I am the steel no enemy can shatter.
For a moment, the world is a blur and he is lost amidst a maelstrom of light and color and sound. Then everything coalesces into sharp focus as he finds himself standing on shaky legs in the midst of the forest. For a moment, he cannot quite recall anything, cannot remember why he is here, what he had been doing, or even who he is. But the force of those memories crash into his brain with hard precision, leaving him reeling as he tries to sort fact from fiction.
But it had all been real. So very, very real. The pain and blood. The torture. The battles. The exhaustion. His body has been healed but he aches with remembered agony. His memories are still jumbled though, a swirling confusion of devotion and anger and love and hate. Even though the halter is gone, the emotions it had forced him to feel are much too palpable.
He stumbles forward a few steps, shaking his head as he tries to clear the terrible thoughts clouding his mind. It takes him a moment to realize that the scales he had armored himself with have not disappeared with his injuries and magical abilities. He freezes, dark brown gaze sweeping across the portions of his large frame that he can see. While they are most definitely scales exactly as the ones he had so recently worn (finely wrought, encasing his body like a second skin, shielding him from harm while allowing him freedom of movement) they are of a strange material. A rainbow of hues gleam in the dim light, smooth and hard, almost like… stone?
His muzzle dips briefly as he skims it gingerly along the surface of his skin. Yes, most definitely stone. A glittering gemstone that shines, bright and hard, in the twilight of the forest. He shakes his head again, confusion reigning supreme as he tries to sort his memories into some semblance of order.
For a moment, he’s not entirely sure if he can. For a moment, he thinks he may have just lost his mind that that queer and awful and disturbingly wonderful otherworld.
Shannisoran