"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
07-26-2019, 10:00 PM (This post was last modified: 07-26-2019, 10:03 PM by Nodens.)
i found the antidote. i let the anger go and mother nature found it's place. now we're compatible, my inner animal, i wanted blood and got a taste.
There are no words to describe the bizarre monstrosity that is the mass of amorphous and tangible being… its body was a nightmare of non-euclidean geometry and a smoothness that made it nigh impossible to figure out where curves existed and straight lines ended. The thing, as it was, seemed porous and oily… dripping water and salt and ink that cascaded down it’s every stretch of what could’ve been skin.
A violent burst of color broke across it’s flesh and fragments of shapes and cracks made their way across before the ink became algae tainted water and blood. Expelled from a vent behind it’s head the cephalopod-like monster slowly uncurled the writhing mass of tentacles and arms… touches and stretched as each began to shrink and wither: as form shifted and strained.
Fur grew atop the skin and where it once belongs to the sea, now so the creature belonged to land, and it rejoiced with it’s head thrown back in a monstrous howl… disharmonious and laced with static: a corruption of sound.
Dark grey and black tangled together and it’s wolfish form settled, though it seemed far more than wolf in truth. It’s body was too large and jaws heavy with gnashing teeth that held serrated and strangely shaped designs… the paws were laced with retractable claws and overall it was bulkier and heavier with muscle: almost bear-like.
To itself it laughed, and pounced upon a field mouse within the grass: an eagle-like talon plucking the smaller thing from the earth and bringing it to the eyes… watching and studying it. Nodens, as his mother called him, cares little for it… after all: it was food for the birds; but he finds that his jaws unhinge and he devours the prey without question.
Bone and blood, flesh and muscles: all gone as he thinks on the taste and the world around him. Father, he recalls, preferred the sea… and even mother had been fond of her Leviathans; but Nodens plays among the grass for a time- races in this hulking form and slowly he finds himself warping out and into something stable… something familiar.
A horse of dark black scales, iridescent with strange patterns in the sun, and whose lengthy mane and tail seemed to drip with ink and writhe with suggestions of tentacles. His dark eyes watch the world and he smiles with visible shake-like teeth, his hooves cloven and webbed.
He waits, however, and ponders who now would be his plaything.
07-28-2019, 02:11 PM (This post was last modified: 07-28-2019, 02:24 PM by Dracarys.)
DRACARYS
I have never been nothing. I am the blood of a dragon.
Despite everything—her father losing Sylva and making her home in Loess—she has come to terms with her new circumstance. It was something, her father at least would tell her, not to hold onto. He would have told her it was an opportunity for the taking, but he had always been so ambitious when it came to such things. She, on the other hand, isn’t quite sure if she truly aligns in that way.
She had been taught the world was her oyster. Thus, it had been during her time in the autumn territory of Sylva. Dracarys had been given everything a child needed and more. She grew to be confident, independent, and equipped with skills that would take her far in life. All she needed to do was to make the choice and it would be hers. Perhaps that is why her father sent her to Loess, he knew all along she would thrive there more than anyone (especially being the granddaughter of the dragon-king).
There was something valuable because she was born from the blood of dragon and hellhound. Being part of a lineage of the two sounded simply silly to her, but the blue girl remembers the power it once had in the stories of the old Beqanna. There was meaning in her blood—a powerful weapon she had somehow.
But a weapon, she isn’t truly sure how it will work in the end. She doesn’t know how much things will work out either being within Loess. All she knows is she cannot settle for simply living there as a resident. There is more for her then merely wasting away. Perhaps she is ambitious after all.
The field, if she remembers correctly, was the place to go. Recruiting new members was always considered a good move. Increasing the number of bodies within a kingdom meant strength to some. She might come from a traitor to the crown she lives under now, but she has not forgotten the lessons from her parents.
Dracarys watches curiously as the wolf—or something of the sort—catches the field mouse and studies it before devouring it. It was too large to be a wolf, and not nearly a hellhound like her father, but it was canine all the same. The blue girl imagined her father was the same when he hunted. She had never seen him hunt—it seemed something dark and twisted, at least the way he described it to her. However, the wolf presently made it appear differently. It was a simple thing really—predator vs. prey.
