#adaraoftheflame

The dragon still harbored a sort of bitterness toward the woman, born on the day of their first meeting. Touched without his consent. The gall of it all still burned him. But after a time, and with a bit of persuasion in the form of food, the devil-dragon managed to establish a sort of peace with the woman of fire.

For reasons neither he nor Ommadon could discern, Adara became a frequent visitor to them... If not an outright resident of the Loathly Tower. But then, all of a sudden, she was nowhere in sight. A whole day had passed, and the flame woman was nowhere in sight. Vanished... And Ommadon was...

... Well. Bryagh knew when Ommadon was bothered. His mood was most foul, beyond his recent bout of "flu."

He demanded to ride out with Bryagh. Set fire to towns, villages. He wanted to remember what it was like to reign terror himself; and he was ready with sword in hand...

... Yet Bryagh could not abide Ommadon's demands. Not when the old wizard was still stumbling about; sweat beading his brows; a certain hoarseness with each breath he took. Whatever ailed Ommadon yet lingered. Any other circumstance, Bryagh would have happily taken Ommadon with him. But the red wizard was...

... He needed to rest. And that embittered him.

... It embittered Bryagh, holding the memory of what Ommadon once was. Antiquity had deprived him of his magic; and he was struggling for it.

... It was the next day when Bryagh took notice of Adara's absence. Bryagh had observed, watched as she checked in on Ommadon as though she were his nurse. But then... Then she was gone.

"... She will not come back," Ommadon had told the dragon when asked. And though Bryagh could not be truly certain, but Ommadon seemed dejected. Refusing to look in Bryagh's direction as he gave his answer.

"She is gone," was all the red wizard said, drawing the sheets back over himself from his bed.

Bryagh thought it best to not needle Ommadon any further about Adara. But the matter remained, Bryagh was still curious... What happened between the two when he wasn't looking?

The dragon departed from Loathly Tower. Roaming the volcanic caves... Was he reminiscing? Maybe... If she was well and truly gone...

Enough time had passed where Bryagh considered it a truly great shame.

The local seer spins sharply, drawn from the middle of a conversation with an elderly gentleman who's trying to persuade him to purchase (at least) one of his donkeys. Bruno's timid insistence that he's bad enough with horses falls on deaf ears: as do most of his requests and assertions since re-emerging from the literal walls of his childhood home.

"Oh....ay, erm...."

Large, too-aware eyes and attenuated features greet the unknown woman, framed by a wild nest of salt and pepper curls. Unlike his counterpart, Bruno doesn't look intimidating, mysterious or otherworldly: he looks like a squeezed rag that was once beautiful, now hanging on a clothesline with elegant silks and satins, apologetic to dwell among them. He's a collection of hasty, tentative sketch lines: nnaturally sun-deprived skin, premature wrinkles, dark circles and a starved, short frame.

However many decades Dracula had come to know the woman of flame, he found himself often entertaining Adara’s whimsical fantasies of his abilities by putting on the guise of a wolf, his true demon-self, and even once requested a cat--thankfully that was not a guise of his.

And now, he had been reduced to the humble form of a bat which now nestled on his companion’s shoulder, her long dark hair acting as a shroud. She insisted he perch himself there as she dodged for shelter from the fury of rain and wind, but suddenly barged in a place for shelter, called out to make sure all was clear before Dracula wriggled his winged self out from her hair, squeaking with hostility prior to fluttering out and swirling about Adara’s head. Next he instantaneously appeared in his human flesh, a scowl wearing its way into his face.

“.......never again under those circumstances, Adara....”

Of course he was referring to Adara’s pleading for him to shift into a bat.

((Congrats on the house!))

((We’re so excited! Thank you so much! :D))

“... If that’s what your new house actually looks like, I’m eating it.”

... Where was he? This place was most frightful... He cautiously tip-toed his way through the dark hallways, gazing up at the walls. Full of distorted faces they were, twisted in perpetual pain. Every now and again, he could have sworn that they even twitched as though living.