"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
He wants to know more. She acts like it’s so easy. But how? How is it easy. Maybe Rhynn was born with her skill, maybe it was part of her blood. But Rhonan? He voted away two horses to be tortured for a year, he let his friends die, he let the crow die. He watched world after world burn while he managed to stay alive by the goodwill of others.
That is how he became this. It’s appropriate, giving a worthless shit like him that ability to manipulate the shadows, the ability to understand them without knowing how or why. He wasn’t suited to anything good, to anything that was destructive in nature. Because everything he touched crumbled, burned, died. He didn’t even have to try.
They take their leave of the others. Having completely hijacked that meeting anyway, it only made sense. And he tries to think of what she said. Tries to stop fighting all the memories that have made him what he is. But he doesn’t want to embrace the death and destruction that gave him that ability to destroy as well.
But he’ll have to, won’t he?
If he wants to be anything. If he wants to stop falling through shadows. If he wants to build and manipulate the darkness around him.
So he remembers Noah. He remembers his crow and the horde and his friends dying, one by one. He remembers it all, and it’s horrible, but he can feel the shadows around him now with more clarity than ever. It’s cruel, almost, using their memories to make him more powerful. But they are gone, and he must move on.
He pulls that shadows on his skin around him completely until they form a more solid armor. Not quite solid enough, but far more than just a wispy cloud of black. He tugs at the shadows from the trees nearby, pulling the shadows of their branches from the ground and commanding the finger-like branches to reach into the sky, snapping at birds that fly by (though he doesn’t catch any, he’s not trying that hard to actually hit them).
And then he grins. Something wicked and pleased, something so very unlike the lost boy. “What can we do?”
rhonan.
hope it's okay, figured we could/should just start a new thread with them
10-31-2015, 01:41 AM (This post was last modified: 11-03-2015, 11:42 PM by Rhynn.)
she slept with wolves without fear
He follows easily enough, clearly desperate for the knowledge. Not that she can blame him. If she had been like him, able to touch the shadows but not control them, she would have been grasping at information as well.
They find a quiet place to work and she turns to face him, watching as he pulls the shadows in. He does have talent she’ll give him that (he wouldn’t have gotten so far on his own if he wasn’t), but he is woefully uninformed.
When he asks what they can do, she can’t help but grin. The thought of what she will be able to introduce him to the makes her feel … well, powerful. She will open his eyes to a whole other world.
“Oh so many things.” She starts simple, drawing shadows into herself and forming a thick, dark armour. It’s stronger than the one he’s drawn about himself - somehow solid, despite its nature. It’s a technique that she’s become well practiced at over the years. Knowing how to protect oneself is always an important skill.
Next she turns her attention to a nearby tree, lashing out with a thin tendril of darkness. With a crack, the tree falls, sliced right through. Without pause she rises into the air, soaring and dipping. The average eye wouldn’t notice, but Rhonan might - she’s crafted tiny disks of darkness and fastened them to her hooves to make herself levitate. She drops the disks and creates wings, swooping in for a landing in front of Rhonan. Once she’s steady, she draws a curtain of darkness about herself and teleports, popping back up in the shadows of an old oak. She pauses for a moment, concentrating and she disappears, invisible in the shadows. Then she reappears, her form shifting and growing until a giant, slavering wolf appears to walk towards Rhonan. She lets the wolf form around her dissipate and follows the wisps of darkness, becoming shadow herself, her 2D form slipping across the ground. She becomes solid flesh again and settles herself facing Rhonan for one last trick. She concentrates hard, focusing on the ground between them. Darkness blossoms from the earth, and a small black mouse is formed, then another and another. They are perhaps her most important creation - fully formed independent, intelligent creatures that, once released, will serve her every whim. It had taken her a long time to perfect them.
She sets them free and they scurry off in all directions (one heading back in the direction of Demian and Thorunn, though it’s impossible to tell amongst all the dashing mice), disappearing within moments. Then she looks up at Rhonan and smiles, wicked grin matching wicked grin. It’s showing off, plain and simple. Something she never, ever does. Shadows are more effective when used in secret. But at least it’s showing off with a purpose. To know what they are capable of, at first, Rhonan will need to see it first hand. He will need to see the possibilities so that his own mind can be opened.
There is of course, more that she can do, though not much more. But she will save it for another time. What she has shown him is a good place to start. And besides, Rhonan could figure them out on his own once he becomes competent enough. In fact she is sure that he will eventually discover aspects of the ability that she is not even aware of. That’s the wonderful part of being able to manipulate the shadows - the only true limit is your imagination.
Her grin widens as she stares at Rhonan, waiting for his reaction. “Where would you like to start?” The world is open to them.
11-07-2015, 06:37 PM (This post was last modified: 11-07-2015, 06:38 PM by Rhonan.)
my shadow tilts its head at me,
spirits in the dark are waiting.
Rhonan is woefully uniformed when it comes to just about everything. He’d had little parenting, after all. A father dead before he was even born and a mother that only saw Covet when she looked at her boys, and never really saw him. He’d spent his childhood wriggling out of her grasp, leaving Tytos to deal with her instead. It wasn’t his fault that Tytos always got stuck in her veins and couldn’t be clever enough to sneak away.
That thought hits him. He’d been the clever one. Uniformed, worthless Rhonan. He’d always gotten away, always been able to take care of himself. He’d been a King once, in his own world, the one he shaped with his mind. He’d had friends willing to die for him, and he’d never even tried to earn such respect from them. He’d been stronger and faster and outrun them all. He’d been just enough of something to avoid be voted to hell.
And he wonders, very briefly, what he’d be capable of if he actually tried. If he cared.
And in that brief thought he finds himself even more eager to learn, to pull whatever knowledge from Rhynn that he can. He doesn’t know what he might want to make of himself, if anything, but he wants to make himself capable of everything.
And he watches in perfect silence. First, as she creates a solid armor. He concentrates on his as well, managing to solidify his black coat more, though not entirely. But she’s on to something new, and his concentration shifts, though he is pleased to note that he doesn’t lose the half-armor even as he focuses on other things. One small step, yes.
She splits a tree in half, teleports, turns herself to shadow, to wolf. He doesn’t flinch as she comes and goes, as the wolf growls in his face. He simply watches, enjoying the show, mind whirling as he begins to understand how powerful the darkness has made him.
He is so much more than he’d ever imagined. And his grin only grows at this thought. He is good at the destroying things, and luckily for him, he’s found a home that longs for destruction.
The mice interest him the most, but he knows he won’t be able to do that one yet. She asks where he’s like to start, and though he longs to try the hardest pieces, he decides to be sensible. “The beginning.” He returns to concentrating on the armor, thinking about the horde, thinking about how armor would have saved Noah. How hard it would have needed to be, how durable. And slowly, the shadows around him solidify, into the same armor she had worn.
He grins, and then lets the shadows soften slightly, becoming far more of a second skin than armor. He’s never liked being gold and white, and so he choses to wear the shadows instead. But now, he looks simply like a black horse. Only Rhynn, and others like them, would notice that his coat is made of shadows. It is a small thing, but it is a start.
He turns his attention to the tree, pulling the darkness into the same thin tendril he’d seen Rhynn use. It snaps toward a branch, though breaks apart on the tree on the first attempt. On the second, it bounces off the branch instead, though at least it stays solid. Third time’s the charm, and the tendril rips into the tree, though it doesn’t cut through quite so cleanly.
He looks over to Rhynn, cocking his head slightly, curious. “Were you born with your trait?”
