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 Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 7:37 pm
((PRP between Tannin Nox, "Mary" Ecaterina Draculesti, and Vladislav Draculesti)) 
The dead wind mare lay broken on the ground. Vlad looked down at her with impassive calculation. She was no one he knew. He wasn't the type to mourn the unknown fallen, having seen many of them throughout his life. What he was more interested in was what had killed her. Her body had not yet cooled, so her murderer had to be somewhere in the area. It could have been a bear that had taken her down, but Vlad thought it much more likely to be a kalona, or worse... a skinwalker.
Her neck was torn, blood coating the flattened grass beneath her in a wide puddle. There were gouges in several places on her body where something had fed on her. It was the depth of night and there was little light to illuminate her body. When Vlad tilted his head to one side, he saw the smallest glimmer flashing in one of her injuries, as if something metal was lodged there.
Metal. Could it have been a human attack that had killed her, and an opportunistic scavenger chewed her up after? If there were humans hunting soquili so near his territory, it could be even worse than a skinwalker. Skinwalkers could be chased off, if they didn't kill you first. Humans responded to aggression differently, by gathering more humans and generally swarming and destroying whatever unlucky soquili was in their way. If he had murdering humans about, he might have to abandon the area entirely. Vlad wasn't pleased. He also wasn't pleased about what he'd have to do to verify whether it was a human weapon stuck in her flesh.
Vlad leaned over and nuzzled his snout into the hole of the wound, feeling with his lips and teeth for the metal shard. He was a predator himself and at times in life had eaten his own kind, but those days were decades in his past. Now, having his mouth against a corpse revolted him. Luckily, he was able to bite onto the artifact without too much rooting around, and he lifted his head away from the dead mare with the object held within his teeth.
Raising himself from a corpse with his muzzle covered in blood, he was not a pretty sight.
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Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 8:17 pm
 Kaiya had told him that she would be gone for a little while, he didn't like it, he didn't like it at all. He had protested against her going anywhere but she had chided him and reminded him that she had been taking care of herself far longer than he'd been at her side. He had grudgingly agreed with her logic but he was still slightly upset, fears of kalona descending upon her with their batlike wings and wicked teeth shook his heart. He decided to explore the area, make sure the lands were free of evilbeasts and unwanted troublemakers and make sure everyone he had encountered in the immediate area was doing well. If he was going to be a knight someday he needed to make sure of these things wherever he went! With Kaiya gone, this was his test of character! And so he set off, his armor gleaming against his onyx pelt.
The folks around here still referred to him as "The Black Knight" But he didn't mind it now, once he had thought it an insult but he realized it was pretty much just literal, and he wasn't even a full knight yet! Still...He knew he had so much to learn, so much to do, then, when he was finally a knight he would return home to his father, he would make him proud, and perhaps he would even be able to bring Kaiya to see him as well...His cheeks flushed under his bone helm, his thoughts drifting to silly things when a sudden shift in the wind stopped him dead in his tracks, his bony hooves scratching to a halt , his nostrils flaring at the disturbing scent that had been brought on the wings of the wind.
Blood.
He did not stop for too long, it took mere seconds for him to regain his composure and even less for him to figure out which direction the scent was coming from, his hooves like thunder in the middle of the day, pounding out his desire to find where it was coming from, and hope that he wasn't too late.
Thorns and low hanging branches snagged at him as he ran, but he didn't have time to care about himself. He exploded out of the brush a good ten feet away from one of the most grisly sights he'd ever witnessed. He had been too late afterall...a mare lay dead on the ground, her wings lay in tatters, her blood pooled under her, the earth soaking it up greedily. There would be no help for the mare, the main problem was the one standing above her corpse. Tannins eyes flared under his bone helm, he snorted a light cloud of green mist, taking in the whole situation.
He looked like he had sprung directly out of some actual nightmare, a great beast full of sharp fangs, covered in chains and marked with strange designs, he was obviously one of kalona decent. On that alone he would have declared his wish to battle and charged in. What made him stall were the feathered wings under the batlike ones, the little tufts of feathers where there shouldn't be any...Kaiya would know what to do in this sort of situation. He growled at the stallion, his voice booming " DID YOU DO THIS? Answer me!" He paced those feet from the scene, his eyes like twin fireflies even in the daylight.
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Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 8:36 pm
Vlad wheeled around as soon as he became aware of the stranger. His instincts took hold, and all four wings flared in an aggressive display. His lips drew back in a snarling grimace which brandished his sharp fangs and blood splattered from his muzzle from the force of the sudden movement. His tail beat the ground, causing the chains all along his body to rattle in a clanging clamor.
