#and her mom that's also a pearlcatcher works there too!

[ornithic]

a good chunk of my dragons in fr have similar colours and have a bug gene(?) design on their wings, if it's not a feathered dragon species

and that was Unintentional,

[creatuesfromthedeep]

🍓🍌?

🍓Show off your favorite wet cat (pathetic) dragon and share a fun fact about them!

Salenor is undoubtedly my favorite wet cat. He's so pathetic. He's everything to me. His weird relationship with his boss is the reason why workplaces need HR. He dug someone else's grave. He was regularly locked out of his own workplace because none of his coworkers liked him. He was solely responsible for managing 99% of the official government business but everyone treated him like an intern. He didn't even do his villain arc right, he spent the entire time brooding and looking pretty. He's in jail and he only sort-of deserves it. He's an accomplice to murder. He has a tragic backstory but frankly his present situation is much more pressing. Everyone still thinks he's a boring wet towel and he literally joined a death cult for awhile

🍌Show off your favorite couple/throuple/etc and share some information on how they first met, fell in love, etc!

Kireg and Niranye my beloveds... They are toxic yuri to me. They had an adorable office meet-cute at their workplace, and began dating soon afterwards; they kept things light between them, but they were both very serious and dedicated to making it work. Niranye in particular, who is a hopeless romantic, wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of her life with Kireg. Kireg, who struggles with intimacy and letting people close, finally found someone she could trust. Then Niranye was coerced slash forced to join aforementioned death cult, was an accomplice to the dragons who destroyed their town, and got imprisoned in a magical bubble. Niranye also got a daughter during this time. Kireg, who was outside the bubble, then had to rebuild from scratch and manage a group of refugees from their destroyed town. Niranye eventually ended up successfully defecting, and got caught and imprisoned.

For some reason, none of this has dissuaded Kireg from wanting a relationship with Niranye. They're rebuilding, albeit slowly.

All of this has resulted in what I think is my magnum opus, in terms of dialogue:

"I don't deserve this," Niranye started, and held up a wing to silence Kireg's protests. "I didn't wait either. I have a daughter named Eurydice, she's a Shade construct made in my image,"

Niranye waited for Kireg to start shouting, or to get up silently and leave the room. She braced herself for if the pearlcatcher flung weak blows against her in anger, though something deep in her mind was assured that Kireg would never do such a thing.

Kireg did none of those things. She whirred her bottom lip with uneven fangs, took a few deep breaths, and spoke.

"It was a year. We were separated by an impenetrable magical dome. I would be a hypocrite if I judged you," Kireg stated, as if she was convincing herself. Maybe she was. "You just.. Found alternatives to me, while we were separated,"

"I cheated on you with the Shade," "I suppose you did,"

They both sat silent for a solid thirty seconds. Niranye counted every agonizing second.

"It was just the Shade, correct? Not Salenor or Abran?" Kireg asked tentatively, and Niranye burst out laughing at the thought. She wasn't sure Abran was emotionally capable of having a mate, and Salenor was definitely too preoccupied with himself to seek out romance.

"Of course not! It was Rhoslyn who created Eurydice, but she was made in my image; she always called me mom, and well, it stuck," Niranye explained, suddenly rushing through the words as if more information would make the situation less awkward instead of more awkward.

"That's not proper cheating, Niranye!" Kireg cried out, and held her head in her claws while shaking it gently. Kireg snorted, and then devolved into laughter. "I can't believe I thought you'd actually cheated on me with-- with the Shade, of all things!"

-- From Heartbreak was Never So Loud

[maned-cerdae]

Namesakes

“fav! you wrote lore for the first time in forever! whats it about?”

“yeah its like 2000 years into the future and-”

“EXCUSE ME”

“Now come away from the window, or you’ll break the glass and fall through. Besides, today we’re learning about your namesake. Aren’t you interested in learning more about her?”

Ayla turned towards her tutor, fins flicking in annoyance. “But I don’t wanna learn anything today! I want to look at the pretty clouds. Besides, these windows haven’t been made with glass for like, 500 years or something.”

Her tutor raised one eyebrow and took another puff of his pipe, and Ayla sighed and sat back down with a huff.

“Good good. Well then. Today we’re gonna be learning about the formative years of the Democratic Republic of Akkure Loham, and it’s effects on larger Sorneith as a whole. Now, open your book to chapter... Ayla, you’re not listening to me again.”

