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[columns][center][item=grouse basilisk field notes][nextcol][color=transparent]..[/color][nextcol][color=#BEA55D][font=garamond][size=7][size=4][b]a flutter of birds[/b][/size][/size][/font][/color]
[size=2]written by Disillusionist
[color=#9494A9]1,928 words[/color][/size][/columns]
[color=#7B3D1D]Snappers are land-bound, and Makeda had always known that fact, but that didn't stop her from dreaming about the sky. She had fixed her eyes on the heavens practically from the day she was born, admiring the wide blueness or the deep velvet blanket of night. But as Makeda grew older and more familiar with the world, she realized she had a very specific interest.
Birds...They were everywhere! They perched atop the broken walls of the Hewn City and clung to the branches of trees. Their chattering and songs filled the air. At night, most birds were quiet, safely tucked into their nests, but Makeda always knew -- as certain as the sun rising in the east -- that when dawn broke, they would explode into bright and joyous noise once more. She would close her eyes sleepily, feeling the first rays of dawn on her face, and her wings would flap lazily in response.
She had Fae siblings, and her own father was a Fae, but she didn't envy their glorious wings or their power of flight. As she slowly grew (and boy, did she ever [i]grow[/i]), she learned about the birds, their habits and their colors. She listened to their songs, and at times it [i]seemed[/i] that she could understand what they were saying....
Until one day, she realized that she actually [i]could[/i].
It was very unusual, but not exactly shocking, when she and her family thought about it. Where other dragons ignored the birds, she had always paused and listened to what they'd had to say. She had watched them as they'd made their nests, wooed mates in the springtime, and taught their children how to fly. Most birds have very simple needs, and it was also easy for Makeda to understand their songs. But the more you understand something, the more you sympathize with it, and it wasn't long before Makeda found herself wanting to help those small, feathered creatures. Dragons have huge lairs and the protection of stone walls, but most birds only have nests that can be torn apart by a storm. Makeda would find these unfortunate victims, and she would bring them back to her lair. There, she would badger her clanmates -- those with more nimble fingers, or with actual fingers... -- until they agreed to help her. They always humored her, because she was a warm-hearted young dragon and they didn't want to discomfit her, either.
Makeda always hovered by them, watching as they worked. She began to understand how their tiny patients were feeling, and she started giving advice, and then instructions. Her clanmates' regard for her changed from gentle amusement, to wonder, and finally to awe.
Many of them reflected it was a pity Makeda couldn't understand or heal other creatures, such as familiars or other dragons. A healer like that would have been quite valuable. But Makeda didn't really care. She would nudge her latest patient into a sling and bring it back outside, and then she'd watch as it flew away into the open sky. Her heart always skipped a beat when that happened. She wanted to fly, too.
Flying is impossible for Snappers, but one day she got the next best thing: she was close to adulthood, and it was time for her to find a new clan. Better yet, there had been an offer from a clan just nearby, on the Sundial Terrace. Makeda's clan was a venerable one, located in the Hewn City. Her potential new home was a fledgling clan, but it had grown steadily since being established and now included dragons from other regions in Sornieth. One of their members was a Snapper from a Water clan. He had grown to adulthood in the Sunbeam Ruins and was now looking for a mate. Would Makeda be interested?
Makeda was wise enough to know that such offers weren't guarantees of marriage or even a good home. But she longed for a chance to explore, and a clan that sent its members out to other elemental regions seemed like a good way to achieve that goal. Her desire for adventure eclipsed any worries she might have had. She decided to go.
Her new family, the Disillusionists' Clan, had carved a place for themselves on the edge of the Sundial Terrace, among the great outcrops of rock. They lived close to the forest, and a stream burbled outside the main building. Animals were abundant in the nearby woods -- and of course, there were birds! There were common sparrows chattering in the trees and ruby-throated hummingbirds that hovered like living jewels. Occasionally, a rare leucistic crow flitted through the darkness of the pine woods. Mallards and trumpeter swans passed overhead, on their way to nesting and breeding grounds.
Makeda met her intended mate, the Snapper named [/color][url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=26546969]Nebuchadnezzar[/url][color=#7B3D1D]. He was a majestic but somewhat grumpy fellow, and she struggled to pronounce his name. As she did so, his forbidding face softened as if he would've liked to smile. In that instant, she realized he was as uncomfortable as she was. It had the odd effect of making her feel protective of him. But her good feelings did not extend to the two dragons who seemed to be his companions: a brilliant Guardian named [/color][url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=25504398]Metalicana[/url][color=#7B3D1D] and an Imperial, [/color][url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=26537209]Alberge[/url][color=#7B3D1D]. Metalicana was nothing but sullen and brusque, but she still didn't dislike him as much as Alberge, who spoke civilly but whose smile never reached his eyes. He was as silvery as moonlight, and just as frigid. Makeda greeted him coolly before resolving to stay away from him.
Most of the other Disillusionists were a loud, happy bunch. The clan leader herself, [url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=25521457]Veritas[/url], was far and away the loudest. She helped Makeda settle in. Over the next few days, other members stepped forward, showing her around and pointing out where they went gathering. When Makeda shyly admitted her affinity for birds, they perked up. They watched in wonder as she gently spoke to the feathered creatures in the trees -- and more often than not, they answered back.
"Can you help me?" one of her tour guides asked. It was [/color][url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=26004563]Malkiriam[/url][color=#7B3D1D], the Mirror with the floppy crest. Her ice-blue eyes glittered under her hood as she held up her familiar, an Emerald Webwing. It clutched at her claws with taloned feet but hunched down whenever she moved her head near it.
"I got him a couple of weeks ago. He was brought back from the meadows in the south. I've been feeding him and he's stopped trying to fly away, but I think he's still afraid of me."
Makeda remembered how in her old clan, she had tried to talk to familiars and failed....But this was a bird, or it [i]looked[/i] like a bird. It hissed warningly as she approached, and startled, she realized she had an inkling of what it was saying.
"He doesn't like anybody," she muttered. Oblivious to the others' surprise, she murmured softly to the Webwing, speaking in a low and calm voice. The Webwing's many eyes blinked slowly, one at a time.
"Somebody keeps stealing his food. You wouldn't know who it is, would you?"
Malkiriam's eyes narrowed. "I have a feeling. Could you ask him to describe who it is?"
Makeda translated for them: large...black...crystal...and gold...
Malkiriam didn't need more than that. "[/color][url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=25864940]Taksidiaaaaaan[/url][color=#7B3D1D]!" she screeched. She gave a mighty flap and launched herself into the air. Her Emerald Webwing croaked and then fluttered after her, sinking his claws into the cloth of her hood. Makeda started to realize he didn't dislike his mistress as much as he'd implied. "That's Tank caught, then," one of the other clanmates chuckled, and everybody laughed. They turned and followed Malkiriam back to the lair.
When they arrived, they could hear her haranguing Taksidian. He had caved in under the guilt and was tucked into a corner, his banner over his eyes. One of the hatchlings, [/color][url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=26723272]Anastasia[/url][color=#7B3D1D], pawed gently at his nose.
"He'll get over it. He always does. But what did you [i]do[/i]?" Nebuchadnezzar inquired. In spite of his huge size, it was easy not to see him, especially at night. His midnight hide blended neatly with the darkness.
Makeda explained what had happened, and Nebuchadnezzar let out a hearty laugh. His sides glittered blue, like stars across the sky, as he puffed up with mirth. "That Taksidian, he eats way too much."
"I thought it was too much for just one little bird," Taksidian mumbled, peeking out with one dark brown eye. Malkiriam started berating him again, and Anastasia, oblivious to the tirade, started climbing along Taksidian's snout.
Makeda and Nebuchadnezzar withdrew. It was then that Makeda noticed something. "Where are your friends? Alberge and Metalicana?"
Nebuchadnezzar's expression soured. "Dunno. None of my business, honestly."
"Huh." Makeda answered wryly, "I thought you three were inseparable. The Three...what, Chevaliers?"
Nebuchadnezzar let out a deep rumble. It took her a moment to realize he was yawning. "Bah, we're not inseparable. They can go do their own thing, and I'll go my own way. Well, we sort of have to. Metalicana has his guard duties, and Alberge...I don't know what Alberge is supposed to do. Stay out of trouble, maybe. Don't care."
Makeda suddenly remembered -- back when she'd been introduced to Nebuchadnezzar, he had been visibly uncomfortable. But Alberge and Metalicana had been in the background, too, and as the days had passed she'd just...noticed them less and less. Because they had been showing up less and less. And Nebuchadnezzar had eased up when he'd stopped hanging out with them.
[i]"Something's up,"[/i] she thought with some sadness. She'd only just gotten here and everyone...well, [i]almost[/i] everyone was so warm and welcoming. She hated to think about the possibility that there was dissent brewing in the clan; she had heard of it happening in other regions, other lairs. [i]"But maybe not in this clan,"[/i] she resolved. She was new here and felt she couldn't speak out yet, but she could keep her eyes and ears open, and yes...her little friends would help her. They rustled their feathers, opened their bright and tiny eyes. They felt her unease, and they stirred up from their sleep....
"Hello?" Nebuchadnezzar was looming in front of her. He bobbed his head, similar to a Skydancer waving a hand, and continued, "I said that we should probably just wait until dinner is served. It'll be time to eat soon. Are you hungry?"
