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 Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 6:14 am
The camera clicked as it immortalized the weather-worn wooden sign reading, in letters that had been carefully burnt into it, "Welcome To Bellendron". Zhane could easily see now why it was that no bus routes came this way...the entire town was tucked neatly into the middle of nowhere, with miles of greenery and hillsides separating it from the next signs of civilization.
It was the perfect sort of place to go if you were looking for a quiet life, which he imagined most of the inhabitants led, as he awaited the newly-taken picture to appear in the digital window. Satisfied with it, he turned the camera off to conserve its battery, letting it hang from its lanyard around his neck.
After spending fourteen hours on one bus (which he'd blessedly slept through most of), just to spend another four on a second one, he had been only too eager, when stepping off in Lavenshire, to walk the rest of the way. Aside from feeling like he was in dire need of a shower at this point after four hours of following an obscure dirt road in the sunlight, he -felt- great. Having come this far out into the middle of nowhere to stand in a rural town of strangers, though, he would have thought there'd be some fluttering sense of excitement. Like he was on the verge of a breakthrough.
Instead, all he'd felt since setting foot into this town, was very out of place and far from home. On most days, he was someone who didn't blip any radars as he went about his business, but here, he was beginning to feel like he stuck out horribly. Bellendron was, for lack of a better term, plain. Technology had not passed it by, but it did not seem to stop in to say hello very often either, and the people who lived here clearly had done so for generations. They were plain people, leading plain lives, going about their plain business. To him, it looked like many of them had never even heard the word 'dragon', let alone like they would know anything about what he was seeking.
Unshouldering his backpack, he knelt to sift through it until he found the printed map again. Smoothing away some of its creases over his knee, he examined it closely once more, fixated on the X he'd placed in its corner. Whether it was significant or whether he'd blindly marked the paper, he didn't know. And he wasn't, exactly, sure how to go about asking either. If he started stopping people in the streets, shoving some weird treasure map in their faces, they'd think he was a loon.
....hell, at this point he was beginning to wonder that himself.
"Hey mister!"
Zhane jolted at the voice and looked up to see that he was being watched by a young girl who stood a short distance away. She couldn't have been more than five, and wore a pink sundress that showed off a pair of grass-stained knees. Her wheat-colored hair was gathered into a slightly-messy braid that hung down her back as she rocked on her heels, watching him. "You lost?" she asked.
"Maybe. I'm trying to figure that out." he told her, returning his eyes to the paper.
"Where'd you come from?"
"Barton."
"Izzat like Mars?"
Zhane felt himself crack a smile. "Feels like it sometimes." he admitted, without looking up. "I'm just visiting, though." There was silence, and then the scuffle of footfall on gravel, which he assumed marked her interest having been caught by something else and leaving. It was just as well....the last thing he needed right now was a concerned guardian swooping out of nowhere and finding their wayward charge talking to a complete stranger. He'd rather not have his introduction to Bellendron marked by pitchforks and torches.
"Izzat a camera?" her voice asked from directly over his shoulder, making him nearly keel face-first into his open backpack. He found himself wondering something his mother had often lamented about him and his sister -- how was it that little kids made so much noise, but could move like pint-sized ninjas when they wanted to?
"Yep." he said, when he'd righted himself again. "I try to take it with me to places I haven't been before, so I can remember them after I leave."
"You should come to our house." she informed him matter-of-factly with a winning smile. "Our dog just had babies. She'll let you take pictures of them, she's really nice."
"Oh yeah? Maybe I'll do that sometime." he told her, chuckling a bit. She was cute, he'd give her that. She probably was also turning her parents' hair gray.
"Jessie!" a female voice called, cutting shrilly through the late-morning air.
aaand, there it was, he thought. The other shoe dropping came in the form of a brunette teenaged girl who looked to be in a state of disarray as she jogged toward them on coltish legs. "Jessie, STOP harassing people!" she snapped as she approached them, seizing the younger child by the hand.
"I WASN'T hasassing him!" she snapped back, giving a defiant stamp of one foot. "I was talking!"
"I'm sorry," the newcomer said, ignoring the younger one's protest. "I'm supposed to be watching her til Mom gets home and she snuck out while I was making lunch."
"Its okay, she wasn't bothering me." he assured her. "I was just--"
"She does it all the time" the older girl went on in exasperation, making him silence himself. "I keep warning her someday some stranger is going to come through here and snatch her up, but--" she trailed off, as if realizing for the first time he was, in fact, a perfect stranger to them both. "Are you new here?" she inquired, looking him over.
Zhane set his jaw thoughtfully, wondering if he ought to press his luck. Have to start somewhere, don't you...? "I wonder if maybe you can help me." he began, looking to the map once more. "I came really far out of my way to get here, but I'm not sure--"
"Is that real?" she interrupted, cutting him off as he eyed her curiously and then followed her line of sight behind him to where the tip of his tail was idly flicking the dirt.
"Uhm....yeah." he said, quirking a brow. Clearly this one was just as full of questions as her younger sister. It woke him up to the idea just how far out of his element he -was- here....he'd been asked a lot of things about his odd extremities before, but there had never been any doubt that they were real.
There was an awkward silence as Jessie, growing impatient, began to try and wriggle free of her older sister's grip.
"Yanno, I can probably just find it on my own." he said at last, suddenly having the urge to leave.
"Wait, lemme see." she insisted, stepping forward and plucking the map from Zhane's fingers with her free hand to look it over. Her expression immediately pulled into one of confusion. "Why would you want to go way out there?" she asked incredulously.
"I.....don't know." he heard himself say lamely. "But I know I need to. Do you know what's out there?"
He watched her lips press into a thin, bloodless line as she shook her head. He gave a nod in response, having expected as such.
"Guess I'll have to see for myself, then."
"Well..." she said quickly, then held back as his eyes turned to her once more expectantly. Giving a somewhat-lopsided smile she handed him back the map. "I mean, there -might- be something out there, but I'm not really sure."
"Oh yeah?" he prodded, his earfins keening in intrigue.
"Sara, let GO!!" Jessie whined, flailing at the end of her sister's arm.
"In a MINUTE!" the girl, supposedly Sara, snapped, giving her sibling a jostle to make her behave before giving an apologetic laugh. "There's supposedly some little commune or something near the mountains, I guess. A couple of the guys at school said they found it once while they were driving around one night and got shot at."
Zhane felt his insides give a lurch. Shot at...?
"Mom said, if it was even true, it was probably some cult or something." She shook her head a bit and laughed. "I guess only crazies would want to live MORE out of touch with the world than here."
He smiled back at her, somehow, through the feelings of unease now prickling at him. So...if he was understanding correctly, his next order of business after placing himself directly in the middle of nowhere, was to get himself lost in the mountains on the offchance he MIGHT find a small cluster of gun-toting maniacs that MIGHT just shoot him full of holes.
If it was somehow possible to go back in time and meet himself two nights ago when he'd been putting this glorious scavenger hunt together for himself, Zhane felt at that moment like he would very much like to deck himself in the face.
"You're not actually gonna GO there, are you?" Sara asked, as if reading his thoughts.
"Gonna try." he replied, folding the map over and tucking it into his jacket pocket.
"Just like that? What if they were lying and there's not even anything out there?"
"Well, I imagine at least then I'll know it for sure." he said, zipping his backpack and hoisting it onto his shoulders. The teen screwed up her face in an expression of distaste.
"You're weird."
He should have been offended, he guessed, but the remark made a bark of laughter escape him.
"So I'm told." The possibility that there might be something out there, even if it wasn't what he was expecting, made some small innermost part of him thrum with excitement. It was the same sort of feeling he got when discovering a previously-unexplored cave or a new abandoned cabin. That deep-seated and insatiable itch of wanting to know. Most importantly, it was the first time he'd gotten it since setting out, and Zhane found he wanted nothing more right now than to roll with it.
"It was nice meeting you both." he said in a hurriedly-polite way as he started off once more.
"Hey, there's one more thing you oughtta know about the mountains." she called after his retreating back, making him slow his gait, but not stop.
"Yeah? What's that?" he called back.
"You're going the wrong way to get to there."
He stopped dead, his fins flattening against his head in embarrassment as he cursed under his breath.
Already things were off to a promising start...
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Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 12:24 am
"I just want to know if he's there or not." Yeande said, trying to keep the growing tone of desperation out of her voice as she clutched the phone in an ever-tightening grip. "....I'm aware of that, Kendall, I'm also aware that the last time I asked you this question, you lied to me."
Youko's son, she thought, ought to be thanking whatever gods there were that she could not reach him at the moment, or she didn't know WHEN she'd stop shaking him, if ever.
She heaved a sigh, feeling her stomach clench with another stab of worry as the young man on the other end of the line insisted, a bit more forcefully, that he had no idea where Zhane was and suggested she get in touch with his girlfriend. The worst part was, she believed him...Kendall was a terrible liar, but even the best ones would have a hard time feigning the growing indignity and concern she heard in his voice.
"I already called Tinania this morning." she said, hearing a waver in her voice. "When he didn't come home after a second night, I thought he must be with her, but he isn't."
It had been the most obvious answer, of course, and she had been spitting mad at the idea that he'd been worrying her and his father sick to go lounge with his girlfriend somewhere. Especially after he had specifically promised it was something he would NOT do. At first, it had seemed as though Nani had known something, but prying revealed, ultimately, that she had no idea where he was either. And additionally, she had made Yeande wonder if even Zhane, himself, had known where he was going.
"I appreciate that." she said quietly into the phone. "If I hear from him before you, I'll call you too. Right. Bye."
Dropping the phone back into its cradle, she reached up to rub at her eyes tiredly. This was NOT how things were supposed to have panned out for the week. She and Talon were supposed to have spent a mellow weekend basking in each other, giving Zhane and Nani room to do similar, and then things were supposed to be much calmer when they all returned to their regularly-scheduled lives.
Instead, there was this...mess, leaving her unsure who she should be angry with, if anyone.
