Lord Jinai

Character Profile

Name:	Lord Jinai
Date of Birth:	Unknown (400+ years old)
Breed:	Sui Riu
Captain:	None
National Loyalty:	Japan
Appearance:	Immense; heavy-finned head; silvery-grey, with short, stubby wings; pallid white eyes
Special Abilities:	Water spitter
Status:	Alive

Biography

Lord Jinai is a Sui Riu dragon, first encountered by Temeraire and his formation off the coast of Japan. Described by Temeraire as "immense" and "sea-serpent-like", Lord Jinai attacks the English dragons before receiving a spit of acid in the eye from Lily, and retreating.

Later on, he meets William Laurence, where Laurence notes that the dragon had a "glitter of angry malice" in its eyes. Laurence also noted that Lord Jinai had a "gleam of intelligence" in his eyes, and followed conversation with a "keen, cold interest".

The massive Sui Riu dragon also guards Nagasaki Harbor, and is suspected to have caused the sinking of the HMS Phaeton in 1808.

According to Kaneko Hiromasa, Lord Jinai is the "guardian of the West: he is four hundred years old, and he has seen Celestials before." However, Matsudaira later states that no Celestial has been seen "across the sea" (I.e., outside China) for five centuries, when Chinese invaders founded the breed by stealing "the last egg of the Divine Wind line" from Japan after killing all living dragons of that line, suggesting that Lord Jinai has been alive since before that theft and extinction.