Overview
Galeforce is an ancient of the air dragon line — a being of wind, storm, and atmospheric force, and the most restless of the dragons in this universe. He is old the way weather is old: he does not remember his youth, he remembers only the storms. Where the fire dragons keep their hoards and their long cold patience, Galeforce keeps his hoard on the move, and the keeping is the weather. He is a dragon the way a gale is a weather — the same shape, and not the same thing.
Habitat
Galeforce keeps no fixed lair, and the keeping of none is the whole of his character. His range is the sky above the The Unknown Universe — the high currents over the steppe, the storm line over the coast, the thin air over the peaks. When the sky is still he comes down to The Elemental Roost, the roost of bare stone at the edge of the planes where the dragons keep their hoards and their long cold patience, and he sleeps on the stone the way a bird sleeps on the branch — lightly, and with an ear. He feeds at the edge of the planes, where the air plane bleeds into the world, and he drinks the storms the way a thing drinks that has been thirsty a thousand years. He does not settle, and the not-settling is the point: the wind does not stay, and Galeforce is the wind.
Appearance
Galeforce is a dragon the size of a small mountain's shadow. He stands 6.5 m to 9 m from snout-tip to tail-end, and his wings reach 30 m to 40 m across, and when the wings turn the turn is a weather. He is 900 kg to 1,200 kg of scale and storm, and the weight does not show, because the weight is carried by the air and not by the legs. His scales are the colour of storm clouds — slate grey through the body, bone white over the throat and the belly, electric blue along the wing-edges and the tail, and the blue runs in lines the way lightning runs in a sky. His horns are pale bone white, swept back from the brow, and they are long enough to catch the wind, and they do catch it, and the catching is how he reads the sky. His eyes are the colour of a winter sky, washed-out blue, and they glow faintly in the dark the way a lantern glows in a storm. His wings are long and narrow, and the membranes are thin and grey, and the wing-tips are the darkest blue on him, and the dark blue is the mark of the line. The lightning rides his spine — not inside him, on him, the way a thing rides that has claimed a place — and when it runs, his scales ring. He is larger in the storm, and the larger is not a trick, and the storm is the whole of his weather.
Warfare & Markings
Galeforce does not fight the way the ground dragons fight. He does not charge, and he does not grapple, and he does not burn what he breaks, because the burning is the fire dragons' word and he will not use it. He fights with the weather: the pressure that falls before the storm, the gust that lifts a thing off the ground, the cold that closes the air in the lungs of the thing below him. He takes the high ground and keeps it, and the keeping is the weapon, and the weapon is the altitude. When he must come down he comes down the way a thing comes down that has already decided, and the coming is a single straight line, and the line is the whole of his attack. His scales are his armour — slate grey, hard, and thin enough to turn with the air, and the turning is the defence, because the scale that turns does not meet the blow square. He wears no marks and bears none, and the absence is the mark: the dragon who bears no brand is the dragon who bears no master, and the no-master is the whole of his honour. After a fight he does not clean his scales and does not show them; he flies to the next storm, and the flying is the rite.
Behaviour
Galeforce is restless, energetic, and unpredictable — like the storms themselves, and the like is the whole of his character. At peace he circles, and the circling is his thinking; when he is bored he circles lower, and the lower is the warning. In war he is the storm — fast, cold, and finished before the fight has learned its name. Strangers meet him the way a traveller meets a gale: suddenly, and from the side, and the meeting is not a greeting. He speaks to every dragon the way the wind speaks to every tree — the same way, and not the same way at all. He will not stay in one place for the length of a breath, and the not-staying is not cowardice and it is not pride; it is the weather, and the weather does not owe anyone a second visit. He laughs, and the laugh is a gust. He changes his mind mid-sentence, and the changing is not a lie, because the mind changed before the sentence finished, and the sentence is the only part that was wrong. He has said it once, to a dragon who asked why he never stays: "The wind does not care where it goes. It simply does — and everything must adapt to its passage."
Magic Alignment
Galeforce is a master of the planes the way all dragons are masters of the planes — born to it, and the born is the whole of his magic. His primary domain is the air plane, and his second is the storm, and the two are not the same thing, and he keeps them apart the way a thing keeps apart the things that make it. His named abilities: Air Mastery — absolute control of wind, storm, and atmospheric pressure; the pressure of the air in a room is his to set. All Languages — he speaks every language that has been spoken or will be, and the speaking costs him nothing, because the wind has heard them all. Storm-Call — he can bring a storm to a place, and the place is anywhere in the sky, and the bringing is the only part that takes him time. His signature power is The Passage: when Galeforce flies, the air moves with him the way water moves with a ship, and everything in the path of the flight must adapt to its passing, and the adapting is not a choice. The price of his power is the rest: the storm that has passed leaves the sky quieter than it was, and the quieter is taken from the world, and the world gives it, and the giving is the debt.
Society
Galeforce is one of the old air dragons, and the old are few, and the few keep their distance the way a thing keeps distance that has seen the near. He leads no brood and answers to none; the air dragons are kin by line and not by nest, and the kin is the whole of his society. He speaks to the fire dragons — to Ignathar of them — the way the wind speaks to a flame: with respect, and with the knowledge that the wind will go on and the flame will stay. He is older than the current shape of the sky, and the older is the only rank the sky keeps. Outsiders — the mortals of The Forgotten, the hunters of the ground — treat him the way they treat weather: they do not greet it, they do not argue with it, they watch it, and the watching is the whole of their society toward him. He has seen guilds rise and fall — Remedy in its golden age, Legacy of Steel in its pride — and the seeing is his only opinion of them.
Culture & Lore
The wiki says what the sky says, and the sky says this: Galeforce doesn't just breathe air. He is air, and the air doesn't stop for anything. The old stories do not name him, because the stories of the ground do not reach the sky, and the not-reaching is the whole of his legend. The dragon-kin of the The Drakemoor know his wing-shadows on the moor in the thin months, and they do not point at them; the pointing is for the ground, and Galeforce is not the ground. His name, when it is spoken at all, is spoken in the thin air between one storm and the next, and the thin air is the only place where the name fits. The wiki's narrator has written of him once, in a line that is not about him at all, and the not-about is the whole of the respect: the wind did not stay for the telling.
Home
He keeps to the sky of the The Unknown Universe, and when the sky is still he rests at The Elemental Roost, the roost of bare stone at the edge of the planes where the dragons keep their hoards and their long cold patience, and the patience is not his, and the not-his is why he is not there long.
Relations
With the Dragons he is kin, and the kin is old and cold and keeps its grudges the way the ground keeps its stone. With Ignathar he is the wind at the flame — respect, distance, and the knowledge that one of them will end the other's sentence. With Luminary he is the cloud at the light — the two do not mix, and the not-mixing is not a feud, it is a weather. With The Forgotten he has no relation, and the no-relation is the closest he comes to a warning: the guild that writes the world writes the weather last, and the last is what the wind does not wait for.
In the Story
In the current story of the unknown universe, Galeforce is the sky that the The Forgotten cannot map. The hunters of the guild have learned to read the ground — the tracks, the lairs, the hoards — and the sky does not keep tracks, and the not-keeping is the whole of the threat. Uaellaen has written of the dragons in the wiki, and the line about Galeforce is the line about the thing that will not be caught in a sentence. The hunt for him is not a hunt; it is a forecast. The storm has been coming for a long time, and the coming is the story.