She passed through the house and up the stairs, peering into their bedroom. Talon was right where she'd left him an hour ago, seated on the edge of their bed with his head lowered in ponderous thought.
"Kendall says he's not seen him either." she reported, watching his ears wilt a bit.
"Oh..."
When he'd first explained to her that he'd hit their son, she had been livid with him. Many unkind things were said about him and his temper, and she had not let him touch her since. Looking at him now, though, and the dark circles around his eyes that reported very little sleep since the confrontation, said clearly that there existed someone who despised what he'd done more than she or Zhane possibly could. Himself.
Several moments passed with neither of them moving until Yeande sighed, padding slowly across the room to sink onto the bed beside her mate. "Come here, idiot...." she murmured, pulling him to her in a sideways hug.
"He hates me." he said quietly, sounding somewhere between miserable and frightened by the idea.
"He doesn't hate you." she insisted. Or, if he did, he wouldn't hate him for long, at least. Teenagers, she'd found, had a hard time sticking to their guns about things like that. If they didn't hate you at least -once- while raising them, Youko had told her, something wasn't right.
"You didn't see the look he gave me on his way out." Talonfaust muttered.
"I'm sure you wish you could, but you can't take back what happened."
"You think I don't know that?" he growled, drawing into himself a bit further and stiffening in her embrace. Yeande lingered a moment, and then dropped her arms away from him with a sigh.
"Feeling sorry for yourself isn't going to bring him home either." she pointed out. To this he said nothing as she folded her hands in her lap. At this point, she just didn't know anymore...she'd checked with all of the people she was aware of Zhane knowing and trusting, she'd spent the morning going over his instant messenger logs, but nowhere had he even left a HINT of where he might be headed.
She felt, in a word, defeated.
"He's not stupid." she went on, if only to comfort herself. "He knows how to take care of himself, and he makes good decisions for the mostpart. ....not including this most recent one."
"Yeande..."
"Hm?" she asked, reaching out to trail her fingers through his hair soothingly.
"....why am I such an a*****e?"
Her fingers stopped mid-motion as she narrowed her eyes. "Don't start..." she growled warningly. But even as she said it, she could see that this was not going to be his normal fare of bitching.
"I....could have stopped myself." he went on, like she'd not even spoken. "I really think I could have. But just for a second, I didn't want to." He lifted his head to look at her, green eyes shimmering with unnatural brightness. Yeande knit her brow, sitting back a bit on her haunches. "I can't stop thinking how this might have been different if I hadn't--"
"Talon, listen to me." she said, reaching up to cup his face gently between her hands. "I don't think it would have been much different either way. You both crossed the line with each other way before it came to violence, from the sound of it." Her grip tightened ever-so-slightly for emphasis on her next words. "And it needs to stop, or you two ARE going to hate each other. Would you rather be at his wedding someday, or just get a photo of it in the next routine Christmas card he sends out with a 'wish you were here, but not really' note?"
She held his gaze intently as she spoke, hoping to drive the point into his skull, and see SOME sort of comprehension. Instead, his countenance faltered as the rims of his eyes began to spill over with tears.
....and just like that, Yeande felt the wind go out of her sails. In all the years she'd known him, in all the hell that they'd put each other through, she'd never seen him cry before. This clearly had struck him on a level nothing else had, and she realized that he wasn't feeling sorry for himself, but was scared. Maybe even terrified of the idea of never seeing his son again.
Her lips parted, fishing for something to say that might help, but came up blank. As his shoulders began to shudder with silent, oncoming sobs, she sighed and wrapped herself around him, holding him tightly.
"He's going to come home." she whispered, unsure whether it was for his benefit or her own at this point. "And when he does, we'll figure things out from there."
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Posted: Tue Mar 03, 2009 5:50 pm
An eight-hour hike with nothing but billowy grasses between you and the vague destination you had in mind really gave you time to think. And Zhane's thoughts had been all over the place, wandering from the current state of things to back home.
As a breeze that smelled of early spring and crisp leaves sighed through his hair, he wondered how his parents were taking his absense. He felt increasingly bad about the fact he'd not been able to at least warn his mother of his intentions. She'd never been anything but supportive, even when he really didn't deserve it, but as far as his father went....
....well, he didn't know. In a perfect world, the father/son bond would triumph over diversity and they'd have a good cry and a hug and say they loved each other. In reality, Zhane guessed it was going to take a very long time to bridge the gap between them. In his mind's eye, he could see Talon right now, seething mad and driving his mother up the wall with his ranting about what would happen if Zhane ever -did- come home.
He left that mental fragment to linger unfinished, stopping to unshoulder his backpack and seat himself on the ground for a minute. He wasn't used to his excursions having a method to their madness and usually once he began to get tired, he turned back and came home. That not being an option, however, he was determined to cover as much ground as he possibly could before his strength gave out on him for the day.
In silence, he rummaged the canteen out of his pack, unlidding it to drink deeply as his free hand sought the compass in his pants pocket. The needle still wavered in the northwest direction, meaning he'd kept himself on-course, but he still didn't have much to show for it other than the once-hazy and distant mountain range having become much closer. He'd stopped checking the map long ago, having found it useless at this point when there were no discernable roads or landmarks between him and where he was headed.
Just grassland, shrubbery, and miles of space.
Assuming there -was- anyone, he wondered how it was that the people in question decided to settle here. Either they knew something that the rest of the world didn't, or they had walked as far as they were able and then built where the wagon broke down, so to speak. Whatever their reasons, he was doing his best to remain optimistic about things at the moment. Just as he'd seen no reason to believe there was anything out here, he'd also seen no reason to believe there was NOT anything.
And while you're keeping your spirits up about the fact you're wandering aimlessly, Nani's probably worried about you.
He steeled himself, derailing that train of thought before it could leave the station. He had been pointedly trying -not- to think of Tinania since setting out, if only because he knew the more he did, the more inclined he would feel to abandon this entire goosechase and go back.
And is that really a bad thing? There's plenty of time later to--
"What if there's NOT, though?" he hissed aloud through gritted teeth, stuffing the canteen back in his bag. That was enough of a break for now. Not giving the sinister little voice of doubt a chance to retort, he pulled his legs beneath himself to get going again.
Or rather, he would have if his right calf hadn't suddenly exploded in agony, making him wince and double over to grasp it, the compass in his hand momentarily forgotten as it dropped from his fingers to fall among the grass. The charleyhorsed muscle throbbed painfully as he kneaded at it, growling curses all the while as he waited for the cramp to let go. He'd been warned before that this was what came of overdoing the exercise and not drinking enough, but this was the first time it had ever actually happened. Bit by bit, it abated back into nothingness, making him sag with relief.
He could take a hint just fine. Nine hours of sleep on a hot, cramped bus over the last two days wasn't going to cut it, and if he wanted to be in any shape to see this through to its end (whatever that would be), he would need to find somewhere to rest relatively soon. And I'll do that once I get to the foot of the mountains. he promised himself. Was that reasonable? The fact his leg was supporting his weight without buckling said so...and that was good enough, as far as he was concerned.
It didn't look much further, anyway. Another hour, maybe, two tops. As long as he didn't get turned around somehow or wander horribly off-course, he would be fine. And such worries were trivial anyway since he had a--
Compass.
Where was the compass?
His eyes scanned the immediate area, feeling his heart sink. He hadn't watched to see where it had fallen, and in this grass, it could be anywhere. Sifting through the tall billowing blades within his reach, and finding nothing, he felt his fins flatten against the sides of his head. <********!!"
All right. Okay. Calm yourself. You didn't fling it across the field, its got to be somewhere near here.
That logic made all the sense in the world, except for the fact that the damned thing was nowhere. Drawing in a deep breath and letting it out slowly again, forcing himself to calm, Zhane carefully swept and parted the grass, looking for anything at all -- the knot of its black lanyard, a glint of silver as the sun reflected off of its casing....
Had he not been so fixated on seeking only those things, he might have noticed the thin blur of white-and-silver that whisked across the ground beneath his questing fingertips. And he might have taken care not to disturb the grasses in the direction it had gone. By the time he heard the small sharp hiss as his hand passed over a particular tuft, though, it was too late.
The Gossamar Threadsnake appeared in many of Gaia's published field guides as a denizen of dense fields and marshlands. It was described as 'highly territorial' and its bite was known to cause delirium, fever, temporary paralysis, and in rare cases could be fatal. And this particular snake had taken exception to the large intruder invading its hunting grounds. Its hiss more of a warcry than a warning, it struck out at the outstretched hand directly above it.
The sudden explosion of movement, accompanied by the needles of pain, made Zhane jerk backwards with a startled yelp. Clutching his hand, he examined the wound, finding two small punctures adorning the web of flesh between his thumb and forefinger. It didn't -look- bad, but some instinct told him it would be. And very soon.
Quelled panic now rearing its head anew, he pulled himself to his feet in a jumble of conflicted notions. Logic told him to get moving and at least TRY and find himself some help. Sense told him that moving would only make whatever poison he now had in him work faster.
No first aid kit, no tourniquet, didn't even get a look at the snake that did it, and it wouldn't matter even if you had because you'd have no idea what kind it was....you really went into this thing prepared, didn't you?
Sweat began to marble his brow and trickle down the back of his neck as the sun suddenly felt unbearably hot on his skin. The venom clearly had wasted no time in beginning to work, movement or not, as his internal temperature soared. Crazy images filled the ijiuo's mind of a giant magnifying glass being held over him by some unseen hand, as if he were an ant. And he was going to just get hotter and hotter until...
His arm didn't work, he realized with a disjointed sort of surprise.
His brain had told it several times now to reach up and mop the sweat from his face, and it remained stubbornly at his side, unresponsive. He took two lurching steps forward before his legs crumpled out from beneath him uselessly, spilling him sidelong into the grass as the poison moved with oily quickness through his blood.
It was, quite possibly, the worst thing he'd ever felt as a thick numbness crept over his entire body, rendering everything useless. His eyes, the only part of him still mobile, stared balefully up at the sky as a weird sickly tangerine haze pulled over his field of vision.