"Not yet, but I'm getting there." And then there was a stir and Taksidian, already thoroughly scolded, bustled past them. He plucked Anastasia off his snout as he went, but the little Coatl beat her wings and then launched herself back against his cheek. "Again, again!" she laughed.
"Sometimes I envy the little ones. They can caper about as much as they like," Nebuchadnezzar muttered. His own wings fluttered feebly. It was a familiar motion. Makeda remembered her own childhood: staring up at the sky and flapping her wings...and then later, picking birds up from the ground as gently as she could. Directing others in patching up their wings, their bones....She had lacked the hands with which to tend them, but she had had the ears, the words.
"There's nothing to envy. We have our own gifts," she said. Nebuchadnezzar perked up, and he slowly nodded, agreeing how blessed Snappers were with their strength and natural durability. His voice was loud and booming, but it wasn't enough to drown out the whisper that snaked into Makeda's ear, as stirring and ethereal as the flutter of wings--
[i]"If you need us...we'll be there."[/i][/color]
[right][font=Copperplate Gothic Light][color=#BEA55D][size=5][b]~ The End[/b][/color][/size][/font][/right]
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..
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a flutter of birds
written by Disillusionist
1,928 words
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Snappers are land-bound, and Makeda had always known that fact, but that didn't stop her from dreaming about the sky. She had fixed her eyes on the heavens practically from the day she was born, admiring the wide blueness or the deep velvet blanket of night. But as Makeda grew older and more familiar with the world, she realized she had a very specific interest.
Birds...They were everywhere! They perched atop the broken walls of the Hewn City and clung to the branches of trees. Their chattering and songs filled the air. At night, most birds were quiet, safely tucked into their nests, but Makeda always knew -- as certain as the sun rising in the east -- that when dawn broke, they would explode into bright and joyous noise once more. She would close her eyes sleepily, feeling the first rays of dawn on her face, and her wings would flap lazily in response.
She had Fae siblings, and her own father was a Fae, but she didn't envy their glorious wings or their power of flight. As she slowly grew (and boy, did she ever grow), she learned about the birds, their habits and their colors. She listened to their songs, and at times it seemed that she could understand what they were saying....
Until one day, she realized that she actually could.
It was very unusual, but not exactly shocking, when she and her family thought about it. Where other dragons ignored the birds, she had always paused and listened to what they'd had to say. She had watched them as they'd made their nests, wooed mates in the springtime, and taught their children how to fly. Most birds have very simple needs, and it was also easy for Makeda to understand their songs. But the more you understand something, the more you sympathize with it, and it wasn't long before Makeda found herself wanting to help those small, feathered creatures. Dragons have huge lairs and the protection of stone walls, but most birds only have nests that can be torn apart by a storm. Makeda would find these unfortunate victims, and she would bring them back to her lair. There, she would badger her clanmates -- those with more nimble fingers, or with actual fingers... -- until they agreed to help her. They always humored her, because she was a warm-hearted young dragon and they didn't want to discomfit her, either.
Makeda always hovered by them, watching as they worked. She began to understand how their tiny patients were feeling, and she started giving advice, and then instructions. Her clanmates' regard for her changed from gentle amusement, to wonder, and finally to awe.
Many of them reflected it was a pity Makeda couldn't understand or heal other creatures, such as familiars or other dragons. A healer like that would have been quite valuable. But Makeda didn't really care. She would nudge her latest patient into a sling and bring it back outside, and then she'd watch as it flew away into the open sky. Her heart always skipped a beat when that happened. She wanted to fly, too.
Flying is impossible for Snappers, but one day she got the next best thing: she was close to adulthood, and it was time for her to find a new clan. Better yet, there had been an offer from a clan just nearby, on the Sundial Terrace. Makeda's clan was a venerable one, located in the Hewn City. Her potential new home was a fledgling clan, but it had grown steadily since being established and now included dragons from other regions in Sornieth. One of their members was a Snapper from a Water clan. He had grown to adulthood in the Sunbeam Ruins and was now looking for a mate. Would Makeda be interested?
Makeda was wise enough to know that such offers weren't guarantees of marriage or even a good home. But she longed for a chance to explore, and a clan that sent its members out to other elemental regions seemed like a good way to achieve that goal. Her desire for adventure eclipsed any worries she might have had. She decided to go.
Her new family, the Disillusionists' Clan, had carved a place for themselves on the edge of the Sundial Terrace, among the great outcrops of rock. They lived close to the forest, and a stream burbled outside the main building. Animals were abundant in the nearby woods -- and of course, there were birds! There were common sparrows chattering in the trees and ruby-throated hummingbirds that hovered like living jewels. Occasionally, a rare leucistic crow flitted through the darkness of the pine woods. Mallards and trumpeter swans passed overhead, on their way to nesting and breeding grounds.
Makeda met her intended mate, the Snapper named Nebuchadnezzar. He was a majestic but somewhat grumpy fellow, and she struggled to pronounce his name. As she did so, his forbidding face softened as if he would've liked to smile. In that instant, she realized he was as uncomfortable as she was. It had the odd effect of making her feel protective of him. But her good feelings did not extend to the two dragons who seemed to be his companions: a brilliant Guardian named Metalicana and an Imperial, Alberge. Metalicana was nothing but sullen and brusque, but she still didn't dislike him as much as Alberge, who spoke civilly but whose smile never reached his eyes. He was as silvery as moonlight, and just as frigid. Makeda greeted him coolly before resolving to stay away from him.
Most of the other Disillusionists were a loud, happy bunch. The clan leader herself, Veritas, was far and away the loudest. She helped Makeda settle in. Over the next few days, other members stepped forward, showing her around and pointing out where they went gathering. When Makeda shyly admitted her affinity for birds, they perked up. They watched in wonder as she gently spoke to the feathered creatures in the trees -- and more often than not, they answered back.
"Can you help me?" one of her tour guides asked. It was Malkiriam, the Mirror with the floppy crest. Her ice-blue eyes glittered under her hood as she held up her familiar, an Emerald Webwing. It clutched at her claws with taloned feet but hunched down whenever she moved her head near it.
"I got him a couple of weeks ago. He was brought back from the meadows in the south. I've been feeding him and he's stopped trying to fly away, but I think he's still afraid of me."
Makeda remembered how in her old clan, she had tried to talk to familiars and failed....But this was a bird, or it looked like a bird. It hissed warningly as she approached, and startled, she realized she had an inkling of what it was saying.
"He doesn't like anybody," she muttered. Oblivious to the others' surprise, she murmured softly to the Webwing, speaking in a low and calm voice. The Webwing's many eyes blinked slowly, one at a time.
"Somebody keeps stealing his food. You wouldn't know who it is, would you?"
Malkiriam's eyes narrowed. "I have a feeling. Could you ask him to describe who it is?"
Makeda translated for them: large...black...crystal...and gold...
Malkiriam didn't need more than that. "Taksidiaaaaaan!" she screeched. She gave a mighty flap and launched herself into the air. Her Emerald Webwing croaked and then fluttered after her, sinking his claws into the cloth of her hood. Makeda started to realize he didn't dislike his mistress as much as he'd implied. "That's Tank caught, then," one of the other clanmates chuckled, and everybody laughed. They turned and followed Malkiriam back to the lair.
When they arrived, they could hear her haranguing Taksidian. He had caved in under the guilt and was tucked into a corner, his banner over his eyes. One of the hatchlings, Anastasia, pawed gently at his nose.
"He'll get over it. He always does. But what did you do?" Nebuchadnezzar inquired. In spite of his huge size, it was easy not to see him, especially at night. His midnight hide blended neatly with the darkness.
Makeda explained what had happened, and Nebuchadnezzar let out a hearty laugh. His sides glittered blue, like stars across the sky, as he puffed up with mirth. "That Taksidian, he eats way too much."
"I thought it was too much for just one little bird," Taksidian mumbled, peeking out with one dark brown eye. Malkiriam started berating him again, and Anastasia, oblivious to the tirade, started climbing along Taksidian's snout.
Makeda and Nebuchadnezzar withdrew. It was then that Makeda noticed something. "Where are your friends? Alberge and Metalicana?"
Nebuchadnezzar's expression soured. "Dunno. None of my business, honestly."
"Huh." Makeda answered wryly, "I thought you three were inseparable. The Three...what, Chevaliers?"
Nebuchadnezzar let out a deep rumble. It took her a moment to realize he was yawning. "Bah, we're not inseparable. They can go do their own thing, and I'll go my own way. Well, we sort of have to. Metalicana has his guard duties, and Alberge...I don't know what Alberge is supposed to do. Stay out of trouble, maybe. Don't care."
Makeda suddenly remembered -- back when she'd been introduced to Nebuchadnezzar, he had been visibly uncomfortable. But Alberge and Metalicana had been in the background, too, and as the days had passed she'd just...noticed them less and less. Because they had been showing up less and less. And Nebuchadnezzar had eased up when he'd stopped hanging out with them.
"Something's up," she thought with some sadness. She'd only just gotten here and everyone...well, almost everyone was so warm and welcoming. She hated to think about the possibility that there was dissent brewing in the clan; she had heard of it happening in other regions, other lairs. "But maybe not in this clan," she resolved. She was new here and felt she couldn't speak out yet, but she could keep her eyes and ears open, and yes...her little friends would help her. They rustled their feathers, opened their bright and tiny eyes. They felt her unease, and they stirred up from their sleep....
