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Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2009 11:57:35 GMT -5
- Chapter One :: Freedom :: Dragonside - Chapter Two :: Forest - Chapter Three :: Fief - Chapter Four :: FlightMy first foray. My aim's to have one new chapter a week, but we'll see what happens.My revised aim is to write this as often as I can. I've got fifteen intended chapters, so we'll see when I get there. In any case, I want to get there, so that's a start, and knowing people read this gives me more incentive to keep writing, so that's always helpful, too.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2009 12:02:40 GMT -5
Chapter One :: Freedom
If trying to read this story in its intended form is confusing, as sometimes I suppose it could be, I've rearranged the scenes in chronological order in another spoiler box at the bottom of this post. The story remains unchanged no matter which version is read, but to see things as they happen in real time, you could say, (which is perhaps easier to understand) I recommend reading the revised version. The cold wind blew over him and he shivered. The sensation was new to him; he’d never felt cold before. But now, the air’s frigidness stung like needles.
He opened his eyes to see darkness only broken by the stars far above him. Not a single cloud crossed the heavens; only the wind dared to journey through the night. He heard leaves rattling, but from where he lay, the trees that bore them were as distant as the stars.
He rolled onto his stomach, blades of grass tickling him as he turned, and pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. Midnight dew slid down his skin, and when the wind blew, he shivered more deeply than before.
He leaned back and fell onto his legs. He lifted his hands and touched the features of his face, beneath his eyes, the bones as they curved down his face and met at his chin, not caring for the trails of mud that his fingers left behind. He ran his hands through his hair, arching his back until he lost his balance and tumbled backwards, skidding against the grass and the mud.
He whimpered as he writhed to roll himself onto his hands once again. The wind blew between his arms, through his legs. He grew rigid and shook more violently than before.
He had always been unclothed. Why did it matter to him now?
* * * He ran. Four paws struck the ground, shaking the earth and rattling the fallen leaves. He swung his head back and saw nothing; he perked his ears, but only heard his own romping; he took a breath, but the air was far too full of scents for him to follow any one of them.
He reared back as a wolf leapt before him and roared, “Erros!”
He cowered backwards, ears pressed firmly against his fur and his tail tucked between his legs.
“Where are you going?” the other wolf pressed.
He whimpered again and rolled onto his back, offering himself to his master. The other wolf snapped at his neck, but turned away without drawing any blood.
“Get to your feet, Erros. You’re going home.”
Erros rolled back to his feet but kept his tail hidden and his head low as he followed the other wolf through the trees. He’d tried so hard to escape. He’d planned so long to escape. And he was still trapped in the woods.
* * * He lifted his right hand and stared at its back. It stung worse than the wind now and drops of thick, grime-ridden red blood ran down his flesh from five gashes that slowly spread outwards until their ends met and they all intersected, but he still kept bleeding.
It took him a moment to feel the pain and cry out, howling as he threw himself backwards once again. He struck the mud even harder than before but hardly felt it; his hand burned and his arm throbbed with fire. He’d been injured before, bitten and bashed till he was covered with the red stain of war, but never had it hurt like this. Never had he been able to see his wounds as they bled.
* * * “You return?”
Erros wagged his tail and looked up at the woman. She rocked back and forth on her chair as she always had when he’d seen her before.
“Well,” she said, “are you visiting or not?”
Erros wagged his tail faster and stepped from the grass and dirt onto the wooden planks of her porch, from the sun of the clearing into the shade of her home. He padded forwards and then laid himself at her side.
The woman reached out and rubbed her hand down his back before returning it to her lap. “How are you today, wolf?”
He lifted his head and tilted it towards her. Even if he could answer, what would he say? That he’d failed to escape his captivity once again, that his inheritance still held him tethered to the trees?
She nodded, but kept staring into the clearing; the forest crept up to the back of her house, but here in the front, they could easily see the sky.
“I feel your pain,” she said, and again he tilted his head at her. Could she understand his thoughts, or was she merely expressing her own thoughts to the vestige of an unanswering friend?
She nodded and turned to stare into his eyes. “I’m trapped, too.”
* * * The pain had spread through his body before it had finally subsided and the bleeding had stopped. He sat up weakly and rubbed his fingers over the scab; it stung still, but the fresh coating of mud softened the pain.
The wind blew again, though by now he was so full of heat that it barely elicited any notice at all. He stared towards the sky and tried to wipe the sweat from his body, but only succeeded in covering himself with more mud.
He struggled to stand and nearly slipped in the mud before steadying himself. He spun around slowly, studying the tree leaves as they dripped small torrents of rainwater from their still-curled leaves, but stopped when his eyes fell upon an old house. It was weathered and worn, but it offered him shelter nonetheless.
* * * “It’s true,” the woman said. “We share the same bane. You cannot leave the forest, and neither can I.”
Erros perked his ears and sniffed the air. Nothing seemed unordinary or out of place today; everything was as it always was when he came here, his one sanctuary in the woods where others would not follow him.
“My kind were prosecuted,” she said.
Erros steadied his head and watched her with curiosity. She still rocked back and forth in her chair, she still stared out at the sky, and yet, her voice was now ridden with an emotion he’d never heard in her before. What was it, resent? Regret? He couldn’t tell.
“We were slaughtered and our bodies, dragged away as trophies. Our horns were sold as cornucopiae, and our scales, as swords. Our skulls were hung in kings’ halls, and our bones were buried with the ash of our flesh. Few of us survived.
“We hid in the forests, but they came after us with their shields and their swords, their war-steeds and their armies. Those who fought back with fire fueled their own funeral pyres, and those who fled were only tracked down and felled with cruelty unimaginable.
“But I escaped. I found a way to become unseen, to change myself, to flee from their sight. I came here, I built this house, and I have hidden here ever since.”
Erros stirred, swinging his head towards the woman and wondering why she had stopped speaking, but she would say no more.
* * * He lifted his foot and stepped onto the wooden planks leading towards the door. The mud on his feet left footprints behind him, while the glass beads and splinters underneath him brushed his thick soles and were suppressed by the mud still on his feet.
He reached the door and saw an envelope nailed to the thick wood. Upon it was scrawled a familiar word, but as he raised his hand to take it, it instead clasped the tarnished doorknob and, instinctively, he turned it. The hinges creaked as the door swung open, into the room ahead of him, and the thick scent of staleness met his nose.
“Hello?” He blinked and tilted his head sideways, surprised that he had known how to speak at all, let alone what to say, but instinct compelled him to action, and he leaned forwards into the house. “Hello? Is anyone here?”
No answer.
He took a step inside and looked around, but through the darkness he could see nothing. He guided his hand along the door and then swung it shut behind him. He sunk to the floor, his back pressed firmly against the wooden gate; he pulled his legs to his chest, rested his head on his knees, and closed his eyes for sleep to come.
* * * Erros looked up and followed the woman with his eyes as she entered the house and shut the door behind her. He had never seen her do this before, and he sunk his head in shame for having caused her to leave.
But he looked up again when he heard the sound of water splashing to the ground and saw the sky was full of clouds and torrents of rainwater were beginning to fall.
He turned to his right when he heard the door creaking again and saw the woman reemerge. She took her seat in the chair and resumed rocking, eyes now fixed upon the incessant rain.
“I found the Enchantrix, wolf.” She paused for a moment. “When I went into town, I heard the legends, how they tell of a woman born from the breasts of a tree and raised in the bosom of the earth, a woman so akin to nature that she can both create and destroy it. But all of this I heard only years after I had first found her. Or, perhaps, she had found me.
