Days in the Life of a Half-Dragon

[Vanidor]

The moose shifts its head as an arrow cracks off of a massive antler and goes spinning into the darkness. Another turn, and another gouges a bloody furrow across the boney cranium and sends a slight drizzle of blood down the face of the beast. The last arrow impales itself into the meat of a massive shoulder. The moose takes a single step forward, beet-red eyes glimmering in the pallid light and focusing upon the group that sought shelter in the archway.

It is here that it seemed to pause. A short hesitation as Zilliah's mind-tricks started to work its way across the stunted brain of the beast. But then it smelled it. Blood. That of the fae across the chamber, and it's own now added to the mixture. The beast lowers and bellows loud enough to make rock shiver and fall from the ceiling, dust cascading around the thing as a warcry is made. Something snaps within the pulsating brain of the beast, and there is froth forming at the wide mouth. It drizzles to hit the ground in a spatter that is soon forgotten.

Though Drache is the largest of the trio. She has not yet drawn the blood of the beast. That particular rage is fixated upon Kira. The moose may not be smart, but it knows what an arrow is. And from what weapon it is spat from. The creature bellows again, cloven hooves digging into the hard stone as the creature is propelled forward in a violent burst of energy. The glaive trails a whispy essence of ice behind it, the weapon sweeping in the air above the creature in an insane single handed grip. It gave the beast reach.

Enough to aim it for the bow-wielding warrior at a distance, at least, though the angle was poor. The glaive, though, was probably the last thing to worry about at this point. No. More likely the issue would be the tonnage of the beast that wielded the weapon. It didn't seem likely to stop until it hit something.

[Kira]

If it was not clear before, it is obvious now to her companions; Kira is the type of warrior to shoot first and ask questions later. It has gotten her into trouble on multiple occasions, but that never stops her. She curses her poor aim rather colorfully. "Feckin' feck feckers!"

Now she is left with very limited options.

Drache was already working her way around the side of the cavern, and in mere seconds the charging beast will pass her. Kira glanced to Drache and gave her a nod, praying the half-dragon would understand. Without any more hesitation, she turned on her heel and ran as fast as she could in the direction they came. She wouldn't be faster than the moose taur, but hopefully she would be fast enough to give Drache or even Zilliah time to distract it.

