Owner	Pose
Miranda Madsen	There was an apartment fire. These things happen in every city in the world. In a world of superheroes, to have someone seek to put it out and rescue the citizenry is not at all unexpected. What blew away the people of New York is to have one such rescuing presence be something from primordial history, myth or legend. What was even more bizarre was to have that legend be a dragon. A creature of fear and fire. Only.. this time it was golden and breathed frost..     It is also not at all photogenic. Once the fire was out, the dragon summoned magical energies and rendered itself invisible to the naked eye and once again took flight. Powerful wings beat until it was able to clear the crowded city streets and soar above the city. Despite its new elevation, it was content to remain invisible as it flew silently upon powerful wings, its long neck and head alternated between regarding the city below and simply reveling in the joy of flight. It would seem this dragon did not get out much.
Michael	Fire is man's best friend and his worst enemy. It warms his soul and scours his life. It illuminates and it consumes. In so many ways, Michael is that force personified, his younger brother its darker aspect. The man easily walks among the city. He mixes with the residents like any young man might, effortlessly blending in by walking the same, talking the same, drinking and moving quickly the same. It's one of the ways to observe life he cherishes so much. Though the odd sticks out to the archangel, too. Traces of magical energy on the air and perturbations in what should be are the stuff he's attuned to in ways so deep it scarcely matters.     One sandwich and a glass of milk later, he sets out. The neighbourhood is one hollowed by poverty and neglect, barren of the advantages gentrified corners of New York have. Some developer may sneak in to rebuild the charred rowhouse with another at double the price, luxury apartments being the name of the game. People pass the scarred rubble half-heartedly taped off for safety's sake. Surveyors won't notice his approach, nor the way he stands by the fire escape children were carried down. Memories are bright, emotions sharp and clear, and he sighs. A near miss. Blinking away the vision, he rolls his shoulders. The heavy and familiar weight of his mantle settles in, unseen as he is unseen, forgettable. Feathers flicker into eldritch forms. He flaps them for good measure, feeling the old, delightful balance. Two harder downstrokes accompany a jump, and he's airborne in defiance of physics.
Miranda Madsen	Amarantharial has this gift. She can smell man, beast, gold and magic with equal facility. What is most alarming about the new smell is that it was one that she scented earlier and was still puzzling about. It was pure. Powerful. Majestic. If one could smell a symphony.. she imagines that is what it might smell like. Most men smelled of filth, fear and loathing. Greed. Avarice. Things that disgusted her as they had haunted her for all of her relatively short lifespan. This.. was no man. And she was smelling it again. Her neck craned and her nose scented the air until, finally, curiosity brought her wings to arc and she swooped to intercept this being.      Now she was also blessed with keen vision. Eyes that could see as well as any eagle in day and as well as any owl at night. As her gaze settled in on the distant figure, she blinked her inner eyelids in surprise. This man.. not man.. had wings.. angels wings.. in all of her lifetimes.. she had never seen an angel. Truth be told, she did not believe they existed despite the fact that she had met wizards, fae, and innumerable other magical creatures. As she considered this, she concluded it was merely a sense of despondency which had brought her to this disbelief. Now.. she found another urgency stirring within her gilded figure.. that of hope. In lieu of invisibility, she used the magic in her blood to form a shimmering field about her.. a protection against attack. This was either to be a blessed occasion.. or open war. She had not lived this long without being circumspect.     As the aura of invisibility left her, the moonlight reflected from her golden scales in a glistening refractive display. It is no wonder she chooses to fly invisibly above the city.
Michael	To be sure, Michael probably smells very faintly of stardust and hope, the open vastness of space and the perfect glimmer-sheen of dawn lightening the western sky. His fragrance embodies a good many things. He is the sum and whole of the world in microcosm, and so very much less than the sum.     His wingbeats carry him expertly up into the skies over the city, leaving trails of cleaner air in his wake where the poisoned chemicals pass through the broad white-feathered span. Surrounding himself with the simplest of veils is meant only to deter those who might take notice and fear. Children certainly are exempt if they're of a certain age, and saintly souls, and reverential humans. Let those who believe with hope in their hearts see a hint of goodness in their lives even if he's on his day off. He banks smoothly over the rooftops and ascends higher. The number of wingbeats doesn't correspond with the height or speed he attains, not directly related by the least. Wind rustles his night-dark hair and toys with him fondly, cast up by him extending a hand to feel the striations of lingering magic.     "You've no reason to fear me, friend." His voice may travel. It may not. "I have no intention to do you harm. Only thank you for your aid bringing down the fire."
Miranda Madsen	Amarantharial brings herself to stop and it means she must beat at the air to remain aloft. It's a bit of a pain really and one that the.. angel?.. apparently does not have to suffer. And so she summons a shimmering saucer into being, a thing which defies gravity.. and sits upon it. Her tail curls naturally about her and her wings furl upon her back. Still, there is a slight cant to her muzzle as she regards the winged man. "The poor have suffered enough. To lose ones home due to the folly of another is an injustice they should not have to suffer." Her voice is husky and feminine. Her breath acrid and sulphurous. Truly, she breathes fire. "You.. are no wizard." The statement is almost an interrogative.. as if it is voiced to assuage a deeply rooted fear.     "What are you?" Not who. Who seems far less important. She is a dragon. Master of the skies. A terror with teeth. She fears little. Save the magicians who have hunted her kind for eons.