Even as he clung obsessively to consciousness, making a concentrated effort to keep breathing, Zhane felt it become slippery in his grasp and realized with a helpless sort of terror that this was a losing battle he was fighting. He was beyond being helped, and far beyond being where anyone would even find him.
It wasn't supposed to end up like this...
It was the last coherant thought to pass through his mind before the world spun out of control into a smothering blackness.
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Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 3:51 pm
..............
"....don't touch it! stay back or it might......"
".........from the mountains?"
".......between its eyes before it can bring its evil to........"
".......the wings, and tail......"
".......has the devil in him."
Disjointed fragments of speech fluttered about the inside of his head like moths at a lantern. Trying to grasp at them to make sense of them was a futile venture, and so he had let them slip past him into incoherancy. The void was endless and deep in its rich blackness, leaving him adrift in it for what felt like forever. He had a vague idea that there was somewhere he should be trying to get back to....before he forgot how.
The sound of water. Distant wetness.
Around him, the black began to waver and dissolve away, leaving in its wake a dusky shore.
A stretch of bone-white sand was a pale iris around the dark lake it bordered. Somewhere, far off, the shrill chirr of snow crickets, and the gentle chuckle of the water painted everything with an eerie calm as a blessedly-cool breeze washed over him. He had never seen this place before, and yet felt he had been there many times, and knew it well.
Was this what dying was like, he wondered, as he ventured slowly toward the water's edge to kneel at it. The sand was soft beneath him, promising him a sound rest if he were to lay upon it, and the water's dank mineral scent soothed him in a way he'd not thought possible. Maybe, he thought as he peered into the seemingly-bottomless lake, this was all that there was in the end. No warm white light, no heaven, no hell, just a quiet private place to curl up and cease to be. It was comforting in a strange way...
splash.
Cold spray washed over his brow, sending chills through him and breaking through the shroud of tranquility he'd allowed himself to become enwrapped in. A pang of foreboding -- much like the one he sometimes got out in the woods when he felt he was being watched -- came over him. Maybe....he was not meant to be here.
splash.
More wet. More cold. The dark water had become restless, beginning to spill onto the bank and lap at him.
When that time comes.........we will find one another...........
The voice was gentle and sweet, like a small child's, and seemed to come from everywhere. He drew in a breath to call out to it, only to find himself unable to make more than a thin wheeze of whisper as the water bubbled and saturated him.
............things will be different next time...........
With a surging wave, the water of the once-tranquil pond heaved back to crash itself down upon him in a torrent of icy black....
splash.
"....and from the souls made to the image and likeness of God, and redeemed by the Precious Blood of the Divine Lamb."
Zhane stirred with a moan as the water drizzled down his face in cold riverlets. Where was he...? Not dead....he was too sore for that, he concluded.
"Most cunning serpent, you shall no more dare to deceive the human race, persecute the Church, torment God's elect and sift them as wheat!"
SPLASH!
He jolted, sputtering as his eyes flew open. He had meant to sit up, but a deep numbness only allowed him to get halfway there before he fell back, limbs quaking with fatigue. The strange voice, and the splashes of water had ceased as he looked blearily around himself, trying frantically to piece together the fragments of his scattered wits. He had stopped to rest. He'd lost the compass. There'd been a snake....
Little by little, his surroundings swam into focus, finding him not in the middle of the unending fields he'd last been in, but in a small, dusty room that smelled of old paper and cedar.
"Whuh..." he tried to say, succeeding instead in sending himself into a fit of coughing. He felt, for all intents and purposes, like he'd been hit by a bus.
"God the Father commands you. God the Son commands you. God the Holy Ghost commands you." the voice was hushed now, sounding much smaller and frightened as he lulled his head in its direction, squinting to focus his eyes. Against the wall, there huddled a smallish figure. An elderly man, Zhane realized, clad in a black robe and clutching a well-worn book tightly between trembling hands. As he moved, again, to sit up, succeeding this time in propping himself on his elbows, at least, the stranger thrust the book in front of himself as if it were a shield.
For a time, the only sound was the duet of their breathing reverberating off of the room's walls. Zhane, at last, was the first to speak.
"Where'm I?" he murmured, lifting an arm that felt like it was made of lead to knuckle his sodden bangs away from his forehead.
"A house of God." the old man replied after a long pause. "They cannot follow you here, but you must let me finish what I've started before it takes you fully."
"They?" Zhane questioned, his voice a hoarse croak as he coughed again. For as soaked as he felt, it was almost funny how thirsty he was. Almost.
"My son, I can rid you of this evil, but you -must- let me--"
"WHAT evil...?" he groaned, scooting himself up further until he'd propped himself in a lopsided sit against whatever it was he had been laid out on. The new angle afforded him a better look at his surroundings. The room itself was mostly bare, save for a small desk jumbled with papers and books, the dusty pew bench he'd been placed on, and a windowsill that was lined with small figurines of some sort. Beside the bench was a large bowl of water, presumeably what he'd been being doused in as he'd laid unconscious. "Look..." he said carefully, closing his eyes to stave off a bout of dizziness. "I think....just maybe....there's been a mistake."
"There are no mistakes." the old man corrected him, though he'd slowly lowered the book, drawing it back to his chest like a loved one as he studied Zhane from a wary distance. "If you were sent to us, it was by His hand. He knew that in this land of evil, we are the only ones that remember His name. And we are the only ones who can help you now."
"Help me with -what-?" he asked, a little more forcefully, making the other cringe again.
"When Catherine and David found you, you were nearly gone." he began. "We've believed for a while now that the demons in the mountainside have begun to get bolder. They wasted no time in taking advantage of your weakness to make your body their own. My son..." the old man said carefully, as though about to delicately break some earth-shattering news to someone unsuspecting. "Your hands...!"
Zhane felt a spike of dread, and for a moment, didn't want to look. That didn't, however, stop him from doing so anyway as he lifted still-shaking hands into his line of sight to examine them. He didn't know what he'd expected to see...but it certainly hadn't been to see -nothing-. Puzzled, he turned them over slowly, looking over the mottling of blue-purple for any abnormalities. Aside from the angry reddened puff the snake's bite had left, though, there wasn't anything that he could see that was--
Wait...
The water, the robed old man with a book, the odd scripture being read over him as he'd awakened, talk of evil and demons.....he'd seen all of this before. Granted, it had been in a movie, but the gist of it was still there. On its own, his mind touched back to his brief stopover in Bellendron and the reaction the locale had had to his draconic features. The last piece of the ridiculous puzzle clicked into place and made him issue a growl.
"Oh for ******** sake....!" the curse was met with a murmured prayer from the stranger as he struggled to sit up straighter. No easy task when your entire body felt like it was filled with pins and needles. "Listen..." he began, putting on as reasonable of a tone as his parched throat would allow him to. "....I've always looked this way. Its got nothing to do with mountains, or demons, or anything like that." He paused, waiting to see if there would be any change in the old man's demeanor. When there wasn't, he continued. "Where I come from, most people are a lot stranger-looking than this. I'm not sure how it is you guys managed to never see any of them, but..."
"You will -not- bring them here." he interrupted forcefully, his grip tightening on the book's cover until the blood drained from his knuckles.
"No. I won't." Zhane agreed. "None of them even know I'm out here." He dared to stretch a bit, feeling a surge of warmth run through his limbs as he did so. "Where -is- 'here' anyway?" He felt a bit like an ingrate with the way he was acting. Despite having the wrong intentions, if 'they' hadn't found him and brought him here, there was no telling what else might have found him if he'd been left to lay in the grasses. However, he felt, given the circumstances, he was within his right to feel crabby at the moment.
"Mayfeld."
Mayfeld. Ah. That answered ALL his questions. "The Lord has kept us strong on the edge of evil for twelve generations." he went on as Zhane flexed his arms slowly, getting the blood flowing through them again. "And it is by His grace that they may not set foot here. The fact you are here now and still alive means that He has a better plan for you than as a tool of the devil." As he spoke, he kept a wary eye on Zhane, watching him work himself up to attempting to stand. His knees buckled, making him wobble as he caught himself on the edge of the sill.
Uff...maybe that hadn't been the best idea so soon after waking. As he moved to push off and right his balance, though, something caught his eye. It wasn't much -- a small flash of color against an otherwise-dreary setting -- but it made him look to it all the same. Only to stop short. The figurines he'd given a cursory glance earlier were closer now, allowing him to easily see them.
Lined up like dusty, stoic soldiers were eight stone dragons. Each was unique in color and pose, all of them beautifully-crafted. Here was a great green wyrm with its head reverently skyward. Here was a deep blue wind serpent, its neck craned about its body to coil neatly on the ground. Here was a behemoth of a brown Lindworm, its talons clutching the earth possessively. But, diverse as they were, all had a single thing in common -- a small scoop somewhere in their structure.
For a moment, Zhane would not allow himself to believe it. He was still unconscious, he told himself. He'd never left the field, and this was just his brain misfiring and filling him with falsified feelings of closure to make him let go. There was no dingy room, there was no strange old man, and there were certainly no--
His fingertips reached out tentatively to first brush, and then grasp the figurine nearest to him. The polished red stone felt cold and heavy in his palm....more importantly, it felt -real-. He let out the shaky breath he'd been holding as he propped his shoulder against the wall for balance to turn the statue over in his hands, examining it from all sides and angles. It was a strange feeling to finally hold what he'd been seeking the source of for a good piece of his life, and even stranger to reflect on the string of events that had brought him here. Which left one more thing -- the most important thing -- he wanted answers.
Zhane's eyes returned to the priest who'd not moved from his spot against the wall. In fact, he seemed to shrink back further as Zhane had taken interest in the statues on the sill. "Please..." he began, finding it took a great effort on his part to keep his voice calm, even in his current state. "....if you really want to help me, you can tell me what these are. And for that matter...."
He paused, watching the sun catch gold and black flecks in the red, "....what *I* am..."
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Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2009 5:21 am
Dear Diary,
Well, technically I guess you're 'Dear back-of-one-of-my-printouts'...