[Pantha]

~~~~~ Zilliah ~~~~~

Pity, it did not work. The minds of maddened creatures were not so easy to dominate as those of humans. Shame. Not that he hadn't been certain it would work, not with the slog of something far greater than the hideous thing trying to dampen his abilities.

Brilliant, blinding green light erupts from his back the moment Kira has plunged past him and he is jetting up to the crumbling ceiling on delicate, glimmering wings. Where he once stood there is an illusion of him standing in a puddle of his own blood, hoping it would draw the thing's attention to it instead of the escaping Kira. He crawls like a bug over the caverns ceiling. His mouth opens and from it he spits his own blood down onto the back of the beast, one of his bleeding hands ripping open further until a river of it gushed down onto the things' massive head, it's trajectory added by his telekinetic powers. He aims for the eyes and beastly nose. On contact the blood would begin to boil and become molten metal, gold to be precise.

[Drache]

Drache couldn't have asked for a better opportunity to strike. The maddened beast thundered past, ignoring her completely. She leaped down and skittered after it, her dinosaur-like feet giving her a certain amount of swiftness, though at a full run the thing would easily outdistance her. Wary of the frosty glaive, she wasn't that keen on getting close unless she was sure she could get inside it's range.

She saw a flash of green light and hoped it meant that Zilliah had gotten out of the way, and that the massive bulk of the moose-a-taur would block her attack from striking Kira as well.

Her snout wrinkled slightly as she concentrated, gathering the power she needed. Her tail trailed straight-out behind her and her wings opened slightly for balance. A swirl of glowing embers coalesced around her body, drifting behind her as she pelted across the stoney floor. As her power peaked, a 60 foot cone of smouldering volcanic debris exploded out in front of her towards the moose-thing's back to both burn and bludgeon him.

[Vanidor]

The beast skids to a stop, colliding with the wall in a horrendous crash. The moose had charged through the image of Zilliah, hooves splattering the remaining blood as it passed. One massive fist is splayed against the rocky wall, supporting the beast as its massive head is shaken. There is something covering an eye, and it does not know what it is. The creature bellows again, that paw reaching up to touch the molten gold that is burning upon its back.

Then again, it is pounded by stone and fire. This time, something seems to ward the creature. The stone pelts it, but the heat and flame is buffeted. It turns here, great nostrils flaring and breathing in the scent of melted flesh and burnt hair. The glaive spears upwards in a quick one-handed thrust for Zilliah, there is no aim here, just a maddened poke for the one that had half blinded it. Another roar, for Kira is distant and Zilliah is too high above him to effect easily.

The remaining eye focuses upon Drache then, its great maw opening to release a scream. It charges once again, a maddened rush that sees the creature vaulting a stone bench in an insane rush to chew on the Dragon-kin.

-----

In the other room, another mind is snuffed out. And another plucked from the skeins of fate shortly after. The chanting has stopped now, cries of surprise coming from that other chamber. Perhaps Drache can feel it, her mage sense prickling. Certainly, Zilliah, attuned to the spirit world as he is, can feel the after effects of something stepping into the world. There is heat. And there is madness.

And there is Anger.

[Kira]

Kira did not run very far when she heard the great beast crash into the wall. Whatever distractions her companions utilized, they worked well enough. She skidded to a halt and retraced her steps, charging back into the cavern. The moose-a-taur had turned on Drache. That just wouldn't do.

Kira reached down to her belt and drew several knives from it. One, two, three, four, the knives flew from her hand and arced toward the burning rear. She doubted any of them would be felt if they managed to embed themselves in the taur's ass.

"Oi, yer!" she shouted at the maddened monster. "Yer arse is on fire! Yer miss me, yer ugly fecker?" She reached down and unhooked her crossbow, arming it quickly and drawing a bolt from her pouch.

[Pantha]

~~~~~ Zilliah ~~~~~

He clung to the rocks, even as they trembled and threatened to fall loose as the massive body slammed into the cavern wall. He froze then, his mind picking up the most bone chilling sensation from the screams of horror in the chamber beyond. Something far worse than this beast has arisen. He almost says a silent prayer to Tubbius now but in his addled state he doesn't even know what that particular god would be able to do to help them. He couldn't control the mind of the beast, but maybe, just maybe he could turn it's own massive weapon against it. In one last, feeble attempt, the gem on his forehead flared with telekinetic energy to try and wield it at the thing's throat, to rend it wide open and spill it's lifeblood in great torrents.

[Drache]

Drache did not plan on remaining within chewing range for long. She backed up a few steps, her resplendant wings spreading and then flapping to carry her skyward. Without much room and with no breeze to support her, she had to flap hard to stay aloft. She was quite pissed that the fire half of her spell hadn't worked. That definitely put a cramp on her style. There was a lurch in her stomach, and it wasn't her unborn. The temptation to use The Spell flared so brightly she found herself summoning the power even before she realized what she was doing.

"Thric!" she snarled to herself in her own tongue, denying the urge. The spell she used next was still targeting herself, but the result was far from what it might have been if she had given in.

She opened her jaws and breathed deeply, but it wasn't a supremely desiccating gout of nearly plasma-like flame that issued forth. Instead, a cone of sickly green billowed out, spraying towards the beast with burning acid that filled the air with the scent of chlorine. It was in the moment that her own altered breath weapon obscured her view of her enemy that she sensed the change in the next room. Heat she could handle with no problems at all, but the madness and the anger, which stirred the ire being poured into her own mind recently by outside influences, was something else.

[Vanidor]

The beast is blinded now, for truth. The spray of acidic chlorine has burnt the life from the remaining eye. With another horrendous bellow the creature is stilled, shifting in its stance to sweep the glaive in a circle around it. It is blind, but it hears. Those tufted ears twitch as Kira yells, it's arms shifting as the body turns. The moose hurls the glaive at the warrior-woman, then reaches up with a a burnt paw for a leg or anything of the flying Drache.

