The Beauty and the Chicken (Rogue X Eldarwen)

Subject: The Beauty and the Chicken (Rogue X Eldarwen) Wed Apr 04, 2012 7:05 pm

As per the norm, Cruinne was taking her evening walk towards the Amelle fall in order to contemplate its glory and beauty in the sinking sun. Over the years, it had become a ritual for her and the cosmos dragon could not quite imagine herself anymore without paying that evening visit to her favourite place in the world.

It wasn’t only that the waterfall in itself was cascading beautifully down the mountain, no it was because she was of the opinion that the splendour of the water reflected her own stunning appearance. The cosmos dragon had never travelled anywhere but nonetheless, it was very clear to her that there were not many things or beings, if any at all, who could rival her magnificence.

Slight case of arrogance and narcissism aside, Cruinne was not a bad being, she merely had a different view on some things than other creatures, especially when it came to meaningfulness. Her idea of a good for instance incorporated lovingly staring at her own reflection in the huge mirror in her cave and taking this nice walk to watch the cascade.

To some this might be a boring routine, but to her, it came as close to perfection as possible (seeing that perfection would be her). With a happy sigh, the cosmos dragon planted herself on her usual lookout spot, a slightly overhanging rock which gave a wonderful view over the waterfall and its surroundings, all of which were sparkling with the light golden glow of the sundown.

The Amelle Falls was one place where Oros felt quite happy. The spray from the falls made everything damp and soggy, it was true, but when the rocks were constantly being washed, then he could be sure they were clean, and that was a wonderful thing. He could sit by the side of the water and not have to worry about who had been there before, what dirt he was picking up, and be frightened of what the night might bring to his side. By the side of this big, powerful waterfall, who would think to come close enough to try and do anything to him?

Surprisingly though, he wasn’t put off by the bugs that were also attracted to the water, watching a cloud of knats in interest. They were quite pretty, in the evening light. Why, of all things, he wasn’t afraid of bugs was completely ludicrous, when he was paranoid about many, many other things, but that was how it was, and it wasn’t to be questioned. That might bring bad things.

A fish leapt out of the plunge pool and he focussed his attention on it briefly, capturing the image carefully in his head; the bright sunbeams, the floating clouds of insects, the fish’s bright rainbow stripe flashing and sparkling with water. He would paint it later; his favourite pass time. He had a special “haunt”, a house, if you will, that he kept all his paints in, kept spick and span. It was another place where he felt okay about being in.

Looking up and around the falls, he noticed another dragon sitting a little higher up, her scales beautifully kept and bright, not a single feather out of place. His mouth fell open in a gape, then he pushed off from his rock into the sky, flying out over the water and up to where she sat on her rock. He fluttered in front of her, instantly hesitant about actually landing.
“Why, you’re so beautiful!” he exclaimed, eyes skimming all over her in an attempt to remember her properly. She would have to be a new painting! Yes, he could see it now, but how to capture that gorgeous blue and purple…

Cruinne sighed once again as she observed the sprays of the water flying away from the fall on its way down into the pool below and she was glad she had not forsaken this little moment for another session in front of the mirror. Not that she did not like the view the mirror offered her but this was quite something. It always was, no matter how many times she sat here and observed.

All of a sudden however, her peaceful contemplation was interrupted by the form of a flying dragon in front of her; a dragon, she had not noticed until now. Where had he suddenly appeared from? He instantly appeased her frown however, when he spoke. Why, he had good taste!

“Thank you!” Cruinne replied to the stranger, a wolf dragon, whose yellow patches of fur – she could not help but notice – had a very nice shine in them from the dying sunlight. It was quite intriguing and, if she dared to think so, quite lovely.

The cosmos dragon loved nothing more than flattery and she let the newcomer contemplate her as much as he wanted to, though after a moment, she did grow a little uneasy because he simply kept staring at her. “Excuse me,” she cleared her throat briefly, “what exactly is it that you want from me?” Her voice was not unkind but she was confused, and confusion was an emotion which did not really have a place in Cruinne’s world, or rather, it existed quite more often than she wanted to but it was not a feeling she enjoyed very much.

“Please, do land though. You are making me quite nervous, fluttering around like that.” A critical glance towards the wolf dragon would hopefully make her point clearer. It was unnerving and most of all, he was blocking her view of the waterfall, but seeing as she was in a good mood, she did not want to insult him just yet.

Oros continued to flutter in front of the beautiful cosmos dragon, oblivious to the fact that his staring was quite rude. What, he couldn’t help it! He just wanted to capture every feather, every shimmering scale… and the more he looked, the better he would remember, and the more he would see. He was almost startled when she spoke again, so engrossed was he in admiring her.
“Oh, sorry! I was just… you’re so pretty, I was trying to capture you in my mind, so that when I go home, I can paint you perfectly. It won’t be perfectly perfect, but I’m going to try ever so hard.”
And with that, he went back to staring, assuming it was a fitting enough excuse. Oros wasn’t the most society-savvy dragon around.

