(You know that one area in Misty Bog that everyone hates, some call it 'Guantanamo Bay'? Yeah. You're welcome.)

Bruno considered Spyro to be bad luck.

He would swear to anyone who dared to ask that he did not perceive himself as one of the more unreasonably superstitious Beast Makers. The Homeworld had an unfortunate reputation for attributing even the most minor of inconveniences to what were otherwise completely unrelated events – flaming the indigenous glowing mushrooms would cause snakes to manifest physically in your house. Stepping on a crack while climbing the steps of the temple would break your elder's back. Some days it was a wonder than any dragon ever left their house for fear of the universe smiting them for an action that they hadn't even thought twice about.

Bruno was not unaware that many of the superstitions had no basis in the physical or even magic world and were nothing more than coincidences, but it was much easier to adhere to them rather than test them and risk the consequences. He was a dragon with a sensible head on his shoulders, but going out of his way to actively encourage the wrath of the universe to strike him down where he stood was not particularly high on his agenda. He preferred to sleep well at night knowing that he had not partaken in any action that could come back to bite him in the future, and he certainly wasn't going to be the one to break the elder's back.

This ideology bled into the beasts and creatures that the Beast Makers had earned their names from. While the Magic Crafters' general approach was to keep magic and science as far apart as possible to retain the purity of each art, the Beast Makers believed that the two were essentially one and the same, just expressed in different forms. If Bruno had a gem for every dragon that told him he was 'violating the sanctity of magic' or 'playing god' he could retire to the Artisan Homeworld tomorrow. The day that any dragon stopped living off the genetically modified crops and meat that the Beast Makers had been pivotal in creating or abstained from using their harnessed electricity to light their houses was the day that he would consider their opinion on the matter.

Bruno never once held this sort of belief against Spyro or his personality. The purple dragon was ultimately still a child, although he believed himself to be much more mature than he truly was, so could not be held responsible for the dark clouds that seemed to follow him wherever he went. But Spyro was the only dragon the elder had ever known who couldn't take two steps without being dragged by his tail into some sort of conflict and this wasn't something he could bring himself to ignore. He wasn't certain if the universe was out to get the young dragon, or if it was actually on his side in a macabre way, but he did not want whatever attribute that made the dragon so important to rub off on him. He was very much content with spending his time fishing and meditating in peace, thank you.

When Spyro had appeared out of thin air with a parchment from Nestor and an interest in the Beast Maker arts, Bruno couldn't help but wonder if this was going to be a bad idea.

He had not chosen to move out of the Dragon Realms permanently, unable to tear his heart away from the swamp that he had known his whole life, but had still done his fair share of travelling across the newly opened worlds. Spyro had found him squatting on the edge of a riverbed in Spooky Swamp indulging in his usual pastime – fishing. Ironically, Bruno intensely disliked something about this particular swamp but he couldn't put his claw on what it was. It was certainly less dangerous than his home with no Attack Frogs or homicidal shrubs to be found, but the perpetual rain was depressing and he found that the locals reminded him too much of the Dream Weavers with their inability to speak in anything other than forced haikus, and he couldn't stand the Dream Weavers. Or bad poetry.

Spyro clearly didn't seem to enjoy the swamp either, but this was largely due to his nature as an Artisan. He sheltered his dragonfly from the downpour under one leathery wing and visibly flinched every time a large droplet of water managed to land directly between his eyes. Still, his demeanour was unchanged from what the elder had come to expect of him, gazing up at the taller dragon expectantly and clutching the parchment in his hands.

Bruno did not regret his decision to reject the unhatched egg when he had been approached by Cosmos. The Beast Makers accepted very few eggs to begin with, even when the dragon inside was confirmed to belong to their kin, because the swamp was just too harsh a location to raise defenceless children in. It required a certain strength of spirit to persist in an environment that was actively trying to kill you at every turn. He had been tempted to honour the proposition, realising that the dragon within the egg was technically an outcast which was something the Beast Makers had come to pride themselves on, however this changed as soon as Cosmos mentioned the Legend of the Purple Dragon.

