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 Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 4:00 pm
0---0---0 The ranger could not look up as Micheal hurriedly left with a heavy foot. She let the door creak and stay open for a time, not feeling any energy to move, her injuries seemingly making more noise than before but not enough to drown out other memories. She remembered trying to remain still as she learned there had been a vampire sitting before her. She remembered the following night sitting on the bed, waiting for the worst that had never come. Suddenly she felt like the vampire who had told her secret - except this time, the person who heard it had left. When the ranger couldn't bear her own thoughts any longer, she forced herself to move. She swapped out the oiling supplies for the healing kit, touching up her elbow and arm again, her hand, and the bruise on her hip when the sword kicked back from the leap of the dog. When finished, she packed everything away and tossed on her armor before sitting back down on the bed again, now ready to face her thoughts once again. She knew she would be leaving and had an idea of what she was going to do beside deal with the shirt thing, but she was still trying to solidify the plan. Just one thing at a time, the ranger reminded herself sadly, repeating earlier words as she stood up with her belongings and left the room, shutting the door behind her, not bothering to lock it as there was nothing inside to need it locked for. She walked down the hallway, unknowingly past the room Micheal was in, and through the front door of the waystation to the stables. With it being eve, there were probably few people she could inquire with about a shirt and she wasn't going to stoop down as low as to wordlessly 'borrow' it from someone. Had there been someone more well to do around here, but most people here probably only had one or two shirts as it was. For now, she would work on her other project, and for that she needed to find the part of the creek that ran near here. Quietly she saddled up Dulcimer and hopped into the seat, riding down the dirt street toward the edge of town. It wasn't long before the cloaked figure upon horseback was riding next to her.
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Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 4:06 pm
"So have the voices in your head bothered you?"
There was a slight chuckle in his voice, as he pulled the hood back and looked at her with the same red eyes that Micheal has.
"Go away," the ranger said under her breath, continuing the pace set toward the creek. Her heartbeat picked up again but not as much as previous times. She still needed to get to the water.
"Now now, you need to slow down that heart of yours if you don't want me to take a little nibble now," he taunted her with a flirty attitude. "You know I practically own this territory and..."
His voice became eerie enough to send shivers down her spine.
'The world is at our whim once we get into your thoughts.'
Though she paced her breathing, her heartbeat picked up as the unnatural sound of his voice set off her nerves.
"Easy prey," he said slowly and smoothly.
"What a world," Jay replied as she straightened in the saddle to shake off the feeling. "What's your real reason for being here? I'm sure it's not the city sights." She finally turned her head to look at the rider to her side.
"To play with my food," he chuckled before his voice switched to a serious tone. "And I will not have a Tainted in my clan. In my opinon, Tainted and other dragons should die so the Tainted would never exist again."
He looked at her. "He is probably planning ways to kill you in your sleep since he knows you were told by both humans and his ex to kill him." Just as a tree branch was about to strike him, he then grabbed it and snapped it as if it were a twig. With a slight smile he turned to look forward.
"That was a close one."
When the branch supposedly came close to hitting Kiru in the face, Jay did all but roll her eyes. "Close? I doubt that." She looked away at the mention of Micheal and Dark.
"So you hinted before about the dragons though you never said why. What's your beef with them? I would think a Tainted might be of some use to your kind in small numbers at least. Too much to hide in large numbers," she commented, slipping into a kind of discussion more familiar to her. She needed more time and this was as good a way as any.
He growled slightly at the ignorance she had. "Let me make this simple. Tainted is a weakness, a strength only if the Tainted is willing to listen and work at the whim of its bond.
"Micheal saved this one called Dark because he turned it when he touched it and because the mother dragon refused the egg after it became fully tainted by my Micheal. Thus so he was stuck with it, and his love for the unusual got the better of him. Micheal over the years had fed on this dragon and it does the same with him."
He rubbed his forehead and then looked at her from the corner of his eyes.
"I only allow the pure in my clan," he said, followed by a wide grin. "Now I can give you the power to match his, I can kill you now, or you can be a good little girl and do my bidding. I don't need an answer now - just cry to me in your sleepless nights."
