Dragonfable - Blog Posts

[comm for @lucennia] from their fic: thread noose

ft. the hero of falconreach and df's favorite babydoll <3

Whoever can hold My husband's old sword And take down 12 dragons...

Artist Note: I was actually making a different animatic with a song in EPIC, but I went on a side quest and finished this one first because I was getting burnt out on the other one. I suppose this can be considered as a Liddle's love interest reveal. This animatic was based off of the idea that after Galanoth slew the Dragon of Time (Liddle's dragon child, Nefri), as per the events shown in AQW in order to save the world, the universe reset, separating him and Liddle to different planes, as she was already the Avatar of Time. (I'll elaborate on this....someday...)

Liddle's Avatar of Time Concept Sketch

Artist's Note : As per usual, I hope you enjoy!

"More Frills!" I say.

Alina Court Attire Redesign

Artist's Note: I looked at the design I made for Alina's Court Alchemist outfit, and something just didn't seem right to me. It was too simple. Dare I say...too plain So, I decided to add a few more details in small areas and I think it adds so much more to her outfit! I am satisfied!

Down below is the revised outfit concept ⬇️⬇️⬇️

Artist's Note: Not that different. Just the same image with a few more frills on one outfit.

The night was black and starless, Gem’s only guide a small oil lantern as she stalked through the empty stone halls of Edelia’s residential wing. Truly, she was growing sick of seeking him out.

Sleep had evaded her, slipping from her grasp like a vengeful lover, cruelly indifferent to her desperate tossing and turning. Her sheets had tangled about her limbs as she chased the elusive salvation of slumber, and coming away empty-handed at the end of each dragging hour had nearly brought her to a scream. Several, in fact.

We shouldn’t have. You leave tomorrow. Your mission—it comes first.

The words swirled in Gem’s mind on an endless, unbearable loop. It was driving her to madness. She had to do something.

And yet, staring upon his door now, a sudden doubt took hold of her. The hour was late, well past midnight. Surely he would be asleep. Not to mention, gods be damned, these were his private quarters. But the thought clung to her like a shadow, impossible to shake. If not now, then when?

She knocked softly.

For the longest moment, there was no sound. Gem leaned forward, straining to hear, almost pressing her ear to the wood. Still nothing. Then, with a sudden jolt, the door swung open, and she toppled face forward into a hard chest. Danyel caught her by the shoulders.

“You shouldn’t be here.” The headmaster’s voice was flat and cold as he released his grip on her. It seemed she was not the only one sleep had forsaken. Gem flushed, righting herself with what scraps remained of her dignity—but still holding her ground. His mouth thinned when he saw she wouldn’t be deterred. “What is it, Gem?”

“We need to talk.”

“When I said we’d discuss it later, I didn’t mean today.” The hollows of his eyes were dark, and his mood darker still—nearly as black as the sky outside.

Gem glared. “When else?”

They locked eyes, tension wound tighter than a drawn bowstring. The steel in Danyel’s gaze was freshly edged tonight, daring her to back down, but Gem stood firm. Neither moved, neither blinked. The air itself seemed to crackle, ready to snap at any second. Then, at last, he exhaled—a heavy swooshing breath of vexation and surrender all at once. Without breaking eye contact, he stepped aside, welcoming her in with a mocking sweep of his arm.

The room was sparsely furnished. All that filled the place was a narrow writing desk, a padded couch, and a deep indigo banner stitched with the Edelia insignia in silver thread. A weak fire smoldered in the runestone hearth, reduced to embers, casting the space in a sullen red glare. This was his solar, Gem realized, adjoined to his bedchamber at the far end, shrouded in shadow. She felt her courage waver. Swallowing, she hung her lantern from an iron hook in the wall. Danyel hovered before the lone window on the other side of the room, his arms crossed stiffly against his chest.

“Well? What is it you want to talk about so badly?”

Gem’s nails dug into the soft flesh of her palms. “Earlier. What you said… or didn’t say—you owe me an explanation.”

“Do I? I thought I made myself clear. This… whatever this is, it can’t continue.”

This had to be a joke, and a cruel one at that. “You didn’t make anything clear. You—” Gem sucked in a sharp breath. “You ran.”

“I did no such thing. I was doing the right thing.”

“Right for who? You, or me? Or is this about your precious duty again?” The word tasted of the foulest condemnation on her tongue.

Danyel scoffed. “It’s not so simple.”

“Then explain it to me.”

His jaw was clenched, his face taut. “Forget it,” he muttered at last, turning away from her.

Gem froze. For a heartbeat, it wasn’t Danyel at all. Colors inverted all around her; ash-brown hair washed to white, and gray eyes gleamed golden. Even the red cast of the room melted into Void-purple. A misty wraith, turning his back and slipping like rain through her fingers. Bile surged at the back of her throat. Then she blinked, and it was only the headmaster again, his face averted. 

