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Character: Tanarah
Stage: Apprentice
Luck: 3 2/3 LUK (+1LUK from Talanah)
Creature: Ysali Dragon
Success Rate: 61 -100

Win x 3: 5exp x 3 = 15/2 = 7.5
Loss x 2: 2.5 x 2 = 5/2 = 2.5

Total: 10exp, Levels to 8 with 2/8 exp left over, +6 stat points to distribute, +3 Ysali Dragon Orbs

Word Count Required: 1,500+
Final Word Count: 2,853

Tanarah scuffed a palm over her arm, eyeing the fading mark there for a moment before glancing out and off, down the beach. Early afternoon sunlight warmed the backdrop of their home, making the desert air hot to breathe and alive with energy. After her adventure of the previous week or so, Tanarah had staggered onto the back porch in quite a state: soaked, bleeding, bearing tattered clothes, and grinning for it all.

Daddy had not been pleased.

But, being the healer he was, concern dominated upset, and he had immediately tended to her, coping with her various scrapes and bruises, cleaning infected cuts and purging the lingering ysali magic from her system. She had been scolded on some level, but after his fears were assuaged, she found her father’s temperament generally deflated back to relief, and she ended up being showered in more affection than discipline. In the in between time since then, however, Tana’s restlessness has built back up. For all that it had been risky, Tanarah felt in retrospect that surely it had helped her in the end, and if she ever wanted to become powerful as either of her parents — or stronger still — she would need to continue to push.

Perhaps this time, though, a little back up would be in order. Tana pushed to a stand, kicking the sand from her boots on the patio before slipping in to seek her sister out. “Tala—Talanah!”

Tanarah glanced about, ascertaining first that there were no unwanted ears about before flashing her sister a grin and darting up the stairs to meet her halfway before propping a hip on the stair rail. “So…” she began, keeping her voice not quite at a whisper, but subdued enough that only Tala was likely to hear, “…you know how I found that nest of dragons the other day, right? Up the cliffside? And sure, maybe it was a bit too many for me at once when I was unprepared and by myself…but I we’ve been practicing a lot lately and gettin’ better and I figured…”

Her eyes made a sweep of the surrounding area again, as though merely broaching the subject would summon their fathers like a spellword.

“Well, maybe we wouldn’t have to fight them.” She eyed her sister. “If you were scared, or something. But we could at least go look to see if they’re still there, and if we really want to practice proper, surely between the two of us…” She trailed off for another moment. “And maybe it would help you be less indecisive, huh?” With that tease came a light punch to the shoulder. “Maybe in the heat of real battle, you’d know exactly what you wanted to have at your side helpin’ you defend yourself,” Tana said, flashing another grin. “What do you think? Yes, yes, or yes…?”

Almost as an afterthought, she squinted up the stairs.

“And what do you keep doing up there all day…”

Tanarah watched her sister’s train of expressions with interest, gauging how effectively things were going in the desired direction. When Talanah strutted off and down the steps, Tana only barely contained her whoop of ‘victory’, and settled for a broad grin instead, darting off down by her sister and then catching at her hand to help tug her off more quickly. Once they made it out, boots to the sand, Tana released her grip and shot her sister a lilting look.

“Race you!” she declared, only a half moment before darting off herself down the beach.

On the one hand, the sooner they put space between themselves and the house, the less chance their fathers had of catching on and stopping them before they made it anywhere. On the other, she simply liked to run—loved to run, even, with the wind whipping about and the burning summer heat making it feel as though the sun and sand and every breath drawn had a life of its own. She did not stop until they reached the far edge of the sand, where the shoreline became rocky, and there, she paused, propping her palms briefly to her knees as she caught her breath.

“So,” she tossed her coming question towards her sister, once she had the wind to speak again, “if you’ve decided, what’ve you decided? And when are you gonna tell Daddy and Papa?”

