Art Sales

Nacht came to the arcane flight chasing rumors. They had heard of the scholars of this flight, hiding in their libraries to scribble away at notes until their claws had worn into bones and toying with mysteries that were better left untouched, and felt that it was a place that they could advance. From what they had seen in the first few days, there was only disappointment in the crystalline edges of the mythic Starfell Isles. But that was to change.

They were born into a world of ice and eyes. In such a place as the Fortress of Ends, there was no room for making a family. Their clan was less a warm unit and more a desperate huddling of souls in the cold world they inhabited. Each member of the clan fell asleep to soft self-affirmations that they could handle the Fortress because they were strong enough and they were smart enough, ignoring the ghosts of those who had failed. Each of them woke with the frost nipping at their heels as the Icewarden reminded them who held the reigns.

Raised in a clan more superstitious than scientific, Nacht had to trade records of their findings for books on anything other than how to make a meal last a week. Still, they read vicariously. Books on the first age were vague at best, filled with hints towards the creation of the pillar and warnings on the shade. That information was still more exact than books on the second age. All that Nacht could glisten on that period of time was that it was godless and empty, and the creatures that inhabited it eventually drove themselves to ruin. That ruin had led to the reawakening of the gods.

In the outside world, dragons said the highest concentration of magic was found within the spiral of the Arcanist’s observatory. Nacht knew this to be wrong. The arcane could keep their haphazard experiments and meticulous observations in the Isles; that was all more childish than magic. Magic was his family, both by blood and trial, curling together around a fire and praying with the frost on their lips and the cold in their eyes. Magic was Nacht learning to hear whispers in the wind from those who had left this life and those who had never entered it. Magic was the ways they had learned to heal themselves stronger than any scroll or potion with the desperation in their voice. Magic was primordial, gritty, bloody truth. Magic was in the eyes.

They say even the ice denizens are frozen within the towers of the Fortress of Ends. Nacht grew up under those watchful stares. When they were a hatchling, Nacht found a creature bigger than a grown Imperial frozen eternally still in an enormous pillar. It must have been near death when it was frozen, for there were lacerations all down its sides and blood held midway across the ice. For that to happen, Nacht realized, it must have been frozen mid-movement. When they slept, they dreamt of the ice rising unbidden from the ground, swallowing the beast before death took it. A perfect specimen. When they were older, however, Nacht found something much greater.

It was a monster of copper cables and gears. The carvings along its edges seemed to resemble familiar languages, but Nacht couldn’t make out the exact translation. Runes that resembled eight of the elemental symbols were seared into the metal alongside a representation of a pillar—the pillar that spread through the second age and fell in to the shade in the third. No dragon had been alive when the pillar still stood. Only beastclan records and the words of the deities preserved its memory. Paired with the eight symbols, it appeared to be a record of the forgotten second age. But the ice never forgot.

Nacht carried their new discovery with a sense of purpose. The secrets of the second age were close enough to touch, yet just out of their grasp. It required more research. In this ice clan, however, frozen over and huddling in muffled fear, there was nothing more that they could find, so Nacht packed their books and journals and began the journey north. There was nothing tying them to their birth clan. The hardened words and frightened minds of those that they were raised with never held up the idea of a bright future. Those dragons dreamt of only ice and snow.

As the air turned warmer, they were struck by how wide the world was. Their lonely clan had stretched from edge to edge of Nacht’s mind, engulfing every thought in its threatening vacancy, to the point that it seemed to take up much more space than it actually did. The clans nestled in the mountain’s valleys were drastically different from what he had left behind. Nacht was fed from the kindness of strangers’ hoards. Feeling full, warm, and well-rested was no longer a luxury; each day they slept well-fed and comfortable. From the tip of the Frigid Floes to the Windswept Plateau, Nacht crossed into foreign territory. They rode on an air balloon created by the wind flight for long journeys across water and, for the first time, met dragons born on another side of the ocean.

Nacht had packed plenty of coin for the journey, but found that they could exchange stories for meals in most of the rowdy wind flight homes. Hatchlings clamored over each other to hear him speak of the eyes held in place above their clan, watching and being watched. All of them were almost aggressively curious about the things that Nacht had always found to be trivial. Some of them begged for Nacht to stay longer and to speak longer, but when it was time to leave, they left. There was a reason that they had left their home, after all.