"Hello?" Nebuchadnezzar was looming in front of her. He bobbed his head, similar to a Skydancer waving a hand, and continued, "I said that we should probably just wait until dinner is served. It'll be time to eat soon. Are you hungry?"
"Not yet, but I'm getting there." And then there was a stir and Taksidian, already thoroughly scolded, bustled past them. He plucked Anastasia off his snout as he went, but the little Coatl beat her wings and then launched herself back against his cheek. "Again, again!" she laughed.
"Sometimes I envy the little ones. They can caper about as much as they like," Nebuchadnezzar muttered. His own wings fluttered feebly. It was a familiar motion. Makeda remembered her own childhood: staring up at the sky and flapping her wings...and then later, picking birds up from the ground as gently as she could. Directing others in patching up their wings, their bones....She had lacked the hands with which to tend them, but she had had the ears, the words.
"There's nothing to envy. We have our own gifts," she said. Nebuchadnezzar perked up, and he slowly nodded, agreeing how blessed Snappers were with their strength and natural durability. His voice was loud and booming, but it wasn't enough to drown out the whisper that snaked into Makeda's ear, as stirring and ethereal as the flutter of wings--
"If you need us...we'll be there."
~ The End
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[size=2][color=#9494A9][url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=26683071]profile[/url] • back to[/color] [url=http://www1.flightrising.com/forums/cc/2323941/9#post_32437083]main post[/url][/right]
[columns][center][item=stonewatch prince][nextcol][color=transparent]..[/color][nextcol][color=#BEA55D][font=garamond][size=7][size=4][b]soran and the bird witch[/b][/size][/size][/font][/color]
[size=2]written by Disillusionist
[color=#9494A9]3,261 words[/color][/size][/columns]
[color=#7B3D1D]Like all male harpies, Soran was destined from birth for greatness. He was given the best food, the most lavish clothes. He never wanted for anything and was fiercely protected by the women of his clan. As he grew up, he was educated on his clan's lore and traditions -- and also their never-ending campaign against the plague known as [i]Dragonkind[/i]. Soran's friends and sisters, cousins and aunts...Nearly all of them were female, and all the females were sent away to battle against the great wyrms. Not all of them returned. The news always found its way to him -- eventually -- and for every comrade who became a casualty, Soran's hatred of the dragons grew.
As it did, so did his desire to don a mask and take up arms. His guardians always managed to dissuade him. Some of them were older matrons who had also lost relatives to the dragons' magic and claws. None of them desired to see him disappear into the battlefield. Soran kept on asking why, and the answer was always the same: it was because he was a male.
This frustrated him more than he would have cared to admit. He started nosing around, digging up details. Here and there, he picked up snippets of information: there were in fact some male harpies who had forsaken their crowns. They had fled into the wilds, where they waged their own guerilla campaign against the dragons. They were known as the Windcarve Fugitives, and Soran resolved to join them.
He botched his escape horribly. He had forgotten that the sentry schedules were changed every few weeks, and on his way out to freedom, he had been caught by the guards. He was very close to the outside world by then, and so he tried to make a break for it. He turned his magic upon his guardswomen. It might have gone over well if they were closer to the ground, but no -- they were several tens of feet in the air. Soran watched them fall, and knew they'd be dead when they hit the earth. He turned and sped away before that happened. He was spared from the sight, but not from the sounds: a chorus of wails rose up from behind as the harpy women found their comrades slain, and he knew that if they got their hands on him, he'd be imprisoned even deeper inside the mountain, never to see the light of day again.[/color]
[center][img]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/54fdm3zb0y1whhd/1-clan.png[/img][/center]
[color=#7B3D1D]Soran's journey was a confused mishmash of stops and starts. All his life, as a Stonewatch Prince, he had been taught history, diplomacy, art, and magic. But he had also been terribly sheltered, deprived of life outdoors. He had been hidden from storms and not been permitted to hunt, lest a dragon come across him, or his prey turn against him and slay him. He had difficulty finding fresh water and plants that were safe to eat. He was cold and uncomfortable, and more than once he regretted his decision to seek out the Windcarve Fugitives.
He often considered returning to his clan, but the dreadful promise of imprisonment rang in his mind. He didn't know whom he had killed, and he suddenly realized it was possible he'd slain some of his close friends or even his own relatives. He had been so desperate to escape that he hadn't paused, not even when they'd started to call out to him....He hadn't [i]thought[/i].
He didn't doubt that they [i]would[/i] prevent him from flying again, if they had to. He had been kept safe because he was a male. Not because he needed to fly. The thought made him shudder, and so he pushed on.
He evaded harpy scouts, and to be safe, he also stayed away from the other Beastclans. They would be suspicious about a Stonewatch Prince stumbling through the wilds, disheveled and alone. They would send word to his clan, and he would be dragged back -- in chains, if need be. And it very nearly happened.
It was nearly a week after he'd fled from his clan. A band of Windcarve Fugitives finally found him. He glided through the Crystal Pools, a spot of brown against the brightness, and the Fugitives peeled away from the crystals they'd concealed themselves against and then knocked him down. They questioned him roughly. Soran was indignant, and he declared he was a prince of the Stonewatch Harpies. His voice died in his throat as he finished, for he now saw the glint in the Fugitives' eyes.
Had they been princes once, too? He couldn't tell, and he supposed it didn't matter now. But none of them...probably...had killed anyone on their way to freedom, as he had. None of them were wanted [i]now[/i], with a bounty on their heads, as he was. For the crime of slaughtering his own guards, Soran had been branded a criminal, and his clan had put out word that he was to be brought back to them. Anyone who accomplished this feat would be handsomely rewarded.
The Windcarve Fugitives bound his wings securely and dragged him back to their roost to debate when to hand him over, what other demands they could make, and how to split the loot. It was incredibly humiliating, and as the days passed, Soran's morale sank lower and lower. It felt like some cosmic injustice....He'd traveled this far and been through so much to join the fight against the dragons. Instead, his own kind had turned against him. It wasn't just that they were planning to sell him out -- it was that, even then, he was just another piece of meat to them. They fed him sparingly and never had a kind word for him. The young prince had been condescendingly patronized at home, and now he was being disrespected and abused. [i]"After all I went through to get here..."[/i] And the thought stopped there.
Bound to his perch, deprived of comfort and companionship, his thoughts turned inward. He remembered -- no, [i]forced[/i] himself to remember -- flinging his magic through the air, watching bolts of rock materialize. They had pierced his guards' wings and borne them down to the ground. Even if they had survived, they would have been horribly crippled for life. Soran knew that they would have felt disgraced and ashamed by that. And before that...Had he treated any of his own kind respectfully? He had been a pampered prince, and a very hot-headed one, always arguing, always questioning, and shouting when he didn't get his way. Reacting with harsh words and, quite frequently, with violence. No one had dared raise a hand against him because he was a prince, a precious member of the clan. He had claimed to hate that position -- but if he had, then why had he taken advantage of it so much?
[i]"Things have to change,"[/i] he thought wearily. He shifted as best as he could, his bindings digging through his feathers. He watched his captors arguing with each other, as they often did, and mused, [i]"If [/i]I've[i] been wrong all along, the system that raised me can't have been much better. It's all wrong. It's..."[/i] He kept on thinking of the word "wrong", but he knew that that was wrong, too. "Wrong" was too narrow a word. It was all... [i]"Complicated,"[/i] he decided at last.
The Windcarves kept him for weeks. They were reluctant to leave their roost very often, and he soon found out why. Recently, a band of dragons had been making forays into the Crystal Pools. They were fast and strong, and they were led by a blue Mirror whose claws made quick word of those who fell into her path. Some of Soran's captors suggested moving someplace else, while others argued, "They'll soon get tired and leave. They always do!" Neither side wanted to compromise. Soran huddled in the background, letting the arguments break over his head.
The arguments all came to an end when the dragons found them.
They arrived in the night. A pale moon shone over the Crystal Pools, and most of the Windcarves used its light to see by as they fled, wings flapping madly, into the darkness. From not very far away, Soran heard the sickening sound of claws driving into flesh. A hippalectryon let out a hideous scream as it died.
Some of the Windcarves, the greedier ones who wanted the bounty, remained with him. They cut him loose and pushed him out into the darkness. "Can you fly?" one of them asked. He could. Somehow, he still could.
Their smiles were cold and grim. "You're a Stonewatch Prince, so you're still good for something. Use your magic against them. If you can fossilize them, well and good -- we may stand a chance yet!"
It was not how Soran had planned to go into battle: half-starved and weak, his joints stiff from days of limited movement. He turned to where the dragons were. There were only three of them, but two of them were [i]massive[/i] and probably hundreds of times his weight. But the smallest one, the blue Mirror...Her claws still dripped blood. Her powerful wings flexed as she bounded into the air, and moonlight refracted off her blue crystal body. Soran gawped, briefly entranced. The moon, the blue dragon, the crystals around the pools...It was all too unreal--
"Don't look towards her, she'll blind you!" one of Soran's captors yelled. Soran turned -- too late. The wind rushed out of him as a dragon's tail slammed into his belly. He fell out of the air and slammed against a crystal.
