Jerboa III

"Completely useless. […] Yes. Just like I've always wanted."

— Jerboa to herself, The Poison Jungle

(Not to be confused with her mother Jerboa, who lived in the time of Darkstalker, or Jerboa II, Jerboa's original attempt at creating a dragonet.)

Jerboa III, also known as Boa, is an adult female SandWing who was introduced in Talons of Power. She lives in her hut beside the sea, near a border shared by the Ice Kingdom and the Kingdom of Sand. She is responsible for preventing animus dragons from casting new spells.

Appearance

Jerboa has pale yellow scales. She is tall, long-necked, and graceful, with wide black eyes and a dappled light brown triangle pattern on her wings. She has six missing claws and a missing tail barb, which she hides with a glamor spell. Jerboa enchanted Jerboa III to stop growing at the size of a normal dragon, although she would stop growing at a size that was slightly smaller than Jerboa's.

Personality

Jerboa is quiet, thoughtful, and appears to be kind and considerate. She is shown to welcome and trust others easily — such as when taking care of Luna and welcoming Moon and Qibli into her hut, despite them being strangers. She seems to dislike animus magic very much, even though she herself is an animus dragon. This came from her past and how her mother, the original Jerboa, tormented her with centuries of amnesia and using magic to "perfect" her. She seems to hate the attention of the IceWings her powers give her, shown when she thinks that she preferred being useless instead when she reveals animus magic is broken to Snowfall. Her personality is unstable because of the series of enchantments and "reinforcements" her mother put on her in order for her to end up perpetually perfect, but initially she was described as lazy and disobedient. Jerboa is arguably sarcastic, especially when she is not treated well.

Biography

The Jade Mountain Prophecy

Talons of Power
Jerboa was first seen in Darkstalker's palace for a few seconds by Turtle when she was summoned along with all other existing animus dragons. Jerboa then disappeared with a surprised expression, leaving Turtle to believe he imagined her.

Darkness of Dragons
She makes another appearance in the epilogue when she leads Moonwatcher and Qibli into her home to meet her. She then confirms to the two dragonets that she is the daughter of the first Jerboa, and that she is immortal. Jerboa shows them an injured dragon, who she has been taking care of. The dragon is Luna, a SilkWing from Pantala.

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The Lost Continent Prophecy

The Lost Continent

Jerboa appears in the epilogue when she finds Luna, lost and severely injured on one of the Kingdom of Sand's beaches. Jerboa says that it is lucky Luna speaks Dragon. She introduces herself to Luna, and Luna does the same. Jerboa brings the lost SilkWing to her home and offers her fish stew, but Luna declines, saying that she doesn't eat meat. She welcomes Moon and Qibli when they arrive and brings them to Luna, as seen in the epilogue of Darkness of Dragons.

The Hive Queen
Her hut is mentioned twice in the prologue. She is also mentioned when Tsunami asks if she can enchant something for Luna to get back to Pantala, but Moonwatcher says that she is an animus that doesn't use her magic.

The Poison Jungle

In the epilogue, Jerboa III is seen flying to the edge of the Ice Kingdom to meet Snowfall. It's revealed that Jerboa III knew the current Queen's late mother as Jerboa thinks how Queen Glacier usually arrived after she did when they met up. Queen Snowfall, already traumatized by Darkstalker's return and paranoid about getting attacked, is panicking about the sight of hundreds of dragons flying in from across the ocean. She wants Jerboa to expand the Great Ice Cliff, but Jerboa stops her, proving that her animus magic did not work anymore, also stating that no one else's animus magic was working either. She proves this by grabbing a frozen twig and saying: "I hereby enchant this twig to turn anything it touches green." She then holds it out to Snowfall, who snappishly denies it, so Jerboa taps herself with it, and nothing happens. It was also said that after Queen Snowfall flew away in a fit of rage, Jerboa thought to herself: "Completely useless. […] Yes. Just like I've always wanted."

The Dangerous Gift

Snowfall mentioned Jerboa when she was deciding to find out more about the approaching mysterious dragons. She later travelled with the Pantalan refugees on a journey to Sanctuary, passing the island Jerboa's hut is in in the meanwhile. Snowfall blames Jerboa for not using her magic to help Snowfall, leading to how she took treasure from the Forbidden Treasury with no choice and therefore getting stuck with Opal's ring. Jerboa appears to be exasperated, and continued to talk about how animus magic isn't working in the first place. She even promised Snowfall that if magic ever comes back, removing her ring would be first priority. Jerboa isn't mentioned much after her encounter with the Snowfall. Later, Snowfall had a vision in Jerboa's point of view. In the vision, it is shown that her mother created her and would always edit her to be exactly how she wanted. When Boa found the scroll her mother used to edit her, she froze her with enchanted quills and interrogated her mother about all the spells used on her. Feeling betrayed by her mother's controlling over her existence, she uses the scroll to turn herself into an animus dragon. Before Jerboa is completely frozen, she casts one last spell on Boa, making her lose a part of her body every time she cast a spell, as well as making the damage irreversible, even with magic. Boa doesn't finds out about the spell until she buries her frozen mother under her hut, losing her first claw. Over the course of the years, she loses five more claws, three trying to heal her wounds from the curse, one from enchanting a scroll to truthfully any question it is asked, where she finds out about her mother's curse, and one from enchanting a necklace to make her look normal to other dragons. When Darkstalker summons all animus dragons to his room, Boa quickly returns to her hut using her necklace. She asks her information scroll, what Darkstalker wants. It tells her he wants to use other dragon's magic to preserve his soul, as well as making sure they can't be threats to him. Terrified, Boa asks why he needed the animus dragons at that moment, finding out he can detect animus magic. She continues to asks questions on how to stop him, including how to protect herself, but eventually decides to stay hidden in her hut, having accepted there is little she can do. While recovering her fishing nets, Boa spots Luna being washed up on the shore. She runs back inside to talk to her scroll, finding out about the absence of animus magic on Pantala. Realizing dragons can't be trusted with a power like animus magic, Boa enchants her candleholder to get rid of animus magic once and for all, thus losing her tail barb. Despite the agony she is in, Boa is at ease knowing she will never have to be afraid of magic again.

