Question, Why is it talking?
Curious eyes looked upon the being that had landed in it's glade, just within a short walk of it's home. The beast held itself on cautious black paws and slowly stalked forward. It had heard of beasts like this one from it's mother and from other passing animals in its territories.
Small ears not good for hearing much and not even pointed like those other beast similar to them. Fur that was only on their heads did nothing to keep them warm or protected. Instead they wore other animals' pelts as their own to protect themselves and something that he had heard from the birds. Modesty, was it? Some had fur on their face but only males, never female like this one.
Her fur was a bright copper red, very close to the color of his own fur. The pelts she wore were odd, they didn't smell of animal skin or fur, instead smelling like the fluffy white plants that sometimes sprouted by the forest's edge. They also had something strange smelling staining it, one scent being acrid and made him sneeze, but another that was soothing and homely, smelling like the purple flower bush outside his burrow.
The female was unconscious on her side, but still breathing steadily. A bag, at least that's that he thought it was, laid out next to her with it's contents strone out about the ground. The curious beast skirted the body to sniff at a long shiny board that was unlike he had seen before. It had the same acrid scent that the female carried, but it was slightly stronger. It also smelled like dirt and the wind. Strange.
A branch snapped behind him, the beast's fur standing on end. He whipped his pointed muzzle around and narrowed his green eyes in the direction the sound came from. Large ears swiveled to listen more intently to the forest. The birds were still chirping, though those were far off. The birds in the trees above had gone silent. It was something that was natural to the forest, but it was hunting.
He glanced back at the female, suddenly hesitant. He should leave, let the female deal with whatever it was on her own, but something stopped him. Something about this one female was special, though he had no idea why. He stayed.
The bushes rustled, a growl coming from it, the leaves moving to show a snarling muzzle full of crooked teeth, spotted fur that was matted with blood, and yellowed eyes locked onto him and roving over the female. The beast snarled back, crouched down defensively. The warg licked over its teeth, appreciative of the unexpected meal it had found. Female Man was a delicacy that was not often without its difficulties to hunt. It glanced at the fuzzy little critter growling at it in warning, protectively standing in front of her. It would make a good appetizer, but it wasn't looking forward to the bits of red fur stuck in it's teeth.
The beast puffed himself out bigger, his red fur bristling as he growled at the warg. There was no way he could win this fight and live to tell the tale to his fellow beasts, but for her, he would try. The warg leaped forward to bite down upon the beast's throat, but the critter was too fast for him, darting backward and countering with a swipe across the wargs left eye.
It howled in pain and anger, the claws raked across his eye were sharp knives that cut and blinded him. The warg growled in rage that it had been crippled in such a way by something so much weaker than itself. It lunged forward again, this time clamping down on the critters hind leg as it tried to evade once more.
The beast snarled in pain as sharp needle teeth sunk into its right hind leg and writhed around in its jaws. The teeth clamped down harder causing the beast to squeal in pain and turned enough to sink its jaws into the wargs other eye. The warg yelped feeling the razor teeth destroy his other eye. The warg shook its captive with jerky movement and when it felt the teeth slip from it's hold and let go of the critter to swing it.
The beast yelped as it was thrown from the warg's jaws and into a tree. The landing winded the beast and it gasped for the lost air, vision of the warg prowling closer with its eyes bloody blurred. The warg turned to the annoyance, unable to see it with its eyes torn up, but it could hear it and smell it. It had been weakened greatly with the throw and now it was unable to fight back.
The warg lunged forward for the last time, readying to sinks it teeth into the beast's throat. The beast closed his eyes in acceptance of his fate. A loud howl echoed throughout the forests along with a loud noise the lands had never heard before.
It was dark and cool. No one existed except her, her body floating and feeling as if it were not there. Then there was a light. It was a pale green pin prick of gentle light off to the right of her. It was soothing and warm in the cold abyss.
"Child... Child of ^%#^!... You have been called. You have been summoned. You are important. Become the guide we know you are. You will have to choose, and only you may wish it so. Seal your fate Child of ^%$#%$!." The light flickered as a voice spoke through the abyss.
It faded in and out of different places, voices giving into other voices. It was garbled in other places, a static she could not understand. She was Here and yet she was not. She only understood in a way a child understood the sky was blue, but not always was it so.
"Gifts you have been given and those gifts shall reveal themselves to you in time. Use them wisely." The light faded from the darkness, once more leaving only her to exist within the darkness. She drifted once more, nothing mattering. Then she grew heavy and fell. She fell for an eternity and slammed back into reality.
A gasp of air and Lavender Eyes opened.
