It is all over suddenly.

In one breath, his mother explodes into a hundred million pieces that rain down around him before disappearing into the permeable sands.  In the next, Grumbles is there at his side, rubbing and praising him.  Healing him.  “Nicely done, the man says, his crooked hands at Vidar’s face.  Nice, Vidar echoes, the word too short and not enough.  He wants more.  And though he’d been indignant before (about killing his in-life absent father and his fearless mother) he now understands why he’d had to do it.  He realizes that it was for his own good, for Grumbles own good.  All of the trials have made him stronger, and deep in the folds of his guts, he knows he will have to be stronger to face what is to come.  To protect the one who’s given him so much already.

He’d been a child, and Grumbles had made him a man.

He sees that now.  He sees that the way to his future (their future) is paved with hardships that will serve to better him, shape him – forge him into his mother’s iron.  The blue stallion feels reborn when the majority of his wounds vanish.  His leg knits itself back together.  The gash on his face folds back into itself until he has only a thin trail of pink skin accompanying his jagged stripe.  Some of the other wounds close, but only barely.  Grumbles leaves a few as a lesson – a continuing education, Vidar muses – and he wears them proudly like badges.

It is not the only gift he is given.

The little man leads him away, and a part of him regrets leaving the coliseum.  He is not ready; he’s better, but not there yet.  Grumbles seems to sense the tension rising in his charge with each footstep away.  He pauses, soothes his mane so that it all lies flat on the same side.  “The bloodlust builds within you, eh?  You’ll have more opportunities, don’t you worry about that.”  He gives the horse a conspiratorial wink and moves on.  It is easier for Vidar to follow then.  He replays that wink in his head over and over, knowing that he’s in the right hands, that they are bonded.  Friends, even.  The fairy won’t let him down.

They walk to a rising structure that is far more impressive than the fighting arena had been.  Vidar doesn’t fail to notice the progression of power at each place he is taken.  First the small stall, then the chamber with its starry sky and underwater tank, and finally the wide, bowled dome of the coliseum.  Each had been home to him, for a time (and he realizes now that he’d had to grow into them; each last one couldn’t accommodate his personal growth), but this one puts them all to shame.  He appreciates that Grumbles trusts him enough to see his greatest show of power, his final masterpiece.  And what work must have gone into it!  

The outside of the structure is cased in a garish orange and green rubber sort-of-material.  “Non-conductive,” Grumbles says, nodding at the wall just ahead of them.  Vidar nods, wishing he’d borrowed some for his time in the chamber.  The fort’s walls are as crooked as the man, with some of them jutting to great, questionable heights and others leveling off at only a few feet high.  The entire structure is dotted with metal disks spaced evenly.  It is a strange, impossible building that seems entirely Grumbles creation.  And somehow, it all seems to work.  It has style, Vidar thinks to himself ironically.  But the man turns to him and grins anyway before leading him in.  

He is taken on the grand tour of the place and finds that the inside is as strange as the outside, if not more.  Grumbles had obviously grown up in a monochrome world (or a world with too many colors) as each wall is painted some new shade of the rainbow the stallion is unfamiliar with.  There are alien instruments and things that look like weapons meant to inflict pain stacked neatly in many of the rooms.  In one room, an irregular shaped pool stretches away to some distant point the pair can’t see.  The water is bright blue and tempting (reminds him of the Amazon river), but Grumbles leads him on.  The only commonality between the various rooms is the cleanliness.  Grumbles seems, if anything, a stickler for tidiness.  His private room is no different.  Horse and man enter a bedroom similar to the torture chamber, with rising velvet fabric walls that twist at the ceiling, leaving a decent hole with which to see the sky above.  “Not the best defensive move on my part, having a great big hole in my bedroom.  But, style,” he says, sparing him a glance before looking back up at the stars.  “And I like to look at them.  They remind me of home.”  Vidar says nothing, though he agrees.

The next few days pass quickly.  The stallion learns what his job as a guardian entails, learns where to get food and water (everywhere), and learns where he can stretch his legs.  The fort is massive and provides him with plentiful opportunities for exercise.  But even with the calming halter, there is some deep instinctual need printed on his DNA to feel the real sun on his back rather than artificial lighting.  He makes as many trips as he can to the courtyard while still being an effective guardian.  If only Grumbles could live outside as they do.  Vidar also learns that he is not the only one charged with protecting the man from his unseen enemies.  Grumbles spends time with them, too, and it casts a pall over the horse’s mood each time he does.  He wants all the attention for himself, wants to learn from his captor-savior in every spare moment he is allowed. 
 
