[DoA Inktober 2023] Written submissions: [DoA Inktober 2023] Ghost

Normally Sharlok isn’t much of a night dragon, but even he had to admit, his black colours blended well into the water at night. Especially when he wanted to hunt, it seems, because for whatever reason, probably the lunar cycle or something like that, recently hordes of glowing squid have swum up from the deep sea trenches into the shallower parts of the ocean where he lived. They glowed like a thousand stars and he was having fun catching as many as he could fit in his mouth. They tasted surprisingly good, too. So on this night, when he had already filled nearly a full seagrass-basket’s worth of glowing squid, he was just gliding through the ruins of the old buildings where humans had once lived when a flash of movement caught his eye, too big to be squid. And he knew every dragon who frequented this place.

So who was it?

Taking a closer look, Sharlok cautiously swam up to the crumbling barnacled building where he had last seen the movement- there was no one. Slightly creepy, if he had to admit it. But then a head popped through the wall that he was swimming next to, and he jumped away so fast that a glowing squid near him had actually hit his head.

“What-“ he exclaimed, staring at the body of the Toothed Singer that had just appeared out of the wall. The dragon heard him, and turned around with an apologetic expression. “You- I’m guessing that Toothed Singers don’t usually just…” he hopelessly gestured at all of the dragon with his flippers in an attempt to explain himself. “…Pop out of walls, right?” He hadn’t had much experience with Toothed Singers, considering most of them prefer the frigid icy waters that were nowhere near his liking, but he was pretty sure a normal dragon wasn’t supposed to pop out of walls regardless of their species.

She smiled wistfully. “Unfortunately not, no, and sorry about scaring you there. Had I known there was someone else here, I wouldn’t have done that since it creeps most dragons out a little bit,” she said by way of explanation, as if that explained anything.

“Wait, so you’re one of those Wisp dragons I keep hearing about?” Sharlok realised too late that it was probably a rude question, but ah well.

The new dragon nodded, seemingly taking no offense. “Yeah,” she replied, “we can go through stuff. Don’t think about it too hard. Also, my name is Ghost, nice to meet you.”

Sharlok blew a few bubbles in greeting. “Sharlok, nice to meet you too. You have a very fitting name,” he added before he could stop himself.

Ghost laughed. “Yeah, that’s what I told my parents too.”