He drunk in her appearance for another minute more, then like coming out of a trace, looked at her properly again. “Oh no, I couldn’t do that, not at all. No, landing would not be good.” He eyed the rocks near her, a few with specks of lichen here and there, moss growing off the side of the cliff face where the water made the rocks rich with nutrients. But none of them were properly clean, they weren’t being washed by the waterfall like the rocks near the bottom of the falls were. It was tiring, this constant flap-flap-flap-flapping, but he had gotten used to it; he spent a lot of time like this, too afraid to touch the ground. All matter of things could sully his paws if he did! But then he had another thought; what if she was looking at something behind him? He whipped around in the air, beating ferociously with his wings, wide-eyed until he saw there was nothing but the waterfall and the sun setting in the distance. Click, another something he should paint once he got home.

The wolf dragon might not be the brightest dragon around, or so it struck Cruinne, but he had a sense for propriety, or whatever passed for such in the cosmos dragon’s world – which was to say, he complimented her nonstop. He also disliked things that were not really clean it seemed and Cruinne could only agree with that sentiment, even though she was a tad taken aback that he would think she would sit herself down in a spot that was dirty. It wasn’t for nothing that she generally swept the ground beneath and in front of her paws clean with her magic. After all, it simply would not do to get even the tiniest speck of dirt onto herself.

“Don’t worry, the floor is clean wherever I tread,” she encouraged the dragon. To Cruinne, this was normal conduct and she could not understand beings who would not want to keep themselves clean. This new dragon, who was still annoyingly fluttering in front of her view, seemed to act along the same principles. Though maybe for different reasons, she thought as she saw the slightly panicky look on his face when he rejected the idea, but she was not going to offer a second time that he could join her.

“Whatever suits you,” she muttered. With a wave of her wing, she was just about to add that he should at least stop blocking her view when he did so by himself. As they sat – and fluttered – with their eyes firmly on the waterfall and the setting sun, Cruinne risked another glance at the wolf dragon, grinning at his expression. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

Suddenly, something else crossed her mind, and she cocked her head to the side in order to look at the wolf dragon more closely. Compliments aside – those she expected anyways – had he just… “Did you say you wanted to paint me? From memory?”

Oros smiled wanly at the cosmos dragon as he fluttered in front of her, wishing to please her, but at the same time really not comfortable with her offer. Of course it would be clean, but not as clean as he might have liked, or she might have missed a spot. No, his wings would hold up nicely enough. He didn’t mind fluttering there either, he was quite happy.
“Oh, it’s absolutely wonderful. I shall try and remember it for when I get back, to paint, then it will be a glorious picture. I shall get every sunbeam and every shadow.” He smiled at Cruinne, excited by the prospect. There was no way he was getting any sleep tonight; instead, he would just work through the night. Sleep wasn’t important enough to interrupt his precious painting and possibly make him forget how glorious it was. You couldn’t accidentally take him for someone who wasn’t passionate about their work.

“Yes, I will paint you. From memory, unless you wanted to come back to my home with me, in which case you will sit, and I will paint your perfect portrait. With as many colours as I have in my set!” He certainly was exuberant, flicking his tail this way and that in his excitement. “Come, you should, then as well you may see my painting. Then make it more beautiful; I could never do you enough justice from just rememberance.” He nodded fiercely, then flicked his wings across and into the forest again. “Come, come, I must insist. I will never do you enough justice, and that will not do. I will be one of those doomed painters, never able to capture your beauty just right.” He looked almost heartbroken at the thought, then swished his tail aside once more. “Do not break a poor artist’s heart so to refuse!”

Cruinne had to admit, the prospect of being painted appealed to her and even more so the more this wolf dragon went on about how perfect it would look and how beautiful everything was. The male had an eye for the extraordinary it seemed, and that was a trait she very much admired in other creatures, as rare as it might be.
He also knew how to flatter her and that was a characteristic she appreciated far more than anything else. “Why, thank you!” If she had not already been of the opinion, she might even have blushed in the face of such compliments.

“I will gladly accompany to your place so that you can paint me,” she accepted and grew rather excited of this prospect. It was something new and it was interesting and amazing all at the same time! She could not refuse such an offer even if she had wanted to.
“What is your name, my dear artist?” Cruinne asked as she lifted herself up into the air on her fragile looking wings to fly along side the dragon into their painting adventures. “I go by the name of Cruinne and it is lovely to make your acquaintance.”

With one last glance towards the waterfall, she knew what it looked like and the picture would for always be imprinted in her memory, but she was having a hard time nonetheless to completely tear her eyes away from it. It would probably help the wolf dragon to capture its essence since they both knew of its spectacular exquisiteness. “Lead the way, my friend,” the cosmos dragon smiled.