He then kicked the side of his horse, turning it away from the ranger to run through the trees. In seconds, the horse and rider were gone as a fog rolled in behind them in the distance.
She had wondered who the strong end of the bond was when paired with a Tainted, though she still wasn't quite sure if it was the same as the dragons she was use to hearing about.
In reality though, it wasn't just Micheal that this man wanted dead. The ranger suspected from Kiru's message that if he could get to Dark without having to get through Micheal, it would be just as well.
The ranger's face turned toward Kiru at his last few lines, but by that time he was already speeding into the mist to disappear. At the same time, she heard the creek and closed in on it, only briefly looking again in the direction of the vampire who had left.
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Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 12:39 am
0---0---0 Against her better judgment, she spent the rest of the night next to the creek. She had not done much else other than complete her first project. From how Micheal had described it, you could create holy water any way you pleased almost as long as it was belief and salt water. There had been the well in town that she could have easily gotten water from, but it felt more along her lines for something more... pure. Begrudgingly, she didn't have access to much in the way of salt other than the remnants of what had fallen of the dried meat at the bottom of one of her ration bags. After tossing whatever of that in, she did two things for good measure: one was to spit in the waterbag. If there was any of that holy water left in her system, it wouldn't hurt to add it in. She thought about adding blood, but that seemed more like it would attract vampires than ward them off. The other was something of her own flavor to the mix. As Micheal had said, the water needed belief to work. She was quite sure that her own belief had not been the type to make it effective. Without Micheal's to rely on this time, she needed something else. She would always doubt the water alone. And then she had it. She grabbed extra fletching from a bag that she used for making arrows. Taking a few of the individual bristles from the feather, pulled them apart, and tossed them into the waterskin she was using before capping it and resting, though awake, for the remainder of the night. When the dawn came and the town was beginning to stir, she went in back on Dulcimer. She still had to return the key to the inn keeper and she still had a shirt to look for. As she began her search, she realized that she didn't know what size of shirt to look for. Attempting to guess, the men she did see of similar sizes in town either didn't look like they'd have an extra shirt to spare or their clothes... well, it didn't seem like a style that Micheal would chose wear. She wasn't sure why that struck a cord with her like it did, but the regular dirty peasant facade didn't seem like something she felt comfortable getting the vampire for some reason. With no luck she returned to the inn and stopped at her room briefly with nothing but a scrap piece of cloth and some charcoal in her hand. When she left, the piece of cloth was stuck to the wall of the room by an spare arrowhead. On the front was a horrible drawing of what looked to be a shirt. On the back was a few words: "Couldn't find one here. Looking in Raville. Still owe you. Will have shirt there." That was it. Nothing else. The ranger had left the key with the inn keeper, but bought the room for the night so it would remain empty. She went back to Dulcimer and began to ride on to the city. Micheal's eyes opened when heard her door open and then shut. He was still awake but for some reason he was more restless than usual. When the evening fell, he stepped out of his room and walked into hers, lightly chuckling at what he saw. "She must of had a nice evening to do this." He grabbed the arrow out of the wall and wrapped the fabric around the arrow with a piece from his shirt before he left the waystation and walked out into the evening and headed down the trail.
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Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 12:41 am
It was a week travel to Raville at a steady pace, slowed down once when taking a job watching goats for a night. The closer she got to the city, the more settled the surrounding area looked around her. It was nothing in compared to the central lands last she saw of them. There was still a wildness about, but the reach of society was growing here as Raville was a hub for trade and travel to other parts of the Border.
It was afternoon when she reached the more settled districts of the town and when she started to look around at the people and the window 'shirt shopping'. She didn't get much looking in when her stomach had reminded her that she had not been eating well during the ride. She had not felt like hunting much during the last week of travel and preferred to stick near to Dulcimer when she could.
Besides, stopping for food might not be a bad idea. A little later and more of the men would be out versus the ladyfolk. If she did not run into the ones looking for a lay, she might find someone willing to sell their shirt.
