Choosing an Authentic Narrative

Writers: Francesca
Date Posted: 19th January 2019

Characters: Arrilon
Description: Arrilon sorts through his artwork and reflects on his past.
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 9, day 1 of Turn 9

Arrilon sat on his bed, a large stack of hides in an unorganized pile
next to him. He found himself more nervous to sort through the pages
than he had expected, and had waited until his roommates were in
rehearsal and guaranteed to be gone for awhile before beginning. In
art class, the teacher had told all the senior apprentices to sort
through their own artwork over the Turns and identify where they had
most improved and areas they wanted to devote the following months to
working on. Everyone was to select a handful of representative pieces
and use those to present a narrative of their own growth as artists.

From even before his first art class, Arrilon had known that this
would not be his specialty. However, he did enjoy sketching everything
from sweeping landscapes to the detail of a dragon's eye. While he
knew he had improved over the Turns, he had never done a systematic
study of his own drawings and felt embarrassed to look, even though he
was completely alone and was not being forced to share everything with
anyone else.

"Get over it," he sternly told himself and, after taking a breath and
slowly letting it out, began going through and organizing the pages.
The first group of sketches was fairly easy, because they were recent.
There were the paired sunrise and sunset, from an assignment focused
on mixing colors. There was a bronze firelizard with his wings
stretched out, to practice detailed work and methods for accurately
representing the metallic sheen of the firelizard's skin in the light.
Then there were less polished works: sketches done while
people-watching after the evening meal or on one of his frequent walks
along the beach towards the Dolphin Hall.

But to fully understand his strengths and weaknesses today, he needed
to see where he had started. So, forcing himself to ignore the hides
in the middle of the pile, Arrilon grabbed a handful from the very
bottom and spread them out across the bed. He had become an apprentice
two months after arriving at Dragonsfall Weyr as a Candidate with his
sister, and his first drawings displayed his fascination with dragons:
sunning themselves, at the weyrlake, flying. He also tried to capture
the magnitude of the Weyr in those initial sketches. Then, when his
sister Impressed, he tried to avoid her in the hopes of not subjecting
her to his bitterness and envy. But, when they did spend time
together, he would draw the green dragonet as a way of occupying his
hands and keeping the focus on the drawing and not his negative
emotions. There was one of Alaudath playing in the water, tail ready
to splash her rider, and another of the green sleeping after a meal.

Pulling himself from his memories, Arrilon tried to think objectively
about his skill, or really lack of skill, in those early drawings.
Here was a bad attempt at color and shading, and there a tentative try
at creating perspective. And he still wasn't comfortable drawing
people's faces but there was an early example or two showing how much
worse he was then. He set those aside, then grabbed another handful
from the bottom of the pile.

He could immediately identify in his art when he transferred to
Dolphin Cove Weyr, in a (failed) attempt at improving his luck as a
Candidate. Rather than the greens of the plains or the white of snow
at Dragonsfall Weyr, he began using many blues for the water. In fact,
once Impression was no longer a possibility and he chose to devote
himself to his craft, he had for a period spent as much time as
possible away from the Weyr, so there were numerous examples of waves,
sand, and plants from a variety of perspectives and distances. He
quickly went through the rest of the stack and pulled some examples of
water and sand, to show his improved drawing technique over time.

The other constant, he was noticing, was his sister's green. Kamalia
and Alaudath visited every month or so, and Alaudath was always happy
to pose for a drawing and then look at the finished product and make
comments about it through her rider. And while he wasn't sure he would
ever fully get over not Impressing, he tried his best not to let that
get in the way of his relationship with Kamalia, or with other
Candidate friends who had Impressed.

Arrilon took all of the drawings of Alaudath and then whittled them
down to one or so from each Turn, culminating in two from just last
month: one a close up of her head and another of her full body, as she
napped on the beach. It sometimes bothered him, the oversized presence
of his little sister and her green in his life. He often had to bury
the thought that she was living the life he had always dreamed of.
Life wasn't fair and there wasn't anything he could do to change it.
However, his decision not to return to Dragonsfall Weyr after turning
21 was partially in an attempt to build his own life, out from under
the shadow of Kamalia. And largely, he had managed to do so, but even
in his harper studies, there she was.

Arrilon sat for a minute, looking at the collection of artwork he had
organized into piles. Did he ignore all the drawings of Alaudath and
pick others to discuss in class? He had plenty he could use; ones that
showed his growth as an artist. It also allowed him to avoid thinking
about his Turns as a Candidate and the constant reminder Alaudath
represented of the fact that his sister had successfully Impressed and
he had not.

He gave a quick shake of his head. No, showing the green dragon
created a more authentic narrative, and it was easier to see his skill
grow over the Turns as he drew this one subject. He smiled slightly,
thinking of when he would tell the two about this assignment at their
next meeting. Alaudath would preen and Kamalia would bounce with
excitement.

Decision made, Arrilon easily pushed his emotions to the side and
began sorting through the drawings of Alaudath to select the
representative ones. He may have failed as a Candidate, but looking at
these drawings was a reminder that he wasn't such a bad harper.

Last updated on the January 28th 2019

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Choosing an Authentic Narrative