Quite surprisingly, Oros’ melodramatic speech had swayed Cruinne enough for her to come back with him! And here he was, all ready to succumb to the terrible fate of painting the dragon badly. Well, what a very good bit of news that was! His mood immediately 180’d back to normal.
“Wonderful, wonderful! This is the most fantastic news. Come, we shall not dally on the way, every second is of essence. I must capture you this very moment, before you wilt.”

He wasn’t the most socially adept dragon around.

“I am Oros, lady Cruinne, it’s so wonderful for you to ask,” he gushed at her question, putting his front paws together in the air and taking a little dip of his head. “Now, if you please, this way,” he immediately set off out over the waterfall, soaring across the water and back in the direction of his house. Other things did not merit his attention now, and he thought only of which pastel blues and rich purples he could use. He barely took notice of the trees as he flew under them, noting just those in front of him so he avoided their trunks or branches. Every now and then he looked back at Cruinne too, grinning madly like someone who has just been given everything they had ever wished for, and marvelling at her scales. The thought she might not want to stand for hours through the night didn’t pass his mind, only that he had gotten his way and could paint her however he liked, from whichever angle. All angles!

Wilt?! Had he really just said wilt? What on earth was that supposed to mean? Cruinne frowned a little and contemplated the wolf dragon once again wondering if there was something he was not telling her but she could of course not turn back now and tell him to go on without her. No, it would not do. She was a polite dragon – well, she was polite with these sorts of things, even if her mouth sometimes went a little overboard.

She could forgive this little hitch however seeing as he had been so very nice to her so far, and kept up with it as well. “It is nice to meet you too, Oros,” Cruinne replied as they set off on their little journey. The cosmos dragon definitely was curious to see where this odd dragon lived, especially as he was rather eccentric, or so it seemed.

Of course, his humble abode could not possible rival the beauty she called her own home. It may only be a cave to some but it was spotless and it was decorating and arranged with the most wonderful things, not to mention the huge mirror. She missed her mirror, she realised all of a sudden. It had been a while since she had marvelled in her own elegance and she felt a pressing urge as though she needed to make sure that she was still perfect. Nonsense, of course, what else would she be if not perfect?

“So how long have you been a painter, Oros? And how come you have chosen such a fabulous profession such as this artistic one to be your own?” Secretly, she was already hoping, the flight would not take much longer. She had never been far away from her home and she was feeling slightly insecure at the notion of getting too far now.

Thankfully, Oros’ home wasn’t too far from the Amelle Falls, saving both Cruinne’s worry, and his- he could never go too far, just for the worry of… everything. He couldn’t have his wings getting tired and him having to stop somewhere dirty, now could he?
“Oh, I think I’ve been painting things for as long as I remember. I used to be terrible, but now people say I’m rather good, but I’m not sure,” he said in reply to her question, thinking back to when he was just a youngster and a “masterpiece” was a few blotches of colour on a sheet of paper. “Some say you choose your profession, but others say you are born into it… I rather think I was born to paint.” His voice had gotten dreamy, just thinking about it, but he snapped back to attention as they arrived at his house.

It really was a house, albeit not quite the standard lodging for either a dragon, or a human. It had long ago been someone’s hunting hut, but had been abandoned years before, the elements taking over. Ivy threaded all over the walls and roof, and a tree had grown in a gap in one wall and then out up the chimney, which looked absurd. But it was pretty too, the stones mossy, the roof tiles (that could be seen) shiny and clean, and the door actually in place and obviously usable. Oros pushed it open with one paw, landing neatly inside and wiping them on the little mat inside.
“Come in, I’ll find you a space and we can start at once!” He bounced inside, already leaping over to a set of shelves where rows on rows of tubs and jars and tubes of paint were all lined up, stored in anything and everything he could find.

“I’m sure you are just fine,” Cruinne tried to soothe the wolf dragon’s worries. “If you are born to do something, then it is not possible not to be good at it.” It made her wonder for a brief moment, if she might be willing to help him with his skills if he really wasn’t as good as the others told him he was. There seemed to be a little insecurity in his voice, but she might be mistaken.

The cosmos dragon would see for herself soon enough and she was willing to believe that he was quite good with art. A rare occurrence in Cruinne’s world, to believe in someone else, and then on top be willing to nudge the being in the right direction if necessary. She only hoped that he would appreciate the gesture, should it come down to it.

When Cruinne caught sight of the house, she was a tad overwhelmed for a brief moment. It resembled her cave in nothing and she was rather jealous that his place was so much nicer than hers. Yet, that was not what they had come for, it was not a contest, and she tried to push past the emotion, admiring the house for what it was. “This is beautiful, Oros! You really do have an eye for artistic things,” she smiled.

Once inside, she followed suit and wiped her paws on the little mat and tried not to mess anything up. While he was finding her a spot and arranged his things, the cosmos dragon made sure that nothing was amiss in her appearance and that she was still as radiant and perfect as ever. Not that she could be any other way but she loved checking and rechecking and doublechecking. “Actually,” Cruinne inquired, “do you have a mirror?”

