Lukarr

Lukarr

Rise, sun, rise, and warm the world,
But pierce not the night, which has sheltered us.

Lukarr is a contradiction in terms. Those who try to describe him are often frustrated: He’s austere yet sensual, utterly steady yet not always quite reliable. He keeps his possessions to a minimum, but his notebooks and sketchbooks are indescribably precious to him. He maintains his rooms so they’re always clean to the point of near-sterility, but he takes immense pleasure in the sensory bombardment of the outdoors: the rising scent of crushed grass when he lies in the sunlight, the chaos of broken stone beneath his claws in light-bathed ruins.

His parents are both Tundras (and people of importance in their home lair), and perhaps it’s the notorious forgetfulness of the breed that makes Lukarr so conscientious about writing things down. He always carries a journal with him, which he uses both to record observations about the world, and as a linguistic workbook to keep his knack for learning Beastclan languages sharp. While he’s a conscientious diarist, he sometimes fails to complete things in time or to show up for appointments because he’s so focused on writing events down accurately before the details have a chance to fade from his mind.

The real power comes through his drawings, though. His thumbnail sketches seem to leap from the page when illuminated. His eye for color reflects the world in a medley of touchable hues. And every so often he embarks on imaginative drawings that come alive with detail after repeated object studies and rough sketches. Technical precision yields to true artistry with his consistent attention and focus, and his observant illustrations can enchant the eye …

… and sometimes, if he’s drawing scenes out of his own mind and not from life, something will happen such that the scene really occurs.

Using a clever system of mirrors he’s designed to reflect full daylight deep into the lair, Lukarr spends much of his time creating murals of the happiest and most productive times in the lair’s history, describing them with deeply incised captions at floor level (from which the lair’s hatchlings are largely taught to read. Lukarr maintains that there’s no real, quantifiable evidence that his art carries power, but the wise dragons of the lair’s Council are not taking chances.

-*-*-*-

Lukarr and his mate, Andromeda, live separately. They’ve found that their habits are too different and their needs too incompatible to share space. For one thing, he’s an early riser, and she’s nearly nocturnal; for another, she likes to hide things and he likes to find, reveal, and record them.

They once had a bitter quarrel over a portrait he’d done of Andromeda, which she promptly took and hid. It’s never been found, but after they made up … both Andromeda and Lukarr have alluded to it with the remark that maybe it’s better if no one else sees what Lukarr saw when he sketched her that day.


Lore by MagpieScholar