White Dragons are pacifists and specialize in extremely strong healing magic. The only limit of this magic is that it can’t bring back the dead. They only eat plants and never kill living things.

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.

Aerith Shimmerscale, the first general healer of the Enigma Mountains. He carved his own staff out of the wood of a fallen branch, and complemented it with feathers dropped from all sorts of birds—swans, ravens, even a phoenix or two—in an attempt to make it seem like he came from a practised family; in reality, however, this was not the case.

His mother, a Black dragon named Cloud, was reluctantly mated to a rather violent Hellhorse, Sephiroth. One day, a male White dragon, Aeris, arrived at the cave, and he and Cloud took to each other instantly. When Sephiroth was away, they stayed together, and they even had a child—Aerith—whom Cloud hid away.

One day, however, Sephiroth attacked Aeris, killing him before he had a chance to react. Cloud was heartbroken, and—after commanding Aerith to flee—fought Sephiroth to the death.

Aerith doesn't know if his mother survived. But for her memory, he adopted the lost hatchling Enshrouded as his own child, while hiding his past away.