There was a sizable difference between groundless superstition and a prophecy. For all Bruno disliked the Dream Weavers with a passion usually only reserved for the Gnorcs they were by no means incompetent, despite their appearances, so when they had predicted that a dragon with purple scales would be born with a magic signature that had no alignment to any Realm he hadn't doubted them for a moment. The potential of a dragon fitting that description would be feasibly limitless, and Bruno couldn't help but feel apprehensive as to what the existence of such a creature would mean for the rest of dragon-kind.

He read the parchment given to him from Nestor and snorted.

"Well, this is a surprise," he pondered sullenly, turning his attention back to the fishing line. "Nestor is normally very overprotective of his hatchlings."

"I've gathered," Spyro responded, this statement reflecting what the other elders had told him. "But I haven't heard anything about what you guys get up to so I thought it would make a change from what I'm used to back home."

Bruno contemplated this for a moment, before pulling his line from the water of the swamp. Scowling to find that the bait had been completely devoured by the resident piranhas due to the interruption, he firmly hooked another thick slab of raw meat onto the end of the line and lowered it back into the unseen depths of the dark water.

"That's completely intentional, Spyro," he noted, feeling the slight tugging at the end of his line but biding his time. "Our teachings have come from generations of effort, passed down between dragons since our ancestors first began to refer to themselves as 'Beast Makers'. Only those who share our blood are able to share our learning."

Spyro was starting to get sick of being told that he didn't have the right kind of 'blood'.

"Is that a no then?"

Bruno cast his eyes towards the young dragon, noticing the downtrodden expression on his face. He felt a little guilty that he was being so cold towards the dragon pup; he had dragged himself all this way in the miserable weather so it was clear he was serious. He tugged at the fishing line to expose the meat bait which was now covered in dozens of ravenous piranhas still attempting to devour the bait even after being pulled from the water. He unceremoniously shook the fishing rod which knocked the hungry piranhas off the meat slab and into a large bucket resting nearby. Spyro took a couple of steps away from the now violently shaking bucket.

"Not necessarily," he replied, standing and beginning to pack up his equipment. "I can't teach you any of our magic, but there might still be something that you could help with."

Spyro perked up at this, still filled with trepidation after the last task he had 'helped' with but was just happy that he wasn't being rejected outright before he had a chance to prove himself.

"Tell you what," Bruno said after a brief pause. "Meet me back home in Misty Bog. I've been working on something that I haven't made much progress on in a while, but I think you would be perfect."

Bruno felt his heart warm a little seeing the purple dragon's expression brighten into a wide smile. He began to tap his feet in excitement, the rain no longer dampening his mood at the prospect of training with the elder dragon, even though he wasn't totally sure what he was going to be helping with. He nodded dramatically and turned and charged off, looking to get through the portal and into dry weather as soon as he could.

Bruno had to come to terms with the fact that most dragons saw the Beast Makers as backwards savages, overly secretive and unapproachable – it was something he had almost come to relish. Seeing the dragon pup so open to expanding his horizons was not something he had witnessed in his dragon brethren for a long time, and it filled Bruno with a sense of tentative optimism. He wondered if it was possible for Spyro's luck to change.

Picking up the bucket of piranhas, he hauled the fishing rod over his back and began the long trek back to his home swamp.

Spyro really disliked swamps.

He honestly did not understand why any dragon, or any other creature for that matter, would voluntarily spend the majority of their lives in such gloomy surroundings. He couldn't stand the feeling of the mud squelching between his toes, too slippery to grip for a decent charge, and the lack of sunlight penetrating through the dense fog cast a melancholy shadow over the dank green forestry. It was no wonder that most of the dragon had resigned themselves to living in haphazard wooden huts nailed to the highest tree tops – anything standing in one place for too long would find themselves neck-deep in moss and sludge before they could even call for help.