Whatever this beast was that accosted him, it was an undead monster. He immediately noticed the skeletal feet, and the glowing eyes and protruding fangs were more fuel to the fire. Though Vlad knew nothing about this stranger besides from his appearance, he immediately decided that he wanted the skeletal soquili nowhere near his home and his family.
"You, BEGONE!" His roaring voice by now had only traces of his native accent. His years spent in the kawani lands had taught him the local tongue well. His ever present cloud of bats flew shrieking in all directions away from him, and his true eyes blazed in the field of false ones that adorned his face.
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Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 9:09 pm
Tannin lowered his head and circled carefully as the stranger flared his wings and bared his fangs aggressively. His great tail lashed around, he was making a racket, obviously trying to unsettle him. Tannin was wiser than that and a deep throated growl answered back, a thicker green mist emanating from somewhere within him, just like his father did when he was angry.
He was slightly taken aback, his ears flattened against his skull at the mighty roar that came from the beast, Begone? Why would such a thing want him to go away? Perhaps he was implying that he was a pest and wanted to be left to his meal? Tannin raised an eyebrow under his helm, compared to the stranger he seemed normal.
He pawed the ground with a skeletal hoof " You are the one not welcome here stranger!" he announced, his voice barking " You did not answer my question, I will take that as an admission of guilt unless you say otherwise! Murder is not looked upon lightly!" He watched as a great bunch of bats flew around the area, something nagged at his mind, like he had seen bats accompany someone he had met once...However, he had no time to think about things like that, he needed to pay attention to what was going on, he was likely going to get into a fight with this nightmarish thing, and it would be one hell of a fight. "
Kaiya would have given this stallion the benefit of the doubt, but until he started talking and stopped looking less like a threat, Tannin would hold his own. His fangs were heavy in his mouth, they ached in remembrance of once having eaten meat...but never ever would he have killed another soquili for their flesh and blood. It sickened him more than most things he had witnessed, and if this stallion had truly done this, there was nothing he could do for the deceased than attempt to avenge them. But Kaiyas voice seemed to echo in his head, her morals, to never assume that all things are as they seem, there is occasionally good where there seems to be none...He was living proof of this.
" Did you do this?" He asked once more
"convince me that this isn't exactly what it seems and i will leave."
He stood still now, waiting, still in a fighting stance.
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Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 9:24 pm
Vlad could readily admit that he was not always a rational or a diplomatic soquili. He had a bullheaded streak a mile wide, and defusing his own aggression was never something he had been able to easily do. He knew that he was perfectly innocent. The most reasonable course of action would have been to calm down and explain to the stranger what had happened.
Unfortunately, Vlad didn't feel inclined to be cool and collected presently. He had already been out of sorts after finding an unexpected corpse and the stallion's unwelcome intrusion made his bad mood worse. He hated being disrespected and felt no need to explain himself to what was so obviously a callow undead youth.
"It is you who are unwelcome!" he spat at the stranger. "You trespass here where you do not belong!" His kalona wings beat at the air, sending leaves and clouds of debris whirling in twin clouds on either side of him. "I will answer no questions from one such as you!"
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Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 10:02 pm
He glared at the stallion, his bony helm and armor protecting him from the debris shaken up by the strangers wings. " Knights may walk freely where they may stranger!" he growled " I am Tannin Nox, also known to the locals as The Black Knight." He spotted something glinting upon the grass near the body, the shine catching his eye for a split second, it was something shiny, though coated in the mares blood, he couldn't see what it was, his focus snapped back onto the large and obviously crabby stallion " One such as ME?" he hissed " I wander the world to HELP others, certainly not to EAT them as you did that poor mare. vile beast."
He snorted another cloud of noxious green mist " I do not plan to linger here if there are others like you around, I am not so suicidal. But if it is a fight you want, it is a fight you will get."
He growled deep in his throat
" I will not let that poor mares death be for naught if I can punish her killer right here and now."
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Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2012 8:30 am
Vlad seethed with the insult of it all. This errant knight Tannin Nox thought he could offend and accuse him, and then beat him in a fight after? It was laughable at best. Vlad estimated that he had been defeating enemies far more fearsome than this one for longer than Tannin had even been alive. He was no foolhardy colt like this one.
He sneered disdainfully, showing exactly how little he thought of the threats he'd been given. "You will be the one punished." He answered Tannin's growl with one of his own. "This is your last chance." His head lowered dangerously and his body took on a prepared stance. "Admit your folly and leave now... or soon regret that you did not." It was no idle threat. If the idiot stallion didn't depart, Vlad would drive him out by force. He still had to investigate the death of the mare and this was only wasting his time. How ironic it was that the young stranger sought to avenge the dead mare and instead was hampering the discovery of the one who might have killed her.
