...you're beautiful. Is what I'd like to be able to tell this particular one of my characters if given the opportunity.

Navartu Ryganala makes her first appearance as a character as the 7th of quite a long list of lady dragon busts I'll be adding a little at a time as I'm able to have them made.

Navartu's story is not a pretty one and she once looked much different from the way she does today. Navartu is the product of a magically forced blend of two species from the same world that Ixaria come from. Originally she was a Fahronii not unlike Nillina in the Emerald Allure piece that came a few pics before this one. In those days she lived as the grand priestess of her people, a shining light of hope and faith to each and every one of her kind during a time when the two deities that created the Sertillian and Fahronii people worked hand in hand as lovers. Blends between the species were commonplace in those days with Sertillian and Fahronii being easily capable of producing an offspring formed from two halves of a different whole; a testament to the love shared by their creators. They were given the name Fahronillian and were considered blessed by each race's respective god or goddess and they were all uniquely beautiful in their own way with no two of them looking exactly the same.

The time when Sertillian and Fahronii worked together as one people was considered a golden age to those who still remember the truth of the past though their numbers are so few that the true history of the two races is at risk of being lost forever beneath the ever falling sands of time. Ssethis, the creator god of the Sertillian people loved the Fahronii goddess Ahleena with all his heart until the day a bitter quarrel brought about by their conflicting natures forced them apart. Ssethis was a god of conflict, a being who's core nature was one of strength and control gained by any means necessary and Ahleena was a goddess who's core was built around peace, compassion, and harmony. Their brief love during the early years of the planarverse was sweet but their beliefs were so strongly opposed that even love could not keep them together forever and thus a rift was formed between god and goddess that was passed on to their creations as well.

The gods themselves could no more harm each other than they could themselves. They were the living breathing definition of eternal, they did not age, they did not injure, and they did not die, they simply "were" and nothing any of them did could ever change that. Ahleena knew conflict between them would prove pointless so in answer to their quarrel she removed herself from Ssethis' company leaving him to sit and seeth alone at having been denied even the chance to prove himself right and settle their argument forever. As a result the Sertillian god grew even colder and more violent than even his core nature had made him to be and in time, the knowledge that he could do no physical harm to the one who had wronged him gave birth to a cruelty unlike anything the other gods had ever faced.

If Ssethis could not harm Ahleena by war, the only thing he knew as well as he knew himself, then he would have his vengeance by bringing war to the only thing she loved more than himself, her creations, the Fahronii. Ssethis left his throne in the ether realms beyond the planes and took possession of the one Fahronii that brought the most joy to Ahleena's children as a whole, her grand priestess, Navartu. Under Ssethis' influence Navartu became his living weapon against all Fahronii, a harbinger of death and destruction that could only watch from behind her own eyes as the high god that controlled her slaughtered an entire temple full of faithful Fahronii who had came to commune with their goddess by way of her chosen priestess. She could do nothing but scream in silent protest of the atrocities Ssethis committed through her, stating that the slaughter was their goddess' will, cutting them down with divine rage while many even offered themselves willingly to their assumed creator's sacrifice.

A thousand innocents died on the first day Ssethis came to Navartu's world and during her reign, three hundred thousand more would either be put to death or enslaved by the Sertillians under the control of Ssethis. He took away everything the Sertillian race once knew about their long time friends and allies the Fahronii and replaced it with the same burning hatred for their goddess as he himself possessed. Fahronillians were marked as unnatural abominations and hunted to extinction, often by their own parents and at the head of it all, Navartu stood and watched, ordering the Sertillians onward and personally overseeing the execution of her own people for millennia unable to do a thing to stop the terrible acts she saw committed by her hands yet always aware of her actions, a prisoner in her own body.

Through the ages the once prosperous and proud Fahronii were reduced to little more than scattered pockets of resistance hidden away in the far reaches of the world's untamed forests and canyons while the less fortunate became mere playthings for their Sertillian masters. They were worth less than dirt to the Sertillians and were treated as such, used until they could no longer function only to be cast aside like an unwanted toy or put down when they could no longer be of service to their masters. The golden age of the Fahronillian was no more and barely a shred of its memory remained even among the Fahronii who continued to pass down tales of better times to their young. A council was formed to oversee Sertillian progress, headed by Ssethis in the guise of Navartu and a dark and painful peace settled across the land once the final battles had all been fought. The Fahronii were slaves and what few of them had escaped shackled or attrition were deemed no longer worth pursuing.

Aleena's grief at the acts committed against her beloved creations left her crippled against Ssethis and her nature didn't allow her the will or the strength to fight back and so she removed herself from their world entirely and the temples dedicated to her name fell silent for centuries. She left only a single prophecy behind in her wake that would offer hope to the Fahronii in their darkest hour, that a child of two bloods would once again be born between Sertillian and Fahronii at the first sign of lapse in Ssethis' hatred and that the child born unto the first couple to set aside their god granted loathing for each other would one day rise up against their masters and see both Sertillian and Fahronii alike broken free from the chains that bound them to their unnatural fates.

The rest of the tale ties in with Ixaria's husband who died attempting to go against the ruling Sertillian council and at its head Navartu and Ssethis. His sacrifice set into motion a chain of events that eventually saw Ssethis stripped from Navartu's body by force and consumed by the void of all creation, returning the vengeful god back to the infinite cycle of creation and destruction that had spawned him at the dawn of time. Navartu was freed from the high god's control but not of the memories of all she'd done against her will to her people and Ssethis' possession had left her body twisted into something neither Fahronii nor Sertillian after his many failed attempts to alter her form into one of his own creations and forever rob her of what she once was. Her heritage was the only thing Ssethis wasn't able to take from her in the end and try as he might she refused to be fully changed from what she once was into what he wanted her to be.

Free from Ssethis or not, the damage to Navartu was already done. Ssethis had broken her will and her spirit, robbed her of her people, her body, and even her mind and once banished to the void Navartu had nothing to return to. Her people were terrified of her, those that knew why she'd done the things she did loathed her for being weak enough to allow Ssethis to take control of her in the first place, and not even the fact that she'd held onto at least some of her Fahronii likeness brought her comfort because every time she looked in the mirror and saw what she'd become while under his control it made her hate herself even more. All that saved her from execution at the hands of her own kind was the intervention of the being that had finally laid Ssethis' evil to rest in the void. As a result of her past Navartu carries herself with a tremendous amount of shame regarding her appearance, she wears her skin like a scar that covers her entire body and doesn't even want anyone to look at her and see what Ssethis' control left upon its surface.

Hence the reason she hesitates to wear something like a bathing suit. To her bearing her skin is no different than bearing the full shame of her crimes against her people so it takes a lot of coaxing to get her to set aside her past long enough to try to have fun with the rest of her family on a beach. She lives now with someone who loves her deeply and has helped her see the beauty in what she's become both inside and out but there's still a strong reluctance for her not to be at least a little ashamed to show the strong Sertillian influence present on her entire body because all the love in the world can't take away the memory of her traumatic and bloody past, it can only ease its burden.

But, depressing backstory behind the character aside, Navartu is a truly lovely character and one I'm very happy to be able to post with the help of the wonderful artist that made such a perfect image of her possible for me. Thanks for this image like, like many of the others, goes to  Jocarra who helped bring her to life through her art. Enjoy!

Artwork © Jocarra
Navartu © Vangarthia