I think the phrase "Close, but no cigar" can sum up this venture perfectly about now.
I thought it was over today. I really did. Those statues were all I'd had to go on for such a long time and I was finally seeing them. Finally touching them. As I write this, I'm looking right AT them.
.....and nobody here has any clue what they are beyond "evil".
Maybe this all bears repeating. Let me give you a recap of my day:
I woke up in the back room of a church after getting my hand bitten up by a snake. I wasn't alone, though....there was a priest there (Father Daniel, I found out his name was) who couldn't seem to decide whether he was trying to drown me or trying to exorcise me while I was out. Exorcise me of what? Well, that's a funny story. It seems, I guess, that if I hadn't stopped to rest and had kept walking another ten or so minutes, I would have seen Mayfeld for myself. Instead a couple of their people found me, took one look at my wings, tail, and antlers, and decided I was some sort of wayward traveller who'd been possessed by a demon and had been making my way to them because I'd been guided there by some sort of divine power to ask their help.
I wouldn't call them a cult or anything, but its almost like time kind of passed these people by. They're a small village and they haven't seen anything but each other for the last....hell, I don't even know. They're alot like the people in Bellendron in that they're very plain. No weird foxpeople, or wings, or a pair of horns as far as the eye can see. Its nothing like back home, and holy hell TRY telling them about back home and you have them gasping and muttering under their breath and bowing their heads. Its awkward, to say the least.
They aren't all bad, though. Even if they think I'm some sort of hellspawn, they gave me back my bag...
Getting back to the point --
In the back room I woke up in, there were about eight of these statues. They fit the description perfectly of the ones mom and dad came from and I figured I must have found the source of them. I got excited, I asked Father Daniel to explain.
According to him, they were left in Mayfeld by some travellers that had come through almost twenty years ago. These guys had gone up into the mountains against the warnings of the village and had been gone for a couple of weeks, and when they came back, had lots of these statues. The ones I'm looking at now were what they had left behind in their hurry to leave with their discoveries. Father Daniel says his father had placed them in the church in hopes it might purify them somehow, or at least keep their owners from coming for them.
That's another thing...are you ready for this? The mountains bordering this place are, apparantly, the devil's playground. Everybody in Mayfeld firmly believes that they are only still there because of their strong faith. I'm not one to say whether that's true or not, but it sounds suspect, to say the least.
I asked the Father what he thought of the idea that the statues might be able to turn into people like me. Judging by his reaction, he'd never seen it happen and furthermore hoped he never WOULD see it happen.
The answers I want aren't here. I've come to terms with that. And I've come to believe that there's really only one more place they could be.
Nobody here has flat-out told me to leave yet, but I get the idea I'm not welcomed. Provided my legs are feeling up to some more walking in the morning, I'm going to head out into whatever part of the mountains those "visitors" went to and hope for the best. I'm gambling at this point and I know it. I got unthinkably lucky to be found after the snake incident, but if something happens in the mountains I know ONE group of people who won't exactly be leaping to my rescue. Ha!
God, all I want right now is a long, hot shower...
--Z
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Posted: Fri Mar 06, 2009 9:57 pm
It was not a shower, but it was better than nothing.
When he'd asked about a place to clean up, Father Daniel had been reluctant to say the least. He'd not been actively forbidden to walk among the people of Mayfeld, but the general idea was there regardless with the way people had shied from him and, even went out of their way to avoid the church, knowing he was there. With the idea that no one wanted to let a stranger into their home to use their washtub in mind, a compromise had been reached. Zhane had been brought a metal basin filled with water, some soap, a couple of clean cloths, and was given some privacy.
It was amazing, really, how the simple act of washing could make you feel worlds better. As he scrubbed days' worth of grime and dirt from his face and hair, Zhane felt almost at-peace with everything that had happened thus far. So he still had a little further to go....so what? He'd already done more than a lot of people in his situation could claim they'd done. That thought alone warmed him inside, quieting the snarling disappointment he'd felt after not hearing what he'd wanted to hear regarding the statues.
It was not until he was mopping away the residual moisture from his neck and shoulders that he heard it. A long grating moaning noise that resounded off of the windows and walls of the church. He stopped short, wondering if he'd imagined it, until he heard a uniform scuffling on the other side of the window. Drawing himself to his feet to peer outside into the deepening dusk, the scattered inhabitants of Mayfeld all had abandoned whatever it was they were doing to move, with great determination, in the direction of their respective dwellings and disappear inside of them.
In a matter of minutes, the small village had gone from timid activity to completely still and silent. No lights appeared in the windows, no one walked the streets, it was as if the place had very suddenly become a ghost town. Furrowing his brow in puzzlement, Zhane moved to grab up the fresh clothes he'd fished out of his backpack and struggle into them before heading for the front entrance of the church at a trot.
He was met at the doorway by a harried-looking Father Daniel who had recoiled upon seeing him give such an eager response to the noise.
"Is it you they call for?" he demanded to know.
"No. What -was- that?" he inquired, blinking. "And where did everybody go?" Instead of answering, the old man brushed past him into the church. Zhane lingered near the doorway a moment before following after him, watching as he approached the alter, leaning heavily on it.
"We live in dark times." Father Daniel spoke at last, his voice hushed. "Every night, they awaken. And every night, the Lord has kept them at bay."
As if on cue, a growling rumble, followed by what sounded like a small avalanche of stones, could be heard from somewhere outside, making the hairs on the nape of Zhane's neck prickle. He recalled his own hurried half-awake handwriting on the back of one of the pages. Don't go after dark. Where, by any stretch, he had gleaned this town's location or that tidbit of information, he still didn't know. But it made sense now.
There was a crunching of gravel as two young men with rifles strapped to their backs bolted past the church's front door and, presumeably to the gates surrounding Mayfeld to fend off any would-be attackers.
A couple of the guys at school said they found it once while they were driving around one night and got shot at.
The teen girl's words fluttered at his mind's grasp...had her name been Sara? He couldn't recall for sure. It was funny how the most outlandish things pulled together to form coherency when given the chance.
"They'll leave with the dawn. The sun drives them away." Father Daniel went on to explain, kneeling and crossing himself to bow his head in prayer. Zhane watched him for a long moment, reluctant to interrupt, but at length reached out, touching the old man's shoulder with his fingertips, making him recoil as if burnt to goggle up at him.
"I know it was a long time ago and all, but..." he began. "...those men you said came through here that brought back the statues. How did they survive going into the mountains?"
A shrill roar from outside, followed by an eerie silence. A sweat had broken on Father Daniel's brow as he collected himself before speaking.
"There are some things best not thought of." he said in a voice what wavered as he spoke.
"There are some things I -need- to think of." he pressed. "....because I plan on going there."
At this, the priest rose quickly to his full height, wringing his hands, his eyes looking enormous in his head.
"....then you are mad."
Zhane set his jaw, trying to remain firm in his decision in the face of Daniel's reaction and the ungodly noises sweeping through Mayfeld. "I'm not." he said at last. "But--"
"My son, I am going to give you some advice. Perhaps the first real advice you've been given since leaving home." the priest interrupted as Zhane's earfins pricked in intrigue. "Leave this place." he said firmly. "Go back to where you came from and learn to be content without knowing. There is seeking knowledge, and there is meddling. You..." he said pointing a finger at the young man. "....are coming dangerously close to crossing that line."
The ijiuo blinked, stunned as if the words had been a slap to the face. "Meddling in -what-?"
More silence, and then a hardening of Zhane's features as realization dawned on him.
".....you don't even know what's up there, do you?" he said at last.
"I don't NEED to know!" Father Daniel hissed, his proclamation nearly drowned out by another yowl as he cast a hunted look over his shoulder. "Can't you -hear- it? Do you need to look your own damnation in the eyes to know it??" Zhane drew a deep breath, letting it out slowly, trying to shut out the horrific sounds trailing down from the mountainsides to look at the bigger picture.
"Yes." the word was stony and edged in finality. He had not come this far to tuck tail and run back home because of what -might- be. "I'll leave in the morning." he continued when it didn't seem Father Daniel had anything more to say. "Or now if you'd rather." Still nothing, and it made him sigh in frustration, turning away from the old man. "I don't expect you to understand, but I've come too far, and I'm too close just to give up. I need to find what I'm looking for."
There was a faint rustling of cloth, and a moving of shadows before Zhane became aware that something was being placed around his neck. It made him whirl on his heel to regard Father Daniel in surprise as he finished tying off whatever it was. As he stepped back again Zhane reached up, tracing the simple cord around his neck to the small black cross that now rested against his breast.
"If you are, indeed, going up there," the old man said at last. "....then there is only one thing you should be looking for."
That said, he turned from Zhane, regarding him no further as he, again, knelt at the alter to pray as a growl tore across the early spring winds.
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Posted: Wed Mar 11, 2009 8:45 am
He'd made good on his word.
When the sun crowned over the edge of the horizon, and people began to tentatively poke their heads out of their doorways to ensure that they were, in fact, still there, Zhane had taken his leave of Mayfeld. Father Daniel would later find the note he'd left behind in the same room he'd first awoken in:The Note Reads To Whomever Finds This,
I owe you my thanks and maybe even my life. Thank you for taking me in even if you were afraid of me and for letting me stay for a night. To Father Daniel, I appreciate your warning. But, regardless of what I find up there, and what it might or might not do to me, as far as I'm concerned its better to know.
I wish you well, and thank you again.
~Zhane
...perhaps because this was where his 'agenda' had officially ended. There were no more specific locations to try and find from this point out, only himself and whatever may or may not lurk in the mountainside. It was yet another needle to find in a vast haystack, but he'd been keeping his eyes keen looking for any signs at all of those who could have made the statues. Tracks, leavings, rocks arranged by hand, smoke -- he saw none of those things.
Morning turned to afternoon, and afternoon to dusk, and Zhane had no idea how much ground he'd covered since he'd begun. The grasslands below were a distant green carpet as crisp mountain wind whipped at his clothes and hair. Thus far, he'd had no reason to believe it was a bad place -- and certainly not demon-tainted as the people of Mayfeld would have had him believe. He had, however, noticed something peculiar...