After filling up on bread and a little meat at the tavern, the ranger did her looking. Fortunately, she found a man there that fit about as close to what she was looking for as she figured she would get for a shirt type, especially as she was looking for someone a little on the larger side. Too small and the shirt would be pointless. At least if it was a bit larger, Micheal could always tuck it in.
She left from the tavern really quickly as people gave her weird stares for going off behind a building with some guy and coming back with a shirt, but she tried to ignore it... at least until one of the more raunchy men caught up with her. After a few words from him and a deck to his face and a kick to the gut, the ranger hurried to her horse and bolted to a different part of town to find an inn.
Sitting down on the bed at the inn she was at, it felt like forever since she had actually tried sleeping at night - in a building no less. With a sigh she readied for sleep, she began to work her armor off until she heard a light patting against the floor to the side of the bed. Looking casually over the corner of the frame, the ranger stopped in mid-motion when she realized the sound came from the swishing of a wolf's tail.
A few weeks ago and she would have probably jumped for her blades even with the wolf just sitting there, but instead she just stared in a confused manner. It was just lying on the floor, wagging its tail, while an arrow sat across its paws while held in its mouth.
Seeing the arrow, she looked over at her belongings along the wall, the quiver sitting there closed, not an arrow spilled on the ground. She looked back to the wolf and then wondered what the buttons was a wolf doing in the room or how it got in there in the first place.
Then something white caught her eye, a piece of cloth wrapped around the arrow - an arrow that looked much like her own current batch upon closer inspection.
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Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 12:55 am
Slowly she went to her bags, grabbed a piece of dried meat from her rations, and returned back next to the bed. Cautiously she moved toward the wolf, or whatever it was for she'd heard of no wolf doing this before, tossing the meat a short distance away from the wolf while saying "Come on, let's see what you've got there."
A grin seemed to cross the wolf's lips as it opened its red eyes and looked toward the wrinkled meat but didn't go toward it. Instead, it grabbed the arrow and walked to the other side of the room where it found a new place to lay down and watch her from.
Come on lets play, it seemed to say as it wagged its tail momentarily before tilting its head along with its foppish grin.
"No wolf... thing. I don't want to play chase you around the room for the arrow," she said, a little frustrated that the wolf didn't go for jerky. She put a hand to her forehead. "By the gales, I'm talking to a wolf. In my quarters no less."
She would have called herself drunk at this point except she had decidedly avoided spending the extra coin on that earlier when she wasn't sure how much she would need to talk someone out of their shirt.
Then again it could be that she was just tired. As Kiru had stated, she did not sleep well at night at least when she had been on the road. She had hoped that maybe being inside might give her some piece of mind.
That was until this weird wolf showed up.
"Come on. Just stay put and hand over the arrow," she said as she threw caution to the wind and snagged her fingers around the object and pulled. The wolf growled as her fingers brushed against his jaw but let her have it.
'Now don't drink the holy water this time,' the wolf said looking straight into her eyes as it sat up. It then stretched and scratched at its ear. 'Actually, I'm surprised you tried to take it from me. That's not something you would normally do.'
She looked straight at the wolf, not sure why she immediately thought it was coming from the wolf other than it was the only other possible sentient thing in the room. She stared at it a moment before speaking up.
"Micheal?" she asked with an uncertainty that was starting to slide away.
'Yeah.' He sat still and waited for her to take it in. 'Before you say anything, I don't do tricks,' he lightly laughed.
Maybe if had been during daylight hours, the ranger might have laughed right along with the wolf that was on her floor. Maybe if she HAD spent that extra coin on the drink should would have been all better for it. Maybe if she didn't have Kiru invisible existance almost literally breathing down her neck she would have gotten cocky and said that she was disappointed because the arrow would have made a decent toy to fetch for him - but none of those 'maybes' were what was.
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Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 12:59 am
Instead, her hand gripped tightly around the arrow and she turned like she was going to whip it at the wall. At the last second, she kept her hand closed and stiffly sat down on the bed.
"Next time, can't you just knock?" she said, the obvious anger from a moment ago had switched to something akin to surrender. "Found a shirt. Can't say if it'll fit or not. Don't know your size. Tried to find something similar in style to what your other one was."
