Peril


 * "No one wants me. No one can even touch me. You saw that. I was born with too much fire. Usually, when dragons like me hatch, the SkyWings drop them off of the highest mountain peak."
 * —Peril to Clay, The Dragonet Prophecy

Peril is an adult female SkyWing and the main protagonist of Escaping Peril. She was hatched with a dangerous condition known as firescales, and served as Scarlet's champion in the SkyWing Arena until the events of The Dragonet Prophecy.

She currently attends Jade Mountain Academy as a member of the Jade Winglet.

Appearance Edit
Peril has unusually bright, shimmering, smoking, copper-colored, fiery metallic-orange scales that emit smoke and make her look like she is burning from the inside. She has a long tail and her glimmering copper wings have veins of gold running through them. She has eerie,flame-blue and obsidian black eyes, like someone had bundled up the sky and immersed it in fire until it burned from the inside and sharp white teeth.

Personality Edit
Peril is sarcastic, unapologetic, bold, and fierce, but relatively shy around new dragons, and has a personal affection for Clay. She is socially insecure and awkward due to her notorious reputation as Scarlet's Champion and a lack of proper socialization throughout most of her life. Due to this, she tends to emotionally close herself off for fear of how other dragons may treat her. She sometimes even regards herself as "Scarlet's notorious death monster".

She is not a cold-blooded killer, as she is thought of to be, but just a dragon who saw killing as her sole purpose. Scarlet convinced her that she could not do anything else and could never be normal. She is shown to be sympathetic and caring at times, showing that she is not the psychotic killer that she appears to be. During this period of time, Peril was rather possessive and clingy, even going as far as betraying the dragonets of destiny in exchange for being able to keep Clay with her.

Moonwatcher described Peril's mind as impossible to read. It is all fire like she is burning from the inside. Moonwatcher thinks that Peril is not a happy dragon, but she is unsure if she is evil.

Abilities Edit
Peril's talons and scales are so hot that they can burn through almost anything, including all forms of normal fire-resistant metal, such as the wires used to hold prisoners in Scarlet's arena. She can burn Clay, though it is extremely difficult and he heals quickly from it as he was hatched from a blood-red egg and has fire-resistant scales, though he isn't completely fireproof. This is confirmed in The Brightest Night when Peril was shown to be able to burn Clay as she had to stab her talons into his leg and through his fire-resistant scales to burn out the dragonbite viper's venom to save him.

Winter confirmed that IceWing frostbreath does not affect her. Peril said that it just made the area numb for a few minutes. Water also does not counteract Peril's scales, as when her tail slipped into a pool, she boiled the two fish swimming in it.

It is confirmed that Peril also has other average SkyWing abilities, such as exceptional flight skills and fire-breathing.

Clay Edit
Peril is in love with Clay. He was the only dragon Peril feels she can speak to, and she even goes so far as to bring him mud to heal his wounds and (a bit charred) food when he's Queen Scarlet's prisoner. Clay is the one of the only known dragons that can come in contact with Peril without becoming burned (the other being Darkstalker), because he was hatched from a blood-red egg, giving him fire-resistant scales. Peril quickly becomes defensive, and eventually, extremely possessive of Clay, going so far as to betray him, Tsunami, and Starflight to Queen Scarlet just for the sake of keeping him with her. Peril also later saves Clay from a dragonbite viper bite by burning the venom out of his leg, towards the end of The Brightest Night. The fact that he limped after this incident shows that he is not completely fireproof, he just heals faster. She also thinks of him as "my Clay" several times in Escaping Peril. Peril is infatuated with Clay, as she grew up with no friends except for Osprey, her tutor, and the cruel Queen Scarlet, who was full of trickery and lies.

So far, it would appear that Clay returns Peril's feelings because he is very affectionate towards her. He has so far demonstrated that he is a very honest dragon, and the feelings he has shown for Peril are most likely genuine. He also sees her other side - the conflicted, lonely dragon who just wants a family and friends. In Talons of Power, Qibli tells Peril that Clay likes her but doesn't quite know what to do about it yet. In Moon Rising, Darkstalker shows Moonwatcher a vision involving an orange-brown dragonet that "she had never seen before," along with adult versions of Clay and Starflight. This dragonet is very likely the offspring of Peril and Clay, as Peril has a very unique coppery-orange color due to her firescales. This dragonet has likely inherited Peril's copper-orange color mixed with Clay's mud-brown color.