In those moments alone, Vidar practices with his power.  He plays with fire. He melts into the ground as a puddle of poisonous water.  He grows his horns and fangs often, butting a crooked tree in the courtyard and sinking his teeth into the always-abundant meat of the carnivorous guardians.  As his time without Grumbles grows, he pictures that it is their faces he bites down into.  The blood dripping down his throat is like a validation (strange, but it feels right) of change.  Whereas this situation had been odd and uncomfortable before, now he knows he is meant to be here.  To suffer and learn and grow.  To become less prey and more predator, he thinks as the meat slides along his tongue.  The opposite side of the coin feels peculiar but it also feels so right.

When he does meet with Grumbles, they discuss his (their) upcoming troubles.  Vidar had noticed the stakes encircling the camp, huge metal poles that flashed green lights every few seconds.  A force field, he had learned.  We’ll know if anyone approaches, he had been assured.  But it didn’t seem nearly enough.  If the threat that knocked on the door of their futures was as great as it seemed, he knew they needed more.  And he needs more praise.  So the blue roan follows Grumbles to make adjustments.  They venture outside the invisible fence (safely turned off) and put a thick band of sand around the entire fort.  He tells Grumbles to water it, and the water seeps down, down below the surface.  It weakens the top layer until anyone who walks over it will be pulled under into the weak pockets - quicksand.  They fill this layer with all manner of nasty Desert dwellers: the venomous snakes and scorpions with their stinging tails.  A monitor lizard scurries over the firmer sand, ready to bite and track its victims.  They make another layer even further from the fort.  Grumbles grows a jungle in the middle of nowhere, but not without purpose.  Banana fronds sway in the breeze, but jaguars prowl beneath them.  The fairy paints the trees with poison dart frog secretions that will not fade away.  Several man-eating plants burrow and hide in the loamy dirt, waiting for a meal to pass by.  Vidar suggests a hybrid creation and Grumbles obliges.  A thinner, more athletic hippo patrols along with its family.  It yawns and its deadly teeth glint in the sun.  An enormous pair of macaw wings lay flush on its back.

Defenses somewhat covered, man and beast return to the fort that night feeling more prepared than ever.  Vidar won’t rest easy, but it pleases him to have been so useful.  Grumbles invites him into his room that night long before he usually did.  They talk (well, Grumbles does the vast majority of the talking) as comrades, allies.  Friends.  The man starts a fire at the foot of his bed.  As the flames crack and spit, the stallion feels himself warming even further.  Here, he feels useful.  He’s not the prince of a great warrior queen, not a gift to uphold a valuable alliance.  Here, he’s not judged for preferring the pursuits of his body over his mind, not being the smartest or wisest.  But I’m getting better, he thinks, looking at Grumbles as if for confirmation.  But the man isn’t looking back.  A small twinkle is in his eye (still laughing from the last joke) as he takes a sip from his chalice.  Look at all I thought of today.  Look how I helped.  But Ursa minor glares at him again, calls him a stupid animal.  You’ve thought of home, it seems to say, you’ve nothing original about you. 
 
Vidar tries to drown out the doubts haunting him.  He shakes and his anaconda-pattern reappears to the delight of Grumbles.  He shakes again and this time it’s an elephant’s leathery skin.  Again, and he wears the black and white fur of a lemur.  An Amazon parrot, wings and all.  A wolf, flashing green eyes and sharp fangs.  He doesn’t stop until he’s run out of ideas.  Grumbles doesn’t stop laughing, either, and it warms the horse as much as the fire has.  

The next day, they wake late.  Smoke from the extinguished fire still curls up into the opening above.  The sun is nearly filling it, and the stallion opens his eyes at the brightness.  Grumbles is curled on his bed in the fetal position, his covers twisted around him.  Vidar watches him for a moment, thinking how vulnerable he looks, thinking how easily he could kill him without the man even knowing it.  He might have, too, in the beginning.  But now, he only walks over and whuffs in his face, waking him.  The desire to pound him into a pulp has left, gone with his childish self.  He is a man now, and men make plans.  Men cope with their struggles and make the best of what they are given.