Starvation and captivity had taken their tolls. He had nothing left to give now. He lay on his side, his wings weak and useless, as his captors' screams rang in his ears. The blue dragon soared past in another shower of blood, and the moon gleamed, cold and wan.[/color]
[center][img]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/54fdm3zb0y1whhd/1-clan.png[/img][/center]
[color=#7B3D1D]Soran awoke to warmth and golden light. He lay where he was, staring up at the stone ceiling. It was far above his head, just like the one in the Stonewatch roost at home....But he wasn't home. There were no harpies here. The air stank of scales and fire....It was the stench of dragonkind. He lifted his head -- and there was a dragon in the corner [i]and she was watching him[/i].
The Skydancer blinked lazily, like a large cat. She snorted. "I was advised to watch and see if you would awaken. Can you talk?"
"Where...?" Soran's voice caught in his throat. His jaws champed, and he tried again. This time, he choked out, "[i]Why[/i]...?"
"Hmm. Why did we take you in? Why didn't we leave you to die, or let [/color][url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=14111953]Sturmwelle[/url][color=#7B3D1D] kill you? I've heard that all before....I don't know. I'm no leader, young harpy, and besides, I wasn't there. I don't know these things."
Soran lifted a wing. It hurt, but he could move it. Elastic bandages wound around his torso and wing, and the Skydancer looked at these. "Yes, I patched you up," she muttered, "but then, I patch up everyone and everything that comes to me, if I'm asked. And I did have some help." She moved towards the door, and Soran let out a panicked little croak. He was certain she would call in some guards, and then...
[i]"How long have I been here? Why aren't I dead?"[/i] Those thoughts made him pause. He instinctively knew that many hours, perhaps days, had passed since he'd fallen in the Crystal Pools. A dragon had attacked him -- this same clan? Yes, this one: "Why didn't we let Sturmwelle kill you?"
The Skydancer left in a flicker of fire and light. She returned later on with another dragon, one whose every step shook the earth. She dismissed the Skydancer -- "Thank you, [/color][url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=19148364]Pyrea[/url][color=#7B3D1D]," before turning to Soran. She studied him closely for a moment, and then she hummed, deep in her throat. A long, low note. Then a breath escaped her lips -- it sounded like a flutter of wings -- and Soran sat up in surprise. "You can...talk to...?"
"Ahh, yes. I speak to the birds of the air, and if they're not too busy, they answer," the Snapper lady said. She settled her bulk comfortably upon the stone floor and told him, "My name is Makeda."
Soran didn't answer. He'd learned his lesson from last time. It was then that his eyes fell on the table next to his bed. There lay his jewelry, including his crown.
"You're a prince of the Harpy Clan," Makeda noted. She watched as Soran, wholly resigned to his fate, picked the crown up. "You're a male harpy....Quite rare. You know, some dragons believe you don't exist."
Soran settled his crown upon his head. Still he said nothing.
"You've been here for nearly three days. You were in bad shape when we found you. Lord [/color][url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=25521458]Nachtstreiter[/url][color=#7B3D1D] thought you looked quite weak to begin with, and he felt a little sorry for you." Makeda rocked slowly back and forth. She continued to talk in a slightly distant voice, as if Soran weren't there. "He convinced his mate and the Chief Trainer, Sturmwelle, to spare your life, and they brought you back to me."
Soran bristled. He remained suspicious, and with good reason. He had no love for his clan, but he wasn't about to surrender all of harpykind to the dragons. Perhaps they would try to pump him for information....It seemed that whenever someone got their hands on him, they had to find a way to use him. He absolutely despised that....
But what else could he do?
[i]"You could wait,"[/i] something seemed to whisper to him. [i]"You could wait...and you could listen...and see."[/i]
His golden eyes narrowed. Outside, unseen to him, birds whirled past in a flutter of wings....
"I speak to the birds...and when they answer, sometimes they tell me very interesting things." Makeda looked at him with small but very bright eyes. "That crown of yours isn't too heavy, is it?"
"I'm fine." Soran gulped.
"So you are. So you say."
Makeda rose, and she made her way to the door. She looked back at Soran. "Someone will be by to give you food and drink. They will be just as suspicious of you as you are of us. And you may not believe this now, but I tell you truly: There is nothing for you to be afraid of here."
Her eyes flashed once, a glint of bright light, as she gravely concluded, "Not all of us are at war."
Without her majestic bulk, the room suddenly was a lot larger and quieter. Soran glanced around before wearily lying back down. He slipped his crown from his head. It hadn't sat there long, but Makeda had been right: it really [i]was[/i] a heavy thing to wear.[/color]
[center][img]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/54fdm3zb0y1whhd/1-clan.png[/img][/center]
[color=#7B3D1D]It took the clan many, many months to gain Soran's trust. He mostly stayed with Makeda. Perhaps it was because he was part-bird, but he found it easier to relate to her than to any of the other dragons. It seemed that their voices were just so [i]loud[/i], too rough and resonant to understand. Listening to them was like hearing them from the bottom of a well, whereas Makeda's voice, when she used her odd magic, flowed as light and clear as birdsong.
Soran was free to wander around, and though all the other dragons were suspicious of him, they didn't fear him because they could swat him to a pulp if they so chose. They never did. They looked at him askance, but always left him alone. The clan's few hatchlings grew curious and tried to approach him, but were always herded away. He, in turn, was politely dissuaded from interacting with them. He had to work to gain their trust, too.
To his great surprise, there were other members of the Beastclans working with the dragons. There were three Serthis and a Wintermane, working side-by-side with the dragons and other assorted creatures. All of the Beastclan familiars had this in common: they had been abandoned by their own kind, left to be killed by the dragons. Instead, the dragons had relented and taken them in. "Do they learn from us? Perhaps. Yes," said the Serthis Potionmaster. He was a sour man who worked closely with the clan's Loremaster, [/color][url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=25261821]Regius[/url][color=#7B3D1D]. Soran watched him mixing ink for the Imperial's latest project. The Potionmaster eyed the mix carefully, and then he grunted, "They're more willing students than the young upstarts in my old clan, let me tell you."
Soran heard similar stories from the others, how they had been scorned and abandoned. At the end, when it seemed they'd had nothing left to lose, they'd thrown their lot in with their sworn enemies. The dragons often encroached on their territory, it was true -- "But they always give our kind a chance to flee, and attack only in retaliation," said the Wintermane bowman, [/color][url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=25629154]Artemisia[/url][color=#7B3D1D]. She had been abandoned after she'd broken her leg in battle. The dragons had halted their attack, more out of pity than anything else, and had treated her injuries. Through their powerful healing magic, Artemisia's leg had been made whole again, and she had pledged herself in service to one of the clan leaders' daughters.
[i]"Things are changing,"[/i] Soran realized. He'd been brought up to be loyal to the Beastclans, but he and others had learned that sometimes the clans couldn't be loyal to [i]them[/i]. Small, isolated cases, to be sure. [i]"But over time the cases increase, and suddenly they're not isolated anymore. They're not anomalies. They become...the norm."[/i]
It was the same for the dragons. Words came to him from other clans, other dragons...other familiars. There were dragons who sympathized with the Beastclans, and even a few lairs had outright allied themselves with them. These dragons had been branded as traitors to the rest of their kind -- officially, at least. But they, in turn, would still have sympathizers among other clans, and those sympathizers would have supporters of their own....The chains of war choked Sornieth, but weaving among them -- and possibly making things more complicated -- were the threads of sympathy. And they ran both ways. The Disillusionists' clan sympathized with individual Beastclan members, not whole villages or tribes....Still, Soran now understood: "Not all of us are at war."
It was his first autumn with the dragons. Makeda and her mate, Nebuchadnezzar, had laid their first clutch of eggs, and Soran had been allowed to see them. Nearby, Makeda raised her head, listening, listening....Birds chattered to her from the trees. There was dissent within the Beastclans, and among the dragons as well. Nebuchadnezzar had confided to Soran, in a roundabout fashion, that a few dragons weren't happy in the clan and were thinking of...stirring things up. He didn't like it; he was worried for his mate and their family. Soran was worried, too.
He patted the nearest egg. It was almost as big as he was.The baby dragon inside tap-tapped in reply, and he found himself smiling back.
He reached up and scratched his head under his crown. It had seemed very heavy lately, and he'd been thinking about taking it off and putting it away permanently. He couldn't change his face, but at least without his crown, he wouldn't be so easily recognized as a prince of Stonewatch. He knew that he wouldn't be going back there. The harpies of Stonewatch had indeed lost a precious prince, but not the way they had feared. Perhaps it was better this way.[/color]
[right][font=Copperplate Gothic Light][color=#BEA55D][size=5][b]~ The End[/b][/color][/size][/font][/right]
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soran and the bird witch
written by Disillusionist
3,261 words
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Like all male harpies, Soran was destined from birth for greatness. He was given the best food, the most lavish clothes. He never wanted for anything and was fiercely protected by the women of his clan. As he grew up, he was educated on his clan's lore and traditions -- and also their never-ending campaign against the plague known as Dragonkind. Soran's friends and sisters, cousins and aunts...Nearly all of them were female, and all the females were sent away to battle against the great wyrms. Not all of them returned. The news always found its way to him -- eventually -- and for every comrade who became a casualty, Soran's hatred of the dragons grew.
As it did, so did his desire to don a mask and take up arms. His guardians always managed to dissuade him. Some of them were older matrons who had also lost relatives to the dragons' magic and claws. None of them desired to see him disappear into the battlefield. Soran kept on asking why, and the answer was always the same: it was because he was a male.
