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The lowly youth popularly referred to as 'Shadow,' thanks in no small part to his emotional and dark nature, trudged helplessly through the rainy and cold network of roads that stretched all over Excredialand.
The village elder had told him that 'it was destiny that had brought him to the present turn of events,' however, he strongly suspected fooling around with the elder's youngest daughter, an eight-year-old rabbit, to be the cause of his sudden journey.
Naturally, he wasn't alone, because the elder had seen fit to assign him company, in the form of the previously mentioned rabbit.
Together, they were supposed to travel the world in search of a set of wondrous artifacts of religious, spiritual, and monetary value. As was to be expected, the journey was not to be an easy one.
'You have done well in coming this far, my son,' the elder, who was in truth Shadow's father, had muttered through his beardy beard, and Shadow thought he'd seen a bizarre smile concealed beneath the gray mass. 'The path ahead will be long, hard, extremely so, not to mention filled with various twists and turns that may force you to question your own sanity, but in the end you will prevail, because you're empowered by good'
Because the elder was a known sadist, he'd outfitted Shadow with a wooden helmet, a wooden sword, and a pair of wood-plated pants.
'Standard issue for all would-be adventurers,' he'd spat, then handed his 'dear, loved daughter' a wood-plated skirt, a sharp stick, and a book with mostly blank pages, not to mention a quite large collection of assorted herbs. 'Powerful healing magic,' the village shaman commented, while bobbing his head wildly, 'though it will bring the feeling of sleep to your head.'
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After what seemed like less than four minutes, the duo reached a shanty town, populated mostly by humans with pasted smiles permanently attached to their faces.
Feeling inquisitive for no apparent reason, Shadow strode up to the closest one, a female in her twenties, and simply started talking.
For no real reason.
"Thou wouldst not know thee way to thee relics and treasure I am on a journey to recover, wouldst thou?" her head turned, quite sharply, machinelike even, and her eyes fell to his level, for our protagonist is short, barely four-foot tall, and his stature equals to exactly one-hundred-and-eighteen centimeters.
"Hello, young man," she droned, "and welcome to Topple village." Shadow sighed, as any true-blooded hero would, and realized that the adventure would take no less than eight hours to complete.
As is so usual in the world of heroes, dragons, villains, and power metal, the heroine started tugging on Shadow's pants for no reason other than to establish herself as a weak, feminine, and outright petite...heroine.
Shadow, ever being the gentleman, didn't even bother turn her way.
"What, Cream? Can't you see I'm busy?" he did this to establish himself as protagonist fueled by an inner fire, a fire that burned bright due to his need for revenge, justice, underaged nookie, and inability to use any kind of things other than healing abilities and weapons.
Yet, the rabbit didn't despair, and instead thrust her sharp stick into Shadow's groin. While he busied himself falling forward, Cream began her rant, in a typically humorous fashion.
"You dummy," she bonked him on his helmet, to which he didn't reply, or even retort, since no one, not even the evil villain, hurts preteen girls. "We're obviously supposed to enter the shitty tavern over there, and thus discover a sidequest, or a new ally, or receive a piece of junky equipment!"
And so they did.
I swear it.
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An excellent ba-tavern, one inhabited by creatures both large and small, yet only one had that superior sprite-quality that could mean only one thing, and one thing only; bitching time, euphemized to 'plot description'
It was a mean genius, a divine being of epic sprite-quality. Every seam, every shade of color, fit perfectly into place, and it carried a comically large knife, and a leather holster was also strapped to its left thigh.
Due to the fact it had to fit into the big picture, someone cleverly decided that it was to wear a black coat, with an over-sized collar, reminiscent of a vampire. It sat there, calmly, silently, and sipped cheap wine - its white-tipped, orange, almost red, tail wrapped and unwrapped itself around the chair's legs like the fingers of a hand.
Because he felt like it, Shadow chose to demonstrate his skills for this, obviously, super-sexy bitch, who would clearly serve as his heroine's rival, and thus lead the story into a more 'mature' direction, with a love-triangle centered on Shadow himself.
He slid her way on the counter, much like a slug, indexes pointed her way, head tilted slightly to the left, and then spoke the words of true men and womanizers everywhere.
"How ya doin'?" but, gasp! The fox turned around, and, lo and behold, featured the face of a man, a male, a boy, a young, preteen boy, a kit. However, Shadow, being a known pedophile, didn't care. He welcomed diversity, in all its many flavors, and saw the creature's gender as a plus.
Like a pile of goo, oozing with joy, he sat down to a chair cleverly placed to the fox's right. Shadow's left arm slowly snaked its way around the unnamed creature's neck, and, since he wasn't told to 'go die,' he allowed his hand to travel into the coat itself, while he locked his eyes with the blue shards of ice that served as the creature's own eyes.
"So," he almost whispered, fingers gently passing through silk-like, white fur, "what brings you to this desert, babe?"
A sigh, then the all-but empty glass was slammed down into the counter.
"Maybe your presence," their eyes stayed locked, but something gnawed at Shadow, almost begged him to leave while he still could. "Maybe I'm waiting for you, my mysterious black knight, or maybe I'm just here on vacation."
So cryptic.
So cryptic it wasn't even funny, and Shadow didn't even know how old the fox was. It was simply impossible to fully judge him, or even guess at his age, but something didn't feel right about him, the eyes in particular.
After his thorough gaze into their bottomless depths, Shadow felt sick, physically so, and gladly twisted his head to the right, away from the soul-thieves dug into the orange one's face.
"You're right," it spoke, voice dripping with malice, "something's definitely out of place here, unnatural even."
Then he slipped effortlessly out of Shadow's grasp, as if the hedgehog's arm wasn't even there.
"I've decided to accompany you," his words made Shadow feel queasy, and the prospect of the fox tagging along wasn't assuring in the least. "Mostly out of curiosity, but also because it doesn't feel like I have a choice."
"So what's your name, tough boy?" the almost-forgotten heroine, who should stay in the background, where we don't hear her annoying voice, or ever see her stupid comments, asked.
Shadow still couldn't look at him, and seriously doubted he'd ever be able to.
"Miles."
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VT2 - 2006