#false dod

she's purple now W

edit: I feel the need to clarify for everyone who is confused, my old design was blue but I updated her to be purple. tui didn't introduce some new fatespeaker lore to turn her purple or anything hahah

The false dragonets!

emo flame. I promised myself to finish the shading but didn't have enough energy to do it

I don't think the tragedy of false dragonets of destiny gets enough recognition.

Like imagina a story about heroes having some amazing, nice adventures in the name of a prophecy. They have a chance to meet their families, see all the kingdoms, get new awesome friends, even save the world a couple of times. Even when prophecy turned out to be fake, it doesn't matter - they still got their own happy ending, together

And then you have the second set of heroes. Emergency, second option, false heroes. Second heirs to the destiny, if the first ones fail. Their whole purpose it to be a spare part in Nightwing plot they don't even understand. Castaways, forced to live in a cult since their hatching, thrown into volcano for harsh training where some would die or become wounded for life.

Only to find out all of that has been a lie. Viper could've been alive. Flame would've look normally. Ochre wouldn't have been separated from his siblings. They suffered for nothing and are expected to just get over it

“Ow, Ow! That hurts!” A small, young seawing dragonet whimpered and squirmed at the stab of pain that hit its scales and muscles as another dragonet; a skywing to be exact who about the same age wrapped some bandages around what seemed to be a quite apparent burn wound.

“Maybe if you stopped moving like I told you to, it'd hurt less!” The skywing dragonet hissed, making his annoyance with the seawing’s whining very clear and apparent.

“God, are all seawings this whiny or just you, Squid?” He continued on.

“Flame, please stop.. You’re talking like her again…. I don’t like it, not at all.” Squid bitterly said under his breath, in between the grunting and moaning from the pain of his burn wound.

“Well, Kestrel teaches us how the world’s gonna be outside! She teaches us how the world outside is nothing but war and violence. And if that’s how it is, we can’t be weak. We’re supposed to be strong, not weaklings! The only reason she hates you guys is because you’re all weak! Isn’t it?” The young skywing dragonet said, but in his voice was a hint of doubt and uncertainty. It seemed as though he himself didn’t even sincerely believe what he was saying.

“Well, either way, it’s why I want to become a healer anyway. You idiots need to be in top condition if we’re going to save the world, and I need these skills if I actually want to help dragons in war. So stop crying and deal with it like a big dragonet.” He spat out, snuffing out whatever pinch of insecurity leaked into his voice earlier with aggression and anger as smoke and ash crawled through his throat and escaped out his nostrils.

“You’re only saying all that because you’re her favorite. She treats you like… a son. Me and the others? I don’t think she’d even care if we all died tomorrow.” Squid talked back, uncharacteristic for the normally meek dragonet, he didn’t want another skywing to be yelling at him, he already dealt with enough of that from Kestrel. The young dragonet felt tears form up in his eyes like a whirlpool remembering how awful the training today went, and how badly burnt he got… And what Kestrel said to him, which hurt more than any burn or any scratch or any bite mark he acquired in that fight, or any other fight with both Kestrel and the other dragonets in the cave combined.

“I wish she died when Viper stabbed her with her barb that one time.” Squid blankly said.

The room fell silent, Flame didn’t speak, not even a growl from him. He just continued working on Squid’s wounds. The silence was… deafening, to say the very least.

“Flame?” Squid called his name, wanting to ask him something. No response.

“Do you ever think about who our real parents are?” He asked him.

“Why?” He seemed uninterested in the question.

“I mean… they’re probably better than our guardians here. Kestrel and Dune are awful, and Webs barely tries to do anything about them…” 

“Well, our parents are dead, probably.” Flame said straight-forwardly. Not even phased or bothered by what he just said, as if he just accepted that as the most likely possibility for a long time.

“Flame… You don’t mean that, right?” That was a rhetorical question, Squid knew full well that Flame 100% meant that.

“What are you, stupid? There’s a war outside and everyday Kestrel and Webs always tell us about all the burning bodies of dragons that stretch out all the way to the horizon. And you think our parents aren’t one of those hundreds of dragons?” Flame continued as he wrapped another bandage around his tail.

