#starling;

[ringleaderising]

Decompression.

The Vaudemire Sideshow's participants in the dive take a moment to regroup.

"Sit. Down. Yer gonna give yourself th' bends, and we gotta walk back to the tents before the end of the day." Pig grunts, the massive, clown-painted guardian lifting one heavy paw to pin Harlequinn by her tail- the spiral squawking as she's forced back onto the floating raft they've taken refuge on.

"Not many whirlyswirlies can get worse than already swirly, BigPig."

"I don't want to listen to you complain about your stomach hurting all day." Comes the response, flat. "Opie. Get back from th' edge."

"Starling's been down there a while."

"He's a guardian, we're built for swimming and diving."

"I heard some of the dragons in the other dive crews saying they heard something underneath the water. Did you hear anything, Eidaving?" Pig scoffs- it's unclear if it's at his name, or at her question.

"What, just 'cause I'm a guardian you think I got a direct line t' an absentee God? I abandoned 'im a long time ago, Calliope- before he abandoned us. In any case that's shockin'ly regressive thinkin' outta you." The skydancer scrunches her snout, closing her eyes to listen more closely as she leans her head closer to the depths below, feathered crest flickering with interest.

"I'm just saying, you talk all the time about your Gods I just thought-"

"The Tidelord ain't speakin' to us just because we went for a swim, Opie." Grunted. Pig's getting tired of this, hulking frame straightening back up as he ensures Harlequinn's tail remains resolutely pinned to the boards of the raft below under a gloved claw- after a moment, he lifts one of the looser ones- and pinches her tail between it and its neighbor.

"Ouch! BigPig! rude- Harli-arli never disobey. Would have sat-sit-sot. Good whirlyswirly."

"Mm right. Sit. Opie's right, Starling's been gone for a minute, I'll go-"

There is a tremor deep below- a blast of heat and a geyser of water a short distance from where they've anchored themselves to assist with the dive.

And after a moment and the cadre of waves shaking the raft-dwellers' footing, Starling appears, panting and rollicking with wild fire magic, oily, orange foam hacked up as he scrabbles onto the waterlogged boards to join his companions.

"Starling? What in th' Eyeless One's graces-"

"I heard it."

Pig does not dare look at Calliope, certain the gray-and purple dragon is preening sodden feathers with a smug expression.

"Heard what, boy?"

"I- I dunno! There was a BOOM and then the dive teams went fwoosh and-" He coughs again and spats up more water-laden foam, a vague flicker of blue light in sharp orange eyes. "And I heard something. A voice I didn't know but was... really familiar. Like I should have known it?"

"Ohhhh what did it say!? Did it mention treasure? I bet it mentioned treasure!" Calliope questions, her eagerness to hear herself discarded in a desperation for coin.

"I'm not sure. But I don't think it was good news, whatever it was."

[ringleaderising]

@crying-dragons has everyone scouring their lairs for rainbows and dang it, I wanna partake too.

You must understand that 90% of my dragons are some white/black/brown tone primary with a bright secondary/tert so this was an experiment in "This is X enough"

Bast || Starling Pulse || Ducky Lacrymosa || Desire

[ringleaderising]

MOTH KEEPER FAMILIAR DROP REAL

STARLING IS PERFECT NOW

[ringleaderising]

My my those eyes like fire // I'm a winged insect // you're a funeral pyre.

As with all art I get I require a backup post, so here's my dragon OC Starling and my friend Cotton's Moth by the incredible Razrroth over on FR! I am absolutely over the moon, I've been looking at them since i got these back and I'm literally vibrating with affection for my knife hucking son and his mean pirate boyfriend.

[ringleaderising]

My tendency to cover my dragons in thousands of pounds of apparel, and accents often can hide a lot of the sins of my taste in dragons; xyzs with weird color patterns, basic terts/primaries- but it also does this thing to my recent G1s where you really can't APPRECIATE their quality underneath all the shit I slap over top of them so I'm making this post for posterity: I swear they look just as good completely stripped down, I'm just insane and I have to justify the money I spent on apparel slots.

[ringleaderising]

The Starling spreads their wings, the Moth is Pulling their strings- One final flight for vanity...

Friendship is making expensive money moves with your friend and then doing the digital equivalent of slapping your barbies into each other and making kiss kiss noises.

Starling and Moth are both fully gened G1s that my friend SweetCotton and I are roleplaying/writing paired lore for together! Starling is a Lanternkeeper, an escapee from a clan based in the Blacksand Annex that sought to have him mind the fire of their grand beacon for his entire life- a task he found grating, and above all else- half fulfilling, as unlike his predecessor, his Charge lies not with the flame of the beacon, but somewhere else- an urge that would send him from his home in the Annex into the company of the sideshow associated with Vaudemire Way.

But things of value always have their price in treasure, and Moth and his crew are quickly hired to bring the Starling home, a pirate-con-mercenary convinced at first this is a matter of a stolen bird. Their first meeting occurs in the canvas walls of a circus- and establishes for Starling exactly what his charge is- the very bounty hunter sent to drag him back into the hum-drum life of boredom he'd tried so terribly hard to escape.