God, I'm having fun with this one. Three reviews in one day! I am going to be *so* happy for the rest of the week. Nobody will ruin my mood, no way no how. Ha HA! Hope you like this one-I love introing new characters. One this chapter, more in chapters to come. Promise. By the by, Tyr is pronounced Tear. Note that this was intended. Oh, and for copyright's sake, TYR IS MY IDEA AND MY IDEA ALONE!!!!!!! Now that that's taken care of, have fun reading. -Shawshank

Chapter 11-The Hybrid

The shouts and screams turned her head. The Breath of the Earth brought the sounds to her waiting ears. The moment was nigh.

A loose strand of her long, wavy, white hair tickled her cheek. She absently raised a hand and scratched at it. She immediately pulled away, one eye tearing in pain, cursing loudly. Blue tinted blood ran down her cheek from underneath the spot where the scale had lain. The slowly condensing tear finally formed, and rolled down her right cheek. The violet eye there was slowly gaining a reddish stain around the eyelids. Her left eye, however, remained as evil and fiery as before. The small but ever- expanding patch of scales around it itched again, but she dared not scratch. She slowly raised her right hand and rubbed at the many-shaded green scales, being careful to avoid the painfully throbbing spot.

The strength was her blessing. The scales were her curse. Both were from the same lethal source. Dragon blood.

She had been tainted. A dragon had picked a fight with her, believing her to be no more than all the other fair maidens he had captured and slain and eaten. However, he found her to be more than a match for him. She had slain him easily, despite the major size difference. She was naturally strong, lean, and agile. Her muscles were well developed, more so than most men's. She was a born fighter; a born misfit. She had never belonged from the start. Her old tribe-the Winden Tribe-was so close-minded that it was almost sickening. As soon as she was old enough, they had banished her. Her own mother had seconded the motion.

She came from a peaceful valley, nestled at the base of two mountains. Well, they were more like big hills than mountains, but she had been raised believing they were mountains. She had never seen anything bigger than those mountains, until she was banished. The dragon was bigger than both of those mountains put together. And she had slain it.

She was not proud of what she had done; nor was she boastful. She only took life when her own was threatened. She was kind in that way, but the kindness ended there. She was remorseful, full of hatred and guilt and all sorts of things that a disciplined warrior would have banished long ago. A warrior she was; disciplined, she was not.

Others, however, would disagree at this statement. Though a cold, revengeful fire constantly burned in her human eye, her whole body was attuned to her environment. She spoke with the Breath of the Earth, ran with the rivers, walked with and among the giants others called mountains. She knew better, though. Nothing was as it seemed. There was a double meaning to everything. Silence could be deafening. These were the words she lived by.

Until the dragon. Now, her mind was filled with whispers that never ceased, and her throat quivered with the strange, ancient, guttural cries of the dragons.

She had been jinxed.

When she had slain the dragon with that last, fatal stroke, a huge teardrop of its blood had floated down through the air, as if hanging on to its dying owner for one last second. Then, time sped up again, and the droplet splashed over her. It hit her left arm, the left half of her face, her left leg. She had thought nothing of it, having never heard the legends of old. She had taken a bath in a nearby stream, washing away the blue reptilian blood. She had shuddered when the water brushed by her skin, not carrying away the blood, but somehow imprinting it on her skin. Then she had slept.

When she woke the next morning, the blue spots on her skin had become tiny, multi-hued green patches of scales. She tried to scrub them away in the same stream as last night. Whenever she managed to get one off of her skin (which often took an hour's worth of scrubbing), it had bled for several minutes before scalding over and returning to its green hue. She had nearly lost consciousness from loss of blood before she finally realized that this was not going to go away.

So, she jogged to the next village and made it a few hours before nightfall. It was a tiny town, but filled with bustling workers. They were actually trying to dig a moat and build a trestle wall! She thought of it as nothing more than a joke. However, she asked one of the guards where she could find a healer. He laughed at her, and pointed down the road at the far end of the construction site, telling her not to expect a warm welcome.

She ran there, dreading what she might find, but not willing to give up. There was a tiny crack in a wall along the winding path. She cursed under her breath and attacked it with her swords, carving it into a small hole. She dropped onto her stomach and crawled forward with her elbows, shuffling through the tiny opening. When she did make it through, she was astonished at what she saw.

