Welcome to Gaia! ::

Hmmm. The old man said I could find old Kuramaris somewhere in this area. I hope I don't have to camp too long out here. Smells funny. The young woman walking up the game trail into the foothills did not look like someone one would expect to find out in the wild. Loose-flowing scarlet hair blew in the slight breeze the day afforded, winding into her mouth and causing her to spit it out. Eyes the colour of ash clouds darted to and fro, mostly to the skies, where she seemed to be searching for something amidst the high cumulus spreading from the peaks north of her.
She struck a strong figure, striding amongst the heather fields. Tall and athletic, she seemed heedless of the warnings that had been issued about monsters and yokai roaming all over. She bore no weapons, and was dressed in a plain plaid academy uniform in the British style she so favoured. Her slim sandals seemed utterly impractical for alpine lowlands and wilderness, but she navigated broken boulders and rabbit dens with equal aplomb. She looked as though she would be more comfortable travelling in furs or plate than school clothes, and the dual nature showed most when, suddenly, she growled and spit onto the turf in frustration. The careful observer would notice that the spot smouldered for a moment before she continued on up the hillock.
Pulling out a slip of paper with nigh illegible scrawl, she glared at it as if it would yield up answers. Ostensibly, 'twas a map directing her through the pass she was nearing and up into whatever pit her great-uncle had holed up in, undoubtedly much the same as her father's warren had been. While she dreaded the piles of sheep and cattle bones stacked in the sleeping nests, she had little other options if she wanted a rest. She had never gotten a firm grasp on human economics,and was damned if she was going to sleep in those tiny little flammable structures anyhow.
Snarling again, she crumpled the paper up and tossed it to the side, proceeding then to resume her arduous climb. Entirely alone, she spoke aloud. "Damn you, uncle. If you aren't home I'm going to find you and scorch your hide."

She didn't turn around, but she could not fight the smile that crept over her lips, revealing slightly more predatory than normal teeth. "That sounds suspiciously demeaning, Uncle! What would Grandmother Yadris say if she heard you claiming dominion over foothills!" With this , she did spin around, with a credible impression of an old lady for her youthful frame.
"Now, back in the days of my father's clutches, these wouldn't even be called hills! You've got to have more ambition, you hatchlings, or the whole world will think we're weak!"
She stood up straight, face grim and dour. "Mind you", she said, "good genes are something the townfolk I got that scrap of kindling from desperately lack. I've enever seen such teeth! And the eyes! Facing opposite directions! And one was twitching!" She shudders involuntarily. "And I thought father was being too hard on you for your new choice of habitation."

"Hmph. You deserve such creeping and reminders. You were gone too long, Uncle. Much has...changed. Occurred. Gone too far, perhaps. But!" She claps her hands, and the slip of paper from the village ignites, flares out, and is nothing but cinders within a few seconds. "All of that has passed, and there's nothing to be done about it! I am here for vacation!"
A loud rumble echoes from her belly. "And apparently the road was longer than I thought. What is there to eat around here that doesn't scream for mercy and plead for it's childrens' lives? Because it gets tiresome to listen to that everytime you want a snack."

"Well, Mother always said I was an atavism back to the old pillaging ways, and Father literally glowed with pride when she said it. But! I have news, most of which cannot be properly told without a full belly, so let us hunt!"
It took but a moment for her form to shift. Spitting in Newton's eye, mass shifted, and in the span of just a second, where once there had been a school girl now was a massive scaled shape. Muscles bunched under the scales, shifting in odd patterns, and the two hundred foot span of ebon and scarlet wings lazily flapped once or twice to get airborne before she took off in the direction indicated by her relative.

The scarlet dragon circled above for a while, watching as life went on far below her. Dragon eyes, acute as they are with a double retina which allows for magnification, eventually focused on a pair of cattle grazing on a slope a few miles from the castle. She circled high, blowing a swirling plume of flame below her and gliding on the updraft, before tucking her wings in and entering a dive towards the doomed creatures. She came down like a meteor, but at the very last second veered up and snatched up one of the beasts in her rear talons. It's spine crushed and it instantly dead, she landed a few hundred yards away played with its corpse for a moment, resembling nothing more than a gigantic cat. Within a few moments, though, she grew bored, breathed her flame upon it, and greedily dug in.

Swallowing the last shreds of beef and bone, leaving nothing but a char mark, she shifted back down and grinned. "Your hospitality is most appreciated, Uncle. However, there are some things you should know, if you don't already, before you accept me into your house."
She sat down on the grass, every muscle tense despite a posture of relaxation. "Mother and Father are dead, Uncle. Everyone from that branch of the family is, with the obvious exemption of my own esteemed personage. Your taking me in would mark far more than a 'vacation', really. I am bereft of a home, and I grow tired of wandering the lands of this world. I need a home, and I have none of this 'money' everyone seems so delighted by." She watched Kuramaris carefully for a hint of his reaction, though she didn't expect much. He was far older than she, after all, and most likely well practised at hiding such things.

In a rare show, though of fury or shame it was impossible to tell, she blushed. Quickly regaining her composure, she spoke slowly, measuring every word. "It was not knights with enchanted blades, nor was it wizards, nor priests. No other creature but one of us was their downfall, though to be honest, it was only the end result of centuries of hideousness."
She smiled, thin and humourless, and said, "If you insist on knowing, I killed them." She held up a hand, forestalling any tirades.
"Know that they had grown so corrupt that only one of their own could do something about it. Know that I have spent too much time, at my sire's behest, amongst the humans, and their idealogies and thoughts have affected into mine. Know also that they nearly killed me in the effort, and that it is passed and the only thing you could possibly do about it would be to kill me an exterminate the line."

"Okay, good, you reacted as I had hoped." She laughed as well, the sound far too loud for the tiny human throat she was using. "When they get fat and lazy, even elders are easy prey. Remember that, Uncle. don't get fat. It looks ridiculous." She got up, stretched and yawned. "For now, how about accommodations? Human beds are nice, but I yearn for a place where I can stretch out a bit."