Riv came back to herself in a rush, the sounds, the smells, the sights, and the feeling. It was like a tidal wave that slammed into her, causing her to groan and shut her eyes once more to shelter herself from the onslaught of sensory overload. Yelps of pain and roars and growls of anger reached her ears and alarmed her. Forcing her eyes open, Riv twisted up quickly towards the commotion.
A great ugly beast had its jaws wrapped around something that was red and still alive from the sound of its yelping and shaking it. It suddenly roared as the animal seemed to have sunk its fangs into the beast's face and threw it into a tree. The poor creature screeched in pain and stopped moving except for its ribs moving frantically, gasping for air. With the two beasts not moving as much she could get a good look at them.
The ugly one looked similar to gigantic hyenas she had seen in the library, but mostly in body. It face was grotesque and did not match it's body, as if someone had experimented on it by mixing a matching various heads. It was bleeding profusely from its eyes and its muzzle fur was matted with its own and the creature's blood.
The creature in question was actually a red fox. It's fur was a similar color to her own hair and she couldn't see it's eyes from here, but it was in pain, she knew that much.
Riv had no time to observe further as the warg lunged at the fox, going in for the kill. The copper haired woman acted on instinct, going through the motions of drawing her weapon. Pop. Aim. Fire.
A loud bang that sounded similar to a firework going off rang throughout the forest, scaring many of inhabitants of the forest. The following dying howl was blood curdling. The sound would only be the first of many the land would hear.
The warg fell to the ground in a heap, blackish blood soaking the ground around it. Riv panted harshly as she stared wide eyed at the dead beast, her specialized revolver still smoking and aimed at the warg. Oh dear, she felt a bit faint. That wasn't training, she had actually killed something living, even if it was in self defense or defense of others. Shakily, she lowered the gun when the beast was sure not to move and slumped onto the ground to catch her breath.
Riv laid there coming to terms of what she had had to do. It was animal. Just an animal. But what if it had been an human? Another living being that was intelligent and at least had some kind of feelings? Would you have been able to do the same thing? She pushed away her thoughts. They could be dealt with at another time.
The mechanic picked herself off the ground and looked around. Now that she wasn't in battle mode, she observed her surroundings. It made no sense to her whatsoever. She was in a forest, or at least a place with a bunch of trees, which hello was a forest, she berated herself. But that was just it. Skyryn had no forests.
It was a floating rock with a cramped city on top of it, there was no way a forest could grow on it, not to mention how they would survive in such a high altitude, with the angle of the sun and what not. They could get plenty of air, since humans themselves could live up in the high altitude. It had something to do to the closeness and the angle of the sun, but she didn't know how as she wasn't particularly interested in plant biology. Just the basics, for medicinal and edibility purposes, which back then would not have been very useful. However, it looks like she would be flexing her numerous areas of knowledge that she hadn't known she would need.
The fox caught her attention once more as it was now looking at her, but still lying down. It seemed to be waiting for her to do something. Riv started to approach it cautiously, not wanting to spook the poor thing half to death and make it hurt itself even further. It had a small, but deep gash in its back leg, blood soaking its red fur turning it a bit brown.
Riv knelt down next the critter and reached out the place a hand on its side. "It's okay. You're going to be just fine. You sure a brave little fellow to take on a.. a.. a whatever that was. It was five times bigger than you are." Riv felt a bit stupid talking to an animal. It's not like they could understand each other.
"That was a warg. You must have a pretty cushy life if you don't know what a warg is. And of course I'll be fine. Tis only a flesh wound." The voice was sarcastic and was coming from the fox. Why was the fox talking?
Riv froze looking at the fox and gaping at it. What happened next she would deny for the rest of her life and take it to her grave. She screamed like a girl, high pitched and shrill.
The fox jolted and whipped its head around. "What, What? Is it another one of those bastards? Speak girl, speak!" Riv just kept her wide eyes on the fox as it seemed to bark at her. Well now that she thought about it, he was barking, yipping really, but she understood all that yipping and barking. Did she hit her head? How hard did she have to hit it in order to hallucinate?
"I've finally cracked. Appa told me all the those hoverer fumes and all that gas would go to my head. I should have listened, but no I had to be a stubborn bitch." Riv rambled hysterically and turned to discomboguitively crawl toward her bag that was still on the ground behind her.
"Hey! Hey, girl! What are you talking about? Are you okay, you're talking nonsense!" the fox was continuing the to speak to her.
"No, no, I'm not listening to you. You're not speaking to me and I'm not understanding you. I've gone barking mad, off my rocker, bloody starkers." Riv shook her head in denial, hands trembling as she slapped herself, trying to prove to herself it was all just a dream. Her hand stilled on her red cheek. That hurt.