The wolf then shifts, into something more like herself, but she could never compare herself to those that could shift. She could only hope to be something more wonderful than she is now (something more like her mother, a dragon of sorts). Dracarys, more curious now, makes her way towards the black scaled stallion now. She wears a smitten expression across her blue facial features as she stops near the stallion.
“Enjoyed your little mouse, did you?” She asks with a tilt of her head to the left, a gleam of mischief shines in her silver-blue eyes as she over looks him for a few moments before finding his gaze again.
07-31-2019, 12:59 PM (This post was last modified: 07-31-2019, 05:48 PM by Nodens.)
i found the antidote. i let the anger go and mother nature found it's place. now we're compatible, my inner animal, i wanted blood and got a taste.
Each leaf and each blade of grass ruffles and shifts with the wind, each brushed over by an unseen hand that curves that and releases thereafter, and this creates (alongside a cacophony of locusts, grasshoppers, and songbirds) a strange melody within the air that tickles his ears and tentacles… that leaves the lingering taste of sun and dew on his every sense.
A shudder manages through the scales flesh and the glimmering color remains the same endless black; but as before streaks of purple, green, blue, yellow, and a magnitude of others bent through like oil on the pavement, and when he moves even the slightest there is highlight of his broader form and the muscle well within it.
Still, a monolithic and strange as he recalls the depths, he finds that in this place of sun and grass- the only such things are rocks and trees: towering pillars of nature that he cannot fathom to take the shape of… for they, although full of life, lacked the spark of sentience well within and seemed beyond his capabilities. Jealous, in a way, he found himself forced to distract from this at the approaching footsteps and sounds of wings within the air.
Those grim and blackened eyes changes as the reptilian pupil manifested and a burst of orange and yellow, and even red filled them and appeared almost Draconic in some manner as he studied the spotted blue girl. Slender but familiar in her features, he noted the spatter of blue or purple and the tangle of white blending her- morphed by blood and magic; but as she closes the distance he is not cruel nor venomous and instead turns to look down and over her with a sense of playfulness in the forming grin.
His teeth, sharklike in nature, flashed for mere seconds and when he speaks there is a watery echo through the baritone and a corruption of sound that almost makes him speak as if he bore static in his throat… though not unpleasant, is forced an accent of a kind: one more ancient than even Beqanna itself was.
“No more than a bear enjoys his salmon or a wolf with her deer,” he remarked with a blink, and a tilting of his neck and head that seemed inherently owlish or avian. “But it is the first of it’s kind that I have seen so far. Just as you are… call me Nodens,”
Though it was a pause he made no attempts to obfuscate why, the pace and shift of his weight: and his tendrils all writhing en masse as he slithered forward and reached out, not touching but waiting a patient and precious minute. “Would you mind? I am curious what your hair feels like.”
I have never been nothing. I am the blood of a dragon.
She could never help but wonder what it was like to shift. To be something entirely different. Were the smells you knew the same? Did the world look different through eyes of another being? What did it feel like to have control over something else? Or for it to control you?
It had been something she was curious about. Something her father could truly never describe fully to cure her ever growing curiosity. Some questions that simply could never be answered. Perhaps some that words could not fully describe.
Dracarys is not simply in awe of such things anymore. She is heavily jealous—envying those who could shift and turn at will. Her heart yearns to feel the strength, to feel the power that pulses through you when it happens.
At least she can imagine it happens that way.
But she is naïve of the world still sometimes, and knowledgeable of much more than those of her age.
She looks at him with a sparkling curiosity. Never quite taking her silver-blue gaze off the inked stallion. A grin quickly spreads across his lips as she approaches him, a smile no one could truly miss. There is a spark, the kind of thing you must look back to again to mentally realize it is there (something you cannot quite take your eyes from), in the brightly orange and yellow color of his eyes that draw her in instantly.