“And you just don’t care?” Squid asked him.

“...It’s not like we knew them anyway- So it's a waste to get all sad about it.” He said with a certain jumpiness in his voice.

“I-I guess you’re right.” Squid said under his breath. Sighing quite heavily.

“Alright, you should be good to go now, I think… Try moving.” Flame said, he’d just finished tying up the last bandage on Squid’s body.

Squid’s muscles tensed as he tried to get up, after laying down for so long, his body felt heavier than usual as he tried to get back onto his feet. He did it slowly so as to not hurt himself, though when he stretched his wings, the pain began stinging again, causing him to wince and cower. But he kept going, trying his best to stay strong despite the pain, like Flame would. He eventually was standing on all four legs, though shaking with his muscles as tense and hard as the rocks that surrounded them all in this cavernous prison. 

“So, do you feel okay?” Flame asked.

“Y-Yeah..” Squid responded with a shaky voice and a nervous smile. “T-Thank you, Flame…”

Flame was a bit shocked at the ‘Thank you’ he was given. Around here in the cave, that kind of gratitude was jarring, to say the least; and from Squid of all dragons? Viper would never thank anybody for anything, Ochre is too stupid and lazy to remember to do so after someone does him a favor, and Fatespeaker would just talk about her visions even though it had nothing to do with anything of any sort of importance. And the guardians are just their own story.

Flame eventually snapped out of his trance, he shifted his wings slightly as he turned around and began making his way toward the exit of this part of the cave.

“Uh huh, yeah, you're welcome. Come on, let’s go have dinner. Hurry up already. Viper and especially Ochre aren’t gonna be saving crap for us, and Kestrel definitely won’t care to fetch more food for the two of us if we miss dinner.” And just like that, the Flame he knew and… tolerated was back in full force. Though for whatever reason, Squid thought that his words of gratitude meant a lot to Flame, and he just wasn’t showing it. The idea that his fellow dragonets sincerely cared about one another deep down but just didn't show it was a comforting feeling, and what he chose to believe. Even though the likelihood of that was very, very low.

It was probably just in his imagination, though. But what was more important was getting to the dinner hall so he could actually eat something and not go starving for the 2nd day in a row. So the young seawing dragonet chased after his skywing brother, or as close as he could get to chasing in his physical state.

Dinner was about as chaotic and dysfunctional as Squid would usually expect. Eating food in peace was practically an alien concept for the dragonets, and Squid was stuck cleaning up the mess of his other siblings. Flame was Kestrel’s favorite so he always got his way around here, everyone collectively knew Fatespeaker and Ochre wouldn’t get anything done if they had the job and the job landed on Viper, but she threatened Squid to do it or else she’d stab him, so needless to say. He was stuck with the job.

The cracks of the flames of the torches that filled the caverns echoed through the rocky halls and within Squid’s mind. It was one of the first sounds he heard in this world when he hatched, he thought. And ever since that day, they’ve been there, every part of every day. The flames of the torches seemed to be the one consistent thing in this life, he thought.

What kind of life is this? He’s a Dragonet of Destiny, he and the others are supposed to be the most important dragons in history. But here they are stuck in a cavernous prison and can barely agree on who gets to do chores around the cave, arguing over every small thing and getting into rough fights over the sorts. If they can’t agree on that… How could they ever hope to end the war? How could he ever be a hero? That’s what Kestrel always told them.

A stab of pain from the burn mark Flame had treated earlier distracted him from his train of thought… God, why did he have to be the one to work around today? Would it have killed them to give him a break for a day or two?

One day, everything is going to change, I feel it. One day I’ll be a hero, I’ll be the most important dragon in Pyrrhia’s history! I can already feel it…. Squid thought to himself, trying to bring up his own spirits and motivate himself. He began to smile a little, the first time in a long while. He imagined himself being showered in praise all across Pyrrhia. The kind of dragon that people wrote and told stories about. The king of dragons that people looked up to, and aspired to be like. That would be him, soon enough. How soon he wasn’t sure, but he knew in his heart that his dream would come true one day.

“Kill yourself(affectionately)”

vs