'Thank you... I am sure the shirt will fit fine," he said as he walked over and sat next her her before laying down and closing his eyes. 'I didn't mean to upset you. I just thought you should know this form too so you don't shoot me.'
Jay looked down at the creature beside her feet, finding it unusual to think that it was Micheal in that form down there. It was really unusual in fact.
"Shoot you?" She hadn't thought she'd be fast enough for that one, but then again maybe his wolf form didn't hold the same abilities that his normal one did. "If that's even possible I guess it's a good thing to know. Though honestly I would have preferred a less... eh... indirect way of going about it. I would have rather have known it was you first than to try and play guessing games as to why a wolf was in my room. I've honestly had enough guessing for a while."
She leaned her head back, letting out some of the kinks in her neck and stared at the ceiling.
"Speaking of upset, so what happened with the you being upset thing and stomping out of the room last time? I honestly didn't expect you be here."
He looked up from the floor. 'Your mind was too jumbled and the emotions were toying with mine. Then there was the fact I was still injured from the holy water - from which I am fine now thank you for asking.'
He then snapped his jaw shut.
'I am just a wolf. Just a wolf. Just a wolf...' he chanted over and over.
"If it means anything now I'm sorry about that, the whole holy water thing. It's not like I meant that to happen," she half grumbled toward the end. "Bad timing is all, those couple of nights... they might have been different if I knew what I did now. Replaying that meeting with Kiru the way it happened, I almost would have rather taken a bolt to the leg," she said, looking back down at the wolf. "At least I would have had some idea how to take care of that."
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Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 1:00 am
'I was glad that you used it actually and that you even made your own.'
"Tried. Only tried making my own. No one said it worked."
'It will work,' Micheal answered, watching her shrug at his insistance. It was apparent she still didn't quite believe him.
He rolled on his side. 'Why don't you kill me now?' he said, putting his ears back. 'The magic is gone. I am tired of the dark, tired of these eyes, tired of the lies...'
She was taken aback. "You really can't be asking me to do that. What of your dragon, Dark?" she asked, throwing out the first thing that came to mind to argue with as she slid off the bed to sit on the floor beside the wolf.
'I am just confused, I think,' he said as he closed his eyes again after thinking over the question, uncertain of what else to say because he knew that Dark was miserable as well. 'I am not sure if I matter much to him either.'
"If what Kiru has hinted to me is true, it sounds like Dark would care enough to tear me to shreds if I were to give into your wish," she stated, trying to nab the opening in the conversation that had been made. She might just be able to talk about this after all, unlike the last meet. "Sounds like the fellow is more after him than you actually."
He looked up. 'He wants him dead? Yes. He wants me dead? No, but he can't control me so he does. Then once I am gone, he needs a replacement.' He closed his eyes. 'I am sure the thought is there.'
"So Dark's control overrode his?" she asked, curious about this topic. "A replacement. Great. Seeing as he made an offer, I suppose that shot is at me if it isn't one of his current lackies." There was a groan from the ranger as that fact sunk in.
"That holy water better work. I'll probably need it sooner than later."
'kill the killer' was the last thing the wolf told her before he fell asleep.
Another question had come from the ranger's mouth, but when there was no answer, Jay looked over to find Micheal not stirring. Lowering herself closer to the floor, she could swear that he had just dozed off on her - at night. She looked around the now silent room, got up off the floor, blew out the candle and slipped into bed while trying not to trip on the wolf body on the floor. Almost as an offhand thought, Jay tossed one of the two blankets on the bed over Micheal before dropping off into her own slumber.
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Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 1:01 am
When she woke, it was near high noon. The curtains blocked out some of the light, but she felt better about the light with the blanket over Micheal. There wasn't much excitement to her afternoon by her standards. Getting a bowl from her bag, she set it on the table and poured some of her makeshift holy water in it. Then she grabbed a handful of arrows and rested the tips in the base of the bowl.
She left those to sit while tossing a small cloth over the bowl to cover it. She remained in the room for dinner, digging through her rations while she rotated arrows in and out of the bowl to soak 'til the night came on.