Scarlet Edit
Growing up in the SkyWing palace, Peril saw Queen Scarlet as her mother; Scarlet made Peril the arena champion, cared for her, and gave the abandoned dragonet a place to live. Despite this, Scarlet lied and misled Peril, such as about the fact that she must eat black rocks to survive with Firescales and about her abandonment. It is seen in the prologue of Escaping Peril she was planning on using Peril for her twisted idea of entertainment, and in reality, had no feelings for her. When Peril finds out the truth about Kestrel being her mother, she feels betrayed by Queen Scarlet and turns against her.

However, in The Brightest Night, Peril frees Scarlet from Burn's tower - although somewhat unwillingly, which may be because Scarlet would invade her dreams to force her to. After Scarlet disappears, Peril also goes off to look for her, indicating that she still might care about the ex-queen to a degree of some sort.

In Escaping Peril, she is placed under an enchantment to be extremely loyal to her and to forget about her beloved Clay. Despite this, she overcomes it, showing loyalty to Ruby instead. She even launches herself at Scarlet, trying to kill the ex-queen, only stopping when Ruby tells her to.

Starflight Edit
Peril is unable to speak to Starflight in his cell because he was too frightened to say anything. Later, Starflight comes up with a plan involving Peril moving the black rocks to help them escape. Peril doesn't seem to mind the idea of being lectured by Starflight, unlike most other dragons. And in later books, she states that whenever she gets near the scrolls in the school library, he gets very jittery. In Escaping Peril, Starflight seems to dislike her and angers her when he says that she likes Clay.

Tsunami Edit
Tsunami refuses to speak to Peril while in her cell. The SeaWing doesn't trust her, mainly because of the SkyWing's relationship with Clay. She thinks Peril is a psychotic murderer and trusts her even less after she betrays them to Queen Scarlet. In Escaping Peril, Peril wonders how Clay would react if she burned Tsunami just a little bit if she convinced Clay not to be with her. When Clay suggested Peril could come along with the dragonets, Tsunami replied, "Over my charred, dead body." However, she was grateful to Peril for saving Clay from the dragonbite viper's venom in The Brightest Night.

Tsunami also was quick to suspect Peril of planting the dragonflame cactus bomb in Moon Rising, though Sunny pointed out that this was impossible, due to her firescales. Tsunami tells Queen Ruby that she dislikes Peril.

Kestrel Edit
Peril is shocked when she learns the truth about her mother. At Kestrel's trial, Peril invokes the Champion's Shield, freeing her mother if she wins her next battle. Peril seemed to dislike her mother. When Kestrel asks to speak with her, Peril says, "You killed my brother. You left me here. And it's your fault my friend is dead. I might not want you dead, but I don't want to know you." Peril was, however, devastated and upset upon learning of Kestrel's death, indicating that she may have wanted to know her mother, and simply said she didn't want to out of anger and sadness for Kestrel abandoning her.

Turtle Edit
Turtle is her traveling companion in Escaping Peril. They seem to have platonic feelings, and he trusts her with his secret of being an animus. When she was with Queen Scarlet, he followed her to try and save her. Peril traveled with Turtle to Possibility because Turtle wanted to check on his friends and Peril wanted to look for Scarlet. By the time they reached Possibility, Turtle was referring to Peril as his friend. Throughout Escaping Perilshe wonders whether or not to like him, to be his friend, and whether or not he was using her. Eventually, she starts trusting him and they become good friends. Turtle is one of the few characters able to make a positive relationship with Peril. Turtle and Peril both have unusual and dangerous powers, which also helped with their friendship. They ended up almost having a sibling relationship.

Osprey Edit
For the longest time before Peril met the dragonets of destiny, Osprey was her only friend and the only dragon that would talk to her like a normal dragon. Sadly, he was killed by Queen Scarlet after she found out that he told Peril about the Champion's Shield, in which she would later compete for her mother's freedom. Osprey had taught Peril how to read and write and the history of Pyrrhia. Osprey cared for Peril and was not scared of her, unlike most dragons.

Qibli Edit
Qibli and Peril are openly hostile towards each other in Escaping Peril, but during Talons of Power, they seem to have become friends. Qibli teases Peril when she accidentally sets fire to an unknown RainWing student's homework, and in Darkness of Dragons, Peril yells at Turtle's multiplying bowl to make Qibli feel better.

Sky Edit
Sky is Peril's twin brother who is believed to be dead. In Dragonslayer, however, it is confirmed that Kestrel presumably made it look like she killed him, and later, he was found by Wren, a young human girl whom he befriends. Now Peril has yet to discover that her twin brother is still alive (as she is currently unaware of his survival).

When she believed she killed him, it is shown she felt guilty when she tells Clay about it and is angry at Kestrel for killing him.

Chameleon Edit
Chameleon is Peril's father. Peril was happy to meet her dad at first (in his SkyWing form, Soar), but then discovers he was working for Queen Scarlet at the time. She then betrays him and Chameleon now seems to dislike Peril. However, Peril still cares about her father as she left him with his shapes.

