Title: Bits and Pieces
Fandom: Pokemon
Characters: OC, Lenora, Burgh, Druddigon
Length: 1k+
Summary: An artist is asked to create a mural of the Original Dragon of Unova for an event. He struggles with what that means.

Normally, Astrit loved being given free reign of his work. But this one?

“You realize a bunch of experts are going to be here judging it, right?” he said, giving Lenora his most imploring gaze.

“It’s not that kind of event.”

“That’s not the point,” he groused. Sinking further into his chair, Astrit looked like little more than a melting Vanillite. “It’s going to be in the center of the event. My work is going to be right next to the Nacrene City gym. Everyone is going to see it.”

“How is this any different from your other murals? It’s not like you put them in hiding spots.” Lenora whapped her dust brush against the corner of her desk to clean it before carefully going back to her work. Unearthing fossils was sometimes slow work. “Whatever you come up with will be fine.”

“I’m supposed to make a mural of the Original Dragon. If I get anything wrong, people will be down my throat on Chattler.”

Lenora laughed. “No one knows what the Original Dragon actually looked like, or even if it actually existed. All you need to do is make it look suitably cool for a backdrop and everyone will be happy.”

“Will I be happy, though?”

“Not up to me. You going to do it, or do we need to find another artist?”

Astrit sighed, long suffering. “I’ll do it.”

“That’s the spirit!”

Astrit left the room, hands jammed in his pockets. He had sketches to work with–when he was first offered the job, he stayed up for the next two days drawing every kind of dragon he could imagine, trying to find the kind he thought the Original Dragon might be–but nothing stood out. Nothing was so mysterious, so regal. Dragons inherently looked powerful, but nothing stood out as powerful enough.

Still, he was running out of time. “Why couldn’t Unova have a dragon representing inspiration, huh?”

With a loud pop, Astrit’s Druddigon left its Pokeball, stretching its wings to absorb the sunlight that cascaded in through the window. It growled low as it cuffed its trainer’s shoulder.

“You’re not the right kind of dragon, bud.”

Druddigon yawned.

“Thankfully for us, Lenora keeps a well-stocked library where we can do some real research, and not just scroll through random blogs that parrot what everyone else has said about the Original Dragon. Something real.” Astrit padded into the library and strode confidently over to a random section. “Let’s hope they have at least a few illustrations for us to use as a basis.”

After some searching, Astrit picked up a handful of mythology books that sounded promising and made his way to a table. Druddigon curled up by his feet like a dog, its rough scales catching his pant leg.

The information in the books was more cogent than what could be found online, but frustratingly vague. Very little was said about the dragon beyond the fact that it existed, prior to it splitting into the dragons of Truth and Ideals. No descriptions of its appearance were contained in the story itself, and later art varied wildly on its depiction depending on what style was popular at the time. This wasn’t a surprising find, but Astrit slowly felt his insides shrivel as he realized he was no better off than before.

He flipped the last book closed before even finishing the page.

“I might as well pick an era of art and make a generic black-and-white dragon,” Astrit said, frustrated. “Maybe I’ll give it a checker pattern for fun.”

Druddigon rumbled.

“Seriously bud, look at these,” Astrit said, flipping open another book and holding it so his Pokemon could see. “Beyond the color scheme, none of these look like the same creature. Some are long like a Dragonair, and others are practically sauropods. A few give them feathers, but others are smooth-scaled like most modern dragons. And you can’t even say that any of them are wrong, because every single person is just guessing!”

Druddigon was not nearly as annoyed about it as Astrit was, but it did obligingly sniff the book in a judgemental manner.

“The Original Dragon needs to be epic… legendary… what makes a dragon look legendary?”

Lumbering onto its feet, Astrit’s Druddigon stood tall and puffed out its chest.

Elbow on the table, Astrit leaned his cheek into his hand and gave his Pokemon a small grin. “Are you offering to be my model?”

Druddigon huffed, returning to its natural, slightly hunched posture. Nothing could be mistaken for a Druddigon.

Actually… there was an idea. People tended to think of legendary Pokemon as elegant in some way because humans associated beauty and elegance with high value, and thus, with power. But what would a powerful dragon associate with legendary power?

“Dragons love shiny things…” Astrit said aloud. “Dragons love things that stand out. Even dragons that live deep underground will divert their attention to something shinier than what surrounds it. How would I use that, though…”

Astrit didn’t necessarily love his new idea, but with time running out, an idea was an idea.

-

On the day of the mural’s unveiling, Lenora brought her fellow gym leader and world-famous artist, Burgh. And she said that his work wasn't going to be judged.

Burgh seemed genuinely excited to see his work, though, which made Astrit feel a little proud of himself. Artists should have a little bit of ego, he thought. Just a smidge to keep them going.

In the end, the mural was vertically oriented, with the dragon hunched forward and staring down. The background was distorted as if through a fish-eye lens, giving it a claustrophobic quality even as it was recognizably in a cave or underground. Though its eyes were cast downward towards its hands, it had the uncanny sense of it bearing down on the viewer, as if they were in danger from a viscious beast. Specks of rocks and dirt floated gently from its curled, clawed hands, like the dragon had just dug its twin prizes out of the earth.

In each hand was a bright, shining light, which doubled as the light source for the entire image. This, in turn, illuminated the dragon’s square, rocky face and excited eyes. The entire image was in black and white and shades of gray, except for a hint of color at the brightest areas where the lights met across the dragons body and face, revealing subtle, iridescent scales.

“I’m impressed,” Burgh said, giving Astrit a quick pat on the shoulder. “It’s bold! It’s dramatic! It’s saying something!”

“It’s very clearly based on your Druddigon,” Lenora said. “It’s very good, but is that really what you think the Original Dragon looked like?”

“Absolutely not,” Astrit said. “But it doesn’t really matter what the dragon looks like. I don’t know if dragons really have the ability to embody concepts like hope or ideals… but they do value something. I wanted to represent what the Original Dragon valued. Literally and/or metaphorically.”

“Which we may never know and can only guess about,” Lenora said with a small smile.

“Got it in one,” Astrit said as he turned to leave. “Those lights could represent hope or ideals, like legends say… or they could represent a really shiny rock.”

“I hope the Original Dragon cared about more than rocks.”

“Like you, miss archaeologist? Can you leave the rocks alone?”

Lenora punched Astrit in the shoulder. “Smart-aleck.”

“Oh, leave him alone,” Burgh said. “He’s doing what all great artists do: leave ‘em guessing. It makes the viewer keep thinking about a piece long after they leave the room.”

Astrit’s mouth twisted, briefly, into a conflicted line. “I didn’t really intend anything super deep… but in my experience, dragons aren’t as complicated or mysterious as we make them out to be. Most of the truly ‘mystical’ things about them, we project onto them ourselves.”

“Ooh, philosophical. I like it,” Burgh said with a sage nod.

“No!” Astrit cried. But he laughed a little as he started dragging them away from the mural toward the nearest food stall selling funnel cakes. Lenora owed him one, he decided.