Her old friend shrugged and said, "Okay. I'll see you later."
Tosch did, indeed, see her later… fourteen years later. By then, Kyra was an aging barmaid, working only to earn enough money to keep her in paints, brushes, and canvas. She had never stopped painting her beloved Seron.
"Notice anything different?" the dragon said easily, as if he were just picking up yesterday's conversation.
Kyra was used to it, though, and happily beamed with joy at his appearance in front of her crumbling shack. "It's your nose," she said, after looking him over. "It's changed..
it's smaller!"
"That's right!" he exclaimed. "I knew you'd notice."
"But what happened to it? It looks, well, sort of pinched and turned-up."
"Isn't it cute?"
"Well…"
"I asked a bunch of gnomes to do it for me. I just had to have a smaller nose. I don't know exactly what they did. They built a strange contraption, but I think it worked. Look at me. Isn't it darling?"
"Can you breathe all right?"
"Not too bad. You do like it, don't you?" he asked, suddenly concerned that he had made a mistake.
"I'll show you what I think of it," she said. "Lean down close to me."
The great brass dragon lowered its head close to Kyra, and she gave him a loving kiss on the nose. "You'll always be the handsomest, cutest, most adorable dragon to me," she said.
Tosch blushed, though it was hard to tell against the multi-colored cape he wore. To hide his embarrassment, he cleared his throat and asked, "How is your painting coming along? Can I see your pictures now?"
"I'm sorry," she replied evasively. "They're really not good enough yet. Someday," she promised.
"Soon?"
A smile creased her worn, but still lovely face. "By your standards, yes. Soon."
Highlords came and went. Great cities rose and fell. Wars were fought, lost, and won. But Tosch, in his fashion, was ever constant. Throughout the years, he visited his aging friend, coming to see her eleven years later, then nine years, then finally twelve years after that. But during none of those visits, did she ever show him her paintings.
It was beginning to annoy him. While the dragon was as young and vibrant as the day he had met Kyra and Seron, she had reached an age where it seemed she was always cranky. Especially on his latest visit. He had seen her earlier in the day and found her to be strangely unimpressed with his new purple hat. All she wanted to do was get back to her painting. She said she was finally getting close to achieving what she'd been after all these years. That was just fine with him, but why couldn't she pay more attention to his hat? After all, everyone else thought it was boldly original. There was no doubt in his mind; he had to talk with her about her moods. He resolved to go see her that very night.
Kyra always felt a sweet melancholy after Tosch's visits ended; it was only then that she was truly aware of her loneliness. This time it was no different, but after a hectic evening of waiting tables she was anxious to pick up her brushes and paint while she still had some strength.
She had no idea how many pictures she had painted of Seron; she had long ago forgotten the count. In fact, she had forgotten many things — but not the face of her husband.
Her husband's image, with all of its sweetness, hung above her bed.
Seron's likeness, with all of its ambition and drive, hung in the alcove that she called her studio.
Even where she cooked and ate, his face looked down upon her with all of its childish charm and humor.
Everywhere there were pictures of Seron. They were piled one upon another, and hung in every corner of her shack. She was surrounded by his image. And yet she was not finished with her work.
Frail and sickly, she had continued to paint. With eyesight fading, her joints aching, her fingers shaking, she kept on dabbing at the canvas with her brush, hoping to finally capture the perfect image of the man she still loved.
On this late night, painting by the light of red coals in a dying fire, Kyra's breath came in short gasps. She was tired. But she didn't want to stop — not before she completed her latest work.
In this picture of Seron, he was lying on a sheet that was spread out on the grass behind their hut. A pile of neatly folded laundry was off to the left. There was a look of longing on his sad-eyed face. He was alone in the picture, facing forward, with his arms outstretched, reaching.
Was that the way it really was? she wondered.
She gazed at the image of Seron. The sad eyes of her husband stared back at her. Slowly, just as the red mist on the Blood Sea would disappear when the sun reached its zenith, so did the fog lift away from Kyra's memory.
That was exactly how it was. It was Seron in every detail. His hands, with their long, shapely fingers, his prominent cheekbones, his jutting chin, the shoulders she so often lain her head upon — it was all just right.
Or was it?
Kyra's heart began to beat wildly in her chest. Was there something wrong with the painting? Something missing? The picture seemed to cry out to her for its final perfection. But, somehow, she had left something vital out, and she didn't know what it was.
In that moment, she felt so unworthy of her Seron that she turned her back to the wet canvas. Except there was no escaping her husband's sad eyes; he looked down upon her from every wall.
She lifted her arms to him and wailed, "I wanted all of Krynn to stand before you and look up lovingly, just like I did. I wanted them to feel something of what I felt. But look," she sobbed, her arms sweeping in a
wide arc, "I never captured your love in a single painting. Not one!"
Kyra fell to her knees and wept with as much anguish as the night the fire took her husband away from her. Against a deep crushing pain in her chest, she cried out, "Did I fail you all these years? Are you
ashamed of me? Oh, Seron, am I even half the woman you hoped I would be?"
When Tosch arrived at Kyra's shack, he called out to his old friend… but he heard no answer. Again he sang her name out. And again there was silence.
Finally, in exasperation, he roared, "Kyra!" as loudly as he could.
Half the inhabitants of Palanthas were stirred out of their beds by the frightful sound.
But Kyra didn't answer him.
Tosch had no patience left. He slammed one of his huge feet against the door and it flew wide open.
The brass dragon's anger instantly turned to pity when he saw the crumpled form of Kyra lying on the floor at the foot of a painting.
Tosch let out a deep, mournful sigh. As old as Kyra was, he never really thought she would act like just another human and die. She was always there to tell him how he looked, to tell him what he should wear — to be his friend. And now she was gone.
She had died all alone in this old, dilapidated shack.
He peered inside and, for the first time, focused on the picture that loomed over Kyra's body. Tosch's eyes opened wide. It was Seron, just the way he used to be. It was a magnificent likeness that caught every bit of character, every nuance of emotion, in the long-dead painter's face.
The dragon stuck his head farther inside and saw scores upon scores of Seron's image. Seron in every imaginable pose and activity. But Tosch's gaze kept coming back to the picture on the easel. The paint on that one was still wet. He knew that this had been Kyra's last, impassioned work.
He had never known, never guessed, what she had been painting all these years. Even now, staring at the evidence of Kyra's lifelong devotion to Seron, Tosch could only shake his head in wonder. He couldn't quite understand how she could have loved Seron so much. But then again, maybe he could. After all, didn't he love her in his own way, too?
He felt his wings quivering and he knew he was going to do a rare thing — he was going to cry. Kyra had meant so much to him, and he had done so little for her. He felt suddenly ashamed, realizing that he had been selfish, always taking. Why didn't he give her gold dust for her clothes? Why didn't he chisel her teeth, too? He could have done all sorts of things for her. But he hadn't. And what could he give her now?