Glory Edit
Peril doesn't interact much with Glory, but Peril shows some resentment and jealousy towards her for being a ‘beautiful RainWing’ and getting much of Clay’s attention. Glory also dislikes her.

Sunny Edit
Peril seems to be neutral with her in The Brightest Night. Sunny caught Peril going into Burn's stronghold so she could free Scarlet. When she asked Sunny about Kestrel and was told that she was dead, Peril became devastated by this news. When Sunny begged Peril to stop the fight, Peril listened and stopped the battle between the Outclaws and Burn's soldiers. It is unknown if they're friends but they do seem to be kind to each other. Even though Sunny is nice to her, Peril still wants to shove her off a cliff on a daily basis. Peril describes her as a ‘warm blaze of annoying sunlight STOP SMILING THE WORLD IS TERRIBLE'.

Cliff Edit
When they first met, Peril wanted to scoop him up and put him back into his mother's arms, probably because he was so small and pathetic and she felt sorry for him. Cliff seems to be unafraid of Peril, singing a song to her and not afraid of 'being burnded' by her. Peril wants no harm to come to Cliff as seen when she took off her necklace.

WinterEdit
When meeting, Winter was very hostile to Peril due to her killing many IceWing prisoners. The two didn’t interact until Escaping Peril when Winter attacked Peril, burning himself. Peril feels horrible about him almost dying and feels like crying. In the epilogue of Darkness of Dragons Peril notes that she misses her friends, including Winter.

Quotes Edit

 * "Who are you? [...] I mean, who are you? [...] I'm not being creepy, [...] I'm not, like, putting you on a murder list of anything. I don't have a murder list! Not a to-be-murdered list, I mean. Wait, no—to be clear, I have no kind of murder list at all. Definitely out of the murdering business, me. Maybe I should stop saying the word murder."
 * ― to Turtle (Escaping Peril, page 9)


 * "If I show her what Chameleon can do... I'll be giving another queen his power. He could fly away right now, with no one the wiser about his scroll or his shape-shifting. But if I let him do that, no one will know what he's doing with it. He could end up working for another terrible queen. I guess it comes down to who I trust more... my new queen who always hated me... or my father, who betrayed me as soon as he met me"
 * ― thinking about Chameleon (Escaping Peril, page 244)


 * "I've never fought a MudWing, [...] Since we're allies and all. So I'm really curious. I bet it's totally different from fighting SeaWings and IceWings. But Her Majesty will make you fight some of the regular prisoners first, and if you die, then I don't get to fight you."
 * ― to Clay (The Dragonet Prophecy, page 122)


 * "No one wants me. No one can even touch me. You saw that. I was born with too much fire. Usually, when dragons like me hatch, the SkyWings drop them off at the highest mountain peak. That's what my mother was going to do, but Queen Scarlet saved me and killed her to punish her."
 * ― to Clay (The Dragonet Prophecy, page 137-138)


 * "To kill Queen Scarlet, remember? There was a whole conversation a few hours ago. I'm pretty sure you were there, because I was like, 'you're not coming with me,' and you were all, 'how are you going to stop me?' and I was all 'I can think of a pretty good way,' and you were like, 'by setting me on fire? That sounds like cutting off your tail to spite your wings,' and I was like, 'I could cut YOUR tail,' and you were all, 'let's just go before Ruby comes back"
 * ― to Turtle (Escaping Peril, page 55)


 * "It's a town full of dragons and more than half of them aren't too fond of Queen Scarlet. At least, they really, really don't like being asked about her. They tend to throw things. Which they also do when you set even the smallest basket of snails on fire - by accident, mind you. Frankly, I think they should rename the place Unnecessary Violent Overreaction."
 * ― to Turtle, about Possibility (Escaping Peril)


 * "I know, I know, it's my thing, [...] but I can't kill him, because of his stupid magic, GROWL. So you have to. Don't worry, it's not that hard, and it would be such a relief-- for me, I mean-- because I'm having this feeling-- I don't know what to call it, but it's kind of big and heavy and annoying? And it's filling me all up inside like everything is awful and it's all my fault? Like maybe all the bad things in the world are my fault? I really don't like it, so if you can make it stop, that would be the greatest."
 * ― to Turtle, about Darkstalker (Talons of Power (book), page 13)


 * "Well, he's been super nice to me, [...] Which kind of never happens, so he's obviously more awesome than the average dragons. And he pointed out that animus powers and firescales are the same, because other dragons are always scared of us, but they shouldn't be. Totally true, right? I mean, I wouldn't want MY insides exploded by magic just because someone thinks I'M scary."
 * ― to Turtle, about Darkstalker (Talons of Power (book), page 45)