Spyro shuddered – he had found himself in that situation one too many times.

Still, he could stomach the rancid smell of the peat bogs if it meant that he was able to continue his quest for self-realisation. He would admit that the Beast Makers were probably the dragons he resonated with the least, but he would be a fool to pass up such an opportunity as this. The Beast Makers were notoriously secretive, even by dragon standards, so the fact that Bruno was willing to open up about their practises to an outsider at all was a feat in itself. Spyro couldn't help but feel a sense of pride that he was the one chosen to receive such enigmatic information but tried not to let it get to his head. He was not succeeding.

Misty Bog was the site of one his worst nightmares during his many quests, and he had been to a lot of miserable realms in his time. This wasn't even the only realm with homicidal plants – Fractures Hills immediately came to mind – but something about the impenetrable grey peasouper suffocating the area and the ruins of abandoned stone skyscrapers set him on edge. This was an emotion he shared with Sparx, who had needed to cover for Spyro's hits multiple times in this realm and was twitching with anxiety, constantly scouring the area for threats.

By comparison Bruno felt right at home. The overly saccharine and bright environments of the rest of the Dragon Realms just gave him a headache; at least the swamp was honest in how dangerous it was, whereas a lot of the other realms feigned a sense of safety with their vibrant colours and carefree atmosphere. He had seen what resided in the High Caves, or what lay within the lava pits of Jacques. Sure, the Beast Makers might have had more than their fair share of involvement when it came to creating these monsters, accidentally or otherwise, but the idea that the Beast Maker Homeworld was somehow more threatening than any other Realm was simply laughable.

Seeing Spyro persevere knowing that he was very much out of his element gave him faith that he was making the right decision by including him.

"Thanks for getting here so quickly, Spyro," Bruno noted, placing his hands on his hips and smiling brightly. "I've been putting this off for far too long already."

Spyro considered that the snails pace at which the dragon elder had strolled back to the Beast Maker Homeworld might be a trend with him.

"No problem," Spyro said nonchalantly, resisting the urge to sit on his back legs in case he disappeared into a mud pile. "So, what are we doing?"

"We?!" Bruno laughed incredulously. "I'm not doing anything today! It's all on you!"

Spyro was wondering if he was getting in over his head.

"You remember the Attack Frogs, right?" Bruno asked. Spyro nodded in trepidation. "Well we've had enough of them running rampant in our swamp! Even after you chased all the Gnorcs out we haven't been able to get within five feet of the frogs without being whipped by them, and I don't think I need to tell you how much their tongues hurt."

Spyro swallowed deeply. He didn't need reminding.

"So here's where you come in," Bruno stated, oblivious to the panicked expression on the younger dragon's face. He handed Spyro a scratched metal crate with a row of black button on one side and an unlit screen on the top. "You remember the building where you rescued Damon? We've found the Attack Frogs using it as a lair at night. We wanted to reclaim that building but I think I hate the frogs more."

Spyro inspected the device, turning it carefully in his hands to prevent damage to delicate interior. It seemed to have an opening for a battery pack, meaning it ran off electricity, but the buttons and screen were completely foreign to him. The Beast Makers were known for relying heavily on technology for daily living which was something that had not jumped the cultural divide to the other dragons yet.

"It should be dark enough now for you to sneak into the building undetected, plant this bomb, and blow the place sky high!" Bruno bellowed, getting more enthusiastic by the second. "That bomb should make a mushroom cloud large enough to be seen from the Dream Weavers Homeworld! Then we can be rid of the frog menace once and for all!"

"W-We're going to explode them?" Spyro questioned, not yet sharing the elder dragon's zest. "Isn't this maybe a little excessive?"

"Of course it is!" Bruno replied. "But it's also going to be very cathartic. Besides, frogs taste great lightly toasted. Just find somewhere safe to plant it and press the first button to turn it on, then the second to connect it to the remote. Then come back and we can enjoy the show!"

