The Sunlit Coast
Here’s another dream-inspired idea, and one who’s context as a story idea hasn’t deviated much from the dream it came from. Which is rare for my dreams as they tend to be very visually detailed but narratively vague. This one was instead very dense in context while being visually limited, even if the little imagery itself was quite vivid.
I’ll call this one ‘Sunlit Coast’, since one of those few images was one if a smaller coastal city lit by abundant sunshine and it’s own vividly colored architecture. Lovely!
I’ll include the dream that inspired this world after this introduction (as I so often do) if only for the sake of showing how much (or how little!) it takes for my brain to decide to create worlds with. If I didn’t enjoy worldbuilding so much I would probably consider my vivid imagination a curse. BUT LUCKY ME I LOVE GOOD WORLDBUILDING.
Enough stalling! Here it is :
Tamsin Rojas has just moved to Danza del Sol in search of a new life after college. An archivist by training, they hope to find work in this small city by the sea with a reputation. Danza del Sol has very lenient laws, a diverse population that loves novelty and creativity, and is home to the biggest mingled population of three races: human, fae and dragon.
Everything seems to work out quite well between theses 3 very different peoples in this city, all things considered. Conflict is rare and tends to stay civil, and everyone seems happy to see a new face in town. When Tamsin shows up looking for a job, everyone is happy to point them to the city library to find work.
But Tamsin finds work as the personal archivist to their new local doctor, a dragon Matriarch named Vrentsaz-har who likes to shape-shift into someone vaguely human to put her patients more at ease (it doesn’t really work, but everyone appreciates her well-meaning effort too much to tell her otherwise...).
Having your doctor be your boss at the same time might seem a bit awkward, but the opportunity to find such well-paying work so fast was simply too good to pass up. Turns out this doctor’s practice is technically a private one, and her paperwork about her many many patients is... a mess. Tamsin may very well have landed themself a lifelong job, one few people would be able to do as the ‘paperwork’ involves a lot of magical record-keeping, information stored in the extra-dimensional ether, and being able to ‘read’ draconic.
Tamsin, with their changeling ancestry, is someone who has just enough magic to be able to read not only the written parts of draconic, but the magic laced into it that lends it intent and meaning as well. Since this is a very prized skill, Tamsin could make a fortune pretty much anywhere, but has found the many pressures of the fae parts of their family to work in certain places and people too much to take. They escaped to Danza del Sol hoping to free themself from those ever-tightening bonds.
Tamsin may have escaped the familial bonds with distance, but the fae are far-reaching, and those of Danza del Sol are no less interested in Tamsin than those of their hometown. And those in this new and less restrictive city are much less shy of acting on their interest.
There are perks to being in the employ of a dragon : it pays very well and no-one wants to risk a dragon’s ire, much less that of a Matriarch. So when Vrentsaz notices the attention her only employee is getting from the local fae, especially from a certain Princeling Lughdain, who claims to be a direct ancestor of Tamsin’s, they are both swept into a conspiracy that stretches back to the birth of the fae, long before humanity, and deep into the hidden history of the dragons.
Yup, lifelong job. Sigh.
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The dream that inspired it:
I am staring at the indigo and gold plate of my dragon doctor’s homemade DNA test, a metallic sheet that traces a pattern detailing my ancestry.
I know enough about this kind of test to know that it should not be indigo and gold. It should, at the most, be the very human red and iron-grey, maybe with some silver and old-copper green marking my distant fae ancestry, but not this deep and rich shade if night. Not this sun-bright gold.
My boss has left me alone with the plate for now, and I let myself turn away from the riddle of its off colors by looking out the wide window.
The small coastal city I see outside is warm, colorful and welcoming. The patchwork of rainbow buildings dot the base and sides of a tall hill that slopes gently into the ocean on one side and seem to give the hill balconies to lookout from on the others. Equally colorful flags adorn the buildings, the trees everywhere between them, and hang from under every unlit lantern that line its streets.
It is as beautiful now as it was when I first arrived, but today I am too troubled by the plate to appreciate it. The fae who hide everywhere are always on my mind now, and I have no interest in having any more of them follow me around.
I try to distract myself with work. I leave the sunny room, leave behind the plate, and descend into the lower levels of my doctor/boss’ archives. They are messy and a nightmare to organize, but I am patient, and my boss does not much care how I do it, so long as I don’t muddle up her preexisting order for them. I am lucky to be able to even read and ‘read’ her patient files, research notes and journals. But I can, and so I do my job as efficiently as possible with this extra advantage.
Reaching the lower levels takes time. My dragon boss’ clinic is right on top of her home cave, and this cave lies behind a stone cliff facing the ocean. The way in from the clinic spirals downward into the rock face and lets in sunlight. The many rooms along the spiral are all painted in bright, vivid colors. Red, purple, orange, yellow, teal, blue. Rooms for patients who might need to stay a few days. Their brightness promises healing and a return to the colorful life of the city.
I find no comfort in them today. Knowing I am awaited outside the clinic by the fae does not make me keen about going out, but this clinic is a place the fae dare not enter lest they upset my boss. I am safe here, but cannot stay forever.
I descend into the darker archive rooms to work in the soft glow of the magical documents’ stacks. The dimness of the light here feels better to my eyes than sunlight today.
I sit and look for familiar patterns in the magic to sort them with.
The room is indigo.