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Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2012 9:49 pm
Tannin had been taught not to judge by appearance, just as others had done to him when he had first come upon the populous of this land. This stallion was not from this place, and obviously was much older and likely had seen more fights in his life then Tannin had in his young one, but even in the face of such overwhelming odds, it was his duty, even if he wasn't a full knight yet, to hold this stranger until he could work out the jumbles of instinctual cries ringing in his heart. Spirits! He wished Kaiya was here, even if she tended to get herself into scraps, she knew better than he when something was not as it seemed.
Should he fight this stallion and see which came out the victor?
That would be the bloody path, and he had his fair share of scars already
The stallion said he wanted him off of HIS lands. He had seen no others like him that he could recall...so how was it his?
His brow wrinkled in focus.
He couldn't just LEAVE a scene like this, that would be against his code...
This stallion left him no choice.
" My honor is my life"
His eyes flickered behind his mask for a split second, the only indication of what was to come and with a grunt he shoved off of the ground with his bone hooves, charging the stallion, even if he was wrong, even if this stallion was in the wrong place, the wrong time and somehow had blood spattered across his muzzle, he would talk.
Difficulties like this were often the start of war and the start of bloodshed, the grass would drink well this day.
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Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2012 2:00 pm
It looked like he'd have to teach the brat a lesson after all. In a way, the other stallion was lucky. Vlad would teach him to respect those more powerful than him in a way that wouldn't leave him maimed or dead. If he pulled this same speech on a skinwalker or a pure kalona, he might not be so fortunate. Vlad wouldn't hurt him in any lasting way, but he would be sure to make an impression.
Though Vlad had little time to react, he was experienced from enough battles throughout his long life to not need any longer. He wheeled himself around so he faced the stallion head on directly. His four wings were open in aggressive display around him, making him seem even more large and frightening than he already was. His jaws gaped improbably wide, making him almost look more serpentine than equine.
If his enemy continued his head-on assault, he'd meet Vlad's fangs. If he veered off to one side... Vlad held his chained tail at the ready.
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Posted: Fri Dec 07, 2012 8:30 pm
Mary had only seen a brief glimpse of the fight down below, but it was enough. She had no desire to see either her brother or his opponent carved up in bloody pieces and that would be the way it would go if nothing was done. She had been enjoying a leisurely fly above the area, but that was out of the question now. She dove sharply downwards, tucking her wings and only flaring them outwards at the last minute.
She landed directly between the two of them and the buffeting wind from her four beating wings was enough to throw a cloud of fine particles into the air. She squinted her eyes against it and whirled on Vlad, silver eyes aflame with anger. "Vlad! You will stop this madness now!" She then looked upon the stranger, no less fiercely. "Tell me. What are you doing fighting my brother?" Only then did she notice the corpse on the ground. She gave a loud gasp and took a shying step away from it.
"And what happened to her?"
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Posted: Fri Dec 07, 2012 8:48 pm
Tannin barely had time to screech to a halt, his bone hooves dug into the ground, letting dirt clods fly as a winged figure dove down between his foe and him. His nostrils flared and green mist leaked from his mouth as his heart hammered in his ribcage like a trapped bird. He had seconds to figure out whether this mare was a friend, foe or otherwise...He backed up as her wings buffeted him with air and pebbles. He watched the stranger very seriously behind his bone helm, his eyes bright and hard. It didn't take long for the mare to notice the chilled corpse on the ground, the blood coagulating around the grass. " Your brother is it?" He questioned, still trying to catch his breath and calm his heart rate " Well ask your brother why he killed an innocent mare, he certainly wont tell ME, nor will he deny it...That's why i'm fighting him."
He looked the mare up and down, He swore he had seen her before...somewhere. He saw a bat peek out of her hair and he recalled, a flash in the dark, a sad looking angeni with bats..." You! I know you...I met you, or someone very much like you a long time ago...before I went on my journey." But now that he looked, she certainly seemed to be his sister, though she was just as strange looking, she wasn't nearly as foreboding visually, she seemed to be an angeni, that much was apparent. He had only encountered two angeni, the sad stranger and his mentor Kaiya, who had gone off on her own some time ago to deal with personal business...
This one had...fangs. But so did he.
He didn't look much like your every day knight...If the darker one was her brother, the brother of an angeni, perhaps he had enough good in him to reconcile that he hadn't done the deed...but the evidence wasn't all that clear and the blood on his muzzle was quite incriminating. " Well I've no reason to fight him if he didn't do it, I try to protect others like that poor mare...you will certainly know him better than I." He watched the dark one from over the shoulder of his sister, carefully.