Was she really losing her mind? Why couldn't it have just been a dream?
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back up. Did you just say you can understand me?" Now the fox was gaping at her. Yes, let's just stare at her like the bloody nut she is. Is it bad if her hallucinations start thinking she's completely crazy too?
"What do you think? That I started screaming about the air? I can understand you and I'm not dreaming, as much as I want to be right now." Riv said sarcastically, while giving up with a mumbled sigh. Well if you can't beat em, join em and make the best of the, messed up, situation. She'd have her freak out later.
Ignoring the talking fox for now, she turned back to where she woke up to the fight. Her white hoverboard was innocently laying next to her bag that had the contents strewn about, random capsules, an extra pair of gloves, a small tool kit, her holo-frame, and the green book that had been tossed to the edge of the clearing.
Riv crawled to her bag and started looking through the spewed capsules. It should be one of these… "Hey, girl! Come on, talk to me! I'm still here you know." Riv closed her eyes and prayed for whatever deity could hear her to give her patience. "I really wish you weren't. It would have made things less confusing and mind boggling, but unfortunately, life rarely works that way." Riv retorted with her eyes still closed.
"Oh, good. You don't have any head problems from what I can see. And, I resent that. Is that how you show gratitude to someone who saved your life?" The fox rambled behind her saucily with a small sniff.
Riv snorted in reply, "Saved my life? From my point of view it looked like you were getting torn to shreds and I was the one to save your life after I shot that -warg- in the head." Aha! Found it! Riv held a red colored capsule in her hand with a victorious smile.
"Well, no one else was going to stop you from being dinner for a smelly entrail eater. At least I tried." The fox looked away bitterly ashamed. Riv got back up and walked over to the furry creature. Her light purple eyes softened at the embarrassed posture of the stubborn fox. "Yes, and I am grateful for that. You are very brave and have a noble heart for one so furry and small."
The fox looked back to her in shock. No one had ever called him brave, let alone noble, quite the opposite in fact. And here he is hearing it from a female that could understand him, that should be unable to in the first place. Back on track, focus! He sniffed and tried to look unaffected, but he couldn't help but feel a bit shy at the praise and his cheeks under his fur felt too warm.
Riv hid her chuckle at the fox's change in demeanor at the complement. It seems it -he- wasn't used to it. She pressed the button on top of the capsule and it popped, pink smoke furling out quickly, startling a yip out of fox. "What in the- What is that!?" Riv gave him a mischievous grin. "Something I invented. It's called a capsule and it holds stuff that is bigger than I can carry at one time I guess you could say. It makes everything I have a lot lighter too, since I've adjusted the mass converters and things like-. Annnddd you don't understand one word I'm saying do you?"
The fox looked to be confused with the entire talk of mass converters and what was mass anyways? "No, not one bit. But I'll trust you know what your talking about. What was with all the pink clouds of smoke?" The red creature shook its head to clear the noise and clutter from its mind. Riv's cheeks pinked up at the mention of the pink smoke, a finger coming up to rub under her nose, head turning away to hide some of it.
"Th-that's something I haven't gotten around to yet. I haven't been able to figure out what causes it to do that yet."The last part was murmured under her breath, but the fox could still hear her, though decided to politely not point that out even with the sly grin on his face. This female was interesting.
Riv coughed into her fist, unsuccessfully trying to rid herself of her blush and picked up the case that had popped out of the capsule. It was a bright orange medi-case with a white cross on the lid and white clamps to hold it shut. Opening it, Riv grabbed the disinfectant and white gauze-y cotton balls. "This is going to sting a bit, but it'll clean it up. Then I should be able to use the healing pod for quicker recovery. It's not really made for animals, so I don't know how much it'll do for you, but it should hopefully do enough," She explained as she dabbed a cotton ball with the rubbing alcohol.
The redhead glanced at the fox and warned him, "Take a deep breath and brace yourself. It'll feel better after I'm done." The fox gave the cotton ball a wary glance and did as she said. Riv lightly dabbed at the gashes on the fox's back leg, but jumped when he snarled at the pain.
Oooohhhh, owwww. She wasn't kidding. Whatever was on that fluffy thing stung like wasp stingers. The fox let out a pained whine as she continued her work, his furry head dropping like a stone on top of his black front paws. The cold numbness that set into the wounds after she finished with them wasn't too bad though.
It took her six cotton balls and a lot of careful manipulation of the fox's leg to get everything, but she finally managed it. Riv tossed the cotton balls into a bush to get rid of them (they would eventually melt into the earth since they were biodegradable. She tried her best to stay green.) and put the disinfectant away. The fox was calmly laying there, fluffy tail swishing gently back and forth every once in awhile.