The tone of his voice matches the vivacity in his eyes. It is pleasant, a soothing song, to her ears. She cannot quite place where his accent comes from. It feels too far away, further than the world she knows around her. He moves with a sense of movement that is only identified with himself as he tilts his head. The blue yearling, unaware that she focuses on every movement and part of the shifter, is completely drawn to him in ways that are foreign to the innocents.
Her smitten expression fades into something beautiful and charming. It pulls gently at the finer points of her features, lifting gently into a smile of curiosity. Her silver-blue eyes sparkle with a noticeable interest. She is captured by his words, the inquisitive the way he describes it. But it is a simple thing, the way nature works and intended it all to come and be.
There is barely a moment before she can speak. Nodens, he called himself, slithers closer to her, a curiosity in his own individual way with the way he shifted and maneuvered towards her. Dracarys, eyes widen slightly, a bit uncertain, but not fully where she becomes frighten. She could never become frighten so easily—a dragon would never fall underneath; her mother would have told her.
“My hair?” She asks with a slight tilt of her head, her blue eyes gleam softly with her own curiosity at him, but quickly shift into something more tempting. The blue girl had never been asked such a thing before—it felt foreign and unnatural, but underneath it all she speculated. “Do you always greet strangers this way, @[Nodens]?” She asks with a flick of her tail, a smirk beginning to barely touch the edges of her spattered blue lips.
i found the antidote. i let the anger go and mother nature found it's place. now we're compatible, my inner animal, i wanted blood and got a taste.
He is with, and without conflict in his thoughts: a creature of indecision and adaptation, of cycles that alternate between prey and predatory; but she is not the same. His thoughts wander on this topic, why the girl before him couldn’t simply do the same… why her bones were not malleable nor her flesh liquid and ever changing. He mulls and muses, unsure of how to ask and even what to assume; but he recalls that between the Kelpie and the Kraken- there was likely magic woven into blood that differed from her own and part of him wondered what exactly she was.
Still, he shifts his weight and the scaled, starless skin seems liquid and glossy for a moment: dripping ink along the crevices and curves. Each tendril writhes with a mind of it’s own: suckers and barbs latching on to one another and curling around in a lengthy and well draped mass that covered his neck and part of his face. A single moment causes the amphibious shifter to blink before tilting his head and responding in softened tones, a deep roll of the baritone causing a minor vibration in his chest: though his tone seemed strangely excitable and boyish for a moment.
“Yes- it is a curse of curiosity.” he admits, taking mind of the space between them suddenly.
As if to belay some unease, he steps away: his dark eyes blinking before he mulls a thought- the inky and tendrils fading to threads of lengthy coarse hair and his coat smoothing as all the magic and mystery of his former body is broken into little more than a memory. Baroque in a fashion he is tall and muscular, well taken care of with no scarring nor signs of strife, and his coat is a white painted pattern of smoky grey or brown with primitive striping on his legs and a stripe along his back.
Inky black and thick, the lengthy mane and tail hang idly and he shakes them for a moment. “I used to look like this but something isn’t right, the texture of the hair or the feel of my skin- you… find it odd I ask that of you?” he seems conflicted, perhaps a part of his nature due in part to the Kraken’s wild informality and the Kelpie’s inability to comprehend personal space.
Though stepping back and unsure he shudders in this form- stretching his legs and easing himself momentarily before simply allowing the malleable visage to begin to shift and reshape… to shorten himself as hooves became claws and his feet became padded and canine. With the tail stiffening and his posture altered he simply allowed the wolfish form to take over: dusty grey and white with black fur… thick and shaggy. Blinking the brilliant orange eyes and studying her he speaks up in the same way, though this time with a kind of lethargy to him as he sits on resting haunches.
“Do you have gifts? Magic?” A name?” the latter is playful, and he offers her a grin.
I have never been nothing. I am the blood of a dragon.