Spyro shook his head, unable to hide his smile. He was concerned about the safety of the mission but the taller dragon's enthusiasm was infection. He left Bruno to finish setting up the equipment and tucked Sparx under one wing to hide his glow from any prying eyes. He had never found himself using stealth on any of his adventures, preferring to charge into trouble horns first, but he really didn't fancy having to face off against a horde of drowsy Attack Frogs if he could help it.

This was the one time he found himself thankful for the soft ground of the mire, which was helping to disguise the sound of his claws clicking against the ground. He kept his body as low as he dared without losing his balance on his hind legs and darted towards his target, bomb in hand. The killer trees all seemed to be 'sleeping', if a tree could even sleep, snoring loudly through their noses as their mouths were buried underground. Spyro was grateful that Bruno had planned this escapade during the dark of night – the lack of sun and resulting lack of photosynthesis must be keeping the shrubs inactive enough for him to move past unobstructed.

The duo wordlessly made their way over to the imposing structure and glided across the river of poisonous water, entering through the pitch black mouth of the building. In the dark of night it almost seemed like the area was opening up to swallow the two whole. Now sheltered from the gaze of the ravenous trees, Sparx wriggled out from under Spyro's wing and flew on ahead, using his golden light to illuminate the area. Spyro briefly worried that this would alert any frogs hidden in the shadows, but it was better than tripping blindly into the jaws of some enormous creature.

Climbing the steps as silently as he could manage, Spyro leaned against the furthest wall and tried to peer around the corner using his peripheral vision. Sparx might have been illuminating the way, but that didn't mean he was going to plough ahead as he normally would; he didn't want to think about the fact that any frog would find a stray dragonfly to be a delectable treat. Only the tip of his snout was visible beyond the wall that he had squashed himself again as he tried to sneak a look at the contents of the main room.

The entire building was overflowing with sleeping frogs.

Spyro held in a muffled gasp and pulled himself deeper into the opaque shadow of the wall. None of the frogs seemed to have stirred from their slumber, even with Sparx's radiance casting a sunny yellow glow over the exposed stone and stained wood panelling. Spyro swallowed heavily, finding his mouth suddenly very dry.

He was confident in his abilities, some would even say overconfident, but he didn't have fond memories of his last encounter with the Attack Frogs. He had been lured into a false sense of security by their bright pastel blue skin and rainbow tongues, but had been viciously accosted en masse when he had approached to see if they were friendly. Their appearance was so out of place compared to the local fauna that Spyro hadn't believed them to be a threat; this wasn't an assumption he'd found himself making again.

Steeling his nerves and drawing a deep, shaking breath he pushed his two hind feet into the ground and began to sneak forward. Trying to keep his toes curled up to his claws wouldn't scrape against the floor he weaved between the incapacitated amphibians, tail up and wings flat against his back. He hesitated at climbing over two frogs sleeping on top of each other and protecting a large pile of translucent eggs in a glue-like fluid, feeling a slight pang of remorse sweep over him at the sight of the family, but remembered how he was scolded for not following orders before and continued to press onwards.

Upon reaching the smooth stone surface of the stairs in the back of the room he let out a breath that he didn't realise he was holding and scrambled up the side as fast as he could manage. Checking to make sure he wasn't about to be attacked from the rear, he gently placed the bomb on the ground and pressed the first button as instructed. He jolted in surprise as the screen on the top of the box lit up to revel the words 'Out Of Range', but none of the frogs reacted to this in any way. Feeling his heart pounding in his chest he tried to calm his shaking legs and pressed the second button.

The bomb let out a series of loud staccato beeps as it began to search for the remote.

Spyro didn't even check to see if this had disturbed any of the Attack Frogs, he simply turned and ran. Thankful that the building had a back entrance he charged up the side slope of the building and opened his wings to fall into a glide towards solid ground. Relieved to see Sparx following him he angled his dive towards Bruno's location.