This frustrated him more than he would have cared to admit. He started nosing around, digging up details. Here and there, he picked up snippets of information: there were in fact some male harpies who had forsaken their crowns. They had fled into the wilds, where they waged their own guerilla campaign against the dragons. They were known as the Windcarve Fugitives, and Soran resolved to join them.
He botched his escape horribly. He had forgotten that the sentry schedules were changed every few weeks, and on his way out to freedom, he had been caught by the guards. He was very close to the outside world by then, and so he tried to make a break for it. He turned his magic upon his guardswomen. It might have gone over well if they were closer to the ground, but no -- they were several tens of feet in the air. Soran watched them fall, and knew they'd be dead when they hit the earth. He turned and sped away before that happened. He was spared from the sight, but not from the sounds: a chorus of wails rose up from behind as the harpy women found their comrades slain, and he knew that if they got their hands on him, he'd be imprisoned even deeper inside the mountain, never to see the light of day again.
Soran's journey was a confused mishmash of stops and starts. All his life, as a Stonewatch Prince, he had been taught history, diplomacy, art, and magic. But he had also been terribly sheltered, deprived of life outdoors. He had been hidden from storms and not been permitted to hunt, lest a dragon come across him, or his prey turn against him and slay him. He had difficulty finding fresh water and plants that were safe to eat. He was cold and uncomfortable, and more than once he regretted his decision to seek out the Windcarve Fugitives.
He often considered returning to his clan, but the dreadful promise of imprisonment rang in his mind. He didn't know whom he had killed, and he suddenly realized it was possible he'd slain some of his close friends or even his own relatives. He had been so desperate to escape that he hadn't paused, not even when they'd started to call out to him....He hadn't thought.
He didn't doubt that they would prevent him from flying again, if they had to. He had been kept safe because he was a male. Not because he needed to fly. The thought made him shudder, and so he pushed on.
He evaded harpy scouts, and to be safe, he also stayed away from the other Beastclans. They would be suspicious about a Stonewatch Prince stumbling through the wilds, disheveled and alone. They would send word to his clan, and he would be dragged back -- in chains, if need be. And it very nearly happened.
It was nearly a week after he'd fled from his clan. A band of Windcarve Fugitives finally found him. He glided through the Crystal Pools, a spot of brown against the brightness, and the Fugitives peeled away from the crystals they'd concealed themselves against and then knocked him down. They questioned him roughly. Soran was indignant, and he declared he was a prince of the Stonewatch Harpies. His voice died in his throat as he finished, for he now saw the glint in the Fugitives' eyes.
Had they been princes once, too? He couldn't tell, and he supposed it didn't matter now. But none of them...probably...had killed anyone on their way to freedom, as he had. None of them were wanted now, with a bounty on their heads, as he was. For the crime of slaughtering his own guards, Soran had been branded a criminal, and his clan had put out word that he was to be brought back to them. Anyone who accomplished this feat would be handsomely rewarded.
The Windcarve Fugitives bound his wings securely and dragged him back to their roost to debate when to hand him over, what other demands they could make, and how to split the loot. It was incredibly humiliating, and as the days passed, Soran's morale sank lower and lower. It felt like some cosmic injustice....He'd traveled this far and been through so much to join the fight against the dragons. Instead, his own kind had turned against him. It wasn't just that they were planning to sell him out -- it was that, even then, he was just another piece of meat to them. They fed him sparingly and never had a kind word for him. The young prince had been condescendingly patronized at home, and now he was being disrespected and abused. "After all I went through to get here..." And the thought stopped there.
Bound to his perch, deprived of comfort and companionship, his thoughts turned inward. He remembered -- no, forced himself to remember -- flinging his magic through the air, watching bolts of rock materialize. They had pierced his guards' wings and borne them down to the ground. Even if they had survived, they would have been horribly crippled for life. Soran knew that they would have felt disgraced and ashamed by that. And before that...Had he treated any of his own kind respectfully? He had been a pampered prince, and a very hot-headed one, always arguing, always questioning, and shouting when he didn't get his way. Reacting with harsh words and, quite frequently, with violence. No one had dared raise a hand against him because he was a prince, a precious member of the clan. He had claimed to hate that position -- but if he had, then why had he taken advantage of it so much?
"Things have to change," he thought wearily. He shifted as best as he could, his bindings digging through his feathers. He watched his captors arguing with each other, as they often did, and mused, "If I've been wrong all along, the system that raised me can't have been much better. It's all wrong. It's..." He kept on thinking of the word "wrong", but he knew that that was wrong, too. "Wrong" was too narrow a word. It was all... "Complicated," he decided at last.
The Windcarves kept him for weeks. They were reluctant to leave their roost very often, and he soon found out why. Recently, a band of dragons had been making forays into the Crystal Pools. They were fast and strong, and they were led by a blue Mirror whose claws made quick word of those who fell into her path. Some of Soran's captors suggested moving someplace else, while others argued, "They'll soon get tired and leave. They always do!" Neither side wanted to compromise. Soran huddled in the background, letting the arguments break over his head.
The arguments all came to an end when the dragons found them.
They arrived in the night. A pale moon shone over the Crystal Pools, and most of the Windcarves used its light to see by as they fled, wings flapping madly, into the darkness. From not very far away, Soran heard the sickening sound of claws driving into flesh. A hippalectryon let out a hideous scream as it died.
Some of the Windcarves, the greedier ones who wanted the bounty, remained with him. They cut him loose and pushed him out into the darkness. "Can you fly?" one of them asked. He could. Somehow, he still could.
Their smiles were cold and grim. "You're a Stonewatch Prince, so you're still good for something. Use your magic against them. If you can fossilize them, well and good -- we may stand a chance yet!"
It was not how Soran had planned to go into battle: half-starved and weak, his joints stiff from days of limited movement. He turned to where the dragons were. There were only three of them, but two of them were massive and probably hundreds of times his weight. But the smallest one, the blue Mirror...Her claws still dripped blood. Her powerful wings flexed as she bounded into the air, and moonlight refracted off her blue crystal body. Soran gawped, briefly entranced. The moon, the blue dragon, the crystals around the pools...It was all too unreal--
"Don't look towards her, she'll blind you!" one of Soran's captors yelled. Soran turned -- too late. The wind rushed out of him as a dragon's tail slammed into his belly. He fell out of the air and slammed against a crystal.
Starvation and captivity had taken their tolls. He had nothing left to give now. He lay on his side, his wings weak and useless, as his captors' screams rang in his ears. The blue dragon soared past in another shower of blood, and the moon gleamed, cold and wan.
Soran awoke to warmth and golden light. He lay where he was, staring up at the stone ceiling. It was far above his head, just like the one in the Stonewatch roost at home....But he wasn't home. There were no harpies here. The air stank of scales and fire....It was the stench of dragonkind. He lifted his head -- and there was a dragon in the corner and she was watching him.
The Skydancer blinked lazily, like a large cat. She snorted. "I was advised to watch and see if you would awaken. Can you talk?"
"Where...?" Soran's voice caught in his throat. His jaws champed, and he tried again. This time, he choked out, "Why...?"
"Hmm. Why did we take you in? Why didn't we leave you to die, or let Sturmwelle kill you? I've heard that all before....I don't know. I'm no leader, young harpy, and besides, I wasn't there. I don't know these things."
Soran lifted a wing. It hurt, but he could move it. Elastic bandages wound around his torso and wing, and the Skydancer looked at these. "Yes, I patched you up," she muttered, "but then, I patch up everyone and everything that comes to me, if I'm asked. And I did have some help." She moved towards the door, and Soran let out a panicked little croak. He was certain she would call in some guards, and then...
"How long have I been here? Why aren't I dead?" Those thoughts made him pause. He instinctively knew that many hours, perhaps days, had passed since he'd fallen in the Crystal Pools. A dragon had attacked him -- this same clan? Yes, this one: "Why didn't we let Sturmwelle kill you?"
The Skydancer left in a flicker of fire and light. She returned later on with another dragon, one whose every step shook the earth. She dismissed the Skydancer -- "Thank you, Pyrea," before turning to Soran. She studied him closely for a moment, and then she hummed, deep in her throat. A long, low note. Then a breath escaped her lips -- it sounded like a flutter of wings -- and Soran sat up in surprise. "You can...talk to...?"
"Ahh, yes. I speak to the birds of the air, and if they're not too busy, they answer," the Snapper lady said. She settled her bulk comfortably upon the stone floor and told him, "My name is Makeda."
Soran didn't answer. He'd learned his lesson from last time. It was then that his eyes fell on the table next to his bed. There lay his jewelry, including his crown.
"You're a prince of the Harpy Clan," Makeda noted. She watched as Soran, wholly resigned to his fate, picked the crown up. "You're a male harpy....Quite rare. You know, some dragons believe you don't exist."
Soran settled his crown upon his head. Still he said nothing.
"You've been here for nearly three days. You were in bad shape when we found you. Lord Nachtstreiter thought you looked quite weak to begin with, and he felt a little sorry for you." Makeda rocked slowly back and forth. She continued to talk in a slightly distant voice, as if Soran weren't there. "He convinced his mate and the Chief Trainer, Sturmwelle, to spare your life, and they brought you back to me."