Their passage through the edges of the Scarred Wasteland was quiet and tense. Sickly tendrils pulsed and oozed from the ground. A few dragons, bone-skinny and savage, trailed the scent of meat for miles. Nacht held their scrolls tighter and moved on.

The Starfell Isles were a whirlwind of lethargic activity. Dragons moved with dreamlike purpose and though they were focused, Nacht couldn’t help but feel that the entire flight was covered in a layer of haze. Nacht moved from library to library looking for information on the runes, each time coming up dry. The best information, they found, wasn’t in the libraries at all. It fell from the sky. The Focal Point rose at the center of the Isles, exalting the Observatory atop a pillar of earth. Strange things fell from the sky around this concentration of energy and littered the ground with glowing treasures. Many of the clans that called this place their home would gather these items and donate them to the observatory, and then sell whatever the scientists and magicians didn’t want. Nacht was more careful around these clans than they had been before. If they were going to settle down for an extended period of time, these were the clans that they needed to befriend.

An illuminated violet comet tore from the sky around sunrise and landed half a mile away from Nacht’s camp. By the time they got to it, a sparkling skydancer was already holding the bounty in his claws. It was a sparkling crystal orb, oddly unscathed from its journey, with a pleasant purple glow. The skydancer glanced at Nacht with a smile playing on his lips.

“Oh, were you coming for this?” he said. His voice was a low drawl, easy and self-assured. It was a bit different from the frantic chatter that Nacht had endured for most of his stay.

“Only out of curiosity. You can keep it,” Nacht replied. The skydancer looked at the orb for a moment, then set it down in the grass.

“You say that like you’re doing me a favor. Those things fall from the ground more often than rain.” He chuckled. “You’re new around here, aren’t you?”

“I—yes. I traveled here from the Fortress of Ends in the Icefield for research purposes. It was a long way, but I hope that it will be worth it.”

“What kind of research, exactly?” he said, though he sounded more amused than fascinated.

Nacht found themselves at a loss. The runes, of course, were the focus of it, but what more than that? Certainly they had to have a larger goal. “I’m looking into the creatures and culture of the second age. Specifically, the language.”

“Well, you didn’t choose an easy topic, did you?” he mumbled and scooped up the glowing orb. “Follow me. I have something you might want to look into. My name’s Gypsum, by the way. What should I call you?”

“Nacht. Pleasure to meet you, Gypsum.”

Gypsum took him through the lush plains of the Focal Point until, in the distance, they saw windows carved into the cliff face. It reached high towards the observatory, but just fell short of the clouds. As they approached, Nacht saw strange, faded carvings near the windows. The language vaguely resembled what Nacht had recorded from their findings in the Fortress of Ends. They squinted at it, looking for a familiar shape, and saw that one character that resembled something from the modern day. This could be a breakthrough.

“Are you listening, Nacht?” Gypsum said, interrupting their thoughts.

“Yes, of course. What did you need?”

“Well, I’m glad you like this old thing, at least,” he huffed, gesturing at the ruins. “I was asking what it was like to leave home.”

“Not hard. There was nothing there I wanted to stay for.”

“Really? Not even family?”

“Everyone there had lived in that frozen hovel their entire lives. It was stifling. If nothing else, it’s surprising that I didn’t leave sooner. I’m not much of an ice dragon, no matter where I was born.”

“You don’t think you act like an ice dragon?”

“What, and you think I do?”

“You’re analytical and emotionally distant. You left your family without a second thought, knowing full well that they might not last the winter and you’d be none the wiser. You’ve been picking apart everything you’ve seen while we’ve walked, including me.” Gypsum smirked. “You’re more ice than I am arcane.” Nacht was stunned silent for a moment.

“I didn’t realize I came off that way.”

“You ice dragons rarely do,” he said dismissively. “Now, come in. I’ll show you around. My clanmate Kerosene found this place while scavenging. It’s odd, isn’t it?” The door, which Nacht could have sworn wasn’t there moments before, was a gaping opening with a faded green cloth hanging to the floor. Inside, the darkness seemed near impenetrable. The only light near them came from the softly glowing orb that Gypsum carried, and it only illuminated what was right in front of them.

“I don’t suppose you’ve got a lantern on you?”