Tanarah shot her sister an amused look, straightening and ‘taming’ her hair as best she could with one push of her fingers to get it out of her face. “‘Course I do,” she said, not skipping a beat and drawing her blades from their sheaths as she did for emphasis, weighting them in her hands and then beaming. “I’m gonna be a warrior—like a pirate, en guarde!”

She leapt forward with the commentary, driving one blade in front of her as though to bury it into an invisible enemy, and then immediately proceeding to enact a makeshift, impromptu battle across the rocks, complete with sound effects. Hop—skip—dart—drive.

“Maybe with a staff with spear bits at the ends—or a really big sword…or lots and lots and lots of knives, like for throwing at things, you know? But whatever it is, it’s going to be amazing, and I’ll defeat everything with it, one—” She jab-stepped, “—battle—” and slashed, crouching low, “—at a time.” Shooting a glance over her shoulder, she waggled her eyebrows. “You could come, and we’d be invincible together, liiiike…captain and first mate.”

Tanarah gave a snort of a laugh. “I dunno about anybody else, but I’m not just gonna use one…sure, I’ll have one that’ll be like, my queen. So she’ll be the ultimate, High Lady weapon, goddess of all th’ rest. But I wanna use other things too, so I’m never not ready. Knives and swords and…more knives. Gotta have lots of soldiers in waiting, back ups to keep on your toes ‘n stuff.”

As they moved along the rocks, Tanarah kept an eye on the cliff face, scouting for the place where she had stopped last time and found the dragons’ nesting nook. Previously, it had been at the furthest point she could get to along the cliff line without swimming, but she couldn’t remember what tide that had been at, and given the extent of the shift in it, she didn’t consider the water mark a very reliable landmark.

After processing her sister’s final comment, Tanarah temporarily sheathed her blades, eyes dancing with mischief as she shot a look her way. “We could. Pirate queen warriors. And…we could be co-captains, I suppose, if you like. But I like you as my first mate. That way, when I run in and get everyone into trouble, you’ll be there as my more reliable back up t’ fix everythin’ straight again. And when people get upset like they do, then can shout at me and I can punch ‘em, instead of them shoutin’ at you and me…well…” Tana trailed off, frowning. “No one should ever shout at you, anyhow. C’mon…” She notched her head, reaching a hand out to steady herself on the rocks as she picked her way forward again, “…I think it was just up ahead here now…though we should maybe do it some bit different than what I tried last time…”

‘Since I almost died last time,’ seemed like an unnecessary addition to the thought, so Tana kept that bit to herself.

Tanarah squinted upwards, gaze scouring the cliff, and she reached up, plucking at an earlobe with a frown. “Well, see…I don’t think so ‘cause…when I found them last time…they were, like…up,” she said. A pause. Perhaps this wasn’t the best of ideas. It hadn’t seemed like that big of a deal, until she was faced again with the challenge of the cliff and a reminder of exactly how vulnerable she’d made herself by trapping herself that far up before getting to the (at that time unintended and unexpected) “goal” of dragons. “See, I was lookin’ for things to fight, but I couldn’t find anythin’ good, so I came out along here and then when I ran out of space, I started climbing. I found this nest, but it was…it was kind of a real long ways up, see? So it was tough to get down…”

The details of her actual ‘getting down’ process didn’t seem to bear mentioning, either. At least, not in this context. While she was happy to tell great and terrible tales of her clearly fantastical heroics, being as she was, it seemed less appealing to say such things when the necessity of repeating such feats in order to live might be placed not only on her, but her sister.

“Maybe if I went up first and you stayed here,” Tana said, “…and I made noise and roused ‘em down and then, soon as you could see some, then we fought them…?”

It seemed like a plausible idea.

Tanarah frowned. This was beginning to seem like a progressively worse idea by the moment. “No,” she said. “Stay here. I won’t be that long, and it’ll be safer with one of us on the ground. It was dangerous last time so…it’ll be better this way.”