Michael	A gravitational saucer appearing, such as 'appear' happens with force, causes Michael to bank again with better care around Amarantharial. Showing such respect to other creatures comes naturally to him, and he pivots to allow her great ease of motion. His uplift puts them on a better angle to see one another as he's mindful of the difference in size and volume between dragon and man. Apparent man, if one discounts the wingspan.     Those grand plumes carry licks of the faded sun, capturing the rarified softness of the light and diffusing it to a presence haloed around them. Shimmering tones of rose dust and hammered copper dissolve where he goes, something difficult to perceive strongly. "A sentiment we both share, noble friend," he replies. "I am pained to think they might have been harmed by sheer happenstance. Together, we and the fine young woman assured no lives were lost. The building is another matter." His frown is a distant thing with the charred home not far off.     His intensely blue eyes once again seek her face. "No, I am not a wizard. My name is Michael and I am..." He gestures to the wings. "Someone who tries to do good. May I know your name?"
Miranda Madsen	Amarantharial watches him, every nuance.. every shift of the light.. she lifts her muzzle to scent at the air again then.. lifts a foreclaw and plucks a gold coin from where it is wedged between scales. She holds it aloft and breathes upon it such that it melts upon her claws but then sparkles and blows away as an offering to the fates. A divination. It is then that the aquamarine of her eyes glisten and truly grasp the scope of what is before her. At least as much as her mind can grasp the cosmos. Her head bows then, a curl of her neck bringing it away from him as though she was not worthy to look upon his being. "I am Amarantharial. Humbled by your presence. Unworthy of it." And a dragon is never unworthy.. at least in their own minds.
Michael	His patience is the stuff of celestial lifespans, rather than mortal cares. The man could, and has, sat in one spot for a decade simply to experience things in a different scale of time from his own vast sight. But for the moment, Michael watches most curiously what the draconic whims express themselves as, and how she shapes coins into unique forms and purposes. All of it brings an intense satisfaction hard to describe other than watching the project come together. He shakes his head at her. "No, Amarantharial, whose name speaks of the everlasting, you need not abase yourself to me. All life has dignity and value, the lowest to the highest. I'm no better nor worse. He above alone claims the honour."
Miranda Madsen	"Yet you serve a greater purpose than mine." Amarantharial declares, her gaze still averted. "And what am I? An embodiment of greed predestined to hoard the very thing that is my being?" Naturally, she speaks of gold. "Cursed to be spurned for sins my ancestors may or may not be guilty of? Bearing a name claimed by he who is the most evil?" Her voice quivers with both rage and anguish. "I who have known none of my kind for what passes to be my life and.." There is a heavy sigh which from a being with such large lungs is a mighty thing.     "Listen to me. As many times as I have used the word I." There is a shake of her head and she dares lift her muzzle to look at him. "There is a purpose for all things and I knew not mine until this moment."
Michael	"Everyone serves their purpose as they can," Michael gently corrects the dragon, not with the force he might ever use. "You are what you wish to be. You strive to do well and you achieve great things. Am I to judge you based on an idea conceived over history through a lens of fear, or my firsthand experience?" It's not a hard philosophical exercise to pursue, one he assumes easily enough. "You helped save a family. You put yourself at risk to quench the flames and enter a building that might be a threat to the delicate membranes of your wings and the structures of your eyes. To say nothing of your great care putting down someone. Is that not the measure of a good person, a worthy soul? To me it makes you as fine as the mother who works to put food on her table for her children. The man keeping long hours at his shop so the late-shift workers have a chance to buy some fresh produce and food, rather than go another few miles. Do not they give their part? You do as well."
Miranda Madsen	"But those of us with the greater power, are we not obligated to do more?" Amarantharial returns. "I who have spent hundreds of years doing nothing more worthy of my time than accumulating wealth? That is the curse of my kin. The avarice within our being. It compelled me. In as much as I avoided man, I was drawn to him surely as he valued gold as much as I." There is a shake of her muzzle. "And why? It is a question I have warred with for two hundred years. Why. Why do I hoard gold. Why does it have this power over me. Why does it fuel my strength. Gold.. which is.. a thing. Pure, perhaps, as it is. Untarnished. Could a thing of value turn a being to evil? Absolutely. But can it also be a thing of worth? I do not know. In either case, I am resolved. My wealth will be the boon of the weak. My strength will be wielded to their protection. If I must work to dispel the image of evil associated with my kind then so be it. As much as I lay such insinuations at the feet of the fallen one.. I have no proof of it. I am not so long lived to know it nor have I known any of my kin to hear of it. Instead, I shall be I. Amarantharial the golden and of golden virtue I shall be." She nods to him then with a resolve. A point of discussion held in her own mind.
Michael	"Obligation...." Michael shakes his head, throwing shadows along the loose hair moving in a curtain with the motion. Any attempt to pull it back would require an elastic and he hasn't thought of that. "I wish it were so simple as declaring we must or should do something. Those with means to do something are encouraged to do so. No one /has/ to do anything." The pleasure of free will isn't something new for him to consider, though New York tests even his tolerance. "You live according to your choices. And sometimes those choices aren't the ones that are best for you. If you're feeling regret or shame for them, maybe it serves as a good signal to reassess your choices, right?" He makes it sound so easy when speaking to a dragon. Though he certainly isn't brandishing a flaming sword at her, so that counts for something. "Certainly some beings go to excess, even with good things, and harm other. Their decisions must be checked. But life is a balance, I have come to see, and taking steps to know your particular limits and act to curb those weaknesses is as honourable an undertaking as any."
Miranda Madsen	Amarantharial considers his words for a time. Eventually, she nods. "Truth is truth and it rings from your tongue as it has from few others. I have known but one man with such virtue prior to now and I mourn him still." She takes a deep breath. "I expect you will find me again as is your whim and will. You are welcome to do so." Again, she bows to him, wings unfurling and canting to emphasize her obeisance. "I am honored to have met you, Michael."