MultiAdmirer

it is confirmed that many children were subjects in the apprentices experiments of the heart. it wouldnt strike me as odd for the early experiments to have included ones close to the original 6. so imagine a man sworn to his duty to his king, hands shaking as he walks his child into the lab, and the hardening sorrow of knowing his child isnt coming back out.

losing a spouse or lover hurts, rips your heart out and mangles it, yet for the most part it is a thing that heals. however, with his intense disdain for having a heart to the point he doesn't even want it, paired with the lack of guidance or interest in the younger organization members, points me to believe he lost a child, a harder grief to recover from

rereading his file in the character series that came out a few years back, the first part talking about the roses in radiant garden could be seen as him referring to a lover. but theres one line that sticks out to me

"There was someone who asked me about love once, when was it? It was in front of that rose."

i dont think with how its phrased that hes referring to a lover. the question has an almost childlike curiosity. he talks on beast being cursed by his own rose, while in a literal sense in beasts case, i could see xaldin viewing a lingering love for a lost family as a curse.

"Supporting fragrant flowers in my own rugged hands. These were hands that were originally only fit for grasping a spear. The flowers only bloom there. They bloom without being placed within a glass case."

Design talk time!

I never posted this on my reblog with Hodor's dragon design, but 5/7 dragons here have some kind of inspiration of other dragons in media (well... mainly monster hunter); with all of them having a hint.

Hodor: I wanted her to be more ribony and snake-like, but I ended up with a bird- mainly because I tried to emulate the vibe of the Skydancers from Flight Rising, and had one onscreen while drawing.

Vidar: His inspiration was a naga, and unarmoured Sara Ishvalda from monster hunter (especially the face). I did go back and edit him slightly, due to it looking too different from the other dragons. He's also the only one without any head ornamentation.

Vali: With their inspiration, I wanted to go with something sleek and looked to the Spiral dragon from Flight Rising, but found that I couldn't really do much with it. I did do a side-on draft to try and get a handle with what I wanted to do- since their outfit isn't much as it mostly covers the face. With that in mind, I used what I could, which was the plating on their legs and the cloth that I transfigured into fur. I kept the tassels and migrated them to the wings.

Vala: Originally, I wanted her to be very Owlish, but she kept looking either sinister or too much like Vali, so I scrapped that and made her into a very long far-eastern styled dragon. I also wanted her pose too be very active, as if she was dancing, as that was the main scene we got with her. Her long hair also transferred to the long ridge of fluff down the spine and onto the tail.

Helgi: For him, I wanted something solid and squat. Already I had a flash of him being something similar to the Teostra from Monster Hunter, and fought to not make him resemble a lion what-so-ever.

Heimdal: You know with that popped/high collar, I needed to give him some kind of frilly-ornamentation on his neck! I didn't know how to go about it. I didn't want it to be like Jurassic Park's Dilophosaurus, and when I tried a cobra hood, it still felt as if it was missing something, so once again I perused monster hunter monsters, and found Malzeno. While his type of 'frill' didn't work for me, either it helped me get closer, and instead I used keratinous scales to give him more of a look. Also, I finished the drawing late at night, and then realised I'd been drawing with the wrong brush, so needed to draw him all over! With that, though- it gave me a chance to revise some of his traits, such as adding more scales on his arms, and refining the diamond patterns on his back and tail.