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Posted: Fri Dec 07, 2012 9:08 pm
"Vlad doesn't kill mares," scoffed Mary, but still glaring accusingly at her brother. "Or did you? Was this one an exception?" Anger made her sharp. She had little tolerance for unnecessary bloodshed.
"I did not kill her," grated Vlad, unwillingly. He hated to be forced to explain himself to a stranger, but it had reached that time. There would be no getting around Mary now that she was out in force. "I found her like that and vas vondering what did slay her when this..." He bit back an insult. "When this stallion came running." He sneered at Tannin, still angry. The stranger still needed a lesson in manners, as far as he was concerned.
Mary looked back once more to the dead mare. Briefly her expression changed to one of deep sadness. She was sure that the wind mare would have been quite beautiful when she was alive. She probably had been alive in the morning, too. It was a sign of how quickly life could change... or end. She voiced her next thought out loud, her voice carrying even when quiet. "Such things should be mourned, not fought over."
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Posted: Fri Dec 07, 2012 9:24 pm
Tannin watched the two siblings from the shadows of his helm, a little more at ease now that the tension had gone out "Vlad" Not even Kaiya could have faulted him for this one, geez. " You could have just said that and this whole thing wouldn't have happened the way it did you know" He grumbled " You know what it looked like" Both of them had attitudes at this point and neither side was willing to care about hiding it. He turned his gaze to the sister and found sadness painted upon her features, even though she didn't know, like him, who this mare had been, it was a sad thing to behold. He felt a pang in his heart as she spoke. More blood upon the grass wouldn't have solved much if the stallion Vlad hadn't been the murderer, he felt a fool, but he was glad that she had stepped in at the nick of time, he would have walked away with more scars than he cared to explain to Kaiya...or not at all. " That...is true, I'm sorry I jumped to conclusions, though I could hardly be blamed for it to begin with, what with his muzzle covered in blood" He flicked an ear " Why was that?"
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Posted: Fri Dec 07, 2012 9:31 pm
Mary had thought that the blood on Vlad's snout was from an early battle attack. Now that she scanned quickly over the stranger, she could see no bite injuries. That was indeed odd, then. "Yes, why are you bloody?" she asked, caution and suspicion both at play. This was the sort of thing that Vlad would have been capable of many years ago, but not now. That was what she fervently hoped, at least.
It took Vlad a moment to even figure out what they were talking about. Belatedly his tongue snaked out to taste his lips. There was blood there, the mare's blood. It was then that his memory jumped back to what he had discovered in the instant before disruption. He began scanning the ground, looking for the clue he had taken from the body of the mare.
"There vas something inside of her, not a natural thing." He had had the piece of metal in his mouth when the stallion first showed up. He must have dropped it at first sight of him. "I pulled it out. It should be here... somevhere." He caught sight of something glittering by the skeletal stallion's front hoof. "There. Vhat is that? Is that it?" He pointed with his tail as best he could.
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Posted: Fri Dec 07, 2012 10:05 pm
He waited for Vlad to come up with something to absolve himself, some decent reason why he had blood on his muzzle, his sister was so sure that he hadn't done it...And he knew at the very least that angeni were pure creatures, despite this ones odd appearance. He watched Vlad search around for a minute or two, he muttered something about an unnatural thing he had found...inside of her? His brow furrowed under his helm and his bright eyes watched every move he made until he pointed with his tail, somewhere very near Tannins own hooves. He blinked and looked down slowly to find something glittering there, among the blades of grass. He flattened his ears as soon as he saw it, looking at it closer, not daring to touch the thing that was so gummed with blood and yet still shone. An arrowhead. There was no mistaking this, when he was but a colt his father had taught him the best he could about the ins and outs of battle and of the human made weapons that were death to them. Metal, taken from the earth and forged by fire into pointy instruments of death that were shot from things called bows. No Soquili in the land could use one of those, and so there was no longer any use blaming this stallion, no matter how bad it looked he had been innocent of it...he was shamed to think he had nearly gone to battle against someone very much like him, often misunderstood due to their appearances. " This is a human made weapon, an arrow, or what was left of one anyway. Normally they do not hunt our kind...perhaps it was an accident...perhaps not." He curled his upper lip " to take a life like this, how cowardly. She probably didn't even see it coming."
He looked at the mare for a time, and then looked at the sister, her face tight due to the strain of emotion here and then to Vlad who had been stubborn, but innocent of the crime he had accused him of. " I truly am sorry I suspected you, my mentor taught me better than this, I most of all should know not to judge based on what things appear to be. But now we know what happened to this poor mare...I will bury her properly." He exhaled another gout of green mist and his armor creaked as the tension fled from his body " And you" He said to the sister, who seemed so familiar " Thank you for coming when you did, you're a good sister."
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