Save for himself, there were no sounds. No birds, no insects, even the wind seemed tentative to whisper past the rocks and through the shrubs of the mountainside. Clearing his throat loudly, if only for the comfort of hearing his own voice, he used his tail as leverage against a spindly tree trunk as he climbed a steeper slope. The top gave way to a large, open plateau, mottled with broken shards of shale, offering nothing except, perhaps, an amazing view of the sun beginning to set.
He lingered where he was for a moment before venturing forward until he stood near its edge. The drop was not sheer, but high enough that it filled him with an exhilirating dizziness to look over the side. It made him feel, as if for the first time, the vastness of the world around him and how small he was in comparison. How easy it would be to get swallowed up entirely and never be found...
One foot scuffled a bit, kicking a dusting of pebbles over the ridge and listening to them bounce and clack back down the way he'd come. For reasons unknown to him, it made him smile....only to feel it fade in puzzlement as a larger shower of stones cascaded down after it, accompanied by a deep, snorting rumble. The noise sent a chill through him as his head darted to look over his shoulder, only to see nothing there.
It had been a nagging thought since he'd departed Mayfeld today....that he and whatever lurked in the mountainside might meet. The practical side of him had been busily coming up with explanations for the godawful racket that sounded more reasonable than the idea it was some sort of monster or demon. His favorite of these had been that a large underground cave was slowly collapsing, and the roars and snorts had really just been the wind carrying and moaning oddly through it.
That, however, hadn't sounded like any wind he'd ever heard....
He held stark still for ten seconds. Twenty. Nearly a full minute of silence had ticked by before he dared move again, stepping back from the edge, slowly and carefully. Maybe.....maybe it hadn't been anything.
That notion, however, was quickly erased as, with a great gust of wind, something very, very large heaved itself over the edge he'd, just moments ago, been standing on. Unease gave way to a spark of white-hot panic. His eyes snapped wide and his limbs, not waiting for his brain's go-ahead, began to scramble backward in a flurried tangle to put as much distance between himself and the behemoth whatever-it- was that fought for purchase on the shelf of stone.
THUD! A gnarled paw, easily as large as his entire body, thundered to the ground as a cloud of dust kicked up into his eyes, momentarily blinding him. More snorting and a gust of fetid warm wind washed over the ijiuo as a cry tore from his throat. At the same instant, his back struck the same tree he'd braced himself against to get up here in the first place, the weight of his backpack tumbling him off-balance as he struggled to right himself once more
"Anthar...." a rumbling voice spoke somewhere in the meaningless blur of color and noise. Zhane managed to pull himself into a half sit, the dust clearing from his vision in time to wish it hadn't as he finally looked at the source of the intrusion. The head was large, flat, and reptillian, a deep copper in color. It framed two milky gray eyes that seemed both to stare directly at him, and yet stare at nothing at all. It lurched forward, nostrils flaring it drew a snorting breath, its other paw crashing to the earth just shy of Zhane's left, making him cringe away from it.
"....Ixu....?" it uttered next, the tone seeming to waver into one of questioning. It took a step forward, and Zhane rolled sharply away to avoid being crushed. What--what in the HELL??
On its back, a pair of ratty, tattered wings flexed and then beat uselessly at the air as it reared back onto its haunches. His eyes feeling too wide for his head, and his mouth agape, Zhane was finally afforded a full look at the creature. The dragon, in its youth, must have been a thing of legends. The sun's dying rays of scarlet and orange glinted off of an armor of bronze scales, seeming to make its ancient frame radiate an inner power as it bellowed, a groaning roar issuing from its throat and echoing over the entire landscape.
It was you... he thought bewilderedly, immediately recognizing the noise from the night before. Not demons, not Satan claiming the mountainside as his own personal playground...
The ground trembled as the beast fell back to its forepaws, making Zhane and everything else jump a bit.
"Where are you?" the dragon spoke again, its lips curling back from yellowed and dulled fangs. When it recieved no answer, its head lowered, scenting the ground noisily. "You carry with you the scent of my clan, stranger. I have torn apart these mountains seeking the ones that stole them from me and I will do so again." Sightless eyes lidded themselves as a thick clubbed tail lashed once, bringing itself down hard on the plateau's floor.
For his part, Zhane found himself having a hard time finding his voice. Never in his life had he been so instilled with amazement and terror all at once, wishing he was miles from this spot, and yet not wanting to be anywhere -more- in his life. At long last, he found enough of himself to at least attempt to speak. "I--" he began, the word pathetic and reedy against the dragon's massive voice. Nonetheless, the beast froze, its head darting in his general direction as its lip twitched menacingly. "I--I--"
Talk. Say something to it. Anything.
"I've....come a long way." he managed to get out. The dragon's head lowered, having honed in on the precise source of the smaller voice to bring itself more-or-less to eye level with the young man. "I'm trying to find answers, but--"
A large paw swiped at the air, bringing itself down on top of him. There was a horrible suffocating feeling in his chest as the dragon pinned him between two large digits, slowly squeezing the wind out of his body. "Then you will give me mine first." it growled. "Why....do you carry the scent of my own? WHY do I smell the blood of Anthar and Ixu on you?"
"I don't know...!" he coughed, trying in vain to heave the dragon's paw off of himself.
"Their souls are not for you or -anyone- to claim!" Zhane didn't know if it was his imagination or not, but it felt as if the paw was pressing down even harder, and his sounding like a frightened child was clearly not helping matters very much. It was funny, really, how you could conceptualize an entire journey in your head, in which you'd be presented with obstacles and overcome them admirably. But between this and the snake and the entire Mayfeld incident, it was becoming clear to him that the stone-cold adventurer role was not one that he played very well.
But be that as it may, if he didn't stop hemming and hawing very, very soon, he was not going to live long enough for it to be a concern of his in the near future.
"I didn't come here to cause trouble...!" he half-said, half-wheezed, trying to ignore the black spots swirling at the corners of his vision. "My parents....they came from these statues, these relics! I'm trying--"
Don't pass out. Do NOT pass out.
Sinking his teeth hard into his bottom lip, feeling the coppery taste of blood wash over his tongue, the pain shocked away the onsetting haze of unconsciousness. "--to figure out where they came from, and what I am."
Time, for a long moment, seemed to stop. And then, little by little, the pressure in his chest alleviated, allowing him to breathe once more.
"Relics." the dragon repeated, its foggy eyes narrowing to slits. "What relics?"
When he felt confident enough that his voice would not fail him, Zhane began to speak in earnest. He told the dragon everything to the best of his knowledge, starting tentatively at first, but the words coming more and more easily as he went on. When he'd pause to think, or to draw a breath to continue, the dragon would rumble in its throat in a way that the ijiou was not sure was meant to be menacing or encouraging, though never once did it interrupt.
"There were some in the church there. Eight, I think. I thought they must know something about them, but nobody did. They were just left behind from some people who'd gone up into the mountains a long time ago and found them....so I came here to try and find the last piece."
"If you aren't incredibly stupid, then you must be one who believes he has nothing to lose." the dragon concluded when it seemed confident Zhane's tale was done. "Chasing the tails of dreams, following notions....and all of it brought so easily to an end with one. Squeeze."
Zhane felt a cold sweat break on the back of his neck as the pressure, for one horrible second, returned before the entire weight of the dragon's paw lifted itself away, leaving him free to sit up. "These things that you call relics. And statues. Are far more precious than you could know."
"I figured they must be," he agreed, rubbing at his aching ribs. He remained on his guard, though was no longer barely containing the urge to flee. If the dragon wanted him dead, he would have been so by now. "or someone might have known what they were by now."
"Then you may have also 'figured', blood of Anthar and Ixu, that they are not a matter of -what-, but of who." the bronze snorted. Zhane felt himself boggle at that idea for a moment. It made sense, of course, considering the spontaneous origins of his parents that the statues were really some sort of spiritual vessel. Whose, though, currently remained a mystery.
"Please," he said at last. "I want to understand. Anything you can tell me -- anything you -want- to tell me, I mean...."
"Divulge my clan's secrets to a young fool with the blood of long-dead friends in its veins...." the dragon murred, seeming amused by the concept. His neck craned suddenly, an explosive sneeze venting from his muzzle that seemed to rattle him to his very core. The rattle of his innards betrayed his ancient body even beneath its majestic pelt of scales and massive size. "These are not things for strangers to hear of." Having said so, the bronze hefted itself to its feet and began the slow, ardorous process of picking its way blindly down from the shelf.
"Then I won't be a stranger," he said quickly, not willing to be so easily dismissed as he moved to catch up. "I'll tell you whatever you want to know. My name is Zhane Breslin."
"I am called Farrkhod." the dragon stated simply, not breaking stride. From somewhere within the great beast, there was a muffled gurgling sound. "And if you are, indeed, to know me, Zhane Breslin, you will know first that I do not speak to anyone before I've fed."
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Posted: Thu Mar 12, 2009 6:28 am
Dear Diary,
Well, you are the back of yet another printout. I'm writing, really, just to give me something to do so I don't jump out of my own skin right now.
He's kept me waiting here for the last four hours. Its pitch black, and I'm holding a flashlight under my chin to even see what I'm doing about now. I'm not really worried that he's left or anything, though, because I can hear him just fine from where I am.
I've never heard one thing make so much noise before. Its really no wonder Mayfeld thinks these hills are filled with unholy things...
'He', by the way, is a dragon. Not someone slightly odd-looking who says they're a dragon, but the real deal. We're talking size-of-a-semi-truck, shakes-the-ground-when-he-walks enormous DRAGON here. And I think I came about three seconds from getting shown personally just how heavy he is if I'd said the wrong thing to him...
His name is Farrkhod, and I think he's about as old as these mountains to look at him. He's blind in both eyes so he mainly gets around by smell and the sound of his own echo. Which, as I said, explains all of the noises.