“No. No. You can’t do this.” Not again. Not like this. Was she always meant to be left behind? Gem could feel hot tears stinging her eyes. “You—you’re just like Tomix.”

Danyel whirled. “I am nothing like Tomix,” he spat. The dying firelight danced across his face, making him look like a wrathful revenant, risen from the ashes. “This is why nothing can happen. You were his.”

She recoiled, her own fury forgotten. “What are you talking about?”

“You heard me." His eyes were haunted, his voice thick with bitter loathing. "He loved you. Perhaps not in the way most would understand, but he did in his own way. I won’t be the replacement for someone you—someone I—lost.”

Something tightened inside Gem's chest. “Is that what you think this is?”

“You’re chasing ghosts, Gem.”

“That’s not true," she whispered. It wasn't, she told herself. It wasn't. "I know he’s gone. He’s been gone. Maybe... maybe it's true I’ll never be free of him entirely, but I’m not chasing him. This has nothing to do with him.”

Danyel raised an eyebrow. “Doesn’t it?” His words were cruel, knowing, wielded like a knife—like he wanted to slice her right open. He had always been good at that. “You’re not thinking about what this means. About what happens after. You never do.”

“I don’t care what happens after!” Gem cried out. “Why can’t I just have something for myself for once? Why does the past matter? Why does the future matter? Is now not enough? Must everything have some secret, veiled meaning behind it? What’s right, what’s wrong, what’s dutiful—I don’t care!" She almost choked on the words, on the sheer force of them. On the selfish, shameful truth of them. "I don't care," she echoed softly, after a pause, "I want this.”

His eyes flickered with something dark. But there was also something else—some thing else, lurking just beneath the liquid gray surface. It writhed like a twisted creature, alive and ravenous, struggling to drag itself from his resolve with its razored claws. Would he let it take him? Danyel remained silent for another moment, staring at her as though measuring her, as if weighing her against some phantom consequence only he could see.

“If you’re so sure,” he murmured, his voice dropping, a challenge on his tongue—it took him—“then come here.”

And so she went to him.

── ⟢ ・⸝⸝

A secret deleted scene from Storm's Breath. The rest is on AO3. Warning for shameless filth ahead. Locked because... yeah.

Said I was done with this story but I couldn't help myself.

Also name change because an online friend said my childhood username sounded like a discord groomer.

The wind whistled sharply through the mana trees, blowing a cold dead breath on her bloodless face. Suddenly it was as if all the strength had left her limbs. Her sword felt impossibly heavy, slippery. It fell from her trembling grasp, striking the ground with a hollow thud. When she looked down, she saw the blade was bright blue, and her hands bluer still—painted with the blood of the land she had carved through. The sight of it sent a wave of nausea through her.

She was no hero. In this moment, she was Death himself.

A splatter of wetness hit her cheek. It had started to rain. The droplets came slow and lazy at first, then fast and heavy, building into a mighty torrent that lashed against her skin as if it were the wrath of the very heavens.

But what of my wrath?

Last chapter of Storm's Breath and I'm sad it's over. Illustration of Gem in the Fissure by the most amazing @entropienn x

"Each element shapes the fabric differently," Danyel explained to her on the fifth night, holding out a swatch of flame-threaded velvet that seemed to shimmer with heat. He contrasted it with a square of linen spun from water soulthreads, its coarse fibers carrying an almost imperceptible glow that softened in the flickering torchlight, cool and soothing to her touch. Wind threads, he said, are the trickiest, as they’re so slippery and light they resist the weave itself.

“And so it is with people, I think,” he added, his gaze drifting over the fabric as though seeing something more. “Some resist being woven into anything at all.”

On the seventh night, she learns from him that a weaver’s elemental affinity doesn’t always match their soulally’s. It was something Gem had always taken for granted. She remembered that Vaal, wherever he was now, shared the same element as his fiery partner. The mercurial chaosweaver was a red-hot blaze that kindled brilliance, but burned all that it touched. Danyel, of course, also matched Baltael. He was the wind that carried storms across the sea—unwavering in determination, his purpose steady even when unseen.

But when she had asked if she, too, was ice like Aegis, he had looked at her strangely. “No, you are not,” he had said, though he did not elaborate. What was she, then? The thought clung to Gem, curious and unnerving, long after the conversation had passed.

As the evenings went by, his presence seemed to settle around her like the quiet of a windless morning. She had always thought him cold, but she was starting to see the softness of his edges. Sometimes, when she made a sharp remark or jab, she would catch the briefest shift in his expression—an almost imperceptible crinkle at the corners of his eyes, like a smile trying to break free, before he quickly smoothed it away.

