#belon

Blehhhhh Below Cut

First of all, new dink mask in progress!!

Second of all, did you know; Olive isn't the original green dragon Sona? This place is taken by the one and only, Acid! A dragon I made in Furana™ a while back ^^

I'm including my mascot (in a way) Belon too, as they're all almost the same shade of green </3

Yeah! I have like- 2 art pieces of Acid lol

Bird man

Pierre Belon (1517–1564) was a French traveler, naturalist, writer and diplomat. Like many others of the Renaissance period, he studied and wrote on a range of topics including ichthyology, ornithology, botany, comparative anatomy, architecture and Egyptology.

In his L'Histoire de la nature des oyseaux (1555) he included two figures of the skeletons of humans and birds marking the homologous bones. This is widely used as one of the earliest ideas on comparative anatomy.

Text from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Belon

Some lands had whored themselves in the hopes of Belon’s ultimate favour- he’d stripped their resources accordingly, demanded those of remarkable skill as gifts, then left the remaining people to starve. Other territories had decided to wage war, but Nathan could see from Belon’s every action this had always been a doomed prospect. His unfaltering, easy control. His polite mannerisms, his stern and precise delegation of tasks. The knives and axes he armed his guards with, wickedly sharp and evidently used. The witch.

Nathan swirled the wine around his glass. Idle gesture, displacement activity. It filled pauses almost as well as drinking, with significantly less side effects.

"Does your witch not hunger? I assumed she'd be dining with us."

"She prefers her own company."

Nathan nodded, as if this all made sense and he'd been obtuse not to see it. Delicately, he posed yet another slanted question.

"Does she object to visits? I’d love to meet her, see that famous wildness in person. Any lass who can take down an army single-handedly must be a marvel."

Belon smiled, and something all too airily pleased stirred in his eyes.

"Something suggests to me that there's something very specific you came here to discuss."

"You can't be surprised." Nathan insisted, lightly, courtier's smile of his own gracefully displayed, "I have a city, trading hubs and land I want to protect. People I owe fealty to."

"So, you've come to beg." Belon surmised, cruel angle to his quirked lips. Under the table, Alex clenched her fist again. Ordinarily, she carried herself with disarming ease, but here in the presence of an abuser and without her usual knives, she’d rather lost her shine. Not even the quartet playing swift, jaunty tunes at the far end of the hall had roused her, her solid form was held with

Focus, Nathan.

"I've come to trade." the king within corrected, blithe in the face of Belon's mockery, "The Heartlands has the most fertile earth around, the equipment to make use of it, the seeds. You, on the other hand? Barely enough productivity to feed this city."

Belon's countenance did not falter, but Nathan fancied there was a surliness about him. Whatever powers she possessed to beat back the Dark and terrorise men, his witch had made no difference to his land, and the pollution that had spoiled it. Their harvests were not plentiful.

"My belly is full." said Belon, gesturing to his plate and then to his feasting hall, the blue panelled walls lit with torches, the overlooking gallery hung with fabrics. Emmanuel was a beautiful home, Nathan conceded. Belon had channelled his labour into meticulous upkeep.

"My needs are satiated. The people shall endure."

"And if they rebel against your most benevolent rule?" Nathan pressed, smile still in place but a slight edge of derision to its curve.

"Then we will have fewer mouths to feed. Self-correcting systems are optimal." answered Belon with a broad-shouldered shrug. With a short flick of his fingers, he signalled a young boy stood behind to take his plate away. Nathan waited, courteously, for the servant to scurry out of earshot.

"You’ll be a laughing stock beyond even the shores.” he said, ever mild, “Everybody likes to see a proud king stumble."

The hall’s merriment strained to a sinister key as Belon’s face darkened. He was proud, the rumours had spoken true, and he was savage. For a moment, watching Belon’s eyebrow twitch, Nathan wondered if he’d been rash to rely on the Gentile Code for protection.