Suddenly, you freeze. Staring at the stone floor, you hardly breathe... A tiny creature flits about on butterfly-like wings, humming softly. Before you can contain it, a soft puff of air escacpes your throat. The faerie drops to the floor and lays still.
Unable to react, you watch the tiny thing, wondering what has happened. Is it dead? Without knowing how, you find yourself on your knees, cheek against the cold stones in an attempt to see a small intake of breath.
There is none.
With a disappointed sigh you reach toward the faerie to touch the delicate frame. Abruptly, the creature leaps into the air, hissing angrily. You pull back and she takes off down the hall.
"Matte!" you call after her. Echoes bounce off the wall like light on shards of broken glass.
Jumping to your feet you follow her through the maze of halls in the castle. Her wings glitter one last time as she squeezes under a door, pausing just long enough to see if you've followed.
Twisting the knob, you slam your shoulder into the door, popping it open. Stumbling inside, you find yourself up against a pair of furious silver eyes.
"Get out!" the girl hisses. "I warned you away from the faeries!"
"Z-Zephyr?"
She steps backward with a predatory growl. "Get out."
"But...you're a dragon! What are you doing like this? And-" your gaze travel up and over the walls. They're lined with books, much like the library, but... Faeries. Hundreds of thousands of faeries glide around the room. Some even clinging to the srands of teal hair around Zephyr's head.
"I said, GET OUT OF MY ROOM!" she roars.
Stumbing backwards, you fall against a table. Zephyr hisses and you see her teeth have become very sharp. As you back around the table, you glance down at it.
Color.
Your eyes widen at the simple brush strokes, then narrow as you see a scene unfold before your eyes.
Wings--dragon wings--spread across the paper at strange angles. Serpent bodies twist past one another in liquid curves. In the center of it all, a happy, smiling human rolls throughout the flight, joyfully hopping from dragon back to the next.
You blink and the image is gone, the picture is once again a simple painting of nothing in particular. Looking up, you see that Zephyr appears saddened, anger long gone.
"Welcome to my world. What you saw, is gone, they are all dead," she sighs. "This is the Gallery, my home."
