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Seething red dominated his sight. A battlefield awash in the red fury of golden irises, a mad fever pumping the FEAR through his veins. Howls of human and Horseman collided, enemies clashing in time honored ceremony. The bugs needed to be squashed, silenced. They were too loud, so very loud loud LOUD LOUD LOUD.

With a start, SANDSHARK fell face first into the lake, hitting sand and gravel with a moan. He needed to move on from here.

MY STATS

My character’s username: SANDSHARK
My character’s level: 2
Character’s HP: 25
Character’s Job Class: Gryphon
Current party: n / a
Current Guild: n / a
Location: Tulgey Woods
Small IC description of character: A tall and bony man with a gold trimmed coat and long auburn hair covering his eyepatch. Tends to have a sneer on his face and looks down his nose at people.
Character journal: Here!

3/3

The more the water showed her, the more it was clear she would be here for a while. These images werent so bad. She finally settled, crossing her legs under her as her tail dipped into the water this time instead of her hand, her ears flicked a bit and she moved the broad rimmed hat up a bit so she could see better, this time she moved the patch from her other eye as well.

This one, it seemed, was simple. She was with her mother and grandmother. Baking. They did that every winter together. The same family recipes they had been using for generations. It was an all day event and shinanigans often ensued.

He had come late.

He was in the party separate from the main fighting, his gang not knowing at all of the massive drama that had been happening. A flash of red, of black and white. A sea of greys.

A dragon falling as its own prized pupils attacked it.

[Enter]
His wandering feet too him to a lake, there were voices that drew him forward, that nagging sense that he knew them but he couldn’t place him. He made his way to the lake edge and peered down into the mirror surface, it reflected faces back at him, they were as familiar as the voices, more familiar even because while they merged and flowed and traded places with each other in fragments of memory and sound; laughter and tears they were distinct in shape and color.

He stooped tracing gingers through the surface, at once splintering them and… being drawn in. Memories and more rising to greet him in a tidal wave…

8. Confusion
Confusion, he was lost, he wasn’t sure where he was. One turn had turned into another, another, and before he knew it he was twisted up in a confused knot and shivering, sleepy and heavy with the chill of the lower chambers of the temple. Some of the other from his clutch had dared him down here. He couldn’t be sure anymore which way he had come, or where he’d been trying to get to other than he hadn’t gotten there and he wanted to go home. He wanted to coil up above the top of the pyramid and soak up the sunlight and the moonlight and be warm and full.

His wings though small felt bruised for having squeezed past a fallen stone, he’d pulled feathers out because they were small and downy and he was far from flight, or even learning though he flexed and waved them daily.

What did you do when you were trying to go backwards through your own slithering path? What could you do when you were reaching in hope of returning to the surface when the floors were smooth until you managed to find stairs?

What could you do?


What could you do but go forward?

[3/3]

Briar_Rose plunged her hand deeper into the water, trying to reclaim the memory that was lost to her. She could remember that the ghoul's name started with an 'A', that they were friends, there was wishes involved... But pretty soon, even that had disappeared.

"No... Come back, please..." She begged the water, but it showed her nothing but the calm surface. She reached deeper and deeper until her hat threatened to slide off her head. Her wing flapped wildly to keep her balanced, but it seemed to be of no use. The memory was gone.

She pulled her arm from the water and sat back in disbelief. It was so close too... Briar_Rose tried again, and caught a new memory.

{3: Wisdom}

"The werewolf ran faster as he heard the hunters behind him. "Get him!" They cried, their voices rising as they got closer and closer to the terrified were. He was so close to their hideout that he could smell the safety of home and family on the wind. If only he could get closer..."

The book was yanked from her hands and she snapped back into reality, seeing a mildly annoyed father and the shelves of the town library. She looked up at the ornate clock held by the second floor gargoyles and read the time: 8 P.M.

"I'm s-sorry!" She jumped up, grabbing her bag and the large stack of books beside it.

"I told you I would come at 7." He reminded her with a stern look. "I've been waiting outside for forty-five minutes thinking you were going to be coming out any minute! Do you know how long it takes to find anything in here? Where's your skellyphone?"

"Dead." She squeaked. She held up the gem-encrusted device to her father's wrath like a shield, awaiting his next blow. He sighed.

"Sugar skull, you know I love you and I appreciate that you're here learning something from reading all of these." He gestured to the cobwebbed shelves. "But I would hope that my own daughter would be wise enough to keep track of time so her dad isn't worrying about her." She looked to the floor guiltily, her pink bangs hanging over her face. He knelt down to help pick up her books and wrapped his arm around her shoulder.

"Come on, let's go home."

Wisdom:

Grandfather was blind, His great eyes were milky, and his scales were dull. He spent a great deal of time coiled up on the pavilion that, in some of the other temples would have served as a platform to sacrifice the humans who had worshiped them and fed them fear while praying for rain.
It was his advice that had soothed the temper of a young snake. He took a great deal very personally but it was necessary that he stop.
Patience, grandfather had said, Patience, the grandest serpent grows with patience.
Pachua was small, his clutch mates teased him for it, flashed their scales, bright greens, reds, golds and more.
His were white, traced with blues.
His down feathers were a dull white fluff and showed little sign yet that they would compensate in ANY way for his dull scales.

“Be Patient,” his father said. “What do you think envy will solve? One day… with patience you will find someone who envies you, and when you do, then you will understand just how –silly- it is.”

It took him over a week to see the wisdom of those words, before one of another clutch said quietly… that they wished dearly that their scales were not green, like the dominant color of the jungle. The beautiful verdant jungle…

But something like his own… strange, ghostly and touched by sky,

Wisdom that made him realize it was not so very terrible a thing to be patient, and learn that being different was not such a very bad thing after all.

6. Endings

He was standing there as he always was in her dreams. Tall with green hair, all muscles and little of it feelings. His hand was on her shoulder and she could hear him telling her like he always did, "Don't cry."

She watched herself, the small little her that listened to him so well, that didn't question why it was important not to cry. The girl who just did as she was told without question. But she couldn't tell that girl anything, she couldn't hear it.

The damaged pretty little girl who was watching her mother die, who wasn't allowed to cry. Because it was some kind of strength, some kind of...something.

That little girl wanted to cry, she wanted her father to hold her. But her father wasn't made like that. Everything that was soft and kind and warm of him, died with her mother.

And that little damaged girl didn't know that yet. Didn't know that everything good and loving in her life was closing just like her mother's eyes.