An ear flicked, moving some of the fabric as Micheal mumbled.
'What time is it...?'
He then rolled over so the blanket rolled off of him, and he yawned but froze as he smelled the water.
'Why is it out?' he snapped.
With the curtain drawn as it was and the tedious work, she had not realized the time.
"I have no where else to work with it and I thought it would better for you to see what items I have that are getting treated, just so there are no accidents. I'll get it put away now though," Jay said as she lifted the current batch of soaking arrows up from the bowl and used the cloth that had been covering them previously to wipe off any water that could possibly drip. With that she tucked most of the arrows that had been sitting out into a spare quiver she shoved in her bag with a few of them slid into her normal quiver. The remainder of the water in the bowl was poured back into the drinking bag and she tucked the cloth she had been using in with the secondary quiver.
"So a number of the arrows are touched, as well as the bowl on the table, the cloth in the bag, and this." She then held up the waterskin that had the holy water. "I've got two waterskins though only one is filled with the regular water. You can probably tell right away without looking which one is which I suspect."
He composed himself sitting upwards and tilt his head as one ear dropped.
'Of course that is what you are doing.' He looked at the arrows. 'Did you change the fletching or mark the arrows so you would know which arrow is which?'
How effective will these really be? he added silently to himself.
"That had been originally my next step," the ranger said as she finished packing everything, "to change the fletching, but I decided against it for something more... subtle."
She picked up the open quiver again, looking over the contents, her mouth moving as if she was speaking but no words were coming out, her head nodding in time with the movement of her lips.
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Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 1:03 am
'Honestly, I am not too experienced on how hunters think,' he admitted out loud.
She looked over at Michael with a raised eyebrow.
"You don't know how a hunter thinks? You're in the form of a wolf and you're saying that?"
'Like I've said to many others, I hunt to live, not for profit, but it's been twice now that I was almost caught at the other end of your arrows,' he replied as he pulled his legs beneath him and laid back down. 'Thought that I would let you know that.'
"Once. Unless you attacked, the only shot planned that night at the second farm was was going to go a mile wide just so you would know I was there," she huffed as she went back to fussing with the arrows in the quiver. "When you simply left that first time when Kiru showed up, I wasn't sure what it had been all about so I figured trying to meet with you in person was possibly a bad idea."
She tossed the quiver over her shoulder and set it up on her back like normal. She lifted her good arm as if to reach over her shoulder and then paused in midlift as she was looking at Micheal, made an odd face, and then turned toward the wall. She then went back to what looked as if she was drawing an arrow in slow motion.
After she grabbed an arrow and then was looking it over in her hand she continued speaking. "Why did you end up leaving anyways? Is that something of his abilities?"
He looked up at her and sat up again, unable to find a comfortable position. To be honest, him being a vampire of his caliber and the fact he was the one that gave me my undeath, he could have used me to kill you. But because...'
He looked to the side.
'You are suppose to be the first female that I wasn't going to harm or think about feeding upon. Dark challenged me with this, and it's the one reason he has left me on my own right now.
He then looked at her.
'I am trying.'
"The first, huh," she muttered to herself, forgetting for a moment about Micheal's exceptional hearing.
"So what, did you just choose to leave instead of sticking around long enough for Kiru to use you? Or does you being bound to Dark get in the way of Kiru's control?" she asked, slipping the arrow back in the quiver behind her. She had tried asking a similar question the previous day, but that was when Micheal had fallen asleep or whatever he did.
She reached over her shoulder again to draw.
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Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 1:04 am
'Honestly, I don't... I wasn't going to take the chance that he would control me or wait and see if he would try and control Dark as well since he threatened to do just that when he toyed with us that day. He is willing to try try such a thing," he growled but then stopped. 'Sorry. I know I sound like a whiny child. That and I am being rude.'
After making the second grab, she looked at the wolf instead of checking the arrow like she did before.
"Is that even possible?" she asked incredulously, her attention most certainly caught, and the hunter look returned to her face like it did before the first meeting with Kiru. "No no, I want to hear this. Tell me, in a Tainted and Vampire bond, who's the one who has final say of control? Normally, it's the dragon that runs the bond from what I knew."