The pair makes more plans in the early hours of the afternoon.

They fortify the spaces just inside the gates, digging metal spikes into the ground and planting triggers in the ground.  Vidar watches as one detonates, feels his heart constrict with the explosion that seems to push at it from all sides.  He donates his lightning, pulling it down from the skies and electrifying the spikes so that the energy arcs across them.  It feels good in his veins, that power.  Grumbles tells him to make the most of it because he will need it.  Think, he reminds himself.  So he does.  The stallion internalizes the lightning, gathers it in his mind until it is a storm cloud fat with its load.  He sees a rabbit zig-zagging through the jungle just beyond and focuses on it.  With one exhausting thought, the lightning strikes the rabbit, frying its brain.  It falls over as if physically struck, immediately dead.  Vidar smiles at his captor-savior.

The smile doesn’t last. 

A darkness gathers on the horizon just beyond the sweeping banana fronds.  At first, Vidar wonders if he’s called a storm to him, somehow, with his lightning.  But as it nears, it is like no storm he’s ever seen before.  When the green flashing lights change to red on the force field for the first time, he and Grumbles head for the inside of the fort.  They pass the spikes and triggers and skirt around a deceivingly crystal clear pool (which if ingested or submerged will pull all the water from the user instead; reverse hydration, Grumbles had joked).  They carefully step around big balloons filled with concentrated mercury gas (Vidar had watched the big vats of fish being vaporized; the smell will stay with him forever).  He can’t wait to see how they’ll like breathing that in.  Once they are through the doorway, he slams it shut with one kick of a hindleg.  Grumbles bars it.  They share a look that seems to admit, we are the prey but we will have to become predators.

         

  

   

 

Vidar

I am the steel no enemy can shatter.

Blood trickles down his sides as sharp pain radiates through him, courtesy of the dragon he had somehow (miraculously) slain. The numbness is creeping back in, threatening to drag him back to that dark abyss on whose brink he had so recently teetered. But then Grumblesnakes is there, murmuring softly to him as he tenderly strokes his cheek. His smile as he gazes at him with fond eyes is so kind, and for a moment, Shan feels he would do anything for him. But then the pain intrudes and reality settles. The small man (his captor, he must remind himself constantly, though it seems to be doing little good) is talking to him, sweet words that have little meaning in this haze of pain and blood. A few heartbeats later however, the agony is gone and he finds himself once again whole.

Magic. So much magic. He had once sworn he hated it, but now… now it seems almost a good thing.

With one last tender touch to his face, Grumblesnakes rises and bids him follow. For a moment, Shan resists, wondering what other hellish things this little creature might have in store for him. But, as with all their previous interactions, it seems resistance is futile. And so, he follows, as docile as a lamb despite the confusion that reigns supreme inside his mind.

He leads him into what Shan can only describe as a fortress, a place meant for defense. At first he doesn’t quite realize what they are walking through, but when understanding sinks in, he is somewhat baffled. What could this little man need a fortress for? What dangers out there seek him?

He never does receive his answers though. Instead he becomes a guardian, a battle horse trained for one thing: protection. He soon finds himself forgetting about the halter more often than not, forgetting that Grumblesnakes is the enemy, forgetting that he should not so willingly offer aid to his captor. Even when the fondness begins to creep into his heart, the desire to protect this man against all threat, he forgets all too easily that it should not be there.

In fact, he finds that he is rather enjoying himself here. He had known since his youth that he is meant for war. The prospect of battle runs hot through his veins, and the planning of defense challenges his mind in ways he finds invigorating. Grumblesnakes keeps him at his side almost constantly, companion and accomplice in a war Shan knows almost nothing about.

But he would fight. That is what he had been born for. And he would protect Grumblesnakes.

For once, it feels as though he has found his purpose in life. As they set out to create a fortress so formidable its very presence would deter invasion, Shan finds an odd, almost comforting sort of happiness in the work.

The bones are already there, a good solid foundation that they could build upon. Shan has to admire the handiwork. It seems Grumblesnakes knows what he is doing. But it is not enough. Not nearly enough. Shan finds (to his amazement) he has abilities beyond those he had already utilized in the coliseum, abilities that aid him in building the defenses of the fortress. Grumblesnakes does the majority of the spellcasting, of course, but Shan helps in what small ways he can.

