Birdie

Art by soulykins, #156936, via July 2020 Ice foddart



Content warnings: Mentions of blood, implied&/mentioned offscreen deaths, overall dark tone, second-person perspective.

Please exercise caution should you stumble across this lore; it complies with FR rules/guidelines, but some may find it disturbing, squicky, or otherwise unpleasant.





Chaos outside the library. Dragons running and flying back and forth, calling in panic, in confusion, in rage. Our-territory, danger-danger-danger, intruder, who, why, who-dares, oh crap somebody call the boss -

You shake your head to clear the memories and take a moment to scent the air as a curl of wind briefly blows in your direction. It carries the scents of ash, stranger, naphtha, melted-plastic, a cloying sweetness, burnt-flesh, blood.

The ground shakes. Heavy pawsteps.

“Who did this?” commands a voice. Deep. Resonant. “Show yourself.” A lumbering shape moves across your vision in time with the ground-shudders, where you hide, as ordered, in the shadows of the tall library building.

A Skydancer emerges from the darkness several taillengths from you. Black-bodied with a hard shiny carapace like an insect, pink of wing and feather and mane, elaborately dyed all over to resemble a skeleton. Her eyes gleam large and blue and she oozes confidence underneath her bright pink goggles.

She walks calmly into a shaft of moonlight, and, settling on her haunches, brings up her front paws to show them empty. Her lurid pink wings rest loosely at her sides, and her head is respectfully turned away from the burly Gaoler looming in front of her. I am not a threat, her whole body says. I mean you no harm. But her white jacket is stained with fresh blood and soot, and her eyes are bright and they are cold.

“I’d apologise for dismantlin' your guards,” she announces, “but, ah….” She gazes disdainfully behind her at the barely-visible charred remains, briefly flicking the tip of her tail in disgust, “Clearly they just weren’t up to the job.”

The Gaoler is, for a moment, as silent and unmoving as stone, save for the ruffling of his thick fur in the night breeze. Then, “Do you have a death wish, little bird?” he rumbles. The many never-blinking eyes along his sides and tail observe the dragon before him, calculating and shrewd, belying the bored tone of his voice. “There are far less painful ways to die than by wronging the Academy; perhaps you could take a swim in the Wyrmwound, or be torn apart by rabid Mirrors. Who are you and why did you see fit to kill my lookouts?”

(He could have this strange Skydancer eliminated with a single command; Mirrors and Bogsneaks and Nocturne lurk in the shadows, yourself included, a faint hissing the only indication of your presence; or he could simply crush her under one of his great shaggy paws.)

“I hear y'all are recruitin’ brains that’re up to no good?” It’s not a question. The small dragon makes bold eye contact, dropping her paws to the ground with a barely-audible thump. “You could use me,” she continues, “I know an awful lot about alchemistry. There’s been a lot of chatter as of recent, O’ Ancient One." She grins. What little light there is catches on the edges of her teeth. (Curious despite yourself, you creep closer, just a little, lashing your tail.) “Rumours and whispers, you understand,” she adds in an undertone. “But there’s a common thread through them all: the Academy is open." Her voice is soft, lilting, gentle almost - but her teeth look sharp. Very sharp. “Consider this my application.”









Art by Drown #67659, find his art shop here






Art by Emordnilap #197534, find their art shop here






Art by ElDorad0 #525492, find their art shop here




Bio credits: Pixels by juunebugs #57133, from here; art credited above; divider from here; lore by me


Stumbled across a reblog of this post and it is absolutely her vibe:





(Try this Coli build?) Nope. She's 1/2 of a Forbidden Portal team now, with Lilith