“She welcomed me into her midst, a hollowed tree whose appearance betrayed the space inside it, and led me to a well where wondrous plants grew inside. And inside them, blossoming in the bulbous pods submerged in the black waters, were the very beasts I had sought to escape.
“The Enchantrix pulled a pod up from the well and began peeling back the translucent leaves encasing it. Soon enough, the body tumbled lifeless onto the floor in a flood of thick fluids, and she grabbed it and carried it to an altar table. She emblazoned it with symbols written in nectar and blood and then placed a small metal medallion onto its chest and began chanting. Green light enshrouded her and I was forced to look away.
“When the light subsided, I watched as the Enchantrix engraved the metal with the tip of her fingernail and then handed it to me. She said she’d grown the vessel just for me, that I should say the spell and be free.”
The woman turned to face him, and Erros lifted his head to return her gaze. “I’ve shared my secret, wolf, now share with me yours: why do you wish to escape?”
* * * He stirred to the light of morning falling in through the dust-covered yellowed windows. He lifted his neck and rubbed it till it didn’t feel as stiff as it’d begun. He forced himself to stand again, and this time, the caked mud began breaking and pieces fell from his flesh to the floor, revealing patches of pure white skin underneath.
Everything was covered in dust as far as his eyes could see. Everything except a trail of footprints leading from where he stood into another room and then towards a table to his left. And squarely upon the layers of dust atop the table sat a reddish wooden box with no dust at all upon it. It called to him, as if it had been placed there just for him.
He walked towards the table and slid the box towards him, leaving a trail of disturbed dust in its wake. He lifted its lid and reached inside to withdraw a folded and aged piece of parchment. He unfolded it, but couldn’t make sense of the long words and fancy script written upon it. But as he stared at the writing, the letters began to awaken in his mind and he realized he could, in fact, read all of them. It was a deed, he realized, to a place called Glen Oak.
He reached into the box and withdrew another sheet of parchment; he unfolded it and saw it, too, was a deed, a deed to a town called Forest Dale. He rummaged through the box and found at least a dozen more; between his hands he now held ownership of nearly the entire the forest.
* * * He was the Wolf Lord, the heir to the Forest Throne. Soon as his father died, he would become king and all of the beasts would bow to him.
But he wanted nothing of the kingdom. He desired freedom, from the duties of kingship, from his obligations as heir, from the life he had never chosen. So he ran. He ran as fast and as far as he could, and every time he tried, the king’s advisors would give chase and every time he would be captured and returned to the den.
He wasn’t an heir; he was a prisoner. Denied truth, denied love, denied hope. They’d stolen his life before it had even been his to control. They’d stripped him of his right to decide before he’d even been conceived.
And he wanted no part of it. He loathed the idea of kingship, of any hierarchy at all in which he was a part. The game was skewed and so stretched, and he was unwilling to become another pawn of advocacy for servitude that only served those in control. He wished to break free of the stigma, break free of the stagnancy.
So he ran.
* * * He secured the deeds in the box before he turned to follow the footprints further into the house. As soon as he stepped through the doorway, he stopped and stared in awe. His eyes scanned the room, taking in all there was to see. Swords of a dozen shapes and sizes hung from hooks; pots of gold bullion lined the walls; and a full suit of regalia and shimmering armor lay draped across another table centered in the room. Atop the emerald green garments sat another folded piece of parchment.
He retrieved the note and unfolded it slowly. “‘Take these and use them well,’” he read aloud, followed by a word, a name, one he assumed to be his own. “‘Give them the life they have never had the chance to have.’”
* * * “Fair enough,” the woman said as she continued rocking. “I can understand your silence. My life is near over, but yours is just beginning still. Alas, not all lives are given such a chance to become more than you think you can be.”
Erros lifted his head again and stared crookedly at the woman. He was startled that she felt her life was near over—to whom would he find solace then?—and yet, he also felt intrigued and wished to learn more, to hear more of what she had to say.
“I gave the Enchantrix half my hoard,” she said and rocked with renewed vigor, “in exchange for another body. One for my son, so he, too, could live a new life in freedom. But his pride superseded my worry and he refused to join me among the upright.
“As the years passed, I used my hoard to acquire swords and shields and all manners of armors and armaments for my son, to convince him that he was better off joining me, but still, he resisted. I even crafted the finest of blades from my very greatest scales, and still, he denied changing who he truly was.
“In the following years, I began to buy the land itself and rule it as my own. If I could not convince my son to protect himself from our enemies, I decided, I would simply have to keep our enemies from ever finding him. But his arrogance superseded my precaution and he fled our territory. He was killed, slaughtered like the rest of us, left to die, left to rot, leaving to me as the last surviving member of our clan. And I am too old to bear again: our fate has been sealed.”
She turned to face Erros and smiled as the tears ran down her face. “But your fate, young wolf, is not sealed. You can still save yourself, and perhaps you can save the world where I have failed to act.”
She turned away, once again entranced by the rain, and grasped something around her neck as more tears poured down her face. “The Enchantrix gave me a second body to save a single man from prosecution, but I was mistaken in whom the vessel was meant for. I had prayed that it was meant for my son” —she pulled her hand forwards and a cascade of glass beads scattered about the wooden porch— “but instead it was meant for you.”
The woman slid from her chair until she was eye-level with Erros, and he merely remained unmoving, uncertain what she was doing. And when she lifted his right paw, he let her, and when she tied to his forepad, with the broken length of string, a small metal medallion emblazoned with winding words—an enchantment—and a five-pointed star, he neither objected nor turned away.
“Say the words, wolf, say them” —she sang to him, music, and he remembered— “and you shall be free.” The woman rose and stepped out from underneath her porch as the rain began to end. She clasped another medallion hanging from her neck and spread her arms wide to another cascade of glass beads. She sang, music, and he listened.
A cloud of searing light enveloped the woman, and Erros leapt up to watch. When the light faded, the woman was gone and in her place stood a regal dragon as green as the leaves around them. She looked back at Erros a final time, and then she spread her wings and kicked off from the ground. Her wings commanded the wind then, and she rose toward the heavens.
Erros ran after her, but it was too late. By the time he set foot where she had taken flight, the dragon had flown beyond the clouds and was gone forever.
He looked to the trees and then back at the sky. He knew the words he had to speak, and he knew the cost of speaking them, and so, he spoke them.
Searing pain erupted in his paw where the medallion hit his flesh and he reared back in pain, howling as his body shone in green light and he was transformed from beast to man. The light faded, he opened his eyes, swayed and then fell. He struck the earth as the last raindrop struck him, and before he slipped from consciousness, he decided that, just as she had, he would call himself Wolf.