And so, they build things. Great and terrible things designed to catch magical and mortal foe alike. It takes them weeks – weeks during which Shan spends his nights in Grumblesnakes’ chamber to offer protection and days traveling the keep with his dear friend planting traps and spells. Their first line of defense, beyond the early warning system Grumblesnakes had installed of course, is a massive, invisible force field. It would not halt their magical foe for long, but it would give them enough time to get their other defenses up and running. Still, Grumblesnakes had planted a few nasty surprises in that force field at Shan’s suggestion. Attempting to force entry would trigger first a shower of arrows. Not normal arrows, of course, but magical ones. Ones that, once they had tasted flesh, would seek its target until well and truly sated upon that target’s blood. They had also planted a number pits full of deadly spikes, ones that would open up upon breach of the magical wall. Grumblesnakes had fiddled a bit with gravity over those pits too, ensuring that any poor, unsuspecting soul standing or flying over them would become quite heavy. Much too heavy to avoid falling upon those spears.

That, of course, is only their first line of defense. Though any enemy brave enough to trespass past that point is either incredibly powerful, or incredibly foolish. Unfortunately Shan has a sneaking suspicion that the vast majority of those enemies would be the former.

He would not let that deter him however. He is powerful now too.

Still, better safe than sorry.

Next, they install a moat around the fortress, though true to everything else in this god forsaken place, it is not an ordinary moat. Instead of water, the canal is filled with acid, a thick, viscous substance that clings stubbornly to skin and hair and clothes, refusing to be removed by any normal means. That is, if you even have the time to try to remove it before it eats through flesh and bone. To top it off, the acid emits a sour vapor, one that feels as though claws are raking skin and gouging eyes should you try to pass through it.

To be safe, Shan makes sure that remains well covered until it is needed. He has no desire to accidentally stroll through that mist.

Should they make it past the moat, their enemies will find only a hellish maze. Shan had rather enjoyed planning out their little labyrinth with his dear Grumblesnakes. They had spent hours in the little man’s chamber one night, pouring over a tiny replica of what they wished it to look like before implementing each piece of the intricate puzzle. Grumblesnakes had crafted the corridors of the fortress into a rather convoluted mess, with only one way through. To boot, they then plant a plethora of brilliantly diabolical surprises interspersed throughout the hodgepodge of meandering halls.

To his surprise, Shan rather delights in carefully planting all these beautiful little traps. In one place, the floor will swallow any creature fool enough to step upon it, encasing them for eternity in stone. In another, they will become trapped as the walls slowly close in upon them. In yet another, they will find themselves quickly sliced to ribbons by numerous razor sharp blades that drop to swing unexpectedly from the ceiling. In still another place, lances would burst from floor and ceiling to impale the unwary when passed over by unsuspecting enemies. They had even crafted a spell that would turn any trespassers into rabbits, mostly because they had found it stupidly hilarious. Of course, those rabbits would get rapidly eaten by the wolves that would then be released. One can never be too careful.

Should anyone make it past these defenses, they would find themselves face to face with Shan and Grumblesnakes. Then and only then would the true battle ensue.  Of course, they would first have to make it through the wards upon the doors of the large, central chamber they had chosen as their battleground. As with everything else, these are no ordinary wards. Any who touch that ward when activated would instantly burst into flame. Should the flames not be deterrent enough, the force field, when broken, would emit a note so piercing it would render the trespasser instantly deaf. It also comes with the distinct possibility of making one bleed from their eyes, ears, and nose. Thoughtfully, Grumblesnakes has provided Shan with protection against this particular menace, for which Shan is quite grateful.

Grumblesnakes of course would never leave himself without a way out. In truth, were Shan in his right mind, he might have been very suspicious of the rather small trap door the little man had installed in the designated battle chamber. As it is, with that halter still strapped about his face, he can only applaud his cleverness in thinking of every eventuality.

For all their planning and preparation, it does little good in actually preparing Shan for what is to come. Despite weeks of building and engineering, when that first warning alarm sounds, the scarred stallion is far from ready. But he is a warrior, and he will always do what he must. So, as the alarms shriek out their warning, as the sky turns ominously dark with a powerful fury, Shan turns to Grumblesnakes, steeling himself for the battle to come.

Features lit by an uncommon grimness, Shannisoran prepares for war.

Shannisoran