Brief
Stone paths.
Wooden buildings.
Voices overlapping one another.
The scent of food, ink, paper, fabric, and countless lives woven together in ways that never cease to feel strange.
Monsters rarely build cities.
Humans do.
Or at least... most cities belong to them.
Standing beneath a gate marked by years of use, Nyra Vellshade watches the flow of daily life pass before her. Merchants advertise their goods. Workers hurry between errands. Children run where they should not. Somewhere, a bell announces the passing of another hour.
None of it is unfamiliar.
Yet none of it feels entirely familiar either.
She visits from time to time to replenish her supplies—paper, charcoal, graphite, ink. Simple necessities for someone who fills sketchbook after sketchbook with moments she fears forgetting.
Today should be no different.
Yet the questions that have followed her through recent weeks refuse to remain behind.
She understands monsters.
Their fears.
Their desires.
Their instincts.
Their loneliness.
People, however, remain more difficult.
And lately, an uncomfortable thought has begun to appear in her sketches.
When she draws herself among monsters, she wonders if she belongs elsewhere.
When she visits cities, she wonders if she belongs there at all.
Neither answer feels correct.
Neither feels wrong.
So, as she steps into the streets once more, she does what she always does when faced with uncertainty.
She observes.
She listens.
And she draws.
Perhaps somewhere between monsters and people, she will eventually discover where she belongs.
The city carries on without paying particular attention to the newcomer.
A pink-haired traveler wandering through the streets is unusual, but hardly the strangest sight a city has witnessed.
With a folded shopping list tucked into one pocket and a half-filled sketchbook resting beneath her arm, Nyra Vellshade moves between storefronts and alleyways at an unhurried pace.
Occasionally she pauses.
Not to buy anything.
Simply to watch.
A conversation.
A gesture.
A reunion.
An argument.
Moments that would never occur in the forests she calls home.
Nearby, one of her floating companions drifts alongside her, drawing curious glances from passersby.
I stop in front of a stationery shop and stare through the window.
"...More expensive again."
The monster beside me lets out a questioning chirp.
"Yes."
I continue studying the display.
"They know artists are desperate."
The creature appears deeply concerned by this information.
After a few moments, I pull out my sketchbook and open it to a blank page.
The pencil moves almost automatically.
A storefront.
A passerby.
A street corner.
Nothing important.
Yet I keep drawing.
Eventually my eyes drift upward, following the crowd as it moves through the city.
"...Strange."
The word leaves me almost absentmindedly.
My pencil hesitates.
For a brief moment, I am not looking at the page.
I am looking at the lives surrounding it.
As though searching for something I cannot quite name.
