
Coastal dragons are small, colored in various shades of blue with a mottling of a myriad of white streaks, and, sometimes, an iridescence around the base of neck and tail. The horns, that elongate behind the head following the line of the forehead, are white, smooth, in number variable from two to six, most commonly four. They might have a sharp, little horn growing at the end of the nose bridge, but in females is often nothing more than a white or peach colored plaque.
Their back is surmounted by a single row of showy keratin horns, proportionally bigger than those that adorn other Verusdraco, flat instead of having a round section, and often irregular in shape, with a "broken" look.
Coastal dragons' skin, if deprived of scales, is dark purple or black in color. A peculiarity of their scales is that they're of dermal origin and ossified, more akin to fish scales than those of reptiles; the edge of their scales is round, and it's possible to observe the growth of the lamellar bone which traces concentric circles (similar to the growth rings in trees) from which one can deduce the individual's age.
The eyes, big and usually described as having a gritty expression, with dark eyelid edges, and can present different iris colors: yellow, light blue, aqua green, green, white or red; curiously enough, the red color is the most common.
These dragons are light in weight, agile, with slender paws and tapered heads.
The maximum height ever recorded by a coastal dragon was of two meters and seventy-seven centimeters (a little over nine feet), with a wingspan of ten meters and fourty-two centimeters (thirty-four feet).
Their tail is slim, especially long, and lacking fat accumulations, with the ending section thinning out and always terminating in a long keratin tip, extremely resistant ad used as a weapon or as a "spear" when they wish to fish from the shore.
Their fingers have massive claws and are webbed, to improve their movements in water.
Their fire is yellow-tinted, also due to the sodium chloride accumulations that can often be found at the corners of their mouths and on the tip of their tongues.
Behavior
Coastal dragons have a strong racial identity, so much so that it's difficult to see them "mixed" with other dragons, although they share beaches and cliffs with wyverns, Maregens, and demidragons. Their isolation is partially due to a language peculiarity: they speak a Draconic dialect, the Minidraconic (Pilisodor do Draco), characterized by deep and rough sounds and very similar to the ancient Grey Draconic, with very long sentences, articulated, and frequent low roars called “rumbles”, overall incomprehensible to humans and not particularly appreciated by dragons which consider themselves to be more “noble”.
Coastal dragons have no real deities, but a sort of cult of the sea is strictly interwoven with thier culture, and it's not rare to hear sentences (admitting you're able to understand Minidraconic) such as "Thank the Sea!" or "May the Sea protect you!". They write the word “sea” (“Maurrrrooourr” in Minidraconic) always with the initial letter capitalized.
Coastal dragons have, moreover, a fiery, sanguine temperament, and aren't inclined at all to keep secrets or join in intrigues of court; they do not elect leaders, and love to play in the sky and underwater thanks to the big, agile wings that make them unchallenged in the air and also work as excellent fins.
Contrary to most of the other greater dragons, which actively look for a human to bond with, coastal dragons wait for the humans to find them; they don't send their youngs to train in schools that put them in contact with children, but they rather prefer interacting with local communities. The 65% of coastal dragons never bond with a human.
Should a dragon bond with a human being, it's the human that will join the pack and not the dragon that will leave it, even if it may happen that dragon and dragoneer go together on long quests before returning to the pack, which, however, welcomes them back with no problems.
Birth and growth
Coastal dragon hatchlings are born, like most dragons, from eggs that need to be incubated for a variable period of time. Their eggs are relatively fragile if compared to those of other dragons, with a shell that might take on several colors, from light to midnight blue, mottled with rosy veins, and might be preserved quiescent even for hundreds of years.
At the moment of birth, a baby coastal dragon already has the definitive number of horns an adult has and functional wings; it weighs between 200 and 800 grams. The size of the egg and baby depend on the mother's age and size. Females lay from two to six eggs at a time, and they have fertile cycles every seven-ten years.
The baby isn't removed from the group, like it often happens with many dragons that live in the hinterland, but it grows inside the pack, and gets educated in the art of fishing by the entire community. Very often the little dragons don't even know who their real parents are: growing in little mixed groups that everyone takes care of, it's difficult to remember from which nest they come from, and the parents themselves, over time, become unable to tell their babies apart from the others.
Coastal dragons grow slowly, and they obtain the full maturity and ability to reproduce when reaching the forty-fifty years of age.
Due to the long period of time in which they're still fragile hatchlings, coastal dragons statistically have the higher percentage of child mortality among all dragons.
Social life and courtship
Coastal dragons are extremely social, and it's impossible to find one of them living isolated from the rest of the world, or not having a contact with their kin. They live in packs with complex interpersonal relationships, in which males and female benefit from similar rights and duties, despite females being bigger, taller, and stronger, as well as magically more gifted.
To seduce females, males show off their incredible flying prowess, "jousting" in the sky and dashing against each other to veer at the very last second; it might look like a dangerous game, but even the youngest suitors had at least forty years to train their flying skills, and accidents are incredibly rare. Crashing in flight against each other at that speed could kill a dragon on the spot, or at least badly maim them.
Females, more clumsy and generally more ferocious, don't joust in the sky, but remain spectators from the cliffs, from which they enjoy those beautiful stunts. They can choose from one to three males to mate with during the spring season. If a male is particuarly skilled and handsome, it might happen that he will be desired by many females, and in that case loud fights on the cliffs will break out, from which the victorious female will decide with whom the male will mate and how many times: she might, for example, concede a couple of matings to one of her friends, none to the others, and all those necessary to be fertilized to herself.
The winner of the brawl is the last female to be still standing on the cliff, while all the others have been thrown (or have fallen) in the water. The use of wings is banned from these fights, not only because it would much prolong them and risk making them more brutal (preventing the females from throwing the adversaries in the water, they would instead use teeth and claws to wound each other), but also because harming the opponents' wings, which are frail enough to break in a rough fight, would prevent them from fishing and feed, something that would be considered barbaric from any coastal dragon.
Habitat and diet
Coastal dragons mainly live on the sub-Antarctic archipelagos, other than on the coasts of Horn Blu Island, and bear the cold exceptionally well, but they never go as far in the true Antarctic zones, for which they feel a strong awe. Almost exclusively carnivores, they feed on petrels, penguins (especially king penguins and erect-crested penguins), cods, skuas, sharks, and seals, but they do not disdain beached cetacean's carcasses.
The hatchlings mainly feed on small fish and, contrary to the adults, they never hunt birds.
Famous coastal dragons
Skye
Trivia and facts
Almost the totality of human dragoneers that get bonded to coastal dragons are fishers.
Coastal dragons brag about being great experts of hydromancy, the art of predicting the future through water. If this is true or not, though, remains a debated issue.
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