Seems he had drawn a bit of a crowd.

Bruno remembered the first beast he had made.

He was a slightly… oddly shaped dragon pup, short and wide with small wings and massively oversized horns. The Beast Makers were certainly not known to be the leanest of dragons – the Magic Crafters claimed this trophy by a long shot – but the majority of his peers already had the hint of muscles forming under their scales as they grew in strength. Bruno never managed to develop this, his body only seeming to grow wider instead of taller, until he was a full head shorter than his clutch-mates.

He could never recall being bullied specifically, but he had found himself struggling with his confidence and becoming more introverted as time went on despite the patience of his teachers. The Beast Makers took on very few eggs each twelve years so he had no other dragons his age to hide behind. All of his flaws were out in the open for inspection and assessment, and he quickly discovered that he was his own worst critic, whether this was regarding his physique or not. It was something he would self-conscious about for the rest of his life.

He had initially thrown himself into physical training in an attempt to change himself, spurning the magic behind Beast Maker arts and focusing almost entirely on the Homeworld's other speciality – electricity. He would freely admit that he loathed the work; it was very physically taxing setting up machinery and pylons and running maintenance work on the massive converters and he quickly fell behind. This drew the ire of the leader, a menacing dragon with black scales and piercing eyes. He swore that every single stereotype about Beast Makers were based off that one dragon.

The elder had not judged Bruno on his stature, nor had he judged him on his timid nature. He had judged him on his lack of performance. Bruno may have been in denial, but the elder could tell that he was trying to force a square peg into a round hole, so to speak, and was trying to learn a profession that he ultimately had no talent in. The young dragon had no say in the matter, and was moved to a class specialising in magic under duress. He had sulked about it, but didn't dare question the decision. He had heard that the elder could eat dragon pups like him for breakfast.

Bruno had reluctantly scraped by in his lessons, unwilling to put too much effort in to a subject that he had decided he wasn't interested in, but similarly unwilling to invoke the wrath of the elder. He barely found himself passing any classes or participating in an extra curricular work, but he did the bare minimum so that he stayed out of trouble. He could tell that his teachers were disappointed in him, but he didn't care. He lacked the passion and motivation necessary to excel and had resigned himself to a low paying job, perhaps in one of the other Dragon Realms.

He wasn't sure when this mentality had changed, but he was almost certain it was around the time of the first assignment.

The task had been simple – create a beast. This was at the very core of the Beast Maker's way of life, so it was only a matter of time before he found himself having to participate in it. His clutch-mated had been excited at the prospect of the assignment - he could hear that some were planning to create hybrid beasts, or new beasts entirely - he just want it to be over as quickly as he could force it. Bruno began to consider what beast would be the easiest to manufacture, after all the assignment had been vague enough that he could find some sort of way to slack his way through. He didn't need to make a beast that was flashy, or useful, or healthy…

Bruno settled on a sheep. Heaven knows the Artisans had enough of them and wouldn't miss it, and the Beast Makers had been altering the animals for years in order to make them more docile and delicious. Bruno would attest to this last point – barbequed lamb was truly scrumptious and a far cry from the tough and tasteless meat of the local beasts. All he wanted was to make it a little smarter, sick to death of watching it walk into walls and stare at him with glazed over eyes. He swore the creature bared an uncanny resemblance to his teacher, not that he had the gusto to say that to his face.

His spell had definitely worked, but...

Well, the last Bruno had heard the sheep was still terrorising the Artisan Homeworld dressed as a scarecrow.

The complaints from his teachers barely registered with Bruno due to his shock. He was baffled at the fact that he had put so little energy and effort into the spell but had still achieved such dramatic results. If he had put a little more force behind his magic the sheep could have even learn to read or speak, although considering it had been intelligent enough to immediately escape this perhaps wasn't a good idea. He ultimately failed his class, the first time he had done so since the beginning, seeing as he didn't have anything to show for his efforts but Bruno didn't pay any attention to this set back.