"Okay, little buddy, let's see if the healing pod will do you any good." Riv commented as she pulled out a remote looking device. It was small, fitting perfectly in the palm of her hand, and shaped like an egg almost. She pressed a button on top of the device and a light blue keypad was projected from a small opening in it.
The fox watched curiously since he had never seen anything like it nor had he heard of something like this from any of the other animals. Riv typed in 'lacerations and punctures wounds' on the keypad, which immediately disappeared and the device beeped. "Hold still and let it do its job. Hopefully you won't have any lasting side effects." She held the device above the injured leg and pointed it at the center of the numerous wounds.
A blue light shone down from the remote and the injuries started to glow. Slowly the gashes and punctures from the warg's teeth knitted themselves together, the tissues mending themselves. The fox watched in disturbed awe as he saw his own leg heal right before his eyes. Finally, the light diminished and the device beeped again and shut off, going dark once more.
Gently, Riv felt around the places where the wounds used to be, but all that remained was slightly puckered and new scars. "Well, looks like it healed most of the damage, but it wasn't able to do anything about the scarring. How do you feel? Any aches or pain, twinging?" Riv asked as she picked up the furry critter under and around his chest to hold him up to her face.
The fox made a funny looking expression as he wriggled his back feet that were dangling in midair. "Nope. Doesn't feel like it got ripped to shreds at all even. Though I think I'm a bit sore." The fox yipped in joy and wiggled around some more to be put down. The redheaded girl placed the fox on his paws and watched as he gingerly stretched out his back legs.
The little beast ran, walked, jumped and rolled around the clearing to test his limits. Riv got up off the ground and dusted herself off, grabbing the case as the little fox zipped past her in a blur of red fur. While the little devil rushed about the glade, she picked up her stuff, stashing the strewn contents back into her bag and closing it up tight.
The fox trotted up to her panting happily from it's little workout and sat in front of her knees where she was knelt on the ground. "So, what's a clueless female human doing out here? Humans rarely enter this forest and you were just passed out without a care in the world." Riv furrowed her brows and scowled worriedly.
"You see, I don't know how I got here. I was on my way back to the palace for my best friend's birthday party and then I remember a really bright light and everything went black. I can't remember much past that, it's so blurry. I feel like I should know, but more importantly this place… there's no where like this back where I live. It's all big buildings and there's almost no trees or grass or much naturewise except in the gardens." Riv explained the best she could. Probably doesn't really understand what exactly I'm talking about. I know I'm missing something, but what? Did I hit my head hard enough to give myself partial amnesia?
The fox sighed and started scratching at an itch behind his ear, "Well, I'm not really sure what happened to you either. I came across you while I was checking my territory all sprawled out and dead to the world. Yavanna knows what got you here," The fox straightened out, sitting up on his haunches. "As for what you are describing, 'buildings', I'm not too sure what you mean by those, but I guess that's what you humans call your dens or something like that. There is one of the things you two-legs call a 'road' to an elf settlement not far from here. It's past my territory though."
Riv tilted her head in confusion. "Elves? There's no such thing." She stated factly. The fox gave her a weird look, like she was the stupid one. "Wow, you sure are clueless. Of course there's elves. Pointy eared, really tall two-legs that live forever. There's dwarves, elves, though those two races don't seem to like each other from what I've heard from a couple of my sources, and humans. There's also other two-legs called orcs, but those are bad news and kill anything they come across. That thing you killed? That's a warg, pets and killing beasts of the orcs. Where there are wargs, orcs aren't too far behind. Not to mention the wizards that roam around."
Riv's head was spinning from all the information, ridiculous information, that she was being told by a talking fox of all things. If she hadn't been fully convinced of her insanity, she sure was now. It sounded like she had like she had been dropped into a fairytale!
Alright, I need someone other than a fox to explain all this, perhaps with some insight to what in the hell is going on! Riv gave the fox a hesitant look before asking, "Would you be able to show me to the road? I've no clue what to do other than seek out someone that may have answers, but I don't know the forest as you seem to do." The little fox puffed out with pride at her unintentional compliment. He had never really got one before since most animals seemed to loathe him for being a fox.
"I do know this part of the forest better than most other animals. Actually, now that I think about it, a wizard usually visits the elves pretty regularly, so with any luck you could probably meet him. If a wizard can't help you I don't know who can." he replied surely. Riv nodded and stood up from kneeling, brushing the grass stuck to her knees gently. "After you then." she gestured towards the forest easily.
The fuzzy orange vulpine flicked his tail in motion for her to follow and sauntered through the shrubs. "Keep up, it's going to take a bit to get there."
