"I have a question. Regarding Master Ollimar and the Elder Earth." came the voice of Garjan's guest as the forest dragon gathered up the care package of medicines and other supplies he had prepared for his former clan in the Western Elm. The question gave him pause, the large green turning to regard the envoy, one of his many siblings.

"I'm hardly an expert, but go on...?" Garjan offered with a shrug and a cocked brow. Certainly he knew Ollimar well, but he'd only had the chance to speak with Cain the once. Still, as far as forest dragons went, it might have made him one of only three to be able to make such a claim.

"Why do you suppose Master Ollimar allies with a dragon that is rather clearly our adversary? An infamous, destructive fiend? Shouldn't the elders scorn Ollimar for such reckless effrontery? Surely one as wise as The Eastern Oak himself must see they are the inverse of one another." the younger of the two asked. His tone was a curious one, though it was clear he had already begun to form an opinion, wanting instead to compare it with others'. Garjan gave a bit of a smirk as he considered the questions for a moment.

"Mmn. Ollimar doesn't answer to the elders. Their scorn is as irrelevant to him as it is to me. But he's no fool, what he does, he always does with good reason, even if that logic isn't shared with the rest of us. I think, perhaps, the reason you find their relationship difficult to understand is because you imagine the two are extremely dissimilar. Once you begin to understand them, I think you'd find those two have more in common than not." Garjan offered with a shrug and a grin, an answer that caused an involuntary snort to escape his younger sibling, accompanied by an amused look of doubt.

"Pardon...? Dear brother, you believe there's few dissimilarities between our most respected, lauded, benevolent forest dragon peacekeeper and a literal genocidal, ruthless colossus?" the young dragon asked, a grin coming across his own muzzle as he looked to Garjan incredulously.

"They're both exemplars of their breed. Creatures of unrivaled will. Ollimar is the epitome of a forest dragon. So much so, the elders relinquish authority to him when near. Cain is the embodiment of an earth dragon. So much so, that I'd wager you can't even name another." Garjan offered with an expectant arch of his brow, his younger sibling furrowing his in realization for a moment before the older sibling continued. "Both dragons believe they know better than the rest of us. They both have a vision of what the world should be and all of our places in it. Neither are willing to bend in their convictions, neither are willing to let others stand in the way of their goals. Both possess tremendous power and both are willing to wield it like a sword against any they deem fit. Save for perhaps one another, they're peerless."

The answer seemed to make the younger dragon frown a bit, visibly uncertain how he felt about his sibling's take on what he'd considered a clear dichotomy between the two. Garjan padded over lazily, setting and securing the bundle of supplies onto his sibling's back as though he were a pack mule, giving him a too-firm, brotherly pat on the flank. "You're not wrong, by the way, to contrast the two. They are, very much, two different sides of a coin. By nature, that makes them seem like opposites... but it IS the same coin. They're wrought from the same ore."

A dual icon commission I snagged from  pinguinolog who has quite the awesome gallery. Be sure to give them a look!

I've been meaning to get more stuff with both Cain and Ollimar while I work on the physical design of Garjan. I enjoyed the stylized version of these two, and I originally had a different theme in mind but the duality of the piece made me go a different way. Love the posing on this piece, even if the scale is off. But that makes the theme more effective, to me. With luck we'll see more of these two together in the near future!