[DoA Inktober 2023] Written submissions: [DoA Inktober 2023] Wizard/Witch

The gentle swooshing of the waves was the only sound to be heard across the vast expanses of the open ocean, broken only by the occasional bird’s shrill call overhead. A Sea Skimmer drifted close to the surface, his back frills shining wet in the sunlight. Sharlok, the Sea Skimmer, ducked down below the surface to see if the Abyssal was following, and realising she was not, dove down once more to drag her up to the surface.

The Abyssal broke the surface with an annoyed huff, shaking out her glowing head frills that had all but stuck to her scales. “I told you Sharlok,” she narrowed her eyes at him in fake annoyance, “I really did not need to be up here this high for you to practise your magic with me.”

“Ok, but pleaaaase?” Sharlok pleaded with Imussiara. He was more than happy to have met at the middle of the ocean, where it was a bit too high for Imussiara’s normal territory and too low for Sharlok’s liking, but considering he already did her a favour once, he felt like it wasn’t too much trouble to drag her up to the surface for once. “At least you’ll be able to see the sun for once in your life, you Abyssals are always grumpy because you don’t get enough sunlight,” he teased her.

Imussiara splashed him in the face with a fin. “Yeah, the sun that’s about to burn my eyes out,” she complained. “And weren’t you a shadow dragon? Aren’t you supposed to dislike the sun?”

Sharlok shook his head, his underwater version of a shoulder-shrug if Aqrion had shoulders. “I don’t know, but I think this sunlight is actually doing wonders for my confidence at least. Oh, wait, you know what I could do? Make you a hat! From shadows!” His flippers splashed on the water excitedly.

“…Fine, I guess it’ll help you practise at least,” she said reluctantly, resigned to being a living hat holder for the next hour. She started tutoring him on how to morph one’s element properly- so far Sharlok has gotten the hang of summoning shadow quite well, but it always appears as a tiny blob in front of him and ‘is less useful than a starfish on my face’, as he eloquently put it. So Imussiara summoned a blob of her magic and held it out in front of her, amber and glistening, and showed him step by step how to mould it into a simple slab. Sharlok, after some trial and error, discovered that his shadow element had to be forced into a mental container of sorts for it to hold its shape, but at least after an hour he had a slab of shadow.

Which he promptly plonked onto Imussiara’s head.