He ran. Four paws struck the ground, shaking the earth and rattling the fallen leaves. He swung his head back and saw nothing; he perked his ears, but only heard his own romping; he took a breath, but the air was far too full of scents for him to follow any one of them. He reared back as a wolf leapt before him and roared, “Erros!” He cowered backwards, ears pressed firmly against his fur and his tail tucked between his legs. “Where are you going?” the other wolf pressed. He whimpered again and rolled onto his back, offering himself to his master. The other wolf snapped at his neck, but turned away without drawing any blood. “Get to your feet, Erros. You’re going home.” Erros rolled back to his feet but kept his tail hidden and his head low as he followed the other wolf through the trees. He’d tried so hard to escape. He’d planned so long to escape. And he was still trapped in the woods. * * * “You return?” Erros wagged his tail and looked up at the woman. She rocked back and forth on her chair as she always had when he’d seen her before. “Well,” she said, “are you visiting or not?” Erros wagged his tail faster and stepped from the grass and dirt onto the wooden planks of her porch, from the sun of the clearing into the shade of her home. He padded forwards and then laid himself at her side. The woman reached out and rubbed her hand down his back before returning it to her lap. “How are you today, wolf?” He lifted his head and tilted it towards her. Even if he could answer, what would he say? That he’d failed to escape his captivity once again, that his inheritance still held him tethered to the trees? She nodded, but kept staring into the clearing; the forest crept up to the back of her house, but here in the front, they could easily see the sky. “I feel your pain,” she said, and again he tilted his head at her. Could she understand his thoughts, or was she merely expressing her own thoughts to the vestige of an unanswering friend? She nodded and turned to stare into his eyes. “I’m trapped, too.” * * * “It’s true,” the woman said. “We share the same bane. You cannot leave the forest, and neither can I.” Erros perked his ears and sniffed the air. Nothing seemed unordinary or out of place today; everything was as it always was when he came here, his one sanctuary in the woods where others would not follow him. “My kind were prosecuted,” she said. Erros steadied his head and watched her with curiosity. She still rocked back and forth in her chair, she still stared out at the sky, and yet, her voice was now ridden with an emotion he’d never heard in her before. What was it, resent? Regret? He couldn’t tell. “We were slaughtered and our bodies, dragged away as trophies. Our horns were sold as cornucopiae, and our scales, as swords. Our skulls were hung in kings’ halls, and our bones were buried with the ash of our flesh. Few of us survived. “We hid in the forests, but they came after us with their shields and their swords, their war-steeds and their armies. Those who fought back with fire fueled their own funeral pyres, and those who fled were only tracked down and felled with cruelty unimaginable. “But I escaped. I found a way to become unseen, to change myself, to flee from their sight. I came here, I built this house, and I have hidden here ever since.” Erros stirred, swinging his head towards the woman and wondering why she had stopped speaking, but she would say no more. * * * Erros looked up and followed the woman with his eyes as she entered the house and shut the door behind her. He had never seen her do this before, and he sunk his head in shame for having caused her to leave. But he looked up again when he heard the sound of water splashing to the ground and saw the sky was full of clouds and torrents of rainwater were beginning to fall. He turned to his right when he heard the door creaking again and saw the woman reemerge. She took her seat in the chair and resumed rocking, eyes now fixed upon the incessant rain. “I found the Enchantrix, wolf.” She paused for a moment. “When I went into town, I heard the legends, how they tell of a woman born from the breasts of a tree and raised in the bosom of the earth, a woman so akin to nature that she can both create and destroy it. But all of this I heard only years after I had first found her. Or, perhaps, she had found me. “She welcomed me into her midst, a hollowed tree whose appearance betrayed the space inside it, and led me to a well where wondrous plants grew inside. And inside them, blossoming in the bulbous pods submerged in the black waters, were the very beasts I had sought to escape. “The Enchantrix pulled a pod up from the well and began peeling back the translucent leaves encasing it. Soon enough, the body tumbled lifeless onto the floor in a flood of thick fluids, and she grabbed it and carried it to an altar table. She emblazoned it with symbols written in nectar and blood and then placed a small metal medallion onto its chest and began chanting. Green light enshrouded her and I was forced to look away. “When the light subsided, I watched as the Enchantrix engraved the metal with the tip of her fingernail and then handed it to me. She said she’d grown the vessel just for me, that I should say the spell and be free.” The woman turned to face him, and Erros lifted his head to return her gaze. “I’ve shared my secret, wolf, now share with me yours: why do you wish to escape?” * * * He was the Wolf Lord, the heir to the Forest Throne. Soon as his father died, he would become king and all of the beasts would bow to him. But he wanted nothing of the kingdom. He desired freedom, from the duties of kingship, from his obligations as heir, from the life he had never chosen. So he ran. He ran as fast and as far as he could, and every time he tried, the king’s advisors would give chase and every time he would be captured and returned to the den. He wasn’t an heir; he was a prisoner. Denied truth, denied love, denied hope. They’d stolen his life before it had even been his to control. They’d stripped him of his right to decide before he’d even been conceived. And he wanted no part of it. He loathed the idea of kingship, of any hierarchy at all in which he was a part. The game was skewed and so stretched, and he was unwilling to become another pawn of advocacy for servitude that only served those in control. He wished to break free of the stigma, break free of the stagnancy. So he ran. * * * “Fair enough,” the woman said as she continued rocking. “I can understand your silence. My life is near over, but yours is just beginning still. Alas, not all lives are given such a chance to become more than you think you can be.” Erros lifted his head again and stared crookedly at the woman. He was startled that she felt her life was near over—to whom would he find solace then?—and yet, he also felt intrigued and wished to learn more, to hear more of what she had to say. “I gave the Enchantrix half my hoard,” she said and rocked with renewed vigor, “in exchange for another body. One for my son, so he, too, could live a new life in freedom. But his pride superseded my worry and he refused to join me among the upright. “As the years passed, I used my hoard to acquire swords and shields and all manners of armors and armaments for my son, to convince him that he was better off joining me, but still, he resisted. I even crafted the finest of blades from my very greatest scales, and still, he denied changing who he truly was. “In the following years, I began to buy the land itself and rule it as my own. If I could not convince my son to protect himself from our enemies, I decided, I would simply have to keep our enemies from ever finding him. But his arrogance superseded my precaution and he fled our territory. He was killed, slaughtered like the rest of us, left to die, left to rot, leaving to me as the last surviving member of our clan. And I am too old to bear again: our fate has been sealed.” She turned to face Erros and smiled as the tears ran down her face. “But your fate, young wolf, is not sealed. You can still save yourself, and perhaps you can save the world where I have failed to act.” She turned away, once again entranced by the rain, and grasped something around her neck as more tears poured down her face. “The Enchantrix gave me a second body to save a single man from prosecution, but I was mistaken in whom the vessel was meant for. I had prayed that it was meant for my son” —she pulled her hand forwards and a cascade of glass beads scattered about the wooden porch— “but instead it was meant for you.” The woman slid from her chair until she was eye-level with Erros, and he merely remained unmoving, uncertain what she was doing. And when she lifted his right paw, he let her, and when she tied to his forepad, with the broken length of string, a small metal medallion emblazoned with winding words—an enchantment—and a five-pointed star, he neither objected nor turned away. “Say the words, wolf, say them” —she sang to him, music, and he remembered— “and you shall be free.” The woman rose and stepped out from underneath her porch as the rain began to end. She clasped another medallion hanging from her neck and spread her arms wide to another cascade of glass beads. She sang, music, and he listened. A cloud of searing light enveloped the woman, and Erros leapt up to watch. When the light faded, the woman was gone and in her place stood a regal dragon as green as the leaves around them. She looked back at Erros a final time, and then she spread her wings and kicked off from the ground. Her wings commanded the wind then, and she rose toward the heavens. Erros ran after her, but it was too late. By the time he set foot where she had taken