Ae’nur touched down a sensible distance from the water’s edge, watching with a smile as her exuberant eight year old son landed knee deep with a splash, flicking up a spray with wings and tail and giggling with delight. His hair was only just long enough to pull into a topknot like his father’s and he wore the pathetic little makeup brush with such pride. She had struggled not to laugh when she had done his hair and she struggled not to laugh now as she watched it fluffing about on the top of his head.

She started strolling down the beach towards one of their usual spots, and Tsa’run paced her, cheerfully playing chasey with the waves as they lapped gently against the sand. “[What are we training today, Mama]?” he inquired, executing some beautiful footwork as he danced gracefully around another wave, avoiding getting any wetter than he already was.

She had had a plan. She had been going to teach him a new technique, and then do some more refining of his current knowledge with more dancing through the waves and possibly some sparring on the softer, dry sand further away from the water. She had hoped focusing on her beautiful boy would distract her from the painful knowledge that 19 years ago that day she had miscarried her first child, which they had eventually nicknamed Rouge. Unbidden, the vision of the six candles arrayed on the mantelpiece leaped to the forefront of her mind. Hot tears prickled behind her eyes. A deep breath and quickly squeezing her eyes shut for a moment forcefully suppressed them. When she opened them her violet child was turning towards her, a slight puzzled frown furrowing his adorable little face.

“Mama?”

For a moment Ae’nur thought her heart would burst or suffocate her or both, and then she was gradually suffused with an intense joy, which bubbled up in a gentle smile. She held out her hand. Tsa’run came trotting up from the water’s edge, his little hand slipping into hers. Not that he was that little, once he had gotten past toddlerhood he’d been tall for his age even as far as Dragonkin went. They had his father to blame for that. They ambled on. Ae’nur had already made up her mind before they got close to their usual training spot, so she didn’t even slow down as they approached. Tsa’run only hesitated for a step before realising they weren’t going to stop like he had expected.

“[Are we going to the other one]?”

Ae’nur smiled down at her pride and joy. “[Why don’t we just walk today? Then when Papa comes we’ll go get ice cream].”

Tsa’run’s brow knitted again, then a smile lit his features. “[Okay]!”

-=[o]=-

They’re speaking Cajun French but I don’t know how to Cajun French hence the silly brackets :)

Colouring is a bit odd because I was trying not to be quick and not obsess but got a bit obsessive in places. I had the idea in my head for a bit anyway and as it so happens it was perfect timing to test the feather rig (because I don’t want to redo that part of the rig test anim which I would have to do because I appended instead of linked like an idiot). The feather rig seems to work pretty well so I’m happy. And it was also a slightly-earlier-than-expected lesson in linking as appending the Avian model with its fifty bazillion feathers didn’t work too well.

I have made the executive decision to abandon the last rig test anim as I’ve fixed the issues that came up with both the Flyer rigs in the last test and would rather get cracking on characters and sets in the 3d department. On the 2d front I have to finish Black Fingernails and a metric boatload of concept sketches.