Having finally found his forte he began throwing himself into his learning, absorbing as much knowledge about Beast Maker magic as his skull could fit, spending countless sleepless nights with his head in a scroll or two. Not all of his creations had come out... alive... but he quickly rose from the bottom of his class to the cream of the crop, astonishing his teachers who had no idea what miraculous event could have taken place for Bruno to morph into their star pupil. The elder dragon did not speak of this again, but Bruno could swear he saw a twinkle in the old dragon's eye whenever he was brought up in conversation.

In a way, Bruno saw a lot of himself in Spyro, as difficult as it was to admit that he sympathised with a dragon that did not share his blood. He knew what it was like to feel like you were being forced into a role that you didn't want to occupy because someone else had decided you were good at it, but he also knew how important it was to trust the intuition of those with more experience. If Spyro truly was the dragon described in the legends then he had the potential to learn any magic he put his mind to, but that didn't mean that he should. Beast Maker magic in particular could have horrific results if used incorrectly, producing creations unable to walk to even feed themselves. Bruno tried not to think too much about that.

Speaking of the purple dragon, he could spot the yellow glow of his dragonfly like a beacon against the pitch black sky.

He felt a blanket of relief wash over him knowing that the dragon pup would be returning unscathed. Those frogs were no laughing matter even for a fully grown dragon, so the fact that Spyro would happily stand his ground against the hell beasts was impressive on its own. Bruno had collected some of the remaining Beast Makers to watch the fireworks - he didn't know a single dragon that hadn't been slighted by the amphibians before and all were itching for a glimpse of revenge, no matter how small or fleeting.

"Nice work, Spyro," Bruno bellowed, greeting the returning dragon with open arms. "The remote finally connected to the bomb a couple minutes ago so we're pretty much all set."

"...What's with the crowd?" Spyro queried, noticing the large gaggle of dragons looking very out of place in the downtrodden swamp, most milling around excitedly. Bubba was serving hotdogs from a stand that he had pulled from... somewhere.

"They're here to watch the fireworks!" Bruno replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I just need to set up these lawn chairs so we can relax and watch the show."

Sure enough, Bruno was accompanied by a large stack of colourful striped fabric chairs that he unceremoniously opened and stuck into the mud to keep them in one place. Spyro wasn't sure he wanted to know where the Beast Makers kept pulling all these props from.

"Uh... Bruno?" he asked tentatively. "I wanted to ask if you knew where these Attack Frogs even came from? They don't exactly fit in with the swamp all that much."

Bruno let out a barking laugh before sinking into a blue and red deckchair and getting comfortable.

"They were actually created by us Beast Makers years before you were been hatched," he remembered fondly. "We were trying to use them to guard the borders of the village, but after the Gnorcs took over and rerouted all the electricity away from their electrified cages they broke out and we've never managed to round them back up."

Bruno remembered discovering this after Spyro had feed him from his crystal prison all those months ago. He had no recollection of any outside events while he was in statis, so waking to find that the amphibians had all but taken over his swamp had almost given his aging heart a jolt. The Beast Makers weren't afraid to create dangerous beasts in their endless pursuit of science, but he knew they should've used something other than electricity to keep them put. Bubba handed him a slightly charred hotdog, just how he liked it, before promptly swallowing it whole. He noticed Spyro's expression become conflicted and change to a forlorn frown, an expression which didn't suit the young dragon well.

"Something wrong?"

Spyro huffed and unconsciously rubbed the canary yellow spines on his nape.

"I feel like maybe this wasn't the right thing to do," he replied despondently. "I don't feel right trying to get revenge against the frogs now if us dragons bred them to be so dangerous. It doesn't seem like it's their fault. And some of them had even laid eggs - couldn't we just collect the eggs and maybe try and rehabilitate them or something?"

Bruno sighed deeply.