flight, the dragon had flown beyond the clouds and was gone forever. He looked to the trees and then back at the sky. He knew the words he had to speak, and he knew the cost of speaking them, and so, he spoke them. Searing pain erupted in his paw where the medallion hit his flesh and he reared back in pain, howling as his body shone in green light and he was transformed from beast to man. The light faded, he opened his eyes, swayed and then fell. He struck the earth as the last raindrop struck him, and before he slipped from consciousness, he decided that, just as she had, he would call himself Wolf. * * * The cold wind blew over him and he shivered. The sensation was new to him; he’d never felt cold before. But now, the air’s frigidness stung like needles. He opened his eyes to see darkness only broken by the stars far above him. Not a single cloud crossed the heavens; only the wind dared to journey through the night. He heard leaves rattling, but from where he lay, the trees that bore them were as distant as the stars. He rolled onto his stomach, blades of grass tickling him as he turned, and pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. Midnight dew slid down his skin, and when the wind blew, he shivered more deeply than before. He leaned back and fell onto his legs. He lifted his hands and touched the features of his face, beneath his eyes, the bones as they curved down his face and met at his chin, not caring for the trails of mud that his fingers left behind. He ran his hands through his hair, arching his back until he lost his balance and tumbled backwards, skidding against the grass and the mud. He whimpered as he writhed to roll himself onto his hands once again. The wind blew between his arms, through his legs. He grew rigid and shook more violently than before. He had always been unclothed. Why did it matter to him now? * * * He lifted his right hand and stared at its back. It stung worse than the wind now and drops of thick, grime-ridden red blood ran down his flesh from five gashes that slowly spread outwards until their ends met and they all intersected, but he still kept bleeding. It took him a moment to feel the pain and cry out, howling as he threw himself backwards once again. He struck the mud even harder than before but hardly felt it; his hand burned and his arm throbbed with fire. He’d been injured before, bitten and bashed till he was covered with the red stain of war, but never had it hurt like this. Never had he been able to see his wounds as they bled. * * * The pain had spread through his body before it had finally subsided and the bleeding had stopped. He sat up weakly and rubbed his fingers over the scab; it stung still, but the fresh coating of mud softened the pain. The wind blew again, though by now he was so full of heat that it barely elicited any notice at all. He stared towards the sky and tried to wipe the sweat from his body, but only succeeded in covering himself with more mud. He struggled to stand and nearly slipped in the mud before steadying himself. He spun around slowly, studying the tree leaves as they dripped small torrents of rainwater from their still-curled leaves, but stopped when his eyes fell upon an old house. It was weathered and worn, but it offered him shelter nonetheless. * * * He lifted his foot and stepped onto the wooden planks leading towards the door. The mud on his feet left footprints behind him, while the glass beads and splinters underneath him brushed his thick soles and were suppressed by the mud still on his feet. He reached the door and saw an envelope nailed to the thick wood. Upon it was scrawled a familiar word, but as he raised his hand to take it, it instead clasped the tarnished doorknob and, instinctively, he turned it. The hinges creaked as the door swung open, into the room ahead of him, and the thick scent of staleness met his nose. “Hello?” He blinked and tilted his head sideways, surprised that he had known how to speak at all, let alone what to say, but instinct compelled him to action, and he leaned forwards into the house. “Hello? Is anyone here?” No answer. He took a step inside and looked around, but through the darkness he could see nothing. He guided his hand along the door and then swung it shut behind him. He sunk to the floor, his back pressed firmly against the wooden gate; he pulled his legs to his chest, rested his head on his knees, and closed his eyes for sleep to come. * * * He stirred to the light of morning falling in through the dust-covered yellowed windows. He lifted his neck and rubbed it till it didn’t feel as stiff as it’d begun. He forced himself to stand again, and this time, the caked mud began breaking and pieces fell from his flesh to the floor, revealing patches of pure white skin underneath. Everything was covered in dust as far as his eyes could see. Everything except a trail of footprints leading from where he stood into another room and then towards a table to his left. And squarely upon the layers of dust atop the table sat a reddish wooden box with no dust at all upon it. It called to him, as if it had been placed there just for him. He walked towards the table and slid the box towards him, leaving a trail of disturbed dust in its wake. He lifted its lid and reached inside to withdraw a folded and aged piece of parchment. He unfolded it, but couldn’t make sense of the long words and fancy script written upon it. But as he stared at the writing, the letters began to awaken in his mind and he realized he could, in fact, read all of them. It was a deed, he realized, to a place called Glen Oak. He reached into the box and withdrew another sheet of parchment; he unfolded it and saw it, too, was a deed, a deed to a town called Forest Dale. He rummaged through the box and found at least a dozen more; between his hands he now held ownership of nearly the entire the forest. * * * He secured the deeds in the box before he turned to follow the footprints further into the house. As soon as he stepped through the doorway, he stopped and stared in awe. His eyes scanned the room, taking in all there was to see. Swords of a dozen shapes and sizes hung from hooks; pots of gold bullion lined the walls; and a full suit of regalia and shimmering armor lay draped across another table centered in the room. Atop the emerald green garments sat another folded piece of parchment. He retrieved the note and unfolded it slowly. “‘Take these and use them well,’” he read aloud, followed by a word, a name, one he assumed to be his own. “‘Give them the life they have never had the chance to have.’”
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Post by Deleted on Jan 3, 2010 16:36:03 GMT -5
Midchapter :: Dragonside I was in my fortieth year when I first saw it happen. I had heard the rumors, had seen the aftermaths, but I had ignored what they all meant. Those who were taken were weak, I proclaimed when only I could hear; those who were taken deserved to be slain. They had no pride, no power. They did not deserve to be called true dragons.
We were hunting. Plains creatures originally, we hunted the large grazing mammals that go in herds, decimating the fields and fleeing until they regrew. The pattern was cyclic through the years, and like any master of the land, we ate only what we needed and left the rest to rear our food for the following year. We were not hunters. We were not hunted. We were predators, never prey.
That day changed everything. My father, greater than I, a regal being twice my size and four times my senior, made the first kill, and I followed. We moved so swiftly, striking only at the edges of the herd, that by the time we left the fields into the greater wilderness, our prey still had not taken notice of us and grazed unaware.
We came upon a strange structure some way into the wilderness. We did not recognize it by sight, but by rumors alone: a village. Since our hunting the year before, it had sprung up and grown to its full size. We sniffed at its perimeter, curious, but also cautious. We saw no movement, thought the fortifications abandoned, but we had been mistaken. Deathly mistaken.
The death machines inside the structures had been watching us through the pores of their refugees, and the four-limbed creatures came at once when we least expected their arrival. Long talons, singular and strong, whipped through the air as loud bellows echoed from their tapered, shining heads. In their silvery flesh I could see our own reflections, recognise the fear in our eyes. Why could they not see we meant only to flee come then?
My father batted a dozen off with a swipe of his wing, and I took down two more with the force of my tail and talons. He easily put himself between the machines and me, and when the bright red flames erupted from his roars, I knew he had done so to allow me time to escape. I leapt from the ground, beating my wings with fury, and rose into the air with relative ease as my father continued to struggle below. As I tore into the sky, I glanced back long enough to see the death machines shove their claws into my fathers hide and hear his roar as I watched him fall to their unprecedented prowess.
They were monsters, those death machines, killers less than predators, killers comprising pure evil and little more.
I returned to the mountains, where my people had relocated when the earliest rumors of the death machines began to spread. I fell into the breadth of my mate, weeping for my loss, weeping for the loss that even then I could foresee. I peered down at my son, but a pup at the time, hardly weeks from within the egg. I peered into the eyes of my mate, and even then I knew the rage of a dragon would leave me even lonelier before nightfall.