He hasn't told me much of anything so far, aside from alluding to the fact the the statues are some sort of soul vessels. And that whole 'Anthar and Ixu' thing, too. He didn't want me following him while he eats, either. He told me if I really valued what I came looking for, I would let him share it on his own terms.
Fair enough....
He said its easier for him to find me if I stay in one place so he can follow my scent back, which is why I'm parked here. Wherever 'here' is, anyway. I should take a cue from him and eat too while I'm waiting. I've been too wound up to worry much about meals, so the power bars and jerky in my pack have held out.
Probably not the best diet for all the exercise I've been doing....probably why I've been getting cramps in my arms and legs lately too. Mom would have a fit if she was here...
Its been about another hour since I started writing this. I can't hear him anymore. I don't like to think he ditched me, but what am I supposed to think? If he did, I'm g
the sentence cuts off abruptly and the bottom of the page is mottled with several dark brown-red smears
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Posted: Sun Mar 15, 2009 3:45 am
Zhane recoiled as something heavy and wet slapped the makeshift journal of printer paper from his grasp, the flashlight tumbling from where it had been tucked between his chin and chest. It struck the ground with a loud clack, flickering as it bounced once, its beam of yellow light dancing crazily over the rocks before coming to rest on a pair of large black eyes. He drew in his breath in a sharp hiss over his teeth at the sight of the mangled creature before him....it may have once been a sheep, but was now horribly crushed, staring stupidly into space as if puzzled by its own demise.
"Do you know how long it has been since I have last hunted for another?" Farrkhod's rumbling voice inquired from directly above as he snapped his head up to see the silohuette of the dragon's head and neck looming over him. "Anthar came to enjoy goat. He had said it was the closest one could come to seal flesh this far inland."
Zhane swallowed back the rise of his gorge as he forced himself to take another look at the mangled beast. How?? How had he managed to sneak up on him when every step he took rattled the ground? And for that matter, how did a blind dragon as large and as loud as Farrkhod was even begin to go about hunting...? The mental image of him blindly stomping through a flock of mountain goats in hopes of flattening one or two came to mind, and he wasn't sure whether he ought to find it funny or be sickened as he reached for his flashlight once more.
"Eat." the dragon commanded, stepping over the young man to cross over a short distance away. "And we will talk."
"Thanks. I'm....not hungry just yet." Zhane assured him, spying the corner of his papers peeking out from under the goat's corpse and tugging them free, wincing in distaste at the smears of blood at the bottom of the entry he'd been working on.
"If I had thought you were maintaining yourself, I would not have hunted for you." the dragon replied with a snort of derision. "You smell of the beasts that starve themselves in the late winter. Eat. Now."
Zhane's eyes wandered between the ancient dragon and the goat several times. "You can smell the blood of dead friends in me, you can smell that I'm hungry, what -else- do you smell...?" he muttered under his breath, shaking his head a bit in disbelief.
"When one sense goes," the dragon said simply, lidding his cloudy eyes once "others become much keener." Saying so, his nostrils flared once more and drew in a breath. "You are tired, and you are hungry. You have travelled for several days alone. Your last prolonged contact with another was before you set out. A female, whom you bred with."
He opened his mouth to argue, and then, realizing he had nothing to say in defense, closed it again and looked away, feeling his face burn. His fault for asking, he guessed....
"And on the subject of breeding..." Farrkhod went on, not missing a beat. "I find it most odd that Anthar and Ixu would take one another as mates, even reborn into another life."
"Why's that odd?" he inquired, trying in vain to wipe away the stains on the paper before finally giving up and stuffing it back into his backpack.
"We all weren't terribly fond of one another." the bronze explained, stretching out and lowering himself to his belly. "Our situation was one of necessity. None of us wanted to coexist together, but we wanted to die even less." He drew in a deep breath and let out a great sigh that sent a hot breeze over everything in the nearby vicinity. "There was a time when this world was the birthplace of all things borne of chaos and magic." he began. "It was never a -peaceful- existance, but it was a better one. And then the outsiders began to come...
"Men, elves, their tamed beasts....no one knew where they were coming from, only that they had begun to hew out their own footholds in our world and make it their own. Some learned to coexist with them, and some were hunted. We were---what is that vile thing you are fussing with?"
Zhane paused in mid-unwrap of a slightly-mooshed power bar to blink at Farrkhod curiously. As the old bronze had begun to speak, his revulsion at the dead goat had lessened, allowing his hunger to return in a snarl....though still not enough to make a dinner of raw meat. "Food." he answered at length, bringing it to his mouth to bite off a piece of it.
"What I brought you is food." the dragon snapped indignantly. "Little fool, its no wonder you're starving." Craning his neck downward, Farrkhod wrapped his jaws around the animal, tossing it back into his gullet where it disappeared from view with a crunch that made Zhane's appetite, just as quickly as it had surged back, retreat once more. He found that he had to force himself to swallow the bite of grain and dried fruit he'd taken. At the very least, this would be the end of the goat argument...
"We were a council," he continued as if there had never been an interruption. "Anthar of the sea, Ixu of the mountains, Dezseld of the valleys, Golos of the winds, Kerrin of the woods, Ardu of the light, Calaun of the dark, Dalaugh of the caves, Ontor of the flame, and myself of the earth. For centuries, clans that had shared nothing, now all had a single thing in common -- they were in danger. Even as we agreed to meet on neutral ground and to speak as equals, our kin were dying around us. Killed out of fear, hunted out of hatred...
"The meeting of the clans, however, solved nothing. And it became clear that, even in times of crisis, age-old rivalries and grudges ran too deeply among us to act as one. Our patience with one another held out through a full turn of seasons before we began to disperse in frustration."
"You held your meeting for a -year- even though you hated each other....?" Zhane inquired, arching a brow skeptically.
"A year is of significance to those who can count their own. I have lived for centuries. It was only when we began to leave that we noticed we had been trapped. While we had bickered and debated, the very intrusion we were meeting about had built their villages and strongholds all around us. The humans became aware of us and attacked, and together we were able to hold our own." He lowered his head to his forepaws, resting his great chin upon them. "It may sound strange to you, that ones as large as we were able to be beaten back so fiercely by men, but we were built to be resilliant against the attacks of our own. A gorgon's venom, a siren's song, an imp's charm....those were combatted easily. They did not exist in a chaotic mindset, though. They moved with planning and precision, they studied our weaknesses, and they struck as one with their weapons."
Great dirt-clodded claws splayed and then raked over the stone he laid upon loudly "To fight alone was death. We quickly realized that our only hope would be to band together and retreat to the mountains. It was there that we made a pact with one another, in hopes of it uniting us. I plundered the mountains' depths, finding enough gold for our purpose. And with Ontor's help, it was flattened and shaped. The disc was put in the midst of the ten of us, and each of us placed a scale within it, as our promise we would be one clan. Fused together into one unit, we called it Mor'tivyr."
"Mor'tivyr..." he repeated, mostly to himself, trying the name out. It didn't ring any deep-seated bells of familiarity, despite the weight it seemed to carry with it.
"In times of struggle, or death, or rage, there was always Mor'tivyr. It was our single constant in all of those years." Farrkhod's eyes narrowed to pale slits. "....but there were times when not even it could fool some of us into believing we were brothers. Anthar was a dear friend of mine...a blue olliepiest from the northern seas. His way was one of song and merriment, and his clan had tolerated the foreign presense in their waters at first, delighting in the curious songs and chants that the humans on their fishing boats recited.
"And then there was mighty Ixu, child of the peaks. She was an intelligent, if poor-tempered, black wyrm. She came from a clan who's way was to silently look down on the world. She thought Anthar to be a fool. He thought her to be a loveless shell. The hatred between them was intense and tangible, unlike any of the animosities any of the rest of us may have harbored due to old wars among clans. Nothing quelled it -- not reason, not separation, not countless reminders of the promise they'd made. Eventually, it ended up being the death of them...."
Zhane found his mind filling in the blanks on its own, picturing a pair of great black and blue beasts locked in a death struggle with one another that ended up claiming the both of them as others looked on helplessly. Something so primal and so fierce, not even Mor'tivyr could stop it. He'd yet to experience a hatred that deeply before....he supposed the closest he'd come, really, was his own father. Even then, though, it hadn't been hate.
"They had gone out to forage, and never came back. When we found them, it was at the opposite end of the mountains, partially buried beneath a rockslide. We had come to assume, that they had begun to argue again. And that arguing had led to a struggle, as was common for the two of them. This time, though, it had upset the mountainside and brought it crashing down on their foolish heads." Farrkhod's voice rose in volume as he spoke until it was sharp with anger as he recalled these particular events. "It had not immediately killed them, and from where they were, we would have heard their cries for help. They just, very simply....did not call for help."
"Why not...?"
"To help themselves would be to help the other." the bronze rumbled, his tail beginning to flick in agitation as he recalled bitter memories. "When we found them, they had died with their eyes locked on one another. It was more gratifying to them to watch one another die than it ever would have been to save themselves." With a grunt, the bronze rose to his feet once more. "So you will forgive me if I find sharing history with the product of their union to be funny on many levels." Saying so, he shook himself off, showering both Zhane and the immediate area with dust and gravel as he did so, and began to set out.
"Where are you going?" the ijiuo inquired, likewise moving to get up.
"I've answered enough of your questions for one night." the dragon replied, not breaking stride. "I leave you now to your business and you will leave me to mine. Perhaps I'll find you tomorrow evening if old wounds have mended by then."
"Wait...! I don't--" he started to say, though Farrkhod was already disappearing into the inky black of the night where his flashlight's beam could not follow. He sighed, sinking back to the ground. It was amazing, really, how he could learn so much in one night, and yet learn absolutely nothing. What if this was the last he'd see of what was likely the only source of the answers he'd come for?
What if he'd flattened you a few seconds after meeting him? You ought to be thankful he told you -anything-.
He knew it was true, but all the same, it was, in a word, frustrating. He didn't really expect Farrkhod to allow himself to be patiently interrogated, especially given the bad start they'd gotten off to, but....