The fae had turned her head back to the window, craning her neck to try and see the clouds just below the flying home. She jumped at hearing her name and sunk down in her seat. “I don’t want to learn anything! I want to look at the clouds and play my new game! Why do I have to learn about some dusty old dead dragon who lived like, ten million years ago probably!”

“Ten million? Ayla dear, this is only about 2000 years ago. This is recent history.” He took another puff. “How about this? I can ask your parents if we could go to the capital. I heard that the other cloud dragons there make the ‘prettiest clouds ever’ in the public squares, and you can see all the monuments too. There’s tons of them named after dragons from this period. If you find all of them and tell me why that dragon was important, you can see one of the professional cloud dancers.”

Ayla’s eyes lit up. “A professional cloud dancer? Can I use a map? Can I look up a map of the monuments at least pleeasseee? I’ll find all of them and do research and everything! I promise!”

He laughed. “Go ahead.” The second the words left his mouth, Ayla was already racing out of the room and down the steps to look up a map on her computer.

Ayla wiggled impatiently in her seat, map and monument list clutched to her chest. The airship crept forward an inch and she finally whined. “Can I go onto the deck? The airship is like, barely moving! So it would be safe, right? Pleaaasseeeee.”

Her tutor looked over at the driver, and they shrugged. “With traffic like this, might as well take the opportunity. Looks like it won’t be clearing up anytime soon,” they answered, and Ayla turned her best puppy eyes to her tutor. 

He finally sighed. “Go on then.” Ayla squeaked and shoved her papers at him. “Thank you thank you thank you Mr. A! I’ll be good, I promise!”

She scrambled out of the cockpit and onto the deck. All around her were other airships, six lanes in total. Ayla crept over to the railing and looked down. There were several more tiers below her, all feeding into different levels of the city. She had never seen so many other dragons in her life, and she wanted to shift and leap into an excited flight right then and there. Her parents would kill her though, if Mr. A didn’t do it first on their behalf.

She looked back up, and saw on the airship across from her other hatchlings also scrambling on their deck. Three coatl siblings practically tumbled over each other in excitement, and a small pearlcatcher crept out cautiously, clutching a pearl tightly to their chest. Rounding out the little parade was an older guardian, holding the pearlcatcher’s shoulder encouragingly.

One of the coatls noticed her looking and ran over to the railing, waving enthusiastically. The other followed. Now that they were closer, she could see their eyes. For a second she thought plague, but they were a tinge too dark. Ayla wracked her minds for the element list her tutor had made her memorize ages ago, and fell upon blood. The smallest of the three had one eye of brilliant ice blue however. The pearlcatcher shrank back against their guardian and pouted. They were too far away to see still.

“-ello! Hello! Hi!” The voice of the first coatl barely carried across the distance and over the hum of hundreds on engines. Ayla raised a hand in greeting back.

“My name’s Rhosyn! My sister is named after the dragon that made shampoo!”

The smallest coatl with the ice heterochromia shrieked loud enough that it carried clearly and started hitting them. They laughed even as their sister yelled. “YOU! ARE! SO! MEAN!!!!!”

“Hi Rhosyn! I’m Ayla! Did you mean your sister is named Akako?”

The coatl stopped hitting her sibling and turned to Ayla, puffing out her chest proudly. “Yes, and she didn’t invent shampoo! I saw it on the computers, but Rhosyn doesn’t believe me even though it was on original Akako’s page thing!”

The pearlcatcher finally handed over the pearl to the guardian, and the second they were close enough they grabbed onto Rhosyn’s arm, though the one that had just been waled on. Rhosyn winced, and the pearlcatcher jumped back hurriedly. Akako grabbed their sleeve and pulled them back towards the railing.

“No, stay with us Ayla! Look, there’s another girl with your name on the other ship!”

Ayla found herself looking at another set of pale white eyes and burst out laughing. The other girl tried to jump back again. Akako kept her still stubbornly. “You’re a cloud dragon too!” Ayla wheezed. “Oh my gods!”

The three coatls immediately turned on the other Ayla to check like they had never seen her before. She frowned over the gap, practically saying Why did you do this to me with her eyes. Rhosyn started laughing as well. “You two are like long lost sisters!”