It is paused in this action, though, but a sudden dragging at the heavy icon that dangles from its neck. It tugs upwards, the spikes starting to dig into the heavy neck of the moose. It brays here, one hand sweeping again for the dragon woman, the other grasping for the emblem that is choking it.

----

The energy that had been debilitating Zilliah is shattered. The concentration of the one maintaining the wardings has failed.

The door to the second chamber is shattered. Iron and wood detonating outward and spraying the room with shrapnel. The beast is caught in this storm, many of the pieces embedding into the tough hide of the moose. Yet it brays again, a hoof stamping into the solid ground of the cavern. A man comes running from the other chamber, robes tattered and crisped. His beard is smouldering, face stained with blood and soot. He trips over a stone bench, crumpling and crashing against the stone.

From the other room, a figure steps. It is naked, formed as a man muscled like a warrior. His shoulders are heavy and well formed. The muscle of his legs are taut and firm. The hair on his head is loose, flowing from the radiant heat of his return in the room below. He is... beautiful. He is resplendent. To those who can sense such things, he is powerful. The powers of the cosmos rage through his body, seeping from his pores like dirty oil and a tainted sewer.

It blazes from his eyes as a hand is raised, and a beam of liquid light touches the man who had ran from the previous chamber. The Patriarch is immolated, turned into dust by the flashing beam. The naked man stands there, chest heaving, surveying the destruction wrought in the antechamber. His voice is a rumble of anger and disappointment. A cry that even halts the choking moose.

"Enough!"

[Drache]

9/21

The point of light appeared far, far up in the night sky and glimmered just as soft and prettily as the stars above and behind it. By its size alone it could have been a rather lonely and daring firefly, drifting slowly towards the landscape below. But it didn't last for very long. The little light exploded suddenly, surging outwards, pushed in one direction by the force behind it. A cloud of roiling, sparking flame produced the arcing shapes of dragonwings, an elegant horned head, and a round belly. The fire corruscated along the red and gold body and then drifted in flurries and sparks as she hurried on, come to Here from Somewhere Else via the pyrotechnic signature of her magic. As the flames died behind her on her way to the mountains, she became little more than a sinister black shadow cutting across the backdrop of stars.

She knew the way back to her lair by heart now, of course, and approached confidently though not without caution. She'd left three fleshlings in charge of her place and wasn't actually certain what to expect out of them on her return. Nostrils flaring and pupils widened, she started down her tunnels to see what the damage had been.

It was lucky, very lucky, that the three hapless two-leggers were absent from the Lair this evening. In short order, a long snarl of rage growled and gurgled its way up the winding tunnels, and a brief spout of flame marked the lower entrance to the half-dragon's abode.

[Drache]

It was nice and roasty underground in the depths of Drache's Lair. Miles of winding passageways and lavatubes heated by her mere presence. It wasn't lightly that she left Rhin behind when she went to town to take care of business, but today she did so that she might attend to the setting up of her new shop. And she hadn't left the babe unattended. Unlike a proper wyrmling of the same age, Rhin could not look after herself. No, it was Andre who had drawn dragonsitting duty for day.

Rhindani, her pearly scales glittering prettily in the light of the enchanted torches along the walls, was nestled in a pile of furs and expensive silks in a special chamber of her own. She was surrounded by toys and random bits of treasure, and had developed just enough mobility that she could reach out and grab those nearest. Dressed in a turquoise dress that allowed for her wings, she looked a sort of adorable reptilian cherub.

Andre checked on her every now and then, busy working on other things assigned to him by his Mistress.

[catch]

Down he crept, into the dark, sulphur thickness that obscured his eyes, stinging them like swarms of angry bees, made every half-held breath feel ready to burst from his chest. He did not know that this is where Drache made her lair, except the steps had smelled of Ser Fred, and the oppressive thickness held inside it every whisper of dragon. His lungs ached, and the sweat crusted on his mustache and lips, so that he tasted it every time his tongue slipped nervously across them.

