I'm really happy with how this came out. It's my first multi-subject art-piece and I specifically struggled at first with the scene composition for this. The picture is of a trade between my western dragon character and a friend of mine's sea drake, who is quite adept at catching fish. He's willing to do so, for a price of course. I wrote up a little in-character story for the art-piece as well, posted below!

There's an alternate version of this picture I also uploaded. A surreal, haunted looking version. It's located here: https://www.deviantart.com/predator.....nted-921006878

To see the full resolution image, it can be viewed on my DeviantArt page at https://www.deviantart.com/predator.....shie-921005988

There’s a type of fish I really want to eat. I’ve flown really close over the Ocean’s surface and I can see them down there, hiding in the kelp forest. They think I don’t see them, but I do! They’re big, yellow, and have sharp looking fins. Unfortunately, unlike the Yellow Jumpies, they don’t swim near the surface, nor do they spook out of the water when I flap my wings at them.


Hmph…. How rude of them. I wonder what they taste like.


I bet they’re delicious.


—---


Fortunately, …. Oh! Oh! A water dragon! He just showed up. Just now! He looked like a really good swimmer too. He had a huge, ribboned tail and tons of bright, yellow feelers on his face. I bet he could catch one of those fish no problem. The water dragon asked what I was doing flying so slow and low over these parts of the Ocean. He asked what I was looking at. I told him about the fish. The big yellow ones with the spikes. I told him how badly I wanted to eat one of those glorious looking fish. He proposed we trade.


Trade!


I offered him many different kinds of things that I like to eat. I could catch him a deer, a wolf, a buffalo… Even a gryphon! He turned his nose up at all of these things, saying he already had all the fish he wanted and wasn’t hungry. What about herbs? Berries? Mushrooms? No, no no. He didn’t want any of those either. I tried to think of something else he might want. A shiny stone? Nah, he has plenty of those. A book? Hmmm, no, those would just get ruined in the water. I asked him what he could possibly want, and he told me if I give him something really shiny and really valuable … treasure … he’d catch me one. The more valuable it was, the bigger the fish he’d catch.


So, something shiny….. Something valuable … Hmmm…. Treasure? I can’t think of anything more valuable than those fish. Well, I’ve come across many shiny things in my travels, but I don’t know if any of them are valuable. I remember seeing this old scepter thing in an abandoned castle way back over in the mountains. It was a silver scepter with a large, orange gemstone on the end of it. It had an ornate, obsidian orange-eyed dragon curled around the gem. The dragon sort of looks like me in a way. That’s curious.


The bipeds seem to think things like these are valuable, even though I don’t understand why. You can’t read it. You can’t eat it. I’m sure it tastes awful anyways. You can’t really do anything with it. All it does is sit there. I guess I could get that and see if he likes it.


—---


I got it for him. He traded with me! He loved it! He did. He caught me the biggest fish. It’s absolutely huge! And it looks absolutely delectable. What a delightful delicacy this shall be. I’m not sure why he would want this thing though. Ahh well, what a great deal that was. A wonderful trade! If I find anything else shiny or valuable, I’ll make sure to give it to him. Maybe he’ll catch me more fishies.