So stay optimistic. Its really all you have left at this point, anyway. You're hanging your hopes on an ancient, blind dragon, who shouldn't even EXIST, who may or may not be telling you the truth as it is...
He heaved a deep sigh, clicking off the flashlight and plunging himself into darkness once more as he mulled over what he'd been told, letting his mind paint pictures of the wayward clan, Mor'tivyr, and the way Anthar and Ixu had, quite literally, hated one another to death.
Overhead, a dusky cloud drifted past the pale eye of the moon. Alone with his thoughts, and the sounds of Farrkhod's clumsy travel through the mountainside having diminished to nothing, somewhere during the night, Zhane slept.
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Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2009 11:56 am
Dear Diary,
She keeps telling me I've blamed myself enough and that I really should be focusing on more useful things at this point. Like hoping that he's safe.
Its been almost two weeks without a call or a letter or anything to let us know he's even okay. Maybe it hasn't been that long wherever he is right now, but time is funny in Gaia. Hell, maybe its been LONGER wherever he is.
I don't know.
I just don't know anymore.
Sometimes lately I've been going to his room and sitting there for awhile, just trying to get inside his head and think in the same way he does to see if it makes any more sense from his angle. And....I don't know a damn thing more than I did before all of this.
No, I take that back actually. I've found out at least one thing I didn't know.
My son, apparently, is a photographer. When he wanted a camera for his birthday, I assumed he was just going to do with it what most kids his age did with cameras and fill the damn thing up with useless pictures to throw on the internet and document his daily life.
I looked through his binders, though, and most of them aren't just randomly-snapped photos. You can tell he actually took the time to find a good perspective and line it up just right, and it really shows.
He's got years' worth of these sorts of pictures of the woods, creeks, meadows, abandoned warehouses, graveyards, all sorts of things, and this is the first time I've ever paid attention to any of it. This is what I've been yelling at him for wasting his time on.
Every time I start to agree with Yeande that maybe I HAVE blamed myself enough, I find something like this. At this rate, I'm never going to stop kicking my own a**...
I want him to be okay. I want him to come home. And following those two things, I want another shot at trying to understand him before I lose him completely.
~T
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Posted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 1:29 am
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Posted: Thu Mar 26, 2009 1:10 am
When Farrkhod had arrived at the onset of evening, he had done so in silence. He had brought with him today, not a trampled goat, but something else....a chewed and uprooted tree. One that was laden with peaches that were still tart and not fully ripened, but edible. Though he had been dying to, Zhane had not asked where he'd gotten it. The great aged drake had laid to the side expectantly, stubbornly not saying a word until the young man had properly eaten.
"The earth and its children are fascinating things." Farrkhod stated, seemingly to no one in particular as one forepaw scraped the ground, raking together a small collection of dirt clods and stones. When they had been placed into a suitable pile, the dragon hovered a paw over them and, as Zhane watched, the earth began to smooth and meld itself together in a strange gel of sorts. "Most would call them unyielding, though the truth of the matter is, they yield only beneath the right touch."
The soft materia arched, swooped, and then began to take form as, from the meaningless nothing, a serpentine body began to take shape, wings arched and head skyward. By the time he lifted his paw away, there sat a small, flawlessly-formed likeness of a dragon formed in a bizarre but perfectly-smooth mottling of green, brown, gray, and white.
"It was you, then..." Zhane breathed, extending a hand to touch the arc of the statue's neck. It was hard and polished beneath his fingertips, exactly as the ones he'd seen on the sill in Mayfeld had been. Too smooth to have been carved, too intricate to have been sculpted. And now he knew why.
"Things were much simpler when there was no ceremony or tradition attached with life's happenstance." Farrkhod said, lowering his head to his forepaws and heaving a great shuddering sigh. "But with man also came their strange obsessions with things we had previously not given much thought to. Death, to us, was an ending. And someday would be a new beginning. Death, to them, was something to be mourned and honored, and as a race that had no traditions of its own, it intrigued us."
Confident the small statue would not break, Zhane picked it up, turning it over to examine it better. It was farfetched to think that someone like Farrkhod could be responsible for something of this sort of make. A blind dragon, ancient in years, with paws large enough to effortlessly stomp mountain goats flat and uproot peach trees, was not the first thing that sprang to mind as the creator of such things.
This one, however, lacked an element the rest of them had all possessed....
"If you don't mind me asking..." he began.
"Ask." the dragon invited.
"The ones I've seen....and the statues my parents apparantly came from. They all had some sort of bowl or something built into them. Why is that?"
"To understand that, you'd have to first understand what they were." Farrkhod said. "Which was NOT statues." he finished, his tone becoming a bit dour and making the young man flinch.
"Sorry..."
The dragon rumbled in response, his tail slowly sweeping behind him as Zhane leaned forward to put the sculpture back where it had originally stood, hoping to mend any offense he'd caused. No sooner had his hand left it, than the dragon's paw lashed out again, crushing the structure into nonexistance underfoot and making him jump. It was eerie that, for being blind, Farrkhod's movements were so precise at times...
So that was it, then, he assumed. Now they would part ways for another day...or however long it took Farrkhod to feel like speaking to him again. He hadn't MEANT to upset him, and he drove that idea home by opening his mouth to apologize. He would, however, never get the chance.
"As I said, it intrigued us..." the drake went on, his voice having softened once more. "From afar we watched their burials, and their burning funeral pyres. And we began to wonder if perhaps there wasn't something to it after all that we had overlooked. At that point, the ten of us were still alive, and it was something discussed as a distant what-if. .....but, things being as they were, it would not always be something we could only wonder about."
A pause hung between them, and Zhane thought he could guess what sort of turn the story was about to take as he wrapped his tail about his ankles, listening intently.
"Dalaugh was the first to leave us." Farrkhod said at last. "The rains had been heavy that year, and a flood had unexpectedly flushed into the underground caverns he called home. By the time any of us were able to reach him, it was far too late. It was....curious. For the first time, none of us were entirely sure what to do next. A burial, we felt, would be no better than leaving him in the caverns to rot. Burning him seemed hardly an honor to his memory. Eventually, it was Ardu's idea to create the first of the Takkrata."
"The what?"
"Soulcatchers." the bronze replied. "Or that was what they came to be called, anyway..." Lifting his paw away from the shattered remnants of the dragon statue, he curled it back beneath himself. "In the temples the gods had charged him with guarding, Ardu had said, stone carvings were used to tell tales past and immortalize the memory of those within them. It had seemed fitting to us -- keeping Dalaugh as he'd want to be remembered.
I was chosen to make it, as the stones shaped themselves at my asking, and I took great care in it. I chose rocks from the deepest caves to honor him, and tried to remember him as I'd first seen him. It had come easily, making his likeness. But it had needed something. Something to make it known it was solely for him. As an afterthought, I had reshaped the tail to hold something and, under the watch of the others, had taken some of Delaugh's blood. His signature placed on it, there seemed nothing more to be done. His body was laid in the foothills where it would not be disturbed and, as we had no temples, the takkrata was placed safely on a shelf in one of the caves."
To Zhane, it seemed like a decent way to honor one's memory. Farrkhod's description of what he'd made seemed far more personal, to him, than a granite headstone with a few words embedded on it, marking where your corpse was fertilizing the grass. When you thought about it, how was that, in any way, supposed to reflect how someone would want to be remembered? He didn't like to think that, when all was said and done, his life would be able to be summed up in a few, cold lines of script.
A shudder passed through him.
"Shall I stop...?" Farrkhod questioned, sampling the ijiuo's odd reaction to his story.
"Oh...no. No! Keep going, please." Zhane urged, straightening up. The drake arched one scaled eyeridge before continuing.
"It became our tradition. One that belonged to only us. When one of us fell, they were remembered in the small likeness I created for them, and their mark was made on it in their blood or sweat. In the times when it felt those of us remaining were simply waiting for the next to die, I would make takkrata at the others' request to honor those in their clans who'd fallen in the past. Those, however, were kept separated. They were a comfort to the others, but were not of the same significance. It was not until much too late that I realized the error I'd made..."
The dragon turned his head in Zhane's direction. "Tell me...how would you deal with knowing that the only family you'd known for hundreds of years was bound in chains, and they were of your own forging?"
"I..." he began, trying to both imagine the scenario, and wonder what, exactly, Farrkhod was talking about. "....I don't know." he admitted at last.
"Nor did I." the bronze sighed. "Ardu was the last to go. Oddly, he had surpassed even my expectations by surviving as long as he had..." A wry rumbling chuckle, wrought with remorse. "His was the last takkrata, and I had made one that would, one day, be my own. They were arranged in a circle, at the edges of Morti'vyr in memory of the oath we'd all sworn to. I had assumed, with the others gone, I might be soon to follow. But as you can see..." tattered, membranous wings flexed, giving a tired flap. "....fate plays its own little jokes. I never would have thought, in this lifetime, I would be meeting the youngling of two long-dead clanmates. But perhaps not being allowed to pass on is my punishment for all of this.
"It was not until I had been by myself here for quite some time that it began. The tortured dreams, the feeling of confusion and rage whenever I would draw near the caves. I did not understand at first, what they meant. But as time wore on, it became clear to me what had happened. The takkrata were not acting as objects of honor, but as anchors. They called the souls of those they represented to them, binding them there in a state of confusion. Keeping them from seeking their next birth and new lifetime."
He was silent for a long moment.
"It was....a chilling thought. To be caught between life and death forever. Moreso to know I was the one keeping them there. I thought, perhaps, I would set things to rights by destroying them and letting their spirits go free. It was Kerrin's soulcatcher that I destroyed....and none after."
Zhane's eyes wandered to the shattered remnants of the dragon statue on the ground.
"When it shattered, his spirit burst from it with such rage....such force..." Farrkhod reverently lidded sightless eyes. "His tormented soul was the last thing I ever saw before shards of own crafting took my eyes from me. In my blindness, I could feel him near. Kerrin, the gentle and softspoken dweller of the woods, seething with rage. And not leaving. Perhaps not able. As I grew more confident in living without sight, his presense tormented me. So much so, that I made my decision to live elsewhere. I called upon the earth to seal the takkrata of my departed friends, and of theirs, into the cave forever where they would not be disturbed, and in hopes they would, at last, find peace. And I left them, my friends, behind me.