He was silent for a moment then he took a deep breath. 'You shouldn't listen to stories that the frighten make.' He closed his eyes. 'I am not sure of the true ways of the dragons. Before, they were quite noble in some aspects 'til the whole fight about who should control the skies.'
He open his eyes again. 'From what I have watched since I first had an interest learning about them, the dragons are mostly broken up into groups which have evolved from bondings. It's hard to say what is true about a Tainted and Vampire bond for ours is only the beginning to something that feels like forever.
He paused and gathered his thoughts.
'Being bonded... no, being in a bond with Dark has been one of my better decisions in what you could call my life. He protects and encourages though he gets a bit hasty when he is hungry, but that's my fault because I ask him to wait 'til he has to feed. And I... well, probably do the same. So I guess the answer you're really looking for is how does it feel and work.'
'If I was still human, it'd be pretty frightening; my thoughts are never mine, my feelings at times are never mine, some of my pains are never mine - but neither are his. But because I am not still human and came to terms with that a long time ago, I can accept it. It all is more like 'ours'. Everything. The thoughts, hunger, the pain. So because of this, we work together.'
He then thought about what he said.
The ranger listened quietly to how he described the bond with Dark, trying to imagine that sort of... "mixture" with another being for lack of a better term.
For some reason she kept getting hung up on the idea of having another voice in her head.
'I know it's a bunch of confusion that I just pulled out, but not all dragons have the motive to get back at the humans for what they have done, nor do they understand really why this is happening. More importantly, I believe some are trying to amend what was done wrong to restore the balance... but then I wonder what would happen if that balance was restored.'
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Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 1:04 am
"All hail to the dragon knights," she said in a low half mocking tone when Micheal tried to argue in favor of some of dragonkind. Despite the tone, the dragon knights were about the only dragons that grudgingly got her respect.
"If it was restored I'm sure there would still be dragons raiding towns," she added, turning back to the arrow in her hand. There was a small, misshapen curse that slipped from her lips as she looked it over before shoving it back in the quiver and moving to draw a third.
The wolf abruptly rose to his feet and lept up on the bed, his face now nearly level with the ranger's, eyes glaring.
'You're defiantly a rose with thorns,' he said as he started licking his paws, slightly ticked by her reaction to his answer. It was as if this girl was set and convinced that all dragons were no good and should be snuffed out which gave him all the more reason to go back to not trusting her again, proving that making good on his promise to Dark was going to difficult. But then again, there was always a reason these things were the way they were.
"You can't tell me you haven't lived long enough to see dragon raids," she responded in kind. "And roses have thorns so they are less likely to be broken and tampered with, though honestly there are better flowers out there."
She spun the arrow between her fingers for a moment in thought, put it away, and then moved to dig around in her backpack where she pulled out a strip of cloth. She returned to the spot she was originally standing and wrapped the strip of cloth over her eyes and tied it off behind her head. And then the arrow pulling began again.
'I have also seen human raids, vampire raids...' Micheal started, trailing off to let the ranger consider how limited her view might be if she was actually listening to him.
"How long are you going to stay in wolf form anyways?" she asked in the middle of her draw.
He laid his head down on the bed. It sounded like the conversation about the dragons had come to a standstill. 'It's more accepting this way right now,' he replied as he let a slight smirk return to his muzzle at his next thought. 'If there are better flowers, then why do so many people prefer roses over the others?'
"Got me. I never did understand that one. Dead not long after you pick them. Mostly all red. Hard to grow..." she seemed to list on, oddly semi-knowledgeable about the plant for someone who seemed so against them. "About the only good thing about them were the petals. Fresh petals can make for a decent tea while dried ones can be stored to keep things from smelling moldy, assuming you dry the plants right and don't let the flower itself get moldy in the process."
Holding the arrow in her hand, she rubbed first her forefinger against the wood near the fletching as if feeling for something.