Gypsum laughed. “You can come back when you’ve got better light. You could never get this whole place lit up, anyways. It’s far too big.” He held up the orb to a line of bookshelves and walked down the edges. “This isn’t the kind of place you want to get lost in, so bring extra fuel.”

Nacht watched him in awe. They looked up and saw the dull pinpricks of light from the windows, barely bright enough to show anything at all. “How many floors are there.”

“I don’t know. I’ve never tried to find out.”

“Do many people in your clan come here?”

“Not really. We’ve got better things to do than sneeze our way through some dusty old ruins.”

Nacht’s breath caught in their throat. “You think it’s old? How old?”

“I know what you’re thinking, and don’t get too excited. It couldn’t be that old.” Gypsum stepped back and moved towards the door. “Come on. You need a place to stay while you research, don’t you? I’ll see if you can slum it with my clan for a little while.”

“Really? You’d let me stay with you?”

“Not my decision, and not forever. We can’t feed every soul-searching traveler who blows into town.”

“I can bring back the best books I find,” Nacht said quickly. “The clan can sell them for food.”

“Oh, joy. Books,” Gypsum snorted. “Arcanist knows we don’t have enough of those around here. Come on, we’ll figure out something that you can do.”

Nacht followed him out of the massive ancient library. It was almost like a tomb, they thought. All the information from a forgotten time, laid to rest in a massive grave carved into the earth, and here they were to finally uncover it again. They looked over their shoulder to the library and saw the little windows fading into the distance. How long had those books been untouched? What secrets did they hide? Well, Nacht thought, secrets are made to be revealed.

Hundreds of miles away, the eyes still watch. Frozen from the third age, the second age, the first age, they wait to be found. One day, Nacht will return. Once all the books have been opened and all their information has been spilled, they will return to the Fortress. If there was one thing that they had learned from the hellish time spent in their home clan, it was that the ice never forgot.

Hunter traveled on the wind, trailing beastclan packs across Sornieth and laying waste when she fell to earth. They whispered her name among the maren and serthis with equal parts reverence and terror. Dragons coming for conquest was no strange sight, but Hunter was different. There was something in her that drove fear into their bones. She fought with a single-minded savagery, wordless and merciless, and she always fought alone.

In nature, the beasts love with a ferocity that can lead them to death. Hunter has learned that she must take companions together or neither will back down. They fell for one another whenever she bared her teeth. She pretends not to know why. She pretends not to care.

Still, she travels back to the Windswept Plateau when the flowers bloom in spring. She wraps them up in a bouquet and carries them with her all year, even once the smell has faded. It reminds her of someone who loved her. Her mother fought with a finesse that she was unable to pass down to her daughter. When she fell, Hunter’s entire world fell with her.

It was bound to happen. Nobody is invincible, even if they like to believe that they are. Gashes carved deep down her side, and the victorious centaur stood among his fallen brothers and sisters with a look that was more exhaustion than victory. Hunter realized with a distant numbness that she was about to die. Then, in a vortex of magical energy, she was saved and dragged to a nearby clan. Her savior was a pearlcatcher that called herself Serilla. She was the first.

As Hunter healed, there were others. Rydian was the second. With soft words and a sunlit smile, Hunter found herself beginning to care once more. With Nozdormu, she at first felt only distant respect. Gradually, it grew into more, and she learned to care for his laughter as well as his strength. Onyxia worked alongside her, and the rest happened naturally. Hunter cared for her not in spite of her cunning nature, but because of it.

Her mother did not train her to be a warrior. She trained her to protect. Now, at last, Hunter has found something worth her guard. Until she rejoins her mother, she watches over her clan and loves them in the way that her prey had taught her to; fierce, loyal, and unrelenting.

Every picture, no matter how ornate or brilliant, is just made of jagged scratches across paper. Loquaa watches as the shapes he presses into the paper slowly reach photographic perfection. It’s a bit like taming a beast; the disorderly scrapes of graphite forming something beautiful. From bedlam, he establishes stability. That’s how it has always been.

He was raised in the cradle of chaos. Minaoi, his mother, arranged words instead of colors in her art. Her determination drove her to the clutches of the Leviathan Trench in search of inspiration. After being touched by the deep, she was never the same. She spoke with a dark edge to her voice and moved with a halting sort of fear. It wasn’t that she was a bad mother—on the contrary, all of her kindness was given to Loquaa—but she was wild and fierce. Loquaa had to create his own steady reality. All of his drawings were neat and clean, reflecting the world in a more orderly way. It was his anchor. Every sketch was a reminder that he was real, this was real, and he wasn’t going anywhere. If there were even the smallest imperfection, he would redraw it. And redraw it. And redraw it.