 * "Or you can keep skulking around, [...] Whatever you want. I'm going to go say hi to Clay! I mean to uh, him and his friends. So I can tell him what I did to Scarlet! I mean, tell all of them. What Ruby did, technically. But with my help! He's going to be so excited. Don't you think? So excited? I mean, not that it's any big deal. Well, I guess it's kind of a big deal that I stopped his, like, super worst enemy from coming after him. He'll be happy about that. Right? Not that it matters. Why am I nervous? I'm not! STOP BEING NERVOUS, PERIL. Haha! That'll work."
 * ― to Qibli (Talons of Power (book), page 46-47)


 * "Huh. Looks like a norm-nope! You're right! Stupidest bowl I've ever seen! Can I join in? HEY, BOWL, YOUR SHAPE IS INANE! FOOD PROBABLY FALLS OUT OF YOU ALL THE TIME! I BET YOU DON'T EVEN STACK WELL IN CABINETS! YEAH, THAT'S RIGHT! YOU'RE THE WORST! Ooh, this is great. Let's do it every day! I feel much better."
 * ― to Turtle's food bowl (Darkness of Dragons, page 43)


 * "I don't have an evil plan! All my evil is spur-of-the-moment! Turtle, tell them how bad I am at planning!"
 * ― to Moon, Winter, and Qibli (Escaping Peril, page 137)

Trivia Edit

 * Peril's name is unique among SkyWings, as she was named for how dangerous she is.
 * The enchanted necklace that Chameleon gave her was described to have a locket with a symbol. That symbol is the Wings of Fire series logo. The symbol was ‘a dragon shape, wings spread and tail curled in two loops' which matches the logo.
 * In The Dragonet Prophecy, Peril uses "blazing" as a substitute for "awesome," similarly to how Queen Scarlet uses "thrilling." She has stopped doing this by the time she reappears in The Brightest Night.
 * Peril is said to have a unique scale and eye color, bright blue, that only her brother (Sky) has. This is likely a trait of firescales SkyWings.
 * In Winter Turning when Darkstalker tried to see her possible futures, he said that it was like "following a map through a forest fire."
 * It has been confirmed by Moonwatcher that Peril's mind is difficult to read because of her fire, shielding Peril from the outside and inside. It is stated by Moonwatcher how Peril has fire in her mind acting similarly to a block; however, after the main events of Escaping Peril, Moonwatcher mentions that the amount of fire in her mind is much less.
 * Peril is capable of eating food raw as long as it doesn't touch her outer scales.
 * However, she prefers her prey burnt instead of raw.
 * Peril can be hurt by dragonflame cacti. This was confirmed in Escaping Peril when she accidentally set one off while in Possibility. The needles burnt off after a few minutes but caused her severe pain.
 * In Tui's original draft of The Dragonet Prophecy, Peril and Sky were the SkyWing dragonets for the prophecy.
 * Tui had originally intended to have Peril die in The Brightest Night, but fan outcry caused her to change this and later give her a book of her own.
 * She seems to be somewhat resistant to animus magic, as shown by how quickly Chameleon's enchantment broke down relative to other dragons such as Ruby.
 * Chameleon thinks it's probably because of her strong personality, not her firescales.
 * In The Dragonet Prophecy (graphic novel), Peril is shown on two occasions to have fire rising from her wings and scales. She also develops an aerial combat strategy that involves crashing into or dive-bombing her opponents while in this state.
 * Tui once called Peril "My little psychopath with a heart of gold."
 * In the prefinal cover of Escaping Peril, Peril was shown to have amber eyes, instead of blue.

Gallery Edit
Reference by Platypus the SeaWing

Peril on the cover of Escaping Peril, by Joy Ang

Peril on the full cover of Escaping Peril, by Joy Ang

Peril from The Dragonet Prophecy (graphic novel), by Mike Holmes Add a photo to this gallery

References Edit

 * 1) ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Escaping Peril, prologue
 * 2) ↑ The Brightest Night, page 138
 * 3) ↑ The Dragonet Prophecy, page 124
 * 4) ↑ The Brightest Night, page 281
 * 5) ↑ Moon Rising, page 133
 * 6) ↑ The Dragonet Prophecy, page 130
 * 7) ↑ The Dragonet Prophecy, page 120
 * 8) ↑ The Dragonet Prophecy, page 141
 * 9) ↑ The Brightest Night, page 133
 * 10) ↑ The Brightest Night, page 136
 * 11) ↑ The Dragonet Prophecy, page 140
 * 12) ↑ Winter Turning, page 77
 * 13) ↑ Q&A with Tui during TLC release party [1]