I begged him to let go of his vengeance. Instead, he let go of his life.
* * * Too soon our numbers dwindled and so sparse we became, not even a tracker of our kind, should one have remained among our ranks, would have been able to find another there was so much distance between each of us in our high mountain homes.
I forbade my son to leave the hoard and stole into the night air. A dragon's duty is to protect the keep, I told him, but I knew it was not the nature of a dragon to remain in chains. Now in his thirtieth year, now in my seventieth, I knew that the world had forgotten us, that the heavens and the earth had both forsaken us.
I landed amid the forest. The game here was much smaller than what we had once hunted, but no longer could we show ourselves outside the cover of trees, even come nightfall.
The scent of the death machines soon pierced my nostrils, but I knew for survival I had to ignore them and keep going. Winter was approaching, and should we not fill our stomachs soon, we would perish before the spring. The threat of a small band of death machines in the forest I did not fear. I could smell they were close, and I was convinced it was all they were, one or two, very nearby.
I, too, was deathly mistaken. In only the few months since I had traversed this part of the forest, a new village had cropped up in one of the larger clearings by a brook that ran down from the mountains. I cursed myself for my oblivion, prayed that I could flee the scene soon enough, but I had ignored the possibilities of watch towers, and watched they had, and seen I had been.
The death machines chased me through the forest, twisting and turning through the darkness, crashing through trees when I was unable to fly or run around them. I knew to fly homeward would be suicide for both myself and my son, for without a distraction, they would be able to follow me straight to my hoard and find us both, and to fly any other way while still in pursuit would only lead them closer in the end.
The chase went on for hours, well into the misty morning hours, and it seemed as my strength waned, theirs only grew stronger. I stumbled through the marshiness, through the undergrowth, knowing my end had come at last. I had failed myself. I had failed my son.
I stopped running. I felt my strength collapse under me and knew I would be upon the ground in moments. Before such could occur, a new sound, an unforeseen presence, brought me back to full alert.
"Mistress, so kind of you to come."
I bared my teeth and swung my heard toward the sound--the shape I saw was very near to those of the death machines', but taller, more regal, more natural. Like a clump of moss and ivy fallen from a tree, like a beam of moonlight descending through the branches, misty and aglow.... Her hair, jet black and strewn with fronds of verdant light, sat in two cones atop her head, like the crown of a gnarled tree. I knew she was not a death machine; I knew that she was as far from one of the metal men as I was.
She beckoned me to follow her, and I knew it was necessary to do so to escape, so I did. She brought me to a tree, an inconspicuous tree all things considered, but into its wide trunk an archway had been carved, tall enough, it seemed, for the woman to enter without kneeling. I followed her upon her call, and was awed when, once inside, the tree stretched onward far more than I had thought possible.
I was led to the far end of the corridor, passing many branching routes, and at last we came upon a massive well in the center of a tall column, as if the interior of another tree itself. Vines and knotted outgrowths from the walls formed pulleys that reached into the abyssal depths of the well, its only announcement of its presence the steady lapping of water at its wooden sides. I peered in deeper, saw glowing growths further into the water than I had believed wells could go.
The woman began untying one of the vines and then pulling at it. The sound of lapping intensified as the waters were roughened, but even so, its pristine and perfectly clear surface were wholly unobstructed. I soon noticed that the vine being drawn up was attached to one of the glowing growths I had observed, and that this itself was a spherical bulb like a dew-covered flower blossom.
At last, the growth came out of the water, dripping and menacing, and rolled onto the wooden ground. The woman knelt with perfect elegance and slowly began pulling back its translucent leaves until the body of a young woman rested, slime covered, upon the floor. She lifted it with ease and beckoned me after her.
"I grew this one just for you," she said to me, her voice high and enchanting. "It would not be the first time I've grown for your kind, and certainly not the last, but I do suppose it's been the first I've done without a price attached to it." She stopped and glanced back at me, holding my eyes with hers for a moment, her lips curled in a malevolent smile. "Fortunately I've seen the path all things follow, and this is a gift I wish to give myself." She hummed something sinister, like a demented laugh, then turned back and kept walking.
We turned off into another corridor and ended in a bare room furnished with little more than a stone altar she laid the body upon before getting to work. It seems as if days had passed while I watched her tirelessly bending the world around this one body, tirelessly enchanting all manners of things before green lights filled my vision, blinding me, and then the body was gone.
She gave me the terms, then gave me the spell, and right there I shed my skin and became the woman she had grown for me. A new body, a certain escape, but not the end I had foreseen.
When I left the tree, naked and dirty, the death machines were there to greet me, following the tracks of the dragon that had wandered to the tree and never gone past it. The first to notice me stood shocked for a moment, and I foresaw certain death, and then he tore off his metal head and revealed one much more similar to the one I now possessed, one in which I could see surprise and concern, chivalry, another face of death more akin to life than lifelessness. He came to me and he rescued me. My heart was hard, however, and I could not return the love he offered me, even after we returned to the village and I was made a woman of beauty around them.
I left into the trees when I was given the chance, and I found my son. By then I had repeated the woman's words and become my true form, and I begged my son to join me in this new world I had discovered, a place where we could hold onto our pride and not fear risking our hides to feel the nobility we had always felt. No more would we be prisoners, I told him, no more would we be refugees in our own world.
He refused.
* * * Over the coming years, I lived a double life. I would live among the upright and build a life of power and prestige, then steal away for a few days to look in upon my son, tell him of all the glory of a dragon I now possessed in the body of a woman. I begged him each time to consider joining me, and each time when he refused, I stole a diamond, or a goblet, or some other such shiny thing our hoard kept hidden, and ventured once more into the forest.
I never had to look more than a few minutes to find the woman. The Enchantrix, as I now came to know her. It was always as if she, too, had been looking for me, as if she knew I would come, as if she were waiting for it. I paid her in a few year's time, and the body was done. Handsome, built exclusively for my son, but once more, he refused.
I watched the might of the humans and their death machine skeletons growing faster and stronger, and faster still, and knew the time for the dragons had ended long ago. A new master of the land had arisen, one much different than we, one as vicious, without the tempering of justice and order; one as prideful, without the temperance of respect. I saw the end, and I knew it had come.
I kept withdrawing form the hoard to amass weapons and armor of legendary status, all of which I used to coerce my son to join me, but all of which he denied. I gathered all the greatest arms in the land, and then greater ones were born still, and none could capture his interest or break his dragon's pride or his father's vengeance. I even stripped the strongest scales from my spine and gave them to the most renown weaponsmith known to mankind to have him craft a blade the likes of which had never been seen before--a dragon's claw--but even that could not sway my son to my side.
I began purchasing the land, began buying off nobles until I owned the entire country, my own kingdom in the hills, covering the mountains and far beyond, but when my son made sense of what I was doing, he fled our hoard forever.
The news of his slaying reached me within weeks. The first dragon killed in decades. The last dragon of our clan, save for myself.
* * * Now I sit here rocking, the world conquered, but still my murderer, and I, its victim. The glory of my once-regal home has faded to dust. I still wear my son's unclaimed body around my neck, the empty corpse no more than a meaningless medallion now. I rock here waiting for my end to come, when I may rise upon my wings once more and fly into the west, home, into the setting sun, where all dragons depart.
My world was lonely, till the wolf came.
