Skywing Dragons spend most of their lives flying in the air. They hunt from the air, diving at prey from above, and land only to rest. They are some of the fastest fliers, capable of extremely high speeds. The webbing at the end of the tail acts as a rudder, allowing them to easily change direction during flight.

Dragons are highly-intelligent reptilian creatures that—from a human perspective, at least—appear to live forever. Many different varieties of dragon exist, each with their own unique qualities, habitats, and behavior. Adolescence in dragons is usually marked by the growth of a hatchling’s wings, although not all breeds of dragons grow wings and some breeds have other traits that indicate the beginning of maturation. In Galsreim, dragons and humans coexist peacefully.

Tulka Etesian has many of the attributes of a successful news-carrier, being fast, accurate, unbiased, and able to keep to a delivery schedule.  Where she falls short is in timeliness of information—her news is often years out of date, if not centuries.  When questioned as to why, say, she's reporting a change of leadership in a long-vanished weyr as though it happened last week, Tulka refuses to give a straight answer, and always manages to change the subject.  Since Tulka isn't known for her imagination, some dragons believe she's actually experiencing these events, but the only one to know for sure is the skywing herself.