Pages of the same shape drawn over and over littered his room. The best ones—the most perfect shapes—were hung up on the wall. Nobody was allowed to see any of them. They weren’t ready yet, Loquaa thought, but someday they would be. Then everyone would love his flawless reality. Even his mother, who spoke like the rolling waves and crashed with all their power, would admit that they had a strange peace to them. He would absolve her of her darkness. All he had to do was keep drawing and accept no distractions.

Still, despite the deep reaches of his focus, light broke through. Hatchtani was one of the clan’s most passionate young artists. He was brought in by the tide, still young and shivering from the sudden solitude. His nature-green eyes screamed that he was out-of-place and abandoned. The clan spread their wings around him, even as they shied away from Minaoi and her son and their hard defenses. Hatchtani gradually emerged from his waterlogged sadness and fell under the shadow of Evalau, an indigo artist and teacher with a soft spot for hatchlings. The other hatchlings took to the newcomer immediately. Loquaa felt the jealousy burn inside his gut, and he shoved it down.

Hatchtani, however, seemed unimpressed by the attention. He was friendly with everyone, but friends with no one. Then he found Loquaa sketching in a lonely hallway. His paper was covered with a skydancer’s wing, drawn flawlessly twenty-five times. Once he was satisfied, Loquaa looked up to see the newcomer staring at him from across the hall—and he bolted. Hatchtani took every spare moment to try and catch Loquaa’s attention until, at last, he captured the elusive artist in a conversation.

Loquaa spoke more than he meant to. The emotions that he had bottled up were suddenly tumbling out like a tidal wave, tumbling in their wildness, until his breath was spent. There was a moment’s pause where the two dragons were silent. In a sudden, gripping terror, Loquaa was nearly capsized by the thought of Hatchtani balking at his outburst. Instead, he smiled and understood. The two of them were drifting loners each in their own way, desperately grasping for a solid hold as the world whirled around them.

Hatchtani showed Loquaa the art he had hidden away. It was all grey shadow, incredibly ornate and draped in a heavy mood. Loquaa especially liked the clean and accurate details. In return, Loquaa showed Hatchtani the sketches he had hung on the wall. They were all neat and simple monochrome. Though the two styles were incredibly different, they somehow matched.

Loquaa doesn’t need anything more than his mother and Hatchtani, really. He prefers that his art stays kept away and he likes his days quiet. It’s how he stays sane, in the bedlam of a theater under the ocean surface. He has created his own stability. That is how it’s always been.

His mom had ice white eyes, he thinks. Even when she acted upset with him, her eyes would be smiling. Hatchtani can see them in his mind if he focuses. He doesn’t want to forget them. They’re all that he has left of her. It was so long ago now, and the memories are twisting themselves up. His dad never spoke, he thinks, but—maybe he just spoke quietly? Or maybe he only spoke on rare occasions? And suddenly the memories are being written and rewritten, falling away in their revisions.

Though Hatchtani is gradually forgetting the songs his mother sang him, he remembers being stolen away in shocking clarity. He remembers the fear more than anything. They shackled him to a boat and began to sail away, off to an unknown land. Hatchtani heard them talking in the dead of night. Their destination was an auction house for cheap goods. Most of the hatchlings thrown in would be raised as fodder for battles between the deities. He felt panic rise in his throat. His future had seemed so bright, so endless, and now eternity stretched before him with only the promise of service to a god he didn’t worship.

The prisoners were unshackled twice a day; once to use the restroom, and once to be evaluated for health hazards. By the third day, they had reached the Sea of a Thousand Currents through a river in the Tangled Wood. Their destination, a dock on the edges of the Wasteland, was drawing nearer, but Hatchtani had decided on a different fate. The boat was anchored and the crew was getting restless. A grimy physician was evaluating the hatchlings one by one above deck. When Hatchtani’s turn came along, they brought him above deck. He inched towards the side of the boat and looked down.