Soran bristled. He remained suspicious, and with good reason. He had no love for his clan, but he wasn't about to surrender all of harpykind to the dragons. Perhaps they would try to pump him for information....It seemed that whenever someone got their hands on him, they had to find a way to use him. He absolutely despised that....
But what else could he do?
"You could wait," something seemed to whisper to him. "You could wait...and you could listen...and see."
His golden eyes narrowed. Outside, unseen to him, birds whirled past in a flutter of wings....
"I speak to the birds...and when they answer, sometimes they tell me very interesting things." Makeda looked at him with small but very bright eyes. "That crown of yours isn't too heavy, is it?"
"I'm fine." Soran gulped.
"So you are. So you say."
Makeda rose, and she made her way to the door. She looked back at Soran. "Someone will be by to give you food and drink. They will be just as suspicious of you as you are of us. And you may not believe this now, but I tell you truly: There is nothing for you to be afraid of here."
Her eyes flashed once, a glint of bright light, as she gravely concluded, "Not all of us are at war."
Without her majestic bulk, the room suddenly was a lot larger and quieter. Soran glanced around before wearily lying back down. He slipped his crown from his head. It hadn't sat there long, but Makeda had been right: it really was a heavy thing to wear.
It took the clan many, many months to gain Soran's trust. He mostly stayed with Makeda. Perhaps it was because he was part-bird, but he found it easier to relate to her than to any of the other dragons. It seemed that their voices were just so loud, too rough and resonant to understand. Listening to them was like hearing them from the bottom of a well, whereas Makeda's voice, when she used her odd magic, flowed as light and clear as birdsong.
Soran was free to wander around, and though all the other dragons were suspicious of him, they didn't fear him because they could swat him to a pulp if they so chose. They never did. They looked at him askance, but always left him alone. The clan's few hatchlings grew curious and tried to approach him, but were always herded away. He, in turn, was politely dissuaded from interacting with them. He had to work to gain their trust, too.
To his great surprise, there were other members of the Beastclans working with the dragons. There were three Serthis and a Wintermane, working side-by-side with the dragons and other assorted creatures. All of the Beastclan familiars had this in common: they had been abandoned by their own kind, left to be killed by the dragons. Instead, the dragons had relented and taken them in. "Do they learn from us? Perhaps. Yes," said the Serthis Potionmaster. He was a sour man who worked closely with the clan's Loremaster, Regius. Soran watched him mixing ink for the Imperial's latest project. The Potionmaster eyed the mix carefully, and then he grunted, "They're more willing students than the young upstarts in my old clan, let me tell you."
Soran heard similar stories from the others, how they had been scorned and abandoned. At the end, when it seemed they'd had nothing left to lose, they'd thrown their lot in with their sworn enemies. The dragons often encroached on their territory, it was true -- "But they always give our kind a chance to flee, and attack only in retaliation," said the Wintermane bowman, Artemisia. She had been abandoned after she'd broken her leg in battle. The dragons had halted their attack, more out of pity than anything else, and had treated her injuries. Through their powerful healing magic, Artemisia's leg had been made whole again, and she had pledged herself in service to one of the clan leaders' daughters.
"Things are changing," Soran realized. He'd been brought up to be loyal to the Beastclans, but he and others had learned that sometimes the clans couldn't be loyal to them. Small, isolated cases, to be sure. "But over time the cases increase, and suddenly they're not isolated anymore. They're not anomalies. They become...the norm."
It was the same for the dragons. Words came to him from other clans, other dragons...other familiars. There were dragons who sympathized with the Beastclans, and even a few lairs had outright allied themselves with them. These dragons had been branded as traitors to the rest of their kind -- officially, at least. But they, in turn, would still have sympathizers among other clans, and those sympathizers would have supporters of their own....The chains of war choked Sornieth, but weaving among them -- and possibly making things more complicated -- were the threads of sympathy. And they ran both ways. The Disillusionists' clan sympathized with individual Beastclan members, not whole villages or tribes....Still, Soran now understood: "Not all of us are at war."
It was his first autumn with the dragons. Makeda and her mate, Nebuchadnezzar, had laid their first clutch of eggs, and Soran had been allowed to see them. Nearby, Makeda raised her head, listening, listening....Birds chattered to her from the trees. There was dissent within the Beastclans, and among the dragons as well. Nebuchadnezzar had confided to Soran, in a roundabout fashion, that a few dragons weren't happy in the clan and were thinking of...stirring things up. He didn't like it; he was worried for his mate and their family. Soran was worried, too.
He patted the nearest egg. It was almost as big as he was.The baby dragon inside tap-tapped in reply, and he found himself smiling back.
He reached up and scratched his head under his crown. It had seemed very heavy lately, and he'd been thinking about taking it off and putting it away permanently. He couldn't change his face, but at least without his crown, he wouldn't be so easily recognized as a prince of Stonewatch. He knew that he wouldn't be going back there. The harpies of Stonewatch had indeed lost a precious prince, but not the way they had feared. Perhaps it was better this way.
~ The End
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[columns][center][item=Leather Centaur Quiver][nextcol][color=transparent]..[/color][nextcol][color=#BA311C][font=garamond][size=7][size=4]{ a story for anastasia }[/size][/size][/font][/color]
[size=2]written by Disillusionist
[color=#9494A9]387 words[/color][/size][/columns]
[color=#555555]She was the youngest of her clutch, and was spoiled from the get-go. She was small and frail and couldn't seem to keep up...so she was precious! Given a name worthy of a princess, and all the toys and affection she desired. Yet in spite of being doted on, Anastasia remained rambunctious and frank, as warm as the earth of the Scarred Wasteland. She couldn't run as swiftly as her siblings and clanmates; she always lagged behind -- so she learned to ambush her prey, setting up stealthy traps for them. Her parents looked upon her with pride: "She will be a mighty hunter!" they congratulated themselves.
Years passed. Her skin began to fade, as if bleached by the heat of the Wasteland sun. The world, it seemed to her, began to grow red, then dark. She started to cough, and found she could not stop....[/color]
[center][color=#9A534D]~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~[/color][/center]
[color=#555555]She wandered into the Sunbeam Ruins and found a new clan. The Disillusionists had begun to expand their lair and found that they had more dragons than they could feed. Their Ridgebacks were clumsy hunters...and so they recruited Anastasia. They didn't mind her cough and fainting spells; they had no other Coatls among them yet who could contract her disease.
Anastasia found a place in their lair. She's still the playful Coatl she was long ago, but the formerly prim young lady now wears clothes of rough leather and carries hunting weapons instead of toys. She relies on her stealth now more than ever. An uncontrolled fit of coughing, a fainting spell at the wrong place and time...She might end up as the prey.
She loves her new clan. She jokes around with them and tells them stories of her hunts. The clan knows why she left her birthplace -- but they do not know how it happened. There are no more parents to go back to. Only the remains of a once-thriving lair, only their names.
No one feels like asking Anastasia. She's so playful and happy; they don't want to take that away from her. She knows this fully well. They don't ask, and she doesn't volunteer information. It helps keep the peace, and here, she can stay: in the Sunbeam Ruins, in the light of the sun, her scales and wings growing paler each day.[/color]
[right][font=Copperplate Gothic Light][color=#BA311C][size=5][b]~ The End[/b][/color][/size][/font][/right]
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{ a story for anastasia }
written by Disillusionist
387 words
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She was the youngest of her clutch, and was spoiled from the get-go. She was small and frail and couldn't seem to keep up...so she was precious! Given a name worthy of a princess, and all the toys and affection she desired. Yet in spite of being doted on, Anastasia remained rambunctious and frank, as warm as the earth of the Scarred Wasteland. She couldn't run as swiftly as her siblings and clanmates; she always lagged behind -- so she learned to ambush her prey, setting up stealthy traps for them. Her parents looked upon her with pride: "She will be a mighty hunter!" they congratulated themselves.
Years passed. Her skin began to fade, as if bleached by the heat of the Wasteland sun. The world, it seemed to her, began to grow red, then dark. She started to cough, and found she could not stop....
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
She wandered into the Sunbeam Ruins and found a new clan. The Disillusionists had begun to expand their lair and found that they had more dragons than they could feed. Their Ridgebacks were clumsy hunters...and so they recruited Anastasia. They didn't mind her cough and fainting spells; they had no other Coatls among them yet who could contract her disease.
Anastasia found a place in their lair. She's still the playful Coatl she was long ago, but the formerly prim young lady now wears clothes of rough leather and carries hunting weapons instead of toys. She relies on her stealth now more than ever. An uncontrolled fit of coughing, a fainting spell at the wrong place and time...She might end up as the prey.
She loves her new clan. She jokes around with them and tells them stories of her hunts. The clan knows why she left her birthplace -- but they do not know how it happened. There are no more parents to go back to. Only the remains of a once-thriving lair, only their names.
No one feels like asking Anastasia. She's so playful and happy; they don't want to take that away from her. She knows this fully well. They don't ask, and she doesn't volunteer information. It helps keep the peace, and here, she can stay: in the Sunbeam Ruins, in the light of the sun, her scales and wings growing paler each day.