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Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 1:06 am
He thought as he watched her. 'I thought it was because they have to be handled in a delicate way. The thought that one can but cut by such a thing makes them all the more taunting to have, similar to something you can't have without a level of sacrifice if you think about it.'
"Depends. Larger roses aren't all that tricky to handle as the thorns are so big. It's the smaller ones you have to take care from," she said as she continued her practice, sometimes slowing down and sometimes speeding up with her draw and checks. "It would only be a sacrifice if you used your bare hands. A glove and knife would be smarter."
There was a pause after her last line.
'Has anyone given you one?'
A small chuckle escaped from her, fouling up her draw though she didn't seem bothered by it. "No, not a rose."
'Of course not,' he chuckled along with her as he lowered himself on the bed and rested his head upon his paws with closed eyes.
The ranger almost returned the question back at the vampire, but then thought better of it from what little she knew of Micheal's female rendezvouses up to this point. If anything it would probably bring back memories that he did not want to think of.
The ranger took off her blindfold and shook her head after another draw.
"That just gets old hat after a bit without actually having the bow in hand and firing it," she said aloud more to herself than anything as she pulled out a knife and a few of the arrows before digging into the wood on some of them. "Some of them need just a little more work..."
"Are you sleepy again?" Jay asked as she saw Micheal just seemingly lounging. "Or are you just bored hanging around with the human?" she added with a bit of a joking jab at the end.
Then he open his eyes briefly at the ranger as she inquired about him.
'I am worn out actually, but nothing to worry about.' He then smirked as her unspoken thoughts brushed across his mind. 'And no. No female relationships.'
"Tired? But..."
Immediately after he specified no 'female' relationships, she replaced the word with the other gender and Kiru came to mind. For a moment, she thought about why she jumped to that conclusion. She could swear there was something that made her think it, but she couldn't remember what specifically she heard that brought it about so she kept the comment to herself... until she realized she hadn't mentioned asking about even the female relationships to Micheal.
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Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 1:07 am
"Okay," she said turning to the wolf, "that's getting slightly disturbing. Am I just that readable, or are you pulling things from my head now?"
'Jay, I am a wolf. Is my jaw ever moving when I speak to you?' He smiled as he sat very still. 'I am in your head, and not only that, you're letting me,' he said tauntingly. '...just like Kiru, my ex.
There was a stern ending to his statement as his hatred was boldly forced into the last word.
"But, I didn't think..."
There was a flash of flames in the ranger's mind before she chomped down on her cheek and the image was forcedly squashed by Kiru and the arrows that she had been working with earlier, their distinct notches quite apparent her mind, both in feeling and in sight.
"I thought maybe it worked differently, but that was foolish of me to assume I see now," she said, finishing the sentence, torn between how she felt about this new knowledge until Micheal's final line.
"I'm not sure I care to be compared to Kiru," she said straight out, slightly misunderstanding some of what Micheal said, eying him as he seemed to mock her from the floor.
'I am just getting over bridges you clearly can't step upon.' He then sat up, staring at her once again. 'You need to learn to block. That is the only reason I pry right now.'
He then flicked his ear as just in a few seconds he was sitting in his vampiric form but wouldn't look at her.
"I will leave you if you want," he stated out loud but then in her mind said 'The clan is now coming near.'
"You've gotta be scrapping playing with me now," she cursed as rushed around the room to gather up her belongings, the shirt she picked up for him flying across the room as she tossed it at Micheal.
The vampire let the shirt smack him in the face before he got an actual good look at it.
"Not bad."
"Who's the clan here for, me or you?" she asked as took one of the waterskins out and attached it to her belt, closer to the back and slipped out two of the treated arrows from the stored quiver. She then threw the backpack on, remembered that her quiver was already in place and had to remove both to get them to sit correctly on her back. Once those were in place, she went and grabbed the arrow that still had her bad drawing wrapped around it and tore off the cloth, wrapping it around the ends of the two treated arrows she had specially pulled out and tied it on so it would stay covering them.
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Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 1:18 am
"How comfortable do you feel about carrying these?" she asked, holding out the two tied arrows to Micheal, fletching toward him.