The third sibling, who hadn’t spoken yet, turned away from the chaos of his siblings. “Ay- The other Ayla, you, what are you going to the city for?”

“I’m seeing a bunch of monuments and maybe a professional cloud dancer with my teacher! Why are you going?”

“I think it’s because my parents bought a new winter home here so they want us to be there earlier than usual so they can throw a bunch of parties.” He shrugged, before his feathers popped up in realization. “Oh! I forgot. My name’s Roscato. Our parents are like, huge history nerds you know? Mom does work at the university though for history but... you know?”

Ayla turned her heard in confusion. “What university? There’s like, a lot, like, everywhere.”

Roscato opened his mouth like he was gonna reply, but his feathers suddenly dropped as he realized he didn’t know the answer. He tugged Rhosyn’s sleeve. “Hey Rhosyn, where does Mom work again? Like, the name?”

Rhosyn looked away from where they had been in a tug of war over a very stressed pearlcatcher Ayla, accidentally letting Akako get the upper hand who then wrapped her arms around around her ‘prize’ in triumph. “Why?”

“The other Ayla wants to know.”

Rhosyn hummed thoughtfully, and open their mouth to reply before… realizing they didn’t know either. “Akako, do you know?”

“Do I know what?” She was still clutching the other Ayla, who very much looked like she would rather jump over the railing then deal with this right now.

“The name of the university Mom works at.”

The other Ayla pulled herself free and matched over to her guard, before stopping and running back. “Gods! The name is the Ayla Tieren School of Advanced Learning! You are talking to two, TWO!! Dragons named Ayla and you forgot??”

The siblings all winced, and simultaneously muttered “maybe”.

Ayla perked up at the name. “Oh, I know that one! My parents spoke there a few times, but I’ve never seen it. I’ve only seen like, the very upper levels of the city. But! Mr. A says for my project I can visit all the levels, even Level D, since that’s where the original Ayla lived as a kid and you can tour it and everything!”

The other Ayla’s eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to say something. However, traffic decided that moment to start crawling forward again. She yelled and flung her arms around Rhosyn for support. It slowed to a stop and she cautiously perked over Rhosyn’s shoulder. “You’re Ayla Tieren, the chancellor’s daughter! I knew you looked familiar; I was forced to read a really old news story about your first birthday once.”

Rhosyn frowned. “I thought that the chancellor didn’t have any children?”

The other Ayla pulled away with a huff. “It’s like, a secret or something. But not a secret. She’s not supposed to come out in the open because there was a threat against her when she was a little hatchling or something.” She squinted across the gap. “If you are her, why are you being let to go to Level D? That’s where criminals live.”

Ayla paled. A threat against me? She made a mental note to look it up later. “Y-yeah, the chancellor is my mom. And... well. I’m not sure?”

Before the conversation could continue, a shadow fell over the group of hatchlings. Ayla looked up and saw a massive floating gate that separated each lane in two. The guardian sighed and started herding the hatchlings on the other ship back inside. 

Rhosyn waved frantically. “Ayla, Ayla, the other one, hey! Do you have Courier? Add our Ayla on there! She’s Ayla Ceniceros, like the company Ceniceros! She’ll be the easiest to find so I’ll just break into her account and request you on everyone’s accounts! Bye!”

With that, Rhosyn followed the others back inside. Ayla blinked and peered past the gates, and what she saw took her breath away.

The city spiraled miles into the air, tiers of floating platforms and ships connecting the surface, and even below the surface, to areas so high up they were obscured by clouds. Faint swirling specks hinted at dragons in flight, some circling the perimeter for protection while others traced lazy loops and played games. She had never seen anything below the Cloud Layer before, and it was nothing like she imagined.

Her moment of awe was popped by another dragon clearing their throat. She turned to around to see a kind old skydancer looking at her from a window in what she had thought was a support pillar for the gate. “I wouldn’t recommend being out on the deck much longer, hun. Traffic speeds up quite a bit after here and I wouldn’t want a little thing like you flying off!”

Ayla nodded, running back inside. The driver had a side window open and was handing papers to the skydancer, who stamped them and handed them back. “Have a nice visit little one!” The skydancer chirped at her, and Ayla felt the airship start picking up speed considerably. She retrieved her map and list from Mr. A and found an old pencil down the crack in her seat, hurriedly scribbling “Ayla Ceniceros” and “threat on me when young??” on the back of one before she could forget.