“Oh, thank you, I do know my house is rather bizarre though,” said Oros, fluttering up into the air a little and plucking a few tubs of paint off the shelving. They went straight into a basket next to a big flat spot on the floor, then he cleared a bit of a space for Cruinne in front of him, tucking away a few sheets of paper and various other strange objects. He tried to keep it tidy and neat, but when you were doing art, there was no telling the sorts of things he might need! He gave her a wide smile as he pulled down a roll of papers from a top shelf, almost spilling them everywhere, but just managing to extract one of the bigger pieces, before setting it down on the floor and rolling it out flat, using heavy objects to hold down the corners. The rest got stacked in one corner, for later.

Now, his place was ready for painting!

“I do have a mirror, sometimes for painting.” Oros paused, ears twitching, then he padded over to one corner and pulled a mirror out from behind a few thick sheets of wood, walking backwards and dragging it with him by his teeth. It was a bit speckled around the edges, but still usable, and big enough for Cruinne to admire herself in with ease. He growled like a dog as it scraped along the floor, propping it up against one wall and patting the bottom with his paws. “There, how’s that? Now, if you could just sit here…” He padded over to a spare spot in the middle of the room, gesturing with one wing for her to come over, then hopped behind his paper so he could make her sit at the right angle. It wasn’t quite right though… something was missing. He frowned slightly, then pulled a long length of fabric out of a box, dragging it over the floor to lie in folds. That would make things a little prettier. He would paint the dark fabric like it was a shower of starts all over, instead of it’s slightly musty, thick folds.

“Oh bizarre, maybe, yes, but very lovely indeed,” Cruinne hummed as she looked around some more, even though her looks were more directed towards finding a mirror or some sort of shiny surface where she could admire herself in. Everywhere pots and tubes of various colours seemed to linger, papers, paintings, but it was neat nonetheless. The place had an odd air of organised chaos – at least to the cosmos dragon, who despite her love for surrounding herself with niceties did not have a lot lying around.

Cruinne eyes Oros curiously as he began dragging bits and pieces into the middle of the room, spreading them so he could easily access whatever he needed without much effort but her eyes only then lit up when he began dragging a mirror towards her. She wanted to help him but he seemed to know exactly what he was doing and how to get it positioned just the right way.

The reflection greeting her was just as lovely as ever, and the cosmos dragon gave a relieved sigh at this. “Yes, of course,” she said, hastily following the wolf dragon’s directions and positioning herself exactly the way he wanted her, making sure, she could still keep an eye on the mirror at all times. For her, there was nothing else needed. She could present herself in all her glory to someone else while still admiring herself in the mirror.

However, the wolf dragon did not seem happy and Cruinne looked at him, with her head lightly cocked to one side as he began fiddling with a piece of fabric. “What is the use of this?” she asked, genuinely intrigued. “Is this for a background?”
As soon as she mentioned the word background and saw the wolf dragon actually go to work, she was delighted by this new adventure and asked: “How is this going to work now? What are you going to paint?” After a quick, unhappy frown, she added: “I mean, how are you going to paint me? And, and… ?” She was truly excited about this and it was an unexpected emotion for her, so that she did not quite know what to do with herself and it anymore. Thus, she contented herself with sitting the way he had asked her to, and hoping he was going to reply with just as much enthusiasm as she was currently feeling.

“It’s for…rrrrghh a foreground,” said Oros, struggling with the fabric in his teeth, and almost sending himself toppling to the floor as he got it tangled in his feet. Finally he managed to extract himself, and get the fabric layered around Cruinne, sort of how he wanted it- it just needed… tweaking. Lots of tweaking. He hopped around her as he spread the cloth out, and bunched it up with his paws, his tail flicking in irritation when it didn’t work straight away. Finally pleased with how it was all laid out, he bounded back to his workstation, eyes flicking from Cruinne, to the paper, then back again.
“Well, first I take the paint like this…” he chewed one of the caps off a tub of paint, putting the capping bit of fabric on the floor before tipping the paint tub upsidedown and spreading it onto a dish, an old plate someone had given him a long time ago- apparently at one stage it had been white, with blue around the edges! Today, it was going to be green and white however, with a nice base of red residue. “And now, to paint!”

He dabbed a bit on his front paws, then bounced forwards onto the bit of paper in front of him, leaving two big white paw-shaped splodges where he landed. It might have been tricky to see it was going to be Cruinne from the random assortment of pawprints he set about marking the paper with, mixing in a bit of green here and there, but he was sure it would turn out fabulously. It would! After a bit, his painting started to look more like a figure and less like a random collection of prints, growing a few features and a general shape. Once he had gotten into the rhythm of painting, he could split his attention enough to talk as well.
“Do you come to this part of the forest often? I have never see you around before… have you been invisible? Or have I been blindfolded?” He could certainly see himself wandering around with a bit of a haze of looking-but-not-seeing.