I see in him myself, and I wonder if in me he sees the same, or if only his eyes are reflected in mine. He comes to me, and I speak to him. He knows my whole story by now, every last second of it, yet I barely know his. But I do know one thing: He is like me. He is like my son, if my son had come to us, joined the world of the living instead of remaining in a world that had secretly died around us.
I get out of my rocker and walk inside. I grab paper, ignoring the dust that surrounds me as a I do so, and a quill. I scrawl a note for the wolf and fold it, then tack it upon the door. My fate is sealed. Perhaps, then, I may unseal his.
I rock for a while longer, then I divulge to him the answer to his prayers and the end to mine. I fly away, and prey he does the same.
Fin
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Post by Shadaras on Jan 3, 2010 22:41:12 GMT -5
It makes me happy to see you update this. ^_^
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Post by Deleted on Jan 4, 2010 22:00:15 GMT -5
It makes me happy to see you read this. ^^ For a while, I thought nobody did.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2010 11:11:45 GMT -5
Chapter Two :: Forest The forest floor was cold. Though winter had just begun, its snowfall came like the solstice, short but significant, and all the greens and browns of the world had been submerged under a thick layer of white.
Erros lay with his head down in the den. The ancients had dug the cave under a large copse atop a small knoll in the mountainous forests and here near its mouth, he could see the gnarled roots of trees older than the ancients sticking through, their thin and twisting hair as intricate as his silence.
He could count the seconds before the large wolf walked up behind him, sending small tremors through the ground. "Prince," said Taa'kan, "it is time to go."
Erros agreed as he slowly rose to all four. He disagreed, however, about just what time it was. He wanted to play in the snow, run in the cold, feel the crystalline winter in his fur. But his father wouldn't have it. King Ein needed an heir, and he was his only son. If not him, who then? If not then, when?
So he turned from his glorious white vantage and followed after the larger wolf. By any standard means, their breed, though similar in appearance to other wolves, were far larger. Like the kings of the wild plains, they were like lions in stature, but royalty of the forest lands, they were thicker in fur with a more powerful bark.
Other wolves carried about their duties around them. In this smaller city, everyone had their duties and no one any less: This was merely the imperial den, Erros reminded himself, merely a machine for making the forest run.
He wanted to run.
"Erros," Taa'kan said harshly and drew the wolf's gaze back into the present. They had arrived at the classroom where a small number of other young wolves like himself were gathered for their history lessons. Erros scanned them quickly, looking for a downy white wolf whose fur was as white as if she'd been playing in the snow. She smiled when Erros took his place beside her, and he smiled knowing at least one thing kept him tethered to the trees.
* * * "Have you ever wondered what might happen if, tomorrow, or maybe the next day, we weren't here?"
Makeo snickered at Erros's question and smiled at him. "I think there'd be some fright, my friend. The kingdom's heir and his future adviser vanishing in one day? The news would be scandalous."
Erros smiled, knowing her play at love was as passionate as his, each in their own way.
"You think so?" he asked. He wanted to tell her what he was planning, wanted to invite her along to leave the rigid trees for the open air beyond, but even now, after all these years, he did not know if her trust was genuine or simply expected of her.
"Probably yes." Makeo locked eyes with him and lowered her head till their gazes were like one. "Erros, why are you not happy?"
Her affront took him aback and he was sitting up and turned away before he realised he was moving and forced himself to stop. He thought a long time before he spoke. "Do I look unhappy?"
"Very, my dear. You always have."
Erros looked down at the ground, at the patches of dirt that no longer held life after being trampled by so many paws for so many years.
"What's wrong, Erros?" Makeo padded up beside him, rested her snow-colored neck across his.
Erros closed his mouth and steeled his heart. He slipped away into the trees.
* * * "Erros?" The king's eyesight had faded long ago, but his voice, his stature, had not diminished at all.
"Yes, Father?" Erros sat before his throne keeping all the rules of etiquette, if only for the eyes upon him from the three advisers, Taa'kan, and the legion of guards surrounding the king, as if he needed protectoin him from his own son.
"I've been told you've stopped studying." What should have been a fatherly question was a kingly inquisition.
"Only temporarily," Erros told him. It was only part partly true, but truth in part is more honorable than lies entirely. In just a few days, he would be gone, and then, the temporary distraction would be removed and his half-lie would be wholly true.
"What for?" his father asked. His tone was singular, no more and no less than what he might use to address a pair of quarreling squirrels.
Erros felt his snout twitch. To lie here would be futile, but to do anything but tread lightly would be deadly. If he lost his temper now, if the truth spilled from his muzzle like rain from the sky, then his end would be set in stone and he would have no life to return to, for only the power of hope can keep a dead man alive.
"I've grown tired, Father," he said with meticulous precision, careful to intone every word with as much pride and conviction as he could muster, which although admirable, was proving nearly insufficient. "The histories I study bore me to no end. What need have I to know the of the prides in Africa or the invasions of Neopia? What bearing have they upon the forest? None. And what of the Laws of Then, so old they're disregarded now? What need have I of any of it?"
He had planned to say more, but stopped here. His temper was getting the better of him.
His father, however, said nothing, and Erros left.
* * * He went on with his plan. He ran. He was found.
* * * Brooding overcame him. The heavy eyes of his tutors bore through him like ice through cracks in the ground.
* * * Life was no longer worth living. He went for a walk.
* * * The trees ended. He stopped walking and looked around, confused. Had he reached the end of the forest? No, he certainly could not have. Since his second failed attempt at escape, the imperial guard had been placed around the border, simply to keep him inside it. Wherever he was now, it was wholly in the land of the wolves.
He padded lightly into the light, realised it was little more than a slightly larger than average clearing. Grasses and half-wilted flowers poked up from the ground. Small puddles remained from the last rainfall.
He looks up and tilts his head sideways at the strange structure. He's never seen anything like it before, but recognises it immediately as some sort of dwelling of a creature still unknown to him. Its faded weathered grey look reminds him of the broken logs he's seen in the forest, and as he walks closer, he realises this is so: Whatever it is, it's been built of the trees. But instead of being ruled by them, it has made its presence known and ruled them instead.
There's an overhanging of the top of the structure, like a large mouth, something of a porch if he had known the word, and from its shadows emanate a creaking sound, periodic and soft. Its sadness reminds him of his own. Its lifeless repetition makes him think of himself.
When he steps into the maw of the wooden creature, the source of the sound suddenly stops, its round eyes staring at him. He's never seen a creature as unusual as this one: Upright, it seems from where it's sitting, with two legs and two arms, and hands like none he's seen before. It's face is soft but withered from time and a cloud of greying hair enshrouds the surprise in her expression.
Then she nods to the wolf, looks ahead, and keeps rocking.
Erros walks closer, his interest piqued, and hope's he's found a friend.
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Post by Shadaras on Jan 30, 2010 17:46:50 GMT -5
I love the way you interweave time throughout all these parts. It also makes me happy to see your characters (Taa'kan, Makeo) and how they fit into Erros's history. ((random spelling/grammar errors, however, bug me. xD ...so does your slip into present tense at the end, kinda, but it works. I think it'd work better if that entire last section were present tense instead of just when he reaches the castle, though.))
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2010 18:17:04 GMT -5
You're right, it is Makeo. I can't believe I made such a stupid mistake as that. Well, that's what I get for not checking all my fact sheets. >.< I'll fix it, now that you mention it.
And it's not a castle. It's the shack from the first chapter and a half. (:
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Post by Shadaras on Jan 30, 2010 18:47:16 GMT -5
I didn't even notice you'd misspelled it until I went back and looked to make sure I'd spelled it right. Then I saw that you'd used both and just went with what I remembered from the roleplay however long ago, because that felt more right to me.