Relationships

Glacier

Having met before the IceWing became queen, Jerboa III and Glacier were close friends. Glacier never asked the animus for a single spell, even during the War of SandWing Succession, because she believed in solving her own problems without the help of potentially dangerous magic, and because she knew about the curse placed on Jerboa III. Jerboa III was devastated when Glacier died, as she trusted the IceWing queen very much.

Jerboa

Jerboa III lived with Jerboa for thousands of years, constantly being rewritten by her mother to have different memories or different likes and dislikes. When she requested that her mother make her an animus dragon and she denied, she grew angry at her, but didn't act on her anger until she found a scroll detailing every enchantment on her. This made her hate her mother even more for erasing most of her memories and she killed her, freezing her in an ice block which she then buried under her hut. Her hate and fear for her grew though, because of the enchantment her mother placed on her to lose parts of her body with every spell she cast, just before she died, with no way to undo it.

Jerboa II

Jerboa II was Jerboa III's older sister. Even though they never met, Boa was upset when she learned that her mother had made Jerboa II before her.

Luna

Jerboa III is the first dragon Luna met when she came to Pyrrhia. The two dragons express a neutral relationship; Jerboa also helped Luna when she was wounded, so Luna sees her as a friend.

Moonwatcher

Jerboa was 'being weary of NightWings at the moment,' due that she was, for only a second, trapped in Darkstalker's clutches. But when she meets Moonwatcher, she acts kindly to her and explains about Luna and where she is from.

Snowfall

Snowfall tried to use Jerboa III as a way of making her tribe safer from the other dragon tribes with animus magic. This is likely due to her fear of what Darkstalker did to her mother and other IceWings in the past. However, it is likely that Snowfall only tolerated Jerboa III because of her animus magic, because when the SandWing proved that she could no longer enchant things, Snowfall called her 'useless' and stormed away. They eventually have a better relationship after Snowfall is changed by the gift of vision which helps her become more open to other tribes.

Family Tree

Jerboa

Jerboa II

Jerboa III

Known Enchantments

Phrasing	Target	Intention
"I enchant this block of ice to bury itself under this hut and stay frozen there forever."	Jerboa	To bury her mother under her hut.
"She lost her second claw trying to heal the first one, and it only half worked. The wound closed, covered over with a shiny new layer of scales, but her claw did not grow back."	Herself	To heal her wound from her mother's curse.
"She enchanted a scroll to truthfully answer any question she asked of it."	A scroll	To answer any questions she asks it.
"The spell specifies that the pieces could not grow back, even with magic. [...] Boa tried anyway, which is how she lost claws four and five."	Herself	To remove her mother's curse.
"A new spell was added to the shell necklace, casting a glamor so that she looks normal and intact to any dragons who see her."	A shell necklace	To make her look normal and intact to any dragons who see her.
"I hereby enchant this candleholder, [...] When I shatter it, I shatter the power of all current animus dragons. From now on, no new spells cast by any animus dragon alive today will ever work again. Also, from this point forward, I will grow old and die, like any normal dragon. I make this spell irreversible by any animus, including myself"	A crystal candleholder	To prevent new animus spells from being made from any of the current animus dragons and make her age normally when she smashed it, which is irreversible.

Quotes

"I'm Jerboa, […] Not the original Jerboa, […] Her daughter."

― to Moonwatcher and Qibli

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"Yes. My mother cast a spell to make sure nothing could ever harm me. […] I've been waiting a long time to fulfill my purpose."

― to Qibli

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"I guess I thought your continent might have a different language, […] I'm Jerboa."

― to Luna

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"Shooting ice spears at any dragon who crosses the border that isn't an IceWing, […] That's why we meet on this side of it."

― to Queen Snowfall about the Great Ice Cliff

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"It's too cold for anyone to do that, […] The truth is, other tribes are not the slightest bit interested in stealing your kingdom."

― to Queen Snowfall

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"Completely useless. […] Yes. Just like I've always wanted."

― thinking to herself

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"It's not fair to make me love you when you don't love me at all."

― to her mother in Snowfall's vision

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"I hereby enchant this candleholder, […] When I shatter it, I shatter the power of all current animus dragons. From now on, no new spells cast by any animus dragon alive today will ever work again."

― enchanting a glass candleholder

Trivia

• Her mother, Jerboa, enchanted her to make sure nothing could hurt her. This had resulted in her immortality, though was reversed when Jerboa III smashed the crystal candle holder she enchanted.
• One of her first lines, "I've been waiting a long time to fulfill my purpose," is a reference to what Queen Glacier told her years ago.
• The enchantments Jerboa put on her made her think slower, although this was presumably resolved when Jerboa III reversed all her mother's enchantments on her.
• Jerboa was one of the candidates that Tui considered to be the main protagonist of The Dangerous Gift before deciding on Snowfall.^{[citation needed]}

Gallery

• Reference by Platypus the SeaWing
  Reference by Platypus the SeaWing
• 
  Jerboa III on the Barnes & Noble special edition of The Dangerous Gift, by Joy Ang
• 
  Jerboa III fullbody render, edited by Mimiccering