Her silver-blue eyes follow along the curve and crevices of his body. She cannot help herself to explore the creature that shifts and turn in ways she has never truly known before. A curious gleam grows in her eyes as they follow along the curve of his scaled and starless skin. For a moment it is something and then next it is entirely different. Her eyes trace along his neck, watching as the tendrils (something she has never seen before) twists and turns as if they have a mind of their own. Is it even possible? She wonders for a brief moment. Her gaze then slowly drifts back to meet the eyes of the shifter as he speaks.
“It can be at times,” she says with the gleam of curiosity in her eyes still. A smile still touches the corner of her lips. It never had quite faded since she came face to face with the shapeshifter. She watches as he steps back, the strange threads of tendrils slipping into nothingness. His body twists and turns into something what others would call natural, but what was natural within Beqanna? Their land was bursting with all sorts of magic.
Even in the natural form (Was it even natural for him? She marvels) she found herself looking him over. Every part of him was perfect. It was almost unnatural how perfectly kept the color of his coat was. She could not find a blemish or marking on him.
Dracarys meets his gaze once more. “Odd?” She asks softly. But there is little incongruity in what he says. Perhaps it is because she is the daughter of someone who felt the same. The natural form they were born in was not them. It was their counterpart they felt more alive in.
He shifts again—into the form she first saw him in. Dracarys smiles more this time. She liked watching the way he his body twisted and turned. It did not bother her as much as it might another. There was simply no pain—at least she imagines it does not hurt for him. Perhaps shifters become immune to the bending of bones and ripping of flesh.
“I do not find it odd,” She finally says when she overlooks his wolfish form. There are parts of his form that remind her of her father. But it is his orange eyes that remind her the most of him. “My father is much like you. He prefers his hellhound form more than anything.” Perhaps it is the predator nature within him that chose to always be in that form. Dracarys is not certain, although she assumes maybe there is a deeper connection that swayed him closer to more of a predator than prey. Would it be wrong if she assumed the same for @[Nodens] as well? “Is this the form you prefer?” She asks with the tilt of her small-framed head to the right.
The blue girl laughs softly at the latter of his questions. “You can call me Dracarys,” she offers playfully to him. “I do have some magic. I can summon a small aura of flame around me.” Her voice then becomes a bit quieter. “Although I am not as unique as you are.” Her silver-blue gaze flickers to the mountain in the distance. “Some day I might be.” Although she hopes sooner rather than later.
i found the antidote. i let the anger go and mother nature found it's place. now we're compatible, my inner animal, i wanted blood and got a taste.
The wind flows between his fur, ruffles and moves it aside enough to expose bits of the downy fluff beneath the guard hairs, and he feels the waning temperature and chill in the air. Between the padded toes the dirt is firmer and the grass is wet with dew that will inevitably turn to frost. Each twitch of his ear brings him a better audiovisual image of the world around him and he notes the sensation of a thousand smells rushing through his nose as the world around him and Dracarys both seemed keen to continue on. Spicy earth and primordial forests with their musk and petrichor, the faint salt from oceans farther off, and even a touch of dry florals of the cacti a way out: even the girl has a scent; but more curiously, he hears her heart in her chest.
Still on the muscled haunches and sat patiently he notes the coloration with refreshed eyes, bobbing his head in agreement to her before sounding out what it is he wishes to say with his new jaws and sharper teeth. “Hellhound? That is not something I can do. Your Father must be an interesting one to acquire that.” it’s simplicity and truth enough, but she asks him something and there is a moment where Nodens contemplates it: what is his preferred form? Did he have one? To this end he freezes- tilting his head and calmly swaying his tail idle behind him before adjusting himself further.
His bones, malleable as they were, made minimal noise as the flesh bubbled beneath the fur and even that too began to mold and change: colors mangled and bursting as Nodens found himself reconstructing something he had only once imitated before.
The dark skin becoming heavily scaled and reptilian, tinted a bizarre black-green or swampy grey that seemed iridescent under the light. His hooves were goat-like and cloven and legs thinner, as was the body which seemed a mix of deer and horse. A lion’s tail, or something similar, swayed behind him and the thick mane was a mixture of hair and bristles. Antlers rose from the skull above his ears and his face was a mixture of reptile and wolf with elongated fangs and whiskers like a catfish.