~ The End
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[columns][center][item=Brightly Painted Bird Toy][nextcol][color=transparent]..[/color][nextcol][color=#7FCE73][font=garamond][size=7][size=4][b]impossible colors[/b][/size][/size][/font][/color]
[size=2]written by Disillusionist
[color=#9494A9]1,840 words[/color][/size][/columns]
[url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=15438539][img]http://flightrising.com/rendern/coliseum/portraits/154386/15438539.png[/img][/url]
[color=#792FB2][i][b]Crystaline[/b] narrates...[/i][/color]
[color=#1D2224]That's Euclid. He's the clan spy. No, really...Hey, don't laugh at me. Stick with me for a moment; you'll see it's true. There he goes. Let's follow him....Whoa, whoop! Yes, where did he go? Crazy, isn't it? Pick your jaw up off the floor and wipe your drool, and I'll explain how he does it...as best as I can, anyway. Here, make yourself comfortable. Wouldn't want you to hit your head if you should faint....Would you like some tea? Or maybe some coffee?
Euclid came to the lair like something out of a ghost story. We didn't know he was there. We only knew [i]something[/i] was up.
Things started to disappear. Mostly food. Fresh meat. Most of us weren't pleased, and we couldn't, ahem, [i]talk[/i] to the Ridgebacks, either, because everyone knows Ridgebacks don't touch meat unless it's fresh from the sea. The Ridgebacks sort of snickered at us from behind their paws at first, but it gave them quite a turn when they chopped up some meat for us, turned around to put half of it in storage, and then looked back to see the other half completely missing as if it'd been sucked into the air. No trails of blood. Nothing. No clues to go on.
We went a little bit crazy at first. Food was disappearing (and this is a very big deal when you've worked hard to gather it), and so were other items: blankets, tools, and the occasional toy. We always found them later on in the oddest places: on the edges of the lair, behind boxes and bales of supplies, or half-hidden among the bushes outside. We exchanged nervous looks and put the things back where they belonged. We locked them up for good measure. And then we sat down and talked.
There were already whispers of poltergeists floating about the place, but [/color][url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=26635401]Jubilant[/url][color=#1D2224] was skeptical from the very beginning. Not what you'd expect from the Arcane Ambassador, I suppose. But then, he is very good at making things explode, so we all listened to him.
He didn't think it was a spirit. We listened more eagerly, because we did [i]not[/i] want to believe the lair was haunted. We hadn't been here that long. There was some resistance to the idea, though: "WELL, WHAT ELSE COULD IT BE?" asked [/color][url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=24999387]Adrastos[/url][color=#1D2224]. He was not really shouting; his voice is just always loud.
"Some other being. I don't know." Jubilant spread his hands. "We're going to find out."
We proceeded to lay traps around the place. You know how it goes: hunting snares, nets dropping down, pits dug by the Ridgebacks. OK, the pits were a stupid idea. It was altogether possible that the whatever-it-was could fly or climb. Indeed, the pits proved ineffective. So did the other things. From time to time we'd find them triggered, and we would rush over, ready to tackle the thing, but we'd never find anything or anyone. Just the triggered trap still quivering, and a whole bunch of confused and quickly-getting-irritated clanmates. We sort of knew things were falling apart when we caught [/color][url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=25864940]Taksidian[/url][color=#1D2224] strewing flour around his stash of food. Poor Tak. He did have a reputation for nicking stuff in the past, but what Ridgeback doesn't? It was kind of sad to see him having to resort to something as lame as this.
I guess Jubilant felt the same way. While the clan leaders quietly told everyone to put away their traps and whacking things, he approached me. "Crys," he said, "we have to do something. Do you still have" -- and he lowered his voice even further -- "your [i]machine[/i]?"
Ohhhh, the machine. I could see why he wanted it. I'd frozen my previous clan, including myself, with it. We'd been sort of trapped in suspended animation for...You know what, it doesn't bear thinking about. The machine suspends time. That's all you need to know.
I got what he was on to: "But Jube, I haven't used it since...well, a long time ago. Just that one time. Then everything went to heck. Errr."
"But you can fix it, right?"
"Jube, I can fix [i]anything[/i], but sometimes stuff doesn't want to [i]stay[/i] fixed." I squinted at him. "Besides, how're you sure it's not some kind of spirit? They bat around everywhere. Have you seen the ones in Ghostlight? You can smack them with your claws, and they splurt away like punctured balloons. It's unreal."
Jubilant didn't answer. He just smoothed down his hood, making sure it stayed low over his brow. He blinked his huge pink eyes at me. I don't know, maybe it was just normal blinking. But I sighed and threw up my claws, and then I got to work.
He helped out, and I think that was what kept things from exploding. As I put the finishing touches on the machine, he went around the lair, whispering to the clanmates what our plan was, and could they please cooperate again? "HOW CAN YOU BE SURE IT'S NOT A--" I heard Adrastos bellow, an instant before someone whacked him on the snoot.
And then the big day arrived: the machine, in all its cobbled-together time-stopping glory, positioned over Taksidian's stash of food. He whimpered a bit when he saw this. He thought it would make his snacks go bad.
And then we went about our business.
It took a few days. These things always do. But right when we were about to give up, the alarm blared. The trap was sprung! Something had been caught!
And there he was, in the light of the machine. Frozen in mid-step, jaws agape, tongue uncurling towards the cupcake poised delicately in his claws.
We gawped at him for several long moments. "[i]WHERE IS THE REST OF HIM??!!!![/i]" Adrastos asked. This time, he was really and truly shrieking.[/color]
[center][img]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/clu5o9d8k4a1eu8/3-venom.png[/img][/center]
[color=#1D2224]Jubilant set up a containment field around our prisoner, and I shut off the machine. When he realized he was free, our little -- ahem -- freeloader looked around, surprised. His eyes were purple -- a Mirror dragon from the Tangled Wood? We'd never seen anyone like him before, though.
See, the reason Adrastos was so shocked (OK, fine, I was, too; we all were) was because the only visible parts of the Mirror had been his head and foreclaws. The rest of him -- invisible. Blending in with the air around him, like a dissipating heatwave. As he bounced around the containment field, his skin flickered the gamut of the entire known color wheel, from blinding white all the way to pearly pink. Weird patterns moved across his skin, too: hexagonal scales, rippling stripes, even the shininess of Crystal and Gembond. He mimicked them all -- and by perfectly matching the objects around him, he became, to all intents and purposes, invisible.
"What is your name?" we asked. It seemed a good place to start.
"Don't have one," the little powerball muttered. He was at that time not much bigger than my foot. No wonder it'd been easy for him to go undetected.
We were kind of surprised he could talk; we'd expected him to be feral. Nobody lets their hatchlings run around like this, and the Tangled Wood wasn't [i]that[/i] close by.
It was [/color][url=http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=26004563]Malkiriam[/url][color=#1D2224], another Mirror, who got the most out of him. Slowly, we learned: He didn't know where he was from, but that wasn't weird; kids don't pay attention to where they're from or where they're going. He had had a family who looked as weird as him. But then they had gone.
Malkiriam hesitated. "Gone where?" We thought he meant they'd turned invisible.
They'd just disappeared one day. Invisible or not, they hadn't come back. Our little tyke had been left alone, hunting by himself, avoiding creatures bigger than he was. He didn't remember when he'd learned to turn invisible, and who, if any, had taught him. It was just something he knew he could do.
Yeah, we took him in. How [i]couldn't[/i] we? Come on, don't look at me like that -- I'm not a monster.
We named him Euclid, and as you've seen he's as weird as he was from the day we first caught him. Like I've said, he can change his colors, perfectly matching the world around him -- yes, even ice and water. We've tried it. It was pretty freaky. It's also why he still doesn't wear clothes -- it's easier for him to vanish. Makes it harder for him to be caught. So anyway, he maintains this bright, dazzling color scheme as a gesture of goodwill. The progenitors made him promise not to turn invisible while he's in the lair. With these bright colors, anyone can spot him from a mile away. "See, I'm here!" -- that's what his colors are saying.
And we named him Euclid because...
Can you keep a secret? --Really? Well...It doesn't matter, I guess.
I don't think he is a dragon.
The word "Euclidean"...It describes something that adheres to certain mathematical laws. Euclid doesn't seem to do that, not always. His colors, his near-perfect invisibility, the way he moves...He doesn't make a sound when he's invisible, you know? It's almost as if, when he turns invisible, he stops...being there.
Maybe he's not [i]all[/i] there to begin with. Maybe he never was.
Yes, we did try looking for his family. We found a likely match: Tangled Wood-dwellers with the same dazzling colors. All gone. Records say they went to serve various deities; we tried digging further into the past....Disbanded clans. Unused lairs. Whoever Euclid's family was, they're no longer there. Maybe they were never there....
Or maybe they were, and they went back to where they came from in the first place, but he's stuck here, somehow, with the rest of us. I'm a bit nervous about him....You could tell, right? Maybe he's not a dragon...or even a complete entity at all. He might be...a part...of something else. Something different. Something poking in from another world, looking around, eating what it can here and there...and popping back into that other world, if but for a little while, when it becomes invisible.
He was always hungry when he first came here. Always going after fresh meat. I hardly see him eat these days. Sometimes I hardly see him at all....
Maybe we called him "Euclid" because, subconsciously, we wanted him to conform to the laws of this world. Coming from an engineer whose machines freeze time, I guess that's kind of stupid, right? Haha...yeah. I know. It didn't work very well, did it?