It was a nightmare-place, with a shining images of things Catch did not understand, whispers of better things, roars of magic that tickled and twitched at his skin. No wonder Miss Drache was so terrible, so angry, to live in such a place. No wonder Cloud-hair was so mad, and that Ser Kerrak had emerged, from death and madness, from this Fire Hole. He counted, under his breath, but the numbers were all wrong, set in and order that made sense only to him, so that when he came to the final one, he was here.

Catch trembled as he crept along the floor, sinking to all fours like a beast, his eyes half-mad and his mind almost There. He did not hear voices, like poor Jared, of that he was certain. The Eight had frightened him with their singing. But now he felt an easing of that, just being here in this room, and he dragged himself to the babe's bed, his legs suddenly limp and useless, buzzing with electric excitement.

She was here, perfect, in furs and cloth, and Catch pulled himself onto the piling of bedding. He did not trust himself, at first, for his hands shook too much, but he had come too far, braved too much, to falter now. The addled man, with a strangled, crooning sound, scooped Rhin up into his arms, holding her against his chest, as gentle with her and her pretty dress as he would be with day-old kittens. He took this moment to drink her in, drink her up, feeling the nubs of her horns and the delicate line of her muzzle, before he dared give her a kiss, the way Iron Shoes kissed him.

He was in blissful, ignorant, maddened heavens.

[Drache]

The babe looked up at Catch, blinking with an infant's curiosity. Her eyes, though shaped like her mother's, were the colour of an oyster's shell. While Drache burned with all the heat and passion of fire, Rhin did not. There was a flame in her heart too, but there was an icy serenity too. But it was small. Very small, like she was, and could only grow with time. There was magic in her blood. But when she opened her mouth she simply cheaped cutely and reached up with a clawed hand to tug at his beard.

There was a clatter in the doorway as Andre walked in, the bowl of warmed minced fish splattered all over the floor. The dark-haired foreigner felt his stomach turn to ice as fear settled over him. Fear for Rhin, because he couldn't know Catch's intentions, and fear for himself when -she- returned.

"How did you get here?" he demanded, reaching automatically for a sword that was not there. "Put her down!"

[catch]

Catch's heart almost stopped beating at that chirp, that tug. She was perfect. Catch giggled to her, uttering another croon in eerie, similar imitation, sounding much like a dragon himself, despite his mortal shell.

"You're n-not a little Flame. You are a little Star," he tells her in a so-soft, sing-song voice. "I used to have stars in mm-my head, you know. I named them all, but they all c-c-came out the suh-same."

He did not hear Andre until the bowl clattered, and it sharpened his mind as keen as a sword. He was on his feet, almost before he realized that they were under him, cradling Rhin carefully in her furs and pretty, wonderful dress.

Catch had not known what he wanted, when he came here, pushing past those nightmares. First, he had thought only of holding Rhin, a sneaking-past of Drache's cruelty. His mind, now, was alive with careening thoughts, and it was only because he knew that stealing was terrible that he hesitated now. He had Rhin in his arms. Instead of a few minutes of illicit, wonderful bliss, he could have this feeling forever. He would not need to be sad, or depressed, looking at Rhin from afar while Drache let everyone touch her but he. And Ser Andre saw, now, so Catch could not even rely on sneaking away. These were terrible thoughts. Catch licks his lips, his eyes wide, the right, blue eye's pupil a mere pinprick, while the left's black was all-encompassing.

"I juh-just wanted to touch," he tries to explain to Andre weakly, even as his legs take him back where they had come. "You. You sh-shu-could come, too. I c-can take your mark away."

[Drache]

Poor Andre. He wasted precious time considering how he might talk the madman out whatever it was he was about to do. He even dared to hope that he could get Catch out of there before Drache ever found out. But as Catch started to move away with Rhin clutched in his arms he watched his life flash before his eyes. "You can't leave with her. La Endriaga, she'll kill you."

And Catch's offer to remove the mark was the voice of temptation. He frequently considered returning to his old life, and there had been times when he was certain he could get away with it. But he had a new life now, and Drache wasn't so bad. Unless he had to face her and tell her that her daughter was gone. The rogue was quick on his feet. He snatched a priceless ornamental vase from a nearby table and practically pranced forward, attempting to crash the thing over Catch's head.