Some banter between Valencia and Symone, perhaps, if you are still doing prompts x

“What are YOU doing here?”

Valencia narrowed her eyes at the familiar annoying voice, and rose from where she was crouched at the hidden entrance to the cave. “I have a reliable source that tells me this cave has remnants of the hoard of the rock drake Callan. Now I could ask YOU the same question!”

Symone glowered slightly, adjusting the rope on her hip. “I have my own reliable source that says a pack of night creatures have taken up residence in this cave, biding their time before they attack the nearest village. Stand aside, treasure hunter, they must be slain!”

“Not so fast, monster hunter!” Valencia drew herself up to her full height and rested her hand on the pommel of her blade. “If there is treasure in there, it’s highly fragile and I will NOT have you DESTROY it with your clumsy stomping around!”

“Clumsy?! I’ll have you know that the ways of the Shadowhunter have been passed down through generations of the DuBellmount line! Besides, are you REALLY willing to risk the lives of innocents for some mere trinkets?!”

“Trinkets?! I don’t have time to tell you how wrong you are, but at least I preserve! You destroy!”

“And how many items that you’ve ‘preserved’ have ended up being cursed?!”

“That’s neither here nor there! Besides, I’ve found far more hidden tombs than you!”

“Finding tombs is not my priority, Valtrith aside! And I can do more press-ups than you!”

“Can not!”

“Can too!”

The battle lines declared, both women dropped to the floor, determined to prove her press-up superiority, and thus neither of them noticed the Hero exiting the cave’s front entrance, having clearly come from a fight as they sheathed their weapons, Draco happily curled round their shoulders sporting a shiny new crown.

Spotting Valencia and Symone in their heated competition, the Hero promptly turned around and walked off very quickly in the opposite direction.

“You don’t know anything about what I’m trying to do.” 

“No?” Danyel leaned forward, his gaze sharp. “Is that not what I’m helping you do at this gala of yours? Fighting at a diplomatic event, of all things. You and Tomix really were cut from the same cloth—always charging ahead, as if the only way to fix the past is to destroy your own selves in the process.”

“Duty kept me here, serving Edelia, when I should have been at his side. Blaming you was easier than facing my own guilt. Promise me you will take care of him,” he scoffed. “That was never your responsibility to bear.”

“But it was,” Gem interrupted. Frustration roiled in her chest, swelling like a rising tide. “I loved him too.”

Danyel’s jaw tightened, and he looked away. “Love doesn’t excuse what he put you through. It doesn’t make it right that you had to shoulder a burden that wasn’t yours.”

“And yet, I chose to,” Gem said softly. “It wasn’t your responsibility, and it wasn’t mine. It was my choice. It was his choice, Danyel. It always was.”

“He was my brother. He needed me.”

“And your students needed you, too.”

“My duty—”

“What does it fucking matter!” she burst out suddenly. “What even is duty? Duty to Tomix, duty to family, duty to Edelia, duty to Lore—what do you do when they pull you in different directions? You can’t do it all. I can’t do it all. What if it’s all meaningless?” 

Danyel didn’t reply immediately. He studied her, jaw tight and knuckles white where his hands gripped the wooden ledge of the spiritloom. “You think it’s meaningless?” His voice was low, almost disbelieving. “You, the Hero of Falconreach?”

“I—I don’t know anymore.” Gem's voice cracked, and she looked away. Apprehend Sepulchure. Vanquish Drakath. Help the Rose. Stand by the Vind. Banish Envy. Save Tomix. It was too much. “What has duty ever done for me? And what did it ever do for Tomix? Did it save him? Did it save your family?” She couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice. “All it did was leave you alone, just like it left me.”

He flinched as if struck. “So tell me—should I just abandon it? Pretend it doesn’t matter?”

“No,” she whispered. “I don’t know. I just… I just wish it hadn’t cost us so much.”

A spread I made a few months ago of every SoulWeaver element. Poison <3

Might a request a Jaania for the fandom requests? <3

Jaania for you!

“I’m sorry.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “I didn’t mean it. You know I didn’t.”

Tomix didn’t respond, his profile cast in the eerie glow of the Void. The dim light caught on his snowy lashes, each one outlined like a fragile thread of frost. Anger radiated off him in smoldering waves. How had it come to this? She couldn’t bear to look at him any longer. So she, too, turned her eyes to the swirling purple expanse. The abyss stretched endlessly before them, shifting and mocking, its whispers crawling beneath her skin. Coward, it taunted.

What a pair of fools they made, standing shoulder to shoulder yet miles apart, clinging to the empty embrace of the Void as if it could shield them from each other. From themselves. They were two shadows suspended within the same violet light, a fractured mirror of festering wounds. 

a prayer to who, exactly?