Tall and lean, there was evidence of muscle beneath it and he moved with a quickness that carried on as he kept the mutated amalgamation of forms all together. “Wolf is a comfortable skin to wear, as if Mountain Lion or Kelpie.” he stated plainly. “Even Kraken can be something I’m akin too; but this? I find this the most interesting. I suppose it would be what I am most preferential to it.” maintained for now he listened with the golden eyes taking note of her especially: and a grin cracked his face as Nodens found himself chuckling softly.
“@[Dracarys], very pretty, but I would not say I am unique, after all, shifters are rampant in this world; those who can produce fire though? Summon or play with the Elements… that is far greater than what I have little one. You are the first I’ve seen who can do that, so you are very unique to me.” he was simple enough, taking a hesitant step closer as if still trying to gauge the friendliness between them, or rather- her allowance of his presence. “We all want things, and I have no doubt you have the passion and drive to obtain it; but be mindful that the mountain is dangerous. Fairies are a tricky lot.”
08-21-2019, 07:30 PM (This post was last modified: 08-21-2019, 07:38 PM by Dracarys.)
DRACARYS
I have never been nothing. I am the blood of a dragon.
“You are limited?” She inquires with curious glances looking him over. There never had seemed to be a limit to his abilities. Bones bending and flesh tearing at the command of a simple word Dracarys would have thought to be limitless.
She had learned many months ago—perhaps a lesson from her parents—that there was a fine balance to nature. Perhaps magic was simply the same. There certainly would only be ever one thing that could command it all to be done. Simply a legend to her but the name Carenage comes to her mind. She remembers some of the stories—mostly from her father’s adventures. “He is one of a kind, I suppose.” But to Dracarys, the hellhound is simply a loving father to her. He is not the murderer or rapist that he is now labelled There is only love and adoration she has for her father (but that the time she saw him sharing affections with the ex-queen of Sylva. She has a sour taste for the green pastel colored mare now).
Dracarys considers @[Nodens] in his wolf form as he contemplates her question. Without warning, he shifts into something new. The bending of bones makes a minimal noise—she is surprised—and his body begins to be constructed to something strange and curious to the blue yearling. She watches in awe as his fur washes way into heavier scaling that reminds her of a dragon. The shape of his hooves is unfamiliar to her, though they appear strong and sturdy. His body shape is something similar to a horse but there is elegance in the shape, reminding her of the deer in the autumn forest she grew up in. Her silver-blue eyes then follow along from his neck to his newly constructed face. Dracarys could not truly tell you what she was looking at, but only that she was struck with more captivation than ever.
“So very…” she pauses for a moment as she moves her gaze from his face to the edges and crevices of his newly formed body. She then meets his gaze once again, a smitten smile edging between her lips. “So very fascinating you are.” Her silver-blue eyes gleam wildly for a moment.
Her ear flicks curiously at Nodens next words. Dracarys had never found herself to be unique at all. Perhaps she could summon a small flame to protect her from danger, but it was not enough to satisfy the strength she wished more for. Perhaps if she could control more fire than she might have been.
At the sound of him calling her a little one, her ears flatten back against her skull in frustration for a moment. Her expression quickly flickers with annoyance, but she takes a soft inhale and exhale of the air around her. It wasn’t something she was exactly keen on being called. “Fire or not, I am not simply just a little one soon enough.” She says bluntly, though the edges of her words have a softness of them. Dracarys was not one to simply allow herself to be deemed without respect based on her age.
“I will be more than a little one,” her expression flickers with enticement for a moment as she notices the step he takes. The ears against her skull flick forward towards Nodens slightly. Her smile softens a little and she licks her lips lightly. “As for the mountain and fairies, I was not frightened when I first went to the mountain.” She considers the memory of when she first went up there as a young foal. “Perhaps you are scared of them,” she adds taking her own step forward to close the distance further between them. Her tail flickers against her hind-legs as her eyes trace along his muscular form once more before meeting his orange gaze again.
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