"Had I known then that man would become brazen enough to come seeking them as treasures, perhaps I might not have gone quite so far away..."
Though he'd had no part in it, the ijiuo felt an ugly stab of guilt. He'd not taken the soulcatchers, no, but he HAD seen them. Had held them. The idea he may have been admiring one or many of Farrkhod's departed friends on the dusty church windowsill in Mayfeld made him feel a bit ill. He didn't know what he'd expected to hear. He'd known whatever possessed enough power to spawn someone from nothing must have been of great significance but....well, it was odd. He wondered if he would be able to look at his mother and father the same way now, knowing that they had within them the stolen souls of two of Farrkhod's clanmates.
He wondered, further, how many of the other nine had come back as well, if any. And if any of them ever wondered who or what they were, or if they had shared Talonfaust and Yeande's willingness to remain ignorant.
A large number of the answers he'd been seeking deposited in his lap suddenly was quite a lot to think about. Mind and stomach, alike, full, it made him feel tired. Farrkhod must have felt the same.
"I must rest now." the bronze rumbled, ducking his head beneath one tattered wing.
"Do you want me to go, then?" Zhane inquired, though, for the life of him, he really didn't know where he -would- go.
"You may stay, if you like." came the response. "I think, in fact, I may like that better."
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Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 6:29 pm
"Tell me of your mate."
"My....mate?" Zhane inquired, still shaking off the remnants of the nap he'd taken. It had been nearing dusk when he'd finally gotten his thoughts to stop buzzing enough to rest. Awakened by the ancient bronze's stirring, the sky was now painted with the deep blues of early morning.
"Surely you have one..." Farrkhod goaded. "I can think of little other reason you would be driven so far from all you knew to seek answers that might not even be there if not for a mate."
"How do you figure -that-?" he asked, stretching the kinks out of his back. For as at-home as Farrkhod seemed to be amongst the rough terrain of the mountainside, his own body would be grateful to have a bed under it again. Days of sleeping on rocks, hard wooden floors, and bus seats were beginning to take their toll on him. "The things I've asked you about are things I've wondered since I was a kid. I just had no leads to go on."
"Truly?" the dragon seemed amused. "I would think if someone were -that- dedicated to obtaining knowledge, they would have devoted themselves to it until they had learned what they sought."
"Its kind of hard to devote yourself to finding things when you really don't know where to start." he said, one blue-purple wing stretching itself, followed by the other. "Or when your dad's breathing down your neck whenever it looks like you might be taking a look at what life is like outside the nest."
"Something must have brought you here." he pried. "Something must have been the breaking point to bring you from within the nest to far beyond its reach solely to find what you felt you needed to cross into adulthood with certainty so suddenly..."
"Yeah, 'something' did. But that's not the only--" he trailed off, catching himself. He really had no place to be getting indignant. Not when Farrkhod had shared with him so many pieces of the puzzle he never would have known otherwise. ....and especially not when, as much as he didn't like it, the drake was right. "Tinania." he said at last.
"Tinania." Farrkhod repeated, trying the name out. "A strange name."
"Its elven, I think....maybe fairy. I'm not sure."
"Fairy..." the dragon repeated, his tone one of mild surprise. Following which, he gave a peal of deep, throaty laughter that made Zhane's expression fall into one of confusion. "You will excuse me. It would seem you are a neverending source of ironies."
"Why...?"
"A dragon giving his heart to a fairy. There is an old legend about exactly that."
"You have a story for everything, don't you...?" Zhane said, feeling himself smile a bit in spite of himself.
"When you have lived as long as I, there IS, in fact, a story for everything." Farrkhod snorted. "Tell me of your Tinania."
"Well..." he began, wondering where to begin. "I've only known her for a few months. Not even for a year yet, but....its strange. I feel like I've known her much longer than that. Everything we do, everything we talk about, its like its all happened before."
"When it comes to the matter of love, it is foolish to think that there is anything -not- done before."
"Why do you say that?" the ijiuo inquired.
"Lifetimes are filled with the unexpected and can travel in infinite directions. Love, itself, is a limited space within that infinite with only so many things to feel. But everyone to feel it, believes that they are feeling something precious that no one else has ever felt. It makes it both beautiful and ridiculous."
"That's a pretty cold way of looking at it..." Zhane muttered, not feeling much inclined to keep going.
"Cold? Not at all. As I said, I see the beauty in it quite clearly. But even you have to admit, as much as you love her, that it has its ridiculous aspects."
On its own, his mind touched on the growing frequency of dischord with his parents, and the spontaneous need to leave the house to see her at times, and the way his mind would derail from whatever matters he had, to focus solely and happily on her for long periods of time.
....all right, so it had made him behave ridiculously sometimes.
"Go on." the dragon urged, trying to gloss over the sidetrack. "What is she like?"
For the first time since embarking on this journey, he allowed himself to pull up the mental picture he'd kept carefully stowed in the banks of his memory. Tinania, flushed and sleeping peacefully in the waning moonlight, her golden curls fanned across the pillow beneath her head. Tinania with delicate diaphanous wings that fluttered softly on her shoulders as she dreamed. Tinania who, behind the closed door, where there only had existed the two of them that night, was just Nani. His Nani.
"She's beautiful." he said, at last, feeling the last few moments of conversation roll off his back. "From the first time I saw her, she was someone I wanted to know more about. She's one of those girls you look at and you think 'she MUST know she's pretty...' but she doesn't even try to be. Its just....her being her that makes her pretty. And I've never met anybody who was so giving before. She always puts everybody around her first...even if sometimes they don't deserve it or if it means hurting herself..."
"And that troubles you."
"A little." he admitted. "But....I think it kinda bothers her too sometimes." he thought back briefly to the situation she'd been in when they'd first met, that had driven her into hiding in the first place -- all because of her desire to help someone in need.
"It sounds as if that isn't the only thing..."
"Huh?"
"That troubles you." the dragon said simply, making Zhane vent a sigh of annoyance.
"Look, you asked me to tell you about her. You didn't say anything about picking apart everything I say."
"I'm picking apart nothing." Farrkhod replied. "But if it feels that way to you, then perhaps...."
He didn't need to finish, the message being perfectly clear. Zhane had never been much of a closed person and everything -- his joy, anger, his apprehension -- was worn on his sleeve. Apparantly so much so that Farrkhod had been able to pick up on a nuance he hadn't even been aware of. .....and what was he afraid of? Honestly. That Farrkhod would somehow repeat their conversations for the world to hear?
"There's...a couple of things that bother me. But not enough that it changes how I feel." It sounded so stupid to say. There was no couple out there, realistically, that was purely happy with one another. EVERYONE had little things they disliked about their partner. Part of loving them was learning to ignore such things. But then, these little things weren't the norm for little things. It wasn't exactly a matter such as Nani forgetting to turn lights off or leaving the heater up too high. "I told you she was part fairy..."
"You did not. But you have now." Farrkhod offered.
"Anyway, she has this....other half of herself. Her 'imp', she calls it."
"Fairies and imps go hand-in-hand with one another. It depends entirely on which they feel like being and when."
"Well, this one has been kind of a problem." he tried not to notice the inquisitve way the dragon's eye ridges shot up. "I mean, not just for us, but in general. She can keep it under control most times, but there's times she can't. And it gets free, and..." His mind touched back on the first night he'd stayed at her house, and the way her eyes had been overtaken with green venom and her voice had taken on a husky purr. ....worse, he recalled the way he'd allowed himself to play along with it for a bit, not yet understanding what had happened.
"There are dark corners of one another you may not wish to tread in, but if you hope to love one another unquestioningly, it becomes necessary to brave them."
"I'm not afraid of the imp." Zhane explained. "I'm really not, its just....she's not Nani."
"But she is." the dragon pressed. "She is very much your Tinania. And when you try to stop something from doing what is its nature to do, it becomes volatile. Dangerous." He lifted his head to sneeze out a cloud of dust and then returned it to his massive front paws. "And if kept too long in captivity, should it know freedom again, it could consume her."
For a moment, Zhane's mind tried to get a handle on that...the blue-eyed and gentle fairy he'd come to love, forever-replaced with a skulking and seductive green-eyed temptress. Before it could take on any real substance on the surface of his mind's pool, a mental hand angrily slapped it away back into meaningless ripples. No. He didn't want that....and the very idea of it sickened him.
"I can't just pretend to like her, though." he said, fidgeting. "And even if I could, it would still hurt Nani. As far as she's concerned, they're two different people, and she's been worried since we met that I was going to like the imp more than I liked her."
"Imps are not for liking." Farrkhod replied simply. "And do not want to BE liked. They exist to satisfy whatever compulsions they have, whether or not it betrays those around them."
"Sounds about right." the young man snorted.
The spade of the blind dragon's tail fumped the ground beside him, making him jump a bit.
"Do not speak with such disdain." the bronze told him. "If it is something you truly wish to get beyond, then you would do well to either find the part of you that -does- desire the imp, or to perhaps stop things before they are allowed to grow into something that will devastate you both."
Zhane felt his teeth sink into his tongue as he pondered the presented option. Trying to love the imp was just as unappealing, he found, as the idea of telling her it was over. He found both just as devastating and wanted neither of them. And he was almost positive Nani would have had similar sentiments.
It was a lot to think about. ....and it made his head hurt.
"I'm going for a walk." he told Farrkhod at length, rising from where he sat. "I need to refill my canteen." It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the reason for his leaving either. The dragon remained where he was, not protesting Zhane's leaving.
"There's a lake to the north of the mountains, I believe." the drake told him. "The creek empties there."
"Thanks." he muttered quietly, only half-listening. He really didn't care where he ended up at the moment, truthfully, just as long as it was somewhere he could think.
Alone.
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Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 6:32 pm
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Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2009 6:36 pm
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