VoyForums
[ Show ]
Support VoyForums
[ Shrink ]
VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, [3], 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 00:31:40 03/06/02 Wed
Author: Rowan and Tristan
Subject: Identity crisis
In reply to: Erlic, Corum & Valhorek 's message, "Valiant companions" on 20:59:45 03/05/02 Tue

The cavern that the were-spiders lived in was dark, lit only by the purple lichen-like substance growing on the walls, ceiling, and even crawling up and down the stalagmites and stalactites. The result was an eerie semblance of pre-night, that shady dusk that creeps into the sky while the sun is still setting. Shadows bounced off rock formations and wooden buildings, particularly in spots where purple fungi had become sick and rotten, its glow weakened with whatever disease ailed it.

The environment suited Rowan perfectly. As he’d done a couple days before when assisting Erlic in the extermination of two assassins, he listened to the power whispering inside him, the shado arts so few of his people were born and trained to use. He flitted from foe to foe, a virtual shadow winking in and out of existence, one moment stepping forward to engage and swiftly dispatch an enemy, the next fading back into the rocky formations. The task brought him a sort of dim excitement, the foul ichor on his swords echoing the strange, glowing light in his eyes.

He deserted his haunt along the edges of the cavern, however, when he spotted Tia fighting alone, her tiny figure ludicrously small as she stood in the shadow of her spider adversary. He darted forward to aid her, she tossing her daggers at it while he nipped at its flanks with his swords. When it finally died, he stood there panting, the normally invisible runes all over his body glaring a fierce silver. It felt as though each was being burned into his skin anew, telling him he’d utterly exhausted his inner power for the moment, and would need to rest big time to regain his strength.

His usual crooked sort of grin appeared miraculously on his face, and he stumbled forward to give her a breathy sort of kiss since they were both still breathing heavily after the battle.

“Everything still in one piece?” he asked, as he moved to touch and examine her body, praying his hands wouldn’t suddenly grow a mind of their own as they so often did when he was a little out of sorts. But before he could satisfy himself of her good health, another shadow suddenly loomed over them, this one ten, maybe twenty times bigger than the spider’s. Hot breath on the back of his neck made him turn around to stare at the whirling, reddened eyes of a dragon.

“Easy there, pussy cat,” he said, his heart starting to race. Tristan’s head was about the size of his entire body. Funny how you notice things like that when you least expect he, he mused.

A deep, rumbling growl worked its way up the dragon’s throat, his mouth parting slightly to reveal his sharp, blood-tipped teeth.

“All bark and no bite, Tia,” he muttered, shifting to move slightly in front of the smaller thief. “That’s what I always say.” His eyes remained locked with those of the dragon. “You’re not gonna prove me wrong today, are you kiddo?”

Tristan’s answering snarl was not encouraging.

~*~*~*~*~

Tristan chose not to acknowledge the pain in his body except to recognize that it only served to make him angrier. That single roar was the only truly vocalized sound of distress he had yet to utter, but he continued to growl and snap at the spider people, ripping their torsos from their bodies so that the innards gushed out onto the rocky soil, entangling the legs of those behind, making them slip in the blood and gore of their own comrades.

He spit fire in little short gasps, frying his enemies individually, because some vague, whispering voice in the back of his head told him to be careful at whom he was aiming at. Several times, he nearly lost it, narrowing his eyes and puffing his heated air out of his lungs, ready to blast the figure racing before him—only to stop short and swallow reflexively upon recognizing that figure as humanoid, and belonging to one of his friends.

Once something ducked under his belly, and he reached out with his uninjured leg to claw at it. His talons narrowly missed Corum’s head as his faithful friend rolled out on the other side of him, oblivious to the danger as he dispatched yet another spider. With each jerking movement of his limbs, pain seared through his shoulder and his leg where the arrows still lay deeply buried. His back was a mess of red stabs and scratches; it was his one vulnerable spot, if a dragon could be said to have such a thing. A dim hint of conscious thought told him he would have been in a lot worse trouble if Marz and Corum hadn’t fought beside him as much as they could.

After a while, he realized he was able to cease fighting. The spiders weren’t coming at him anymore, and everywhere were broken bodies, limbs severed, some pieces still smoking from dragon flame and firecracker damage. He shook his head and snorted, laying his ears back as two plumes of gray smoke erupted out of his nostrils to drift lazily into the air.

Someone asked if he was okay, and he twisted his head around to glare down at the puny mortal standing beside him, clutching a staff in his small hand. There was a skull perched on top of the staff, and before Tristan could entertain the notion of doing away with this tiny mortal creature, the skull’s eyes glowed. He laid his ears back again and moved away a few steps, his tail whipping angrily behind him.

Another voice caught his attention, and he turned toward it, this time a pair of mortals. Again, he recognized them, but the hunter in him still begged to kill. The taller mortal continued to speak, his voice irritating Tristan greatly. He scratched the ground with one forefoot, bracing himself on his uninjured shoulder.

But suddenly, he caught the violet gaze of the mortal’s companion, and something changed inside. He felt brief, inexorable peace descending briefly upon him, and abruptly he was seized with the memory of her hand over his, pressing his palm against his lover’s chest, willing him to make the other live. His hand…his human hand. He blinked and snorted, crooning as he stepped back and accidentally put his full weight on his injured leg. It’s over with! a voice inside his head cried, Let it go. Reclaim the body you’ve learned to love so much!

Before he could begin to argue with himself, he initiated the change, swiftly falling back into his human form. He stumbled immediately to his knees, gritting his teeth in anger and in pain at the arrows still imbedded in his flesh. Shapeshifting was a strange and mysterious phenomenon, and although his back was still streaked with red from the were-spider’s swords, his shirt was completely whole.

In those first few moments, no common words would come to his tongue, though he muttered a dragon curse in his own language, sparks sizzling in the air as he spoke. Slowly, however, his human thoughts and feelings returned to him, no longer eclipsed by the battle lust his dragon form had craved so recently.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]
Forum timezone: GMT-6
VF Version: 3.00b, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2019 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.