((blahhh I forgot what I was actually going to put after not-replying for over a month >.< Fail!))

Oros may not be fussing around for her but rather for his own picture and the background thereof, but she still liked the fact that he was fidgeting around, trying to make everything look perfect, trying to make her look perfect.
Under the current circumstances, she did not resent the fact that he wanted to make her seem perfect as she obviously already was perfect even without his extras. It felt nice to be adorned and Cruinne considered for a brief moment to adorn herself with accessories more often from time to time, merely to enhance her natural beauty a tad.

It was fascinating, even more than she had thought to watch the wolf dragon prepare everything and then observe him as he began painting. Trying as much as possible to not move about so that she did not change the position he had manoeuvered her into, she did not leave Oros or his canvas out of sight.
Her frown was obvious when all she could distinguish were what could only be described as random paw prints. Uncharacteristic for her however, she held her tongue and decided to wait a while longer before commenting. And good thing she had done so!
“It’s starting to look quite nice!” Cruinne commented as Oros was working away on the painting. Intriguing still as she could not detect all that much yet and she was sure he was using all the wrong colours, but for now she let him do what he wanted. After all, he was the painter, he should know what he was doing.

“Oh yes, yes! I am at the waterfall every night to admire its exquisiteness! It is my most favourite place in all the world!” The cosmos dragon immediately swooned over her beloved waterfall. “I have never seen a lovelier and more peaceful place than that waterfall in its glory, especially at sundown.”
Shaking her head slightly, Cruinne remembered Oros had added something else to that question. “Really? You have never seen me? Then you must not have been living in these parts for very long?” The underlying text was that anyone living in these parts could not not have seen her or sought her out after hearing the rumours of her beauty. It simply could not be, could it? "Blindfolded," she said matter-of-factly. Of course, following her line of thinking, he had had to be blindfolded. What other explanation could there be for him not having seen her?
“How long have you been living here? And how come I have never seen you either? Or any of your work? Have you been in hiding?”

~Ah well, happens to the best of us hehe =)~

As he worked, Oros pondered over Cruinne’s words. She certainly made the waterfall sound very appetising, and he did have such a liking for bright, splendorous places. If she herself wasn’t so gorgeous in front of him now, he would have been very tempted to take off with a sheet of paper and all his paints back to the waterfall that instant. However, her ire was not something he wanted (at least, not while she was in his house, she could have made the most awful mess, breaking things and wrecking his paintings in a tantrum), and he was determined to finish her painting. After all, he couldn’t just abandon it halfway through! He wasn’t one for that sort of thing. Once he had been so stubborn, he hadn’t left a painting of a woodland grove until it was nighttime, and he had finished- but by that time, he could hardly see his canvas, and when he had gotten home, had found that in his stubbornness and wish to stick to what was in front of him, he had wrecked his painting with the most lurid assortment of colours. But that hadn’t really taught him much, moreso just to take a snapshot of a moment and work from that.

“Should I have stayed at the waterfall, and painted that?” he asked seriously, regarding his picture with his head tipped to one side. He added a couple more small prints to what was Cruinne’s nose. He reared back up into a sitting position, then looked up at the Night dragon. Hmm no, she was still what he felt like painting today. “I expect I haven’t see you because I always get distracted by something else to paint on the way to the waterfall; I’ve made it there a few times, but others I have seen something and had to paint it.” He hopped over to a couple of bits of board, wings fluttering to keep him steady- he looked like an oversized dog, trying to balance something on his nose. Removing one slightly so she could see, he showed her a picture of a wood orchid that had distracted him, like he had said, some time earlier that week. A fairy perched on the edge of the flower, painted with delicate streaks from his claws. It was an odd little creature though, more malicious looking than friendly.

Suddenly he came across an idea, and bounced back to his painting again, taking a splodge of red and decorating the background. It quickly turned into a monster, with big, black teeth. Oros had a fondness for adding the… extraordinary to his paintings.

Yes, the wolf dragon really had to have been blindfolded most the time. Distractions were all nice and well but how much could one really be distracted so as not to see Cruinne? “Well, no, maybe you should not have stayed at the waterfall, after all, you wouldn’t be painting me right now in that case.” She knew she sounded arrogant now but she could not care less. She was being painted, was she not? It should speak volumes about the effect of her appearance without anyone having to add anything further. Yet, she loved the waterfall too and did not want to be unjust towards it. “But you should definitely go back and paint it. It would be a wonderful work of art, I’m sure!”

As she sat there, all the time reveling in the fact that she, Cruinne, was being painted by a master of the arts, the night dragon wondered why nobody had ever had such a fantastic idea before. She began daydreaming of various other lovely settings in which she would quite like to be painted and before she knew it, she had inadvertently transformed the fabric Oros had draped around her into a feathery down of shimmering white interspersed with shiny bit of pearl.

