Drawn by ReliablySketchy in 2025.

The artist hasn't uploaded this one anywhere yet, to my knowledge, but I'll be sure to provide a link to such here if and when that changes!

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What's a pair of dragon explorers camping out in the wilderness to do when the sun goes down and the two of them have already eaten dinner? They could just go to bed, sure, but what if they want to stay up for a bit? What could they do to pass the time, one wonders...? How about a story or two?
Back before he fled his old home, Melee would sometimes find himself being tasked to read all sorts of material for the noble families to show off his literacy skills - a rarity amongst the beast peoples in his universe. Be it informative textbooks meant to educate or stories for their children meant to entertain and tickle their imaginations, if he was assigned to scribe a copy of a book for the noble libraries, odds were high that he would be expected to read it aloud at some point! And when that happened, Melee always had a preference for the fairy tales and epics, since that meant he could get theatrical with it, having fun and making things exciting for the listeners so they could enjoy these stories just as much as he was! The children sure did like when he did that, and seeing them get into these tales always made Melee smile... good times, those were.

Since running away, though, he hasn't gotten many chances to do that, and the few times he has been able to publicly recite whatever literary works he could get ahold of after that was always before an audience of strangers. That unfamiliarity always invoked a sense of uneasiness within him, since he never really knew how they'd feel about it... not like the noble families he served and knew for years, anyway. Good thing Sharon isn't a stranger, though something tells me she's not quite as into these stories as her friend is. At least it helps pass the time.

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Been wanting to commission this artist for a good while now, but had a real hard time trying to think up a fun idea that I felt would play to his strengths that also didn't come off like I was treading familiar territory in my own gallery. Eventually managed to come up with a few ideas when I began asking myself about what my dragons did for fun and recreation - makes sense, right? Since fun stuff seems more up Reliably's alley, and it's content that I surprisingly don't have a whole lot of artwork showing. Not sure why I never pondered such ideas before, but I guess I was too pre-occupied with trying to figure out how the two survive in the wilderness by themselves and what exactly their tasks were to ensure said survival. Hopefully, this pic will help give the two dragons and their friendship a bit more depth for those interested in seeing that kind of thing.

When the artist showed me the intial sketch, though, I will admit to being caught off guard with it, as I wasn't expecting a campfire scene with the two. At the time I pitched my idea to RS, I had only told him that Melee should be eagerly reading a story to a bored Sharon and didn't really go into specifics regarding backgrounds, pitching a few ideas his way about it, for sure, but ultimately letting the artist decide for himself what would work best. He was not aware of Sharon's... aversion to fire, as the ref material I provided makes no mention of this trait and I don't exactly have any artwork that really shows that off (should consider looking into getting such art one of these days). Not his fault. However, I couldn't bring myself to correct him because the idea of reading stories at a nighttime campfire was simply too good and obvious to shut down, and I couldn't really think of a way to revise the scene without making things look awkward, nor was I about to make RS redraw the whole thing, so... yeah, I let it slide. If the artist is reading this, know that you did absolutely nothing wrong - I never told you that detail and you had no way of knowing it.

You did, however, give me a lot to think about regarding how these two interact at night before they go to bed, and that I should ponder more about how to work these activities around Sharon's fear of fire in the future, so thanks for getting my noggin going regarding that.

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All of this said, it's still a cute picture, right? I think so, and it's definitely one worth sharing that I believe helps develops my dragons and their relationship more, which is always nice! We can just... pretend my red dragon's too distracted by Melee's theatrics to really pay attention to the fire. That works, right? That's the excuse I'm going with to justify this scene, anyway.

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Artwork by  ReliablySketchy

Melee and Sharon are property of  SilverMelee, A.K.A. myself.





BONUS
Follow-Up Sketch
So, the artist saw what I had to say above and made a humorous little follow-up sketch for me in which Sharon realizes she's sitting near a fire. I made sure to let him know that I don't blame him for that oversight one bit and even tweaked my description here to make sure he knows that.

As for Sharon's belated freakout... I like to think she was too distracted by Melee's storytelling to notice it at first.