Micheal got up and carefully placed a hand upon the arrows, the weight of them still in the ranger's palm. "Are these intended for me to be slain by?" he asked, eying them over before looking up at their original owner.
The ranger's eyes narrowed at Micheal, feelings of insult coming off her.
"No. This is what I had in mind for these," she growled as she forced a picture to the front of her mind for Micheal to fully have. The fuzzy image started with Micheal a good distance away watching something before he hurled the arrow with inhuman speed. The view then followed the arrow as it sailed past trees toward it's target - Kiru.
For a brief moment, there was a flicker of Jay trapped in Kiru's grip, but the ranger didn't seem to notice or react to it.
"Are you going to take them or not?" she asked a final time, noting his light hold.
"Then a cut is all I shall get," he answered. With sternness, he swiftly took the arrows and then struck one of them across his hand, the wound healing quickly.
"Get it through you thick skull! If you're not going to believe that the water is going to harm your target, then what just happened to my hand will be the same that happen to Kiru!" he said harshly. The last thing he needed was her doubting herself.
Micheal made the cut before she had time to think about it, which was probably for the better because any tinge of panic that might have cropped up didn't have the time to before Micheal spoke up again and showed her his hand.
"Let me worry about that if your aim is true or if I even get a swing," she muttered, the underlying doubt now starting to creep in to the point that even she couldn't ignore it. Not that she wanted to see Micheal injure himself with the water touched arrow, but if it didn't phase him, how would it even affect Kiru at all? For now, she told herself to pretend that Micheal didn't cut himself in front of her and push on.
"Is that clan coming for you or me?" she asked, diverting back to other matters.
"The clan is here just to increase the tension, strain me to my limit, and find Dark, you, and I all at once." He then closed his eyes. "Most of them fear me cause I was Kiru's, more so because I am a Tainted now. And then they also fear you, so they are here just as scouts until the snake is ready."
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Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 1:25 am
"So once he's ready, will they still remain scouts or do they become minions to deal with when that time comes?" she asked, not really believing that any of them would fear her. Fear Micheal and maybe his dragon, yes, but not her.
"He's hesitating," he half spoke as he had to look deeper in himself for a moment before slowly raising his eyes to meet with hers. "You need to get several nights rest of good sleep." He then looked at his hand with a slight smile.
"Sleep maybe, but rest? In moderation," she said, shifting her stiff left arm around just a bit.
"I am not sure what you keep dreaming about, but I know you being involved in my situation is not helping."
"Dreaming? Not sure I follow there. Not understanding your 'situation' on the other hand, that has been a bit of a problem," the ranger answered. As far as she was concerned, Kiru was out there, Kiru's followers were out there, and that meant she had to be ready for what would probably be a last stand whether he was hesitating or not.
Micheal then plopped backwards on the bed and stared at the ceiling for a moment. "My situation is finding my place." He then closed his eyes. "My situation is Kiru. It's not like I want to wage war against him. Before, my situation was to understand humans like I once did, to gain the trust of my dragon again..."
"I am not to hunt pretty, little delicate, faintly rose-colored cheeks and lips, cursing with excitement to be free and stolen away FEMALES!" he lightly bit his lip not realizing his frustration was getting the better of him.
"Forget it... and sleep," he stated before she asked anything more.
Well it was obvious by now that there was some sort of rivalry or hate-love relationship between Kiru and Micheal but a war?
"Sleep? Too wound up now," the ranger said as she tipped her head to the side, eying Micheal and then his hand as if he should know by now why she could not. Despite the talk of battle, she couldn't help the small curl of a smile on her face when the man in front of her started rambling about the 'proper' little ladies. "You may as well explain what the hang up is against females seeing as you're the one who brought it up or whatever else it is that is bothering you now."
Micheal exhaled and then looked at her from the bed, wishing she hadn't have pressed farther.
"They..." He paused as he corrected himself. "Most of them are small minded. It's a waste really. But they also have no control over their emotions either." He brought his fingers to his forehead and applied some pressure. "Funny really that I never had any interest in them. I stuck to painting and reading most of those human years, but because of these reasons, the females..."
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