...I wasn't talking about the machine. --Hm? Umm, you know what, it's not important. Please finish your tea. Coffee. Whatever I got for you. Thanks for visiting, friend, and have a nice day![/color]
[color=#792FB2][b]{ [i]You get up to leave. As you head outside, with Crystaline chattering gaily about the lair all the while, you see a flicker of motion out of the corner out of your eye. Bright, blinding green blotched with vivid purple...And then the air shimmers and it's gone.[/i] }[/b][/color]
[right][font=Copperplate Gothic Light][color=#7FCE73][size=5][b]~ The End?[/b][/size][/color][/font][/right]
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impossible colors
written by Disillusionist
1,840 words
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Crystaline narrates...
That's Euclid. He's the clan spy. No, really...Hey, don't laugh at me. Stick with me for a moment; you'll see it's true. There he goes. Let's follow him....Whoa, whoop! Yes, where did he go? Crazy, isn't it? Pick your jaw up off the floor and wipe your drool, and I'll explain how he does it...as best as I can, anyway. Here, make yourself comfortable. Wouldn't want you to hit your head if you should faint....Would you like some tea? Or maybe some coffee?
Euclid came to the lair like something out of a ghost story. We didn't know he was there. We only knew something was up.
Things started to disappear. Mostly food. Fresh meat. Most of us weren't pleased, and we couldn't, ahem, talk to the Ridgebacks, either, because everyone knows Ridgebacks don't touch meat unless it's fresh from the sea. The Ridgebacks sort of snickered at us from behind their paws at first, but it gave them quite a turn when they chopped up some meat for us, turned around to put half of it in storage, and then looked back to see the other half completely missing as if it'd been sucked into the air. No trails of blood. Nothing. No clues to go on.
We went a little bit crazy at first. Food was disappearing (and this is a very big deal when you've worked hard to gather it), and so were other items: blankets, tools, and the occasional toy. We always found them later on in the oddest places: on the edges of the lair, behind boxes and bales of supplies, or half-hidden among the bushes outside. We exchanged nervous looks and put the things back where they belonged. We locked them up for good measure. And then we sat down and talked.
There were already whispers of poltergeists floating about the place, but Jubilant was skeptical from the very beginning. Not what you'd expect from the Arcane Ambassador, I suppose. But then, he is very good at making things explode, so we all listened to him.
He didn't think it was a spirit. We listened more eagerly, because we did not want to believe the lair was haunted. We hadn't been here that long. There was some resistance to the idea, though: "WELL, WHAT ELSE COULD IT BE?" asked Adrastos. He was not really shouting; his voice is just always loud.
"Some other being. I don't know." Jubilant spread his hands. "We're going to find out."
We proceeded to lay traps around the place. You know how it goes: hunting snares, nets dropping down, pits dug by the Ridgebacks. OK, the pits were a stupid idea. It was altogether possible that the whatever-it-was could fly or climb. Indeed, the pits proved ineffective. So did the other things. From time to time we'd find them triggered, and we would rush over, ready to tackle the thing, but we'd never find anything or anyone. Just the triggered trap still quivering, and a whole bunch of confused and quickly-getting-irritated clanmates. We sort of knew things were falling apart when we caught Taksidian strewing flour around his stash of food. Poor Tak. He did have a reputation for nicking stuff in the past, but what Ridgeback doesn't? It was kind of sad to see him having to resort to something as lame as this.
I guess Jubilant felt the same way. While the clan leaders quietly told everyone to put away their traps and whacking things, he approached me. "Crys," he said, "we have to do something. Do you still have" -- and he lowered his voice even further -- "your machine?"
Ohhhh, the machine. I could see why he wanted it. I'd frozen my previous clan, including myself, with it. We'd been sort of trapped in suspended animation for...You know what, it doesn't bear thinking about. The machine suspends time. That's all you need to know.
I got what he was on to: "But Jube, I haven't used it since...well, a long time ago. Just that one time. Then everything went to heck. Errr."
"But you can fix it, right?"
"Jube, I can fix anything, but sometimes stuff doesn't want to stay fixed." I squinted at him. "Besides, how're you sure it's not some kind of spirit? They bat around everywhere. Have you seen the ones in Ghostlight? You can smack them with your claws, and they splurt away like punctured balloons. It's unreal."
Jubilant didn't answer. He just smoothed down his hood, making sure it stayed low over his brow. He blinked his huge pink eyes at me. I don't know, maybe it was just normal blinking. But I sighed and threw up my claws, and then I got to work.
He helped out, and I think that was what kept things from exploding. As I put the finishing touches on the machine, he went around the lair, whispering to the clanmates what our plan was, and could they please cooperate again? "HOW CAN YOU BE SURE IT'S NOT A--" I heard Adrastos bellow, an instant before someone whacked him on the snoot.
And then the big day arrived: the machine, in all its cobbled-together time-stopping glory, positioned over Taksidian's stash of food. He whimpered a bit when he saw this. He thought it would make his snacks go bad.
And then we went about our business.
It took a few days. These things always do. But right when we were about to give up, the alarm blared. The trap was sprung! Something had been caught!
And there he was, in the light of the machine. Frozen in mid-step, jaws agape, tongue uncurling towards the cupcake poised delicately in his claws.
We gawped at him for several long moments. "WHERE IS THE REST OF HIM??!!!!" Adrastos asked. This time, he was really and truly shrieking.
Jubilant set up a containment field around our prisoner, and I shut off the machine. When he realized he was free, our little -- ahem -- freeloader looked around, surprised. His eyes were purple -- a Mirror dragon from the Tangled Wood? We'd never seen anyone like him before, though.
See, the reason Adrastos was so shocked (OK, fine, I was, too; we all were) was because the only visible parts of the Mirror had been his head and foreclaws. The rest of him -- invisible. Blending in with the air around him, like a dissipating heatwave. As he bounced around the containment field, his skin flickered the gamut of the entire known color wheel, from blinding white all the way to pearly pink. Weird patterns moved across his skin, too: hexagonal scales, rippling stripes, even the shininess of Crystal and Gembond. He mimicked them all -- and by perfectly matching the objects around him, he became, to all intents and purposes, invisible.
"What is your name?" we asked. It seemed a good place to start.
"Don't have one," the little powerball muttered. He was at that time not much bigger than my foot. No wonder it'd been easy for him to go undetected.
We were kind of surprised he could talk; we'd expected him to be feral. Nobody lets their hatchlings run around like this, and the Tangled Wood wasn't that close by.
It was Malkiriam, another Mirror, who got the most out of him. Slowly, we learned: He didn't know where he was from, but that wasn't weird; kids don't pay attention to where they're from or where they're going. He had had a family who looked as weird as him. But then they had gone.
Malkiriam hesitated. "Gone where?" We thought he meant they'd turned invisible.
They'd just disappeared one day. Invisible or not, they hadn't come back. Our little tyke had been left alone, hunting by himself, avoiding creatures bigger than he was. He didn't remember when he'd learned to turn invisible, and who, if any, had taught him. It was just something he knew he could do.
Yeah, we took him in. How couldn't we? Come on, don't look at me like that -- I'm not a monster.
We named him Euclid, and as you've seen he's as weird as he was from the day we first caught him. Like I've said, he can change his colors, perfectly matching the world around him -- yes, even ice and water. We've tried it. It was pretty freaky. It's also why he still doesn't wear clothes -- it's easier for him to vanish. Makes it harder for him to be caught. So anyway, he maintains this bright, dazzling color scheme as a gesture of goodwill. The progenitors made him promise not to turn invisible while he's in the lair. With these bright colors, anyone can spot him from a mile away. "See, I'm here!" -- that's what his colors are saying.
And we named him Euclid because...
Can you keep a secret? --Really? Well...It doesn't matter, I guess.
I don't think he is a dragon.
The word "Euclidean"...It describes something that adheres to certain mathematical laws. Euclid doesn't seem to do that, not always. His colors, his near-perfect invisibility, the way he moves...He doesn't make a sound when he's invisible, you know? It's almost as if, when he turns invisible, he stops...being there.
Maybe he's not all there to begin with. Maybe he never was.
Yes, we did try looking for his family. We found a likely match: Tangled Wood-dwellers with the same dazzling colors. All gone. Records say they went to serve various deities; we tried digging further into the past....Disbanded clans. Unused lairs. Whoever Euclid's family was, they're no longer there. Maybe they were never there....
Or maybe they were, and they went back to where they came from in the first place, but he's stuck here, somehow, with the rest of us. I'm a bit nervous about him....You could tell, right? Maybe he's not a dragon...or even a complete entity at all. He might be...a part...of something else. Something different. Something poking in from another world, looking around, eating what it can here and there...and popping back into that other world, if but for a little while, when it becomes invisible.
He was always hungry when he first came here. Always going after fresh meat. I hardly see him eat these days. Sometimes I hardly see him at all....
Maybe we called him "Euclid" because, subconsciously, we wanted him to conform to the laws of this world. Coming from an engineer whose machines freeze time, I guess that's kind of stupid, right? Haha...yeah. I know. It didn't work very well, did it?
...I wasn't talking about the machine. --Hm? Umm, you know what, it's not important. Please finish your tea. Coffee. Whatever I got for you. Thanks for visiting, friend, and have a nice day!
{ You get up to leave. As you head outside, with Crystaline chattering gaily about the lair all the while, you see a flicker of motion out of the corner out of your eye. Bright, blinding green blotched with vivid purple...And then the air shimmers and it's gone. }
~ The End?