"Spyro," he said. "When you were running around on your escapades in Avalar and the Forgotten Realms, did you stop to think if any of the monsters you were fighting deserved to be spared just because they were trained to attack you and weren't doing it of their own volition?"

Spyro thought about this for a moment but did not respond.

"The reason I say this," Bruno stated, accepting another hotdog but refraining from eating it, "is because it's not right for us to try and decide who is and isn't worthy of living just because we're dragons. It's important to be consistent, and if you or any other individual out there wouldn't think twice about doing what was necessary to protect themselves or their kin, then you owe everything else the same consideration. Besides, if they've started to lay eggs then it's even more important that we take action before it gets out of hand!"

Bruno downed the second hotdog before sitting back up in his chair and clapping once, getting the attention of all the attending dragons and disturbing some of the resting trees.

"Is everyone ready for the show?!"

The air was filled with raucous cheering from the crowd, almost deafening Spyro and Sparx and jolting a lot of the trees from their slumber. Thankfully they were too disoriented to pose any imminent threat. Sparx reflexively darted behind one of Spyro's horns in an attempt to protect himself from the impending explosion and squeezed his beady eyes shut. Without further ado Bruno pressed the button on the remote and waited for the explosion.

They were not disappointed.

An enormous fireball quickly engulfed the skyline throwing beautiful shades of yellow, orange and red across the surrounding grasslands. A shockwave pounded at the poisonous water sending waves shooting into the air and crashing down with force, dragging rocks and chunks of mud into the depths as they retreated. Any trees too close to the flame were almost immediately disintegrated, and any lucky enough to survive the explosion came out flaming or with all their leaves knocked off. Spyro had never seen the shrubs move so fast even when trying to hunt down their latest victim as they scattered in mass panic. Blinking rapidly to clear the bright spots from his vision he looked to find that the place where the wooden structure once stood was now occupied by an enormous mushroom cloud that reached like an outstretched claw trying to tear at the heavens.

A moment of silence fell across the crowd for only a second as the onlookers stood in awe of the spectacle, the light of the fire reflecting off their multi-coloured scales and casting a rainbow on the grass in front of them. As the dust began to settle the dragons started to whoop and holler again, almost drowning out the ringing in Spyro's ears. He shook his head, trying to ignore the sudden nausea at the movement, somehow not filled with the same vigour as the other dragons. He realised that their cheering was caused by an apparent rain of frog meat falling from the sky, some burnt beyond recognition and some looking lightly toasted and almost fresh.

Spyro wasn't sure if the feeling of sickness was from vertigo or from the realisation that he was the cause of this.

"I don't think this kind of moral dilemma is really for me," he stated blankly, unable to tear his gaze away from the slowly dissipating smoke cloud.

"That's fair," Bruno replied, similarly. "Our role isn't easy, but then again neither are the roles of any of the other Realms."

A large chunk of frog fell from the sky and landed square in the middle of his belly, which he delightedly grasped and bit a chunk out of.

"You know, Spyro," he said with his mouth full. "You're made of pretty tough stuff for an Artisan to stand up to those frogs. I know I said I couldn't teach you any of our magic, but you'd be excellent doing some of the more hands on stuff instead of wasting your life painting. If you change your mind just give me a holler."

Spyro nodded meekly and left with his head lowered in respect for the creatures that had just lost their lives. Bruno wasn't sure if he was maybe too young to grasp the finer points of such a moral quandary, but this was something he could see the dragon accepting as he aged. He knew himself how difficult such a decision was and wasn't immune to the feeling of blame that came with it, but he meant what he had said. Spyro had defied all expectations that the elder had of him and had proven his worth not as an Artisan, but simply as a dragon. Bruno wondered if the secretive ideology of the Beast Makers was the best idea moving into the future; maybe they would benefit from some outside help once in a while.

Swallowing the lump of frog meat he watched the other dragons wade into the mud and scoop up slabs of meat with their hands as the smoke from the fire continued to spread across the sky.

Maybe Spyro wasn't such bad luck after all.