George

For some time, George had convinced himself that he would dedicate his life to rocks.

Any kind of rocks, really. It might not have been Dragonhome, but the Aracanist’s land was rich in its geological history. The actual type of science he dedicated himself to was of less concern to his parents than the fact that the snapper would be a scientist to begin with. Since George’s hatching they had noticed his alarming insistence on…fine arts.

“Fine if you don’t want to find good work,” his dad would snort.

George was sure even to this day that his parents only had his best interests at heart, or what they thought them to be. Seeing the clan children that scattered wildly around the shop’s display of ceramic dishware, blissfully unaware of their parent’s horror, had given him an appreciation of how difficult it was to raise a child. To really know what you were doing, no less have any confidence in it.

This sentiment of course only went so far after they had cut contact with him. A tea shop was not their idea of success. And it didn’t help that all the time they had assumed he was on field study at the base of the Pillar was actually spent refining his abilities behind the pottery wheel. Thanks to the kindness of the artisans who had made the Colonnades of Antiquity, a newly established merchant’s city towards the Pillar’s base, he had been able to trade his labor for the right to borrow their equipment. George was the amicable kind. He was able to see that it wasn’t only his parents that erred. Truth at almost any cost had been the snapper’s personal policy for years afterwards.

The tea shop was not always a straightforward success. Some days could be slow, possibly unmoving, especially during the blazing hot summer days that the Light region was famed for. Nobody was particularly motivated to sidle up to a cup of oolong, no less buy the equipment that came with it. But it allowed him to live comfortably - and really, wasn’t that all a dragon needed?