“Oh! Oh my!” she squealed once she realised what she had done and frantically began trying to turn the fabric back into what it had been before. Fidgeting was inevitable in this matter however, and the more she misjudged the original colour of the fabric –going from pearlescent white to midnight blue to bright orange-, the more she began fidgeting, the more she began to ruin her position. Her only hope was that Oros would not quite notice as he was so distracted by his painting and the choosing of the right colours.

“Oh, really!” Cruinne was embarrassed like she had never been before. Generally, she was on top of everything and made others squirm, however this time, she was the one not knowing what to do anymore. “I am so sorry! I hope I did not ruin your picture!” It was then that she had the idea to peek at the picture again to see what the original colour of the fabric had been.
And then she saw it.
An ugly red blotch.
“Eh…?!” The female dragon cocked her head to the side, an irritated frown on her forehead as she squinted at the painting. “What on earth is that?!” Suddenly, she was not so sure anymore that Oros would do either her or the waterfall justice.

Oros didn’t notice anything unusual until Cruinne exclaimed from where she sat, too wrapped up in what he was doing to notice that she had suddenly turned the sheet into a shiny, feathery sheet, looking up regretfully from his nice red splodges. His mouth dropped open in surprise, and he made a little noise, shaking his head and looking at her in confusion.
“What did you do?!” he cried, blinking in confusion and taking a few steps towards the night dragon, leaving a trail of colourful footprints. “That was red a moment ago, now it’s white! Where has my lovely extra curtain gone?” His confused expression just got worse as Cruinne turned the fabric into a myriad of other colours in only a few seconds, squinting in horror as it went the most lurid orange. His ears dipped unhappily and he sat down, not really sure of what to make of the whole thing. Of course, dragons had magic, but nobody he had come across before had taken to transforming his possessions into other things. Of course, he did not mind the first pretty white sheet (apart from the fact it would get dirty very quickly), but this orange… He shook his head. Oh. Dear.

“I already painted in a bit of the fabric, but why did you turn it orange,” he said, voice incredulous and just a little accusing. He had no use for orange fabric! He pouted and turned back to his painting, dabbling his front paws in a little bowl of water near his paper and washing off all the excess paint. He was just sizing up his painting again to add more paint when he heard Cruinne’s exclamation, looking up to see her confused face now.
“Hm?” he asked, turning his head to one side. “Oh, I thought it needed a little more… pizzazz. Do you like it?” He smiled, then added more paint to his paws and carried on. “Could you turn my sheet back to red please, orange is so awfully frightful. It clashes against your green.” He wrinkled his nose, wishing it wasn’t so bright. It was very distracting out the corner of his eye.

“Oh I know, I know, I’m so sorry!” Cruinne muttered, blushing an even brighter red than the blotch on Oros’ painting as the wolf dragon looked in utter horror upon the mess that was his sheet. “I was starting daydreaming and before I knew it… this happened!” She gestured wildly with her wings as she tried pointing at the sheet.
It was somewhat unclear whether she meant the transformation of the sheet or the monster Oros had added to the previously lovely painting, but she was very agitated either way.

And even though she may be very upset about not having managed to immediately switch the curtain back to the original colour, she was in no way to be distracted from the red paint that was staring accusingly at her from out of the picture. This was not how this painting was supposed to look like. It was supposed to be a work of art and not a hideous monster attack.
Thus, she decided that she would leave the fabric this ugly, screaming orange colour until Oros had offered an acceptable apology as to why the work of art, containing her had been ruined.

However, the wolf dragon did not even bother with explaining, other than saying “pizazz”, whatever that was supposed to mean. Cruinne was so utterly confused and a tad irritated as well that she did not know how else to react other than to change the sheet back to the red it used to be with a huff, not even replying to Oros’ question. She thought it was rather clear that this…. blob… was absolutely hideous!
Finally, she muttered, turning away from the picture. “I do not like monsters.” But her voice was so very low that it was barely audible and Cruinne wondered what on earth this experience was doing to her. She usually did not have a problem voicing her opinion. Monsters however were a completely different matter. They managed to shut her up; and only the mere thought of having monsters creep into her cave and doing their awful deeds, her colours instantly dulled to washed-up colours, almost resembling grey.

Glancing up a few more times in-between pawprint splodges, Oros was quite relieved when Cruinne finally turned his sheet back to the right colour. The orange had been giving him quite the headache, and he always found painting was twice as tricky when he had a headache. Not that that usually stopped him, of course; his painting just seemed to lack a certain something when he had to try and avoid thinking of how much his head hurt. Although, now he couldn’t quite concentrate on the sheet in his painting- although he had used red paint there, and he was quite sure of how it had been, now he couldn’t get out of his mind the image of an orange sheet. Oh, this whole thing was turning into quite the fiasco. Washing off the paint he was already using, he opened a tub of orange with a sigh and started adding bright highlights to his painting. Now it just didn’t look right, without that little hint of extreme colour here and there.

