“Are you all right?” the stranger asked as Talan climbed unsteadily back to his feet.

Talan brushed his hair out of his eyes and winced. [...] Then he gaped. There was a reason the stranger's words worked where his failed; the human standing in front of him was a sparkler. There was no denying it when his rescuer possessed the brilliant glow that encompassed the body from head to toe.

Once Talan recovered from the shock of a sparkler striking up a conversation with him, something he always avoided in case he needed to feed from them later, he was hit by another surprise. His rescuer was the most memorable human that he had ever laid eyes on. They had waist-length hair that framed a face with delicate features. Their long coat reached their ankles, but left their arms uncovered, a style Talan had previously not seen worn by anyone else. What he noticed most, though, were the patterns of their skin: their face was marked by dark, intricate swirls and the sleeveless coat revealed the facsimile of scales that reached to their wrists.

“Do you talk?” the stranger asked when Talan made no response.

Talan finally realized that he was staring. “Oh. Yes. I do. Sorry. Thank you for helping me,…?”

He hoped that leaving this gap would allow his rescuer to supply a name. It did, or at least Talan assumed this was a name. To his ears it sounded more like a species. “Firedrake.”

In response Firedrake held out a hand. Talan stared at this for a moment before he remembered that it was part of a common human greeting custom. Unfortunately this left him further baffled. Was he supposed to shake it or kiss it? That seemed to depend on the gender of the person offering the hand, but Talan didn't know enough about humans to determine the correct response in this case. When Firedrake raised an arched, thin eyebrow in his direction at the delay, Talan decided to go with his first instinct. He brought Firedrake's hand to his lips; in this brief moment he discovered that Firedrake's nails were filed into sharp points, reminiscent of the claws Talan once possessed.

The corners of Firedrake's lips curled up slightly. Talan took this to mean that he had done something right because he knew humans smiled when they were pleased.
- From the current draft of “A Sparkler’s Glow” (short story)

I'm so excited! My husband finally finished drawing the art of Firedrake, so this means that I can share that along with the plushie I finished months ago! The colors came out weird in the photos, though- the art should probably be a little brighter and the doll should be a little darker. The doll is crocheted with fabric paint and polymer clay embellishments, and stands about 6″ tall.

Firedrake is one of my main point-of-view characters in book 1 of my “Unexpected Inspiration” trilogy, as well as getting their own book later and staring in the aforementioned short story. They’re one of my carnival performers- a blade and fire dancer. (The doll is holding fire swords while the art has Firedrake’s beloved dragon-hilted long daggers strapped to their back.) Firedrake is almost always in costume and their stage persona is something like a stylized dragon, including dragon scale tattoos on their arm and red paint on their face. My husband doesn’t have a lot of experience drawing people who aren’t male (Firedrake is agender), so the drawing came out a little too masculine, but that’s basically Firedrake. :)

(I make custom dolls, so if you have a character you’d like made into doll form, check out my website!)

~Meri