Alright, not a castle. I see that, reading through at a slower pace than I was.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2010 1:38:35 GMT -5
Thankfully, I don't think the rest of this story will be so horribly temporally disjointed. xD
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Post by Deleted on Jun 5, 2010 1:33:41 GMT -5
Chapter Three :: Fief Erros sat huddled next to the door as he had the first night he'd spent in this lonely house. He'd watched the light come and go twice since then, and halfway through that time a sudden pain began to gnaw at his stomach. Tears now ran down his face and lay splattered against his body. Most of the mud had chipped away, leaving such paleness underneath, but as the mud vanished, the cold air crept upon him.
He had thought the fate of the forest heir was the worst he could ever endure. These three days made him think otherwise.
He replayed the moment when the dragon had left in his mind again and again, trying desperately to recall what she had done to return. She had given him the medallion that had made him change, taught him the song that called forth the Enchantrix's powers, and then she had gone into the fields…. Her hand had grabbed something from around her neck, another medallion perhaps…? And then she had sung again.
The medallion! The realisation stopped his pain for a moment and he smiled, almost jumping up before the pain grabbed him again and he came crumbling back to the wooden floor. He needed his medallion to become a wolf again, to succumb to the fate destiny had planned for him. If he could return now, he imagined, he could be healed and live life like he was meant to. Perhaps it was not the life he had hoped for, but perhaps it was all the life that could be offered him.
He struggled to pull himself to his feet again and to pull open the door. He swung on it as it swung inwards and almost fell again with the movement. The thought of being freed of this gnawing pain gave him power and he took a few steps outside. His hands gripped the wooden rail on the other side of the porch and he used the posts to pull himself onto the grass and soft earth. Thankfully, the mud had vanished with the dry days he had passed inside.
He tried to recall where he had awoken, but needed nothing but to find the wrecked earth where his writhing had left him. If the medallion was to be uncovered, it would be here that he would find it.
He collapsed to his knees and began digging in the dirt. He pushed aside clumps of hardened earth, hoping that the medallion remained in the wet trails still there, and kept looking. He seemed to look for hours--certainly, the sun was already setting overhead when he cried out--but at last his fingers wrapped around a small metal medallion and he gave a shout of desperate joy. He forced himself to stand, for that is how she had done it, standing, and just as he went to speak those sacred words, he stopped.
Across the field, just beneath the overhang of the porch, right upon the door, a ray of sunlight caught something shiny and reflected it back to him. His mind whirled around the recollection of the envelope nailed to the door, of his name written upon it.
He staggered back toward the light, longing, lingering, not ready to return to the wolves. He reached the porch and dragged his feet back to the door. He pulled the envelope marked “Wolf” from the nail, only a small tear of paper remaining on the door, and then fell back into the rocker he’d watched the woman in for so long, only a short few days before.
The medallion dropped from his hand and clattered on the wood as he opened the envelope and withdrew a long fold of parchment. It took him some time to recognise the words, but at last his mind made sense of them and he could understand the woman's rich and flowing writing:
"Dearest Wolf," she had written. "Forgive me if I do not know your true name. Talented as I may be to see into the hearts of all, the mind had always remained veiled to me.
"If you are reading this, I should wonder only if you are missing my presence. I know, dear Wolf, that I shall be missing yours. For nearly a year now, you have kept a dying woman the dire company she needed. I thank you for this, and I hope my horde will aid you in whatever ventures you choose to pursue.
"To pursue anything, however, you must first learn to live as a man. It took me many long years to learn all there is to live with the humans and I wish to spare you this time. The Enchantrix was a master in her magic, and she instilled in your vessel, as she did in mine, the instincts of humans and other helpful skills, such as reading and writing and arithmetic. You must hone these skills to truly make them your own, but they are there for your taking, should you choose to use them. I urge that you do so; they will aid you well.
"I have included in my home instructions for living. I should gander you'll soon be hungry and need to eat, but be wary as the food of wolves will not sustain a man's stomach. In the kitchen there's a recipe book on the counter that will aid you in cooking. And elsewhere, I've left various notes to aid you in household chores and daily necessities. Bare in mind, my only aim is your welfare. It is the least I can do in thanks of all the happiness you have given me.
"And clothes. You mustn't forget clothes. It must be a foreign concept to wolves, I'm certain, but as a man you'll need to dress. Thankfully I have amassed a large collection a menswear for my son, and I should imagine he'd be gladder for you to use it than if he'd ever been forced to do so himself. Humans don't have fur, or scales, I learned, and therefore must improvise. Again, I've left notes to assist inside."
The letter went on a few paragraphs more, adding a few more details of the life he must now live as a man, and some details that made no sense to him yet, and then she wished him the best and signed the letter.
Wolf now folded it and held it close to his chest. Hunger. That is what he might call this feeling if he were still a wolf, and the mere mention of eating in her letter had caused his mind to start. He grabbed the medallion from the wooden floor and brought it inside with him, but he set it aside with the letter on his way to the kitchen. He would reconsider his decision to return to the forest after he had eaten, and only after his stomach felt twice full then.
* * * The coming months bid Wolf well. He learned by heart almost all of the recipes the woman had left for him, and he'd learned to tend to her garden as if he'd been doing so his entire life. Yet winter was drawing near, and her supplies were growing thin, and he knew he would have to leave for town sometime soon.
In his time not cooking, he had spent much time teaching himself how to use the shields and swords she had forged for her son. Thankfully, she had left manuals for this, too, and something like instinct grew inside him with the mere touch of these instruments. He was most comfortable with the dragon's blade, an emerald sword encased in a shell that fastened with a few belts to his forearm, but he found he had fair skill with all the swords there. The dragon’s blade became an extension of his body and in a way reminded him of the claws he had once had. It suit him well.
Clothes, on the other hand, were an acquired habit. At first the clothes scratched and made him itch, and for many weeks he went without anything at all. Yet as he read through the woman's reports of her governance and the instructions she had left him to rule her fief, he increasingly grew aware of the need for the clothes she had left him.
So as he prepared one morning to travel into town, he dressed in the richest clothes she had left for him: Dark brown britches and a green tunic such that, after dressing and standing before the looking glass, he imagined he looked somewhat like a tree. He pulled taught his leather belt, pulled on and laced his heavy boots, and lastly pulled a pair of gloves onto his hands. A pentagram scar remained on the back of his right hand from the surge of power that had rushed through him when he'd used the medallion, and he supposed that it was probably something best left hidden from the masses.
He checked himself one last time in the looking glass, straightening the sword at his side (for he imagined it looked more regal than the dragon's blade), and then, finally satisfied, set out for the town.
* * * Forest Dale was a small town, but to Wolf, it looked endless. The houses were everywhere, and merchants lined the streets, and children ran hither and thither crying out and chasing after one another. Before he'd even stepped foot inside, he considered turning away, but foreknowledge of the consequences of doing so kept him on his way.
He stopped the first man he saw in the street and said, "Sir, where's Lord Ruadhan?"
The man gave him directions deeper into the town and then went on his way. For a moment Wolf was surprised at his haste, but then he recalled, in one of her notes, that the woman had warned him the people of Forest Dale rarely see visitors and are such inclined when meeting them. Nevertheless, he carried on.