“Thank you,” he mumbled as he experimented with using his nose as a brush, dabbing little speckles of orange down one side of his painted fabric. “Please try not to daydream too much, it’s very distracting to have things all moving around while I’m only halfway finished.” He held his tongue after this small admonishment however; no use in berating her for too long. It had been only a small mishap, and things were better now that his sheet was back to the right colour once more. Once again, he got lost in all his painting, and for a few minutes he was just happy to paint and get on with making the night dragon look pretty.

But the next time he looked up to take note of shadows and shades and the like, he was suddenly horror stricken. What had happened?! Cruinne… well, she had… she was grey! His mouth fell open in dismay, ears drooping like an unhappy pet. He was speechless for a little time, then asked in a small voice, “What happened? You are the wrong colour!”
It was probably a strange sight, the wolf dragon asking about being the wrong colour, when he himself was nearly every other colour than that he was supposed to be.
“Please, can you return to your normal colours, otherwise I will have to take action, and make you the right colours.” He looked to his palette, covered in all shades of the rainbow. There were some very similar blues and indigos that he could use, that would probably be right… as well as the base green he was using to mark out her more vibrant shades. Would there be enough to colour in a real dragon?

((I keep thinking Cruinne’s an antler >.< So much fail.))

So lost in thoughts she was that Cruinne barely noticed the bright spots of orange that suddenly appeared on the painting much to Oros’ own surprise apparently. Cruinne would have been surprised as well but she did not notice. She did not even realise that the wolf dragon had addressed her. Daydreaming was not an option at this moment in time though as she was fighting to keep the idea of monsters out of taking over.

Only when Oros’ voice turned worried, did Cruinne snap back into the present where she was not alone and most definitely not hunted by monsters. Apart the one in the painting maybe.
“I... I wasn’t feeli... you would what?!” Oros’ suggestion of turning her the right colour made her halt in what she was saying and even in what she was saying. It might not have been the distraction she would have thought would work but surprisingly, it had done the trick and Cruinne quickly felt her high spirits return.

“You would really do that?” she asked, astonished by the mere idea. “You would dare to paint me?” Her arrogant tone was an utterly fake one as her eyes shimmered with mischief and her colouring turned a much brighter shade again as her eyes flickered from the wolf dragon to the painting materials and back again to Oros.
“Have you?” Her curiosity was peaked and she would not put it past him to actually do it or already have done it. “Have you ever painted a real-life dragon? What was it like?!” The female dragon could not imagine anything in the likes and was curios as to how it would work. She herself would merely touch a dragon to have their colouring modified but how would a painter do it? Both ways were an art, but both were also very different and it was an interesting thought that others would do, in their own way, what she herself sometimes deigned to do as well.

Oros nodded seriously, unsubtly taking a glance at his paints again to look for the right colours to use on Cruinne herself. Oh yes, he had been completely serious when he had told her that she’d be made the right colour again, if she didn’t behave. Decisively, he took a pawful of paint and hopped three-legged style towards her, brandishing the paint threateningly, even as she turned back to a little more natural colour. “I have never had the chance to paint on a live canvas before, but I have seen paintings of people with brilliant designs on their skin, and dragons with gold and silver. Perhaps I shall replicate the same, for yourself.”

As much as he threatened to paint Cruinne there and then, he would not have dared touch the night dragon without her explicit permission- or at least, a nod or touch of amusement at the idea. He would add all her sparkles and brightness, she should be sure about that, but he was rather reserved when it came to proper contact with another dragon; or pretty much anything at all! He was reminded of the formerly orange sheet of fabric around the night dragon’s paws too- if she could turn that a different colour so easily, and herself too, then what could she do to him? Although he knew he wasn’t the prettiest dragon (ha, look who was standing in front of him!) he rather liked his fur and colours, and didn’t feel any desire for being turned pink, or some other equally unnatural colour. It didn’t really occur to him that her sudden unhappiness was about the red splodge of monster he had started on his painting, otherwise he would have turned round right there and painted something different into the paper before it dried- maybe some flowers, or the red roof of a house.

Standing on three legs for long was making Oros’ paws hurt, and despite a couple of quick wingflicks to keep him upright, he suddenly found himself leaning forwards, patting his painty paw on Cruinne’s chest before he could stop himself. A big splodge of bright blue paint appeared on her scales, Oros’ eyes widening in mortification before he held his paw out as far as it could go from him.
“I touched you!” His face fell, nose wrinkling at the tip, and he shook his paw up and down a little bit. “Oh, I need to wash this off, now!!” Pretty as she was, she might have been dirty, walking all the way through the woods!

“You are kidding, right?” Cruinne asked, frowning at the wolf dragon as he suddenly hopped towards her on three paws, paint dripping from the fourth one. She was not quite so sure whether he would not really do it, even though he had kept a respectful distance so far. After all, she was a night dragon, she deserved the utmost respect!
As mischief as her look might have been before and as funny as she might have thought the idea was, when Oros suddenly touched his paw to her chest, leaving behind a bright blue splotch, the night dragon stared at the painter in utter shock. He had dared!