He had read of the wild nature of the ocean and heard the waves toss from below deck. It was deep as the skies and just as dark, consuming and creating in equal parts. Hatchtani had expected to feel afraid. Instead, the waves were calmer than he had ever seen them. They folded over each other softly and bubbled with sea foam, soft and white, as if the seas were inviting him in. Before the physician could get to him, Hatchtani had thrown himself overboard. He plummeted towards the water, impossibly fast, and it reached up to meet him and—his mind went black.

When Hatchtani awoke, he was in a room surrounded by brilliant colors. A stained glass window shrouded the room in soft light and paintings were hung on all four walls. In front of him, a blue imperial that introduced himself as Evalau watched with a worried frown. The tears that had escaped him in the lonely sway of the ship bubbled up and spilled over. Soon, every dragon in the clan knew who he was. He was adopted by everyone at once. Laurangue fretted over him like a mother would, and Hamaqui treated him like a younger brother. Evalau, the one who had rescued him from being crushed beneath the ship, began to teach him how to paint.

The first thing he drew was his mother. Her gems were…blueish purple. Or maybe they were a paler lavender? No matter what colors he mixed, the painting came out wrong. Instead, he switched tactics drew her in shades of grey. Her eyes, however, were the same soothing white he remembered. Something clicked inside him. Every frustration, all the pain he had felt, could be poured into the grayscale paintings. Hatchtani plowed forward in his art with overwhelming joy. He could never regain the life that he had left behind, but he had created his own place of safety in a new home.

The other hatchlings gathered around him and cooed at his art. Hatchtani laughed with them and spoke with them, but never really befriended any. They felt so many miles away from him. How could they understand his paintings when they had been coddled in the warmth of the theater all their lives, accepted and loved unconditionally?

Then he met someone new. Minaoi and her son, Loquaa, were both passionate and fierce forces of nature. They hung on the edges of the clan but rarely dipped into its social scene. It seemed that they preferred solitude. Hatchtani had heard that Loquaa was an artist as well, but that nobody was allowed to see his creations. They met in a long hallway outside of the main gallery by accident. Loquaa was hunched over his sketchbook, carefully crafting a skydancer’s wing. It was effortlessly elegant. Hatchtani could almost feel the softness of the feathers. Then, Loquaa drew it again. And again. And again. Hatchtani watched, half-mesmerized, as Loquaa drew the same thing until the page was filled. When he was done, he looked up and saw Hatchtani staring with his mouth half open—and he bolted.

Immedietly, Hatchtani’s curiosity was piqued. This dragon was different from the rest; he could feel it. He asked everyone he could about him, but nobody seemed to know much. His last chance was Minaoi. She was in the middle of a booming story when he approached her. As with all her performances, a crowd of dragons gathered around to listen. Hatchtani allowed himself to be carried away by her story. Once all the other listeners had left, he remained and walked tentatively over to the massive storyteller.

She was guarded, that much was certain, but her love for her son was undeniable. After she had decided that Hatchtani wouldn’t hurt him, she offered him some advice; there was a room near the rooftop that was almost always empty. It was illuminated by a massive window with a perfect view into the open ocean. When Loquaa’s thoughts became too cloudy, he went there.

It was near dusk when they met for the second time. Hatchtani had taken to painting up in the empty room as he watched the fish swim by, waiting for the chance to speak to Loquaa. When he finally came, it looked for a moment like he was going to run once more, but Hatchtani spoke carefully and smiled, just as Minaoi had advised. They gradually eased into comfortable conversation. Then, suddenly, secrets began pouring out of Loquaa. He had never known his father, and resented him for it. He was afraid that he had inherited his mother’s darkness. His drawings were meant to give him stability, but more often just frustrated him.

Hatchtani was stunned silent by the sudden influx of information. He stared at Loquaa with wide eyes for a long moment. The other dragon began to look worried. There was no need for that, however. Hatchtani wasn’t repulsed by the outburst. He was relieved. He was so, so relieved. Loquaa was so different from him, and yet so similar. They fit together perfectly.

He will never completely stop missing his mother’s icy eyes, but Hatchtani loves his new family. He’s doing what he loves in a place where he belongs. Under Evalau’s careful guidance, his paintings are improving every day. Sometimes, he looks at the colorful paints that have so long gone untouched and thinks—someday. He paints Loquaa with the same grey he has always used, but he still sees the seafoam stripes on his back and thinks—someday.