Azure lay quiet in the little den. It was warm, and she was drowsing; Dip was resting. Before the bird-hybrid, strewn carefully across the rocky ground, lay a number of materials that she'd been toying with. She had an idea of what she wanted--something like Orion's ceiling--but making it was proving a little harder.

Still, she was unhurried. Content. Life was good, for the moment, at least. The dragons had left... somewhere, for now--all but one of them; Monoceros was markedly quieter for the last day or so.

Black magpie-foot stretched forward, carefully touching the pile of charcoal dust in thought. She had water, here; she could usue that, and try to make black dye?

Thoughtful, Azure pushed her mind toward it--ignoring the slow snore of Dip, the gentle rush of wind outside, the warmth of the dying forge--and tried to lift the small square of leather beneath the charcoal, to tip it into the stone water cup.

She watched it lift, pour; heard the gentle 'flump' of charcoal into water. She pushed up from the ground, carefully taking a dye-stained stick in her beak, and awkwardly turned to one side to stir it.

Then she sat back, and again looked over her materials. Sand grains would be too small; too fine. But she did have crushed seashells, which she'd used on occasion to form a sort of glittery streak in her dyes. With a hum of thought, she pulled the glowing dye she'd made from baubled gemstones close; this she lifted in her beak, spilling it over the nacre.

It lit up, of course: illuminating it, setting it to a gentle glow. The already-reflective shell material, with its small but variably-sized grains, now began to give off a soft light of its own. Azure would have smiled to look at it, had her mouth not been a beak; as it was her eyes regarded it with gentle love, like a mother's. It was her creation, after all.

She waited, letting the dye set, even trying to push magic into it to keep it there.

The glow stuck brilliantly, and Azure's final step was at hand. She chose the black dye, but mixed in a little blue; this gave her a very dark blue, and she didn't know why but that felt right. It reminded her, a little, of her own colors too. This was done in a simple gemstone bowl, mixed with the same stained stick.

Once the nacre had dried, Azure carefully wove the leather that held it into her beak, and up-ended this into the blue-black dye she'd mixed. No mind-magic required; the bowl was easier to maneuver into than a flask or cup. With the stick, she mixed it in, so that the glowing fragments of shell now stretched and spread into the dark, looking for all the world like a carpet of stars.

Eyes bright, Azure took the swatch of grass she used as a paintbrush in her beak, and dipped it with awkward, sideways motions into the dye; this she then raised to the doorway, painting a rough, broad swathe above it. A streak of night sky, glittering with glowing stars.

The bird-hybrid then stood back, "paint brush" in beak, admiring her work with joy.

It had worked!

A flicker of magicka, and she'd fixed it in place there: her own little Orion, back in their den.

exit Azure