Cruinne could have gotten on board with that however, the paint could be magicked away within seconds anyway, but what shocked her to the core was the look of mortification and later on almost of disgust which spread on Oros’ face as he sprinted to wash his paw.
“I am not dirty!” she called out in indignation. “I have you know that I am a very clean dragon! And that you have no manners,” she added for lack of anything else to do but huff.

She did feel a little bad for Oros but she also felt bad for herself, and she came first after all. How could he think she was disgusting? How?
“Why would you think I am dirty?” No matter how hard she thought about this, she could not see how the wolf dragon could think such a thing. She kept herself clean, rarely even touching the ground as she walked on air most of the time, especially once the night air began to crawl out. It was her home, her blessing. There was no way anything bad or dirty could touch her. Not to mention, that she would never have such a thing happen, wrapping her feet in a cloud of magic most of the time anyways. After all, not everything was allowed the privilege of being close to her or touching her.

For a brief moment, she considered making things worse for the poor wolf dragon and turning the paint on his paw into dripping mud but she decided against it. He had done nothing to harm her and even though she was offended by this insulting way of reaction to touching her, she could somewhat understand the sentiment. After all, she did not like to be touched partially for that same reason.
Forcing down her hurt pride, she let a shimmer of magic visibly ripple over her body, effectively removing the paint stain as well.
“See? There is nothing dirty on me. Everything has been removed.”

Oros frantically washed his paw off in his bowl of water he had been using for paint before as Cruinne huffed annoyance at him. It went a muddy shade of brown, which probably was dirtier than the night dragon’s scales (in fact, there was no doubting it), but he knew that it was only paint pigment. He muttered under his breath in upset as he scrubbed his front paws together, balancing on his back ones- but as Cruinne continued to berate him, he started to lose it and had to put them down, accidentally tipping the bowl over with a splash. Water spilt everywhere, dribbling in dark lines across the ground towards the night dragon, and slopping all over the top edge of Oros’ painting.
“But you walked through the forest…” he said lamely, his words tailing off as the water slowly started to turn the edges of his painting a nasty brown-black, and warp up and down. His lip wobbled, upset, then he gingerly paddled his way through all the water on the floor towards it. Walking through the forest wouldn’t have made Cruinne dirty at all, really, only her paws, if that, because it had been nice weather out.

He glanced up a little when a shimmer of magic swept over Cruinne’s scales, but unlike before, he wasn’t very cheerful about it all any more. Well, his hard work had just been ruined. Strangely ignoring all the muddy looking water around his feet, he picked up his painting by one corner, his mouth curving down unhappily as streaks ran across the pretty night dragon’s portrait. It was hardly worth even trying to rescue it, in such a state, and he just dropped it back into the water, ears drooping as he walked over to Cruinne and borrowed a corner of her fabric ark to dry off, and keep dry, his paws.
“I am not really enjoying today, since ten minutes ago,” he said, tone a little conversational, but still depressed. “My house was not supposed to turn into a pond. And I’m sorry, I think I am more dirty than you ever were, now.”

Last edited by Eldarwen on Wed Sep 05, 2012 9:37 am; edited 1 time in total

Cruinne stared at Oros once she had ended her muttering and she had not even noticed him wandering over to the water bowl to try and clean his paws – in dirty paint water?! – and thus she had not noticed either that he had just tripped the whole bowl over his floor and onto the painting. Her painting!

“Oh Oros, what happened?” she exclaimed, forgetting about the fact that she was upset as she stared at her now teary face on the canvas. Even the monster had turned into some sort of odd blob, which had nothing to do with a monster anymore. At least it was not frightening anymore.

As the wolf dragon helplessly let the painting drop to the floor again, she hastily picked it up herself by waving her paw around a little and having it float towards the wall to lean against it so the water could run off and the paint could dry.

“I know, I know,” the night dragon said in a soothing voice, or at least what she hoped was soothing. She decided to ignore Oros' comment about how dirty she might or might not have been. It would not do to throw another tantrum because of such words. “Here, let me help.” Cruinne had been offended, yes, but she also saw that this had really ruined the poor wolf’s spirit and she did not want to be partially responsible for that, thus she would remedy this situation as best as she could.
“Now, don’t freak out,” she cautioned as she lifted her paw and moved it towards Oros’ body. “I need to touch you in order for the magic to work.” If he moved, she would pounce him. Simple as that.

And without waiting for a further reaction from the dragon, she put her paw against him, she was cautious to use the upper side so he wouldn’t jump up again, and let her magic simmer through. It did the trick. Within seconds, Oros was sparkly clean again, not to mention dry, and even his yellow specks seemed to have a little more colour than before.

“There, all pretty again!” Cruinne cooed, pleased with herself.

» Shimmering Light of Darkness (Rogue X Eldarwen)
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