Gemstone!

So I decided to reward myself for my new change in employment circumstances with a cut (semiprecious) gemstone that I would eventually have made into a pendant, ring, or whatever. I do have a slight affinity for this sort of thing as my dad, years back, was an amateur jeweler and loved to buy gemstones that he fully intended to make use of someday, a trait in which I absolutely do not share. shoves billions of unused 3d assets behind the couch You saw nothing.

Anyway, I was originally looking for one of the funky ones that gemcutters over on Instagram tend to show off, but then I got distracted by a specific very simply cut stone over on Etsy because it was also engraved. The colors and the subject of the engraving fit with my novel perfectly, too. :)

Several characters in the book belong to the very prominent Azaglia family, who hold the duchy of Vernesse. I'd thrown onto the page that the colors of the Azaglia were "sunset colors," thinking purples, oranges, yellows, and also that the city of Vernesse was known as the City of Flowers. And yes, I more-or-less pronounce Azaglia as "azalea," so hey it fits.

I found that there's a stone called ametrine, a quartz that has deposits of oxidized and unoxidized iron in it such that you get zones of amethyst and citrine together, and this particular Etsy vendor had cut one simply and etched flowers on the base, and I thought that of course the Azaglia would absolutely own multiple stones like this.

It's not especially dark in color, and given that it's on Etsy I wouldn't be surprised if it had been heat treated to pull out even this amount of color, but I don't care. :)

( cut for photos )