The house of Lord Ruadhan was as simple as all the others, but no doubt the most extravagant in its own ways: It was larger, shapelier, and more well-kept, to name a few. Wolf approached the front door and knocked.
A man in dull browns greeted him.
"I've got a message for Lord Ruadhan, if I may speak with him," Wolf said.
The man--a servant, Wolf quickly assumed--nodded without a word and led him inside. After seating him in a modest room with an unlit fireplace and only a couple windows, with fewer chairs it seemed, he left Wolf alone for a moment and strode down another hall.
In a few minutes a full man with lustrous rust-colored hair entered the room in deep, crimson robes. He took a short bow before his guest as the servant stuttered, "Lord Ruadhan," and then took a seat before Wolf.
"Welcome, Stranger," Ruadhan said in a loud and elegant voice with a smile on his face. "How may I aid you this beautiful morn?"
Wolf smiled and nodded. "It's my pleasure to meet you, my Lord." He gave a short bow in his seat, knowing he had not remembered all of her rules of etiquette, but hoping he somehow at least managed to get most of them. "I've got a letter from the Lady of the Wood" --for this is what she called herself to the people-- "that she wished for me to deliver."
Lord Ruadhan's eyes widened slightly at this, but he maintained his smile as Wolf pulled a piece of folded parchment form his pocket and passed it to the other man. He took it gently and, upon unfolding it, read it allowed:
"'Mattathias, my dear,'" he said, pulling the parchment closer and then farther away as his eyes focused on the text, "'I send before you the new heir of Glen Oak and all its provinces. Young Lord Wolf is a most-able man to take my place, and as I have since passed into the west, I should hope that you will offer him the same care and guidance and honor that you have always offered me. He will need it, no doubt, just as I had. As well, as he shall be residing in my forest home, he shall require the deliveries as I had, which I expect to be continued insofar as he continues to ask for them.
"'In memory of all the great acts you have done in my name and for my honor, I thank thee deeply and humbly, Mattathias. I shall be in your debt for the rest of this life and the life to come. Again, I bestow upon you my deepest gratitude. Farewell, Mattathias. I thank the gods that we had the fortune to meet.'"
Lord Ruadhan looked up from the parchment, focused his eyes upon Wolf, and there in his gaze something seemed to change as the young lord looked on (though what, exactly, he could not tell, for aside from the woman and the man in the street and Ruadhan's servant, this was his first complete human encounter). No less, in a few moments Lord Ruadhan nodded, smiled curtly, and then spoke.
"It shall be as the Lady wished, I promise this, I promise this." He smiled again, rose to his feet (Wolf did the same), and quickly shook his guest's hand. "You must pardon me, however; other duties beckon."
"Yes, of course," Wolf said and bowed again. "Thank you for seeing me. It's been an honor."
"Indeed," Ruadhan said and waved for his servant to lead Wolf to the door. He strode back down the hall and Wolf was soon led out.
The town air smelled sweet as the wind blew, and intrigued, Wolf followed the smell. If he was to live in this world as the Lady had, he would need to learn to do so, not only for her legacy, but for his future as well. And if he could not learn to live in this world… Well, he didn’t know what he’d do then and tried to banish the thought as he wandered around the small town.
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Post by Shadaras on Jun 7, 2010 0:34:49 GMT -5
=D Update. ^_^
If you want a more coherent response, ask later. xD
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Post by Deleted on Oct 1, 2011 0:12:54 GMT -5
I still intend to finish this story. Sadly, however, I have a deep suspicion after I do finish this story, I'll be saying farewell to the forum for good. I just don't have the time to be here like I once was, so although the NTWF has shaped me into the person I am today, I feel wrong to be "here" but to never actually show my face. But I promised myself I would finish this story, and I feel I owe it to the Knights Guild to let them know why Wolf vanished like he has. Chapter Four :: Flight Many months passed and rarely did Wolf return to the village of Forest Dale. On the few occasions he ventured back, he met with Ruadhan, curt as always in his lustrous and overstuffed robes, and whenever the young lord attempted to meet the others, he found their haste and his shyness lent their encounters more to silence than sanctuary.
The Lady’s recipes mastered, his weapons training progressing steadily as he worked through the manuals she had no doubt painstakingly acquired for her lost son, and his wardrobe now as much a part of his flesh as his own skin, he sometimes for moments forgot he had once been a wolf.
Yet the forest loomed over him constantly. Even on his excursions, he only had the trees to return to. Blue moons brought low grumblings from the shadows, lupine voices he swore he recognized one moment and then swore were imagined the next, and such strange happenings left him more often sleepless than not. But he pressed on wearily with his duties as before.
He tended the books and quills of the fief and its towns exactly as the Lady had instructed, visiting as many of the villages as he could until he tired of their semblances to one another, each the same, all the people silenced by his presence, and himself perpetually unable to speak before others. He read the reports of his vassals and responded in kind and at length, noting when laws were passed, when laws were changed, when crimes were committed and punished, and whatever else might have happened in those empty hours of his lonesome life.
He discovered, deeper into the Lady’s house, a home of tomes more numerous than all those contained in his villages combined. He read these fervently, the heroic tales of past lords and lasses, the verses of poetry and the tales of literary prose. He breathed in every word, and when he had read through the last pages, he would read it once more for the pleasure it brought him.
When he had exhausted the literature of his personal library, he turned to the sciences. He studied maths and physics, astronomy and alchemy. He copied formulas and symbols tirelessly until he had them memorized by heart and hand. He read the incantations of wizards and the herbal logs of witch doctors. He practiced spells and meditations and sometimes could feel the powers spoken of within the tomes flowing within him, too.
He found, on those occasions when he attempted magic, the scar left upon his hand by the Enchantrix’s medallion would be filled with a green light through which he could channel his intents into actions. However exciting this had made him at first, he was only able manage simple tasks such as causing his quill to quiver or water to ripple in a bowl and later resigned himself to the idea that all his magic was only remnants of the Enchantrix’s rubbed off on his human vessel. He still practiced on occasion, but lent his focus to other areas more prominently.
Many more months passed. A blur of words and ventures and everything always the same.
Wolf faced his window all day long until night fell and he saw his reflection facing him from the darkness on the other side of the glass. He breathed lightly, so slowly he felt lifeless, no more a reflection than those eyes he met in silence.
What was he here for, he wondered, whatever could be done? He had ran from the forest to escape the role of king, to escape the fate that he had been born unto. And what had he found for himself? He became lord of a dozen vassals, lord of the lands of Glen Oak. He spent half his time writing and reading correspondences and keeping menial records. He spent the other half rereading every tome he owned for the third and fourth time consecutively.
Wolf’s gaze pierced his own and he turned away from the reflection. At first he had not minded any of this. After all, this had freed him from his borne destiny, hadn’t it? The Lady’s notes and her library fed his mind, his longings and curiosities. But she had left, and he had none of her words left to occupy him any longer. What had become of his life than exactly what he had left?
The young lord moved with haste to his writing desk, grabbed parchment and a quill and quickly put himself to writing a lengthy note. “My most-honored Ruadhan, I have been summoned from Glen Oak for reasons I cannot disclose and I cannot promise a swift return to my post. In my indefinite absence, I place you in charge of all proceedings in Glen Oak….”
He packed a rucksack with a few days’ supplies and donning his most prized garments and his favored weapon, the dragon’s blade, he set out across the threshold of his interim life and into the world beyond. He had no foresight for where he was headed, but he was certain he would find his way. And if he did not find it soon enough, then surely it would find him instead.
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