It was a small but beautiful place. Water cascaded down the walls in small, droplet streams, pooling on the floor and draining through the crack where the wall met the floor. A pathway led up to an enclosed pool, made of stone she had never seen before. It felt soft and yet resistant under her feet. She could have slept on the rock, if it wasn't such a sacred place. The torches beside the pool flickered as she watched them, and it seemed to her that the water rippled just a bit. She looked at the walls again, trying to engrave the sight of this place into her mind forever. But it kept slipping away from her, flitting on the edge of her thoughts. The whole place had a certain feeling about it, a sense of age that she had never felt before.

She heard a giggle behind her, and she literally flew around, her body automatically crouching in a fighter's stance. However, what she saw was enough to make her stop in her tracks and stare open-mouthed.

A woman, about two times the normal human size, had poked her head up out of the rippling pool and was now slowly floating upwards. She was naked, but her body was draped with ivy. Her long hair flowed behind her, a lovely, soft hue of pink. She knew instantly that this woman was the Great Fairy of Power that the guard had directed her to.

"So, my child, what brings you to this place?"

She was surprised that this immortal being was even taking the time to speak with her. However, she answered, as was expected.

"Oh Great Fairy, I am cursed. I seek your help."

The Fairy gave her a look-over, with a strange glint in her eyes. She slowly bobbed up and down in the air as she considered the girl before her.

"Hmm. I have not been faced with a dilemma such as this in many years. Should I free you of your curse, or fulfill the Prophecies?"

The girl did not answer, knowing that the Fairy was talking to herself, not her. But she wondered in her mind.

(Prophecies? What Prophecies? Why should I be the one to fulfill them?)

"Because, you are a Child of Destiny."

The girl grinned weakly. The Fairy had heard her loud thoughts. She cleared her mind and waited.

"Well, I am sorry; the Prophecies must be carried out. I have no say in what must be."

The girl lowered her eyes, fighting back anger and sadness. She would remain cursed.

"However, I can give you something that will help you on your quest."

New hope surged through her veins as the Fairy cupped her hands.

"Come closer, child."

She stepped forward. Now she was only centimeters away from the Great Fairy's pool.

"Touch the water."

The girl hesitated.

"Do not fear. Touch the water."

She slowly reached out with her left hand, the hand that showed patches of tiny, glimmering scales. She touched the water, and dark ripples flowed away from her fingers. She snatched her hand away, and looked up at the Fairy, fearing.

"Do not fear. Watch the water."

The Fairy was now floating beside her, gazing into the pool. The girl stared with wide eyes at her, then moved her eyes to the pool. What she saw there shocked her.

She saw a young man, barely out of his teen years. Perhaps seventeen or eighteen years old. He was clad in green, and he paced through the forest like a panther, blending in with shadows and leaves alike. His hair was blonde, and his eyes were a haunted blue. Suddenly, as they watched, a small ball of blue light popped out from under his strange hat. It danced around, speaking in a bell-like voice. The boy looked at it, and swiped it up in his hat. He placed the hat firmly on his head, and continued creeping through the forest. She saw the sword in his hand, and knew that it was no ordinary sword, and that this was no ordinary boy. A quiver and a bow were strung across his back, along with an intricately patterned shield. She saw the Sacred Triforce engraved on the shield and the sword hilt.

The boy's eyes widened, and he gave a yell, drawing his sword and flinging it forward in one sweep. It clanged against a bubble of purple magic, bouncing away. The boy let it go, nursing his hand and shouting soundlessly at the bubble. Then the vision faded.

She looked up at the Fairy.

"Who was that?"

The Fairy smiled down at the Child of Destiny standing beside her.

"You will find out in time, my child. Perhaps before it is too late."

Again, the ponderous look stole across her face.

"Perhaps." Her normal smiling visage returned, and she giggled. "I must leave you now. Go carefully. And whatever you do, do not forget."

The image of the fountain and the boy burned themselves into the girl's mind. She nodded, and turned to leave.

"One last thing."

Her head swiveled around in the direction of the Fairy's reverberating voice. The Fairy was not in sight, but her voice was all around. Now that she was farther away from the warm light of the torches, the fountain seemed darker.

"When you meet them, you will be tempted many times to turn on them. But if you do, you will trap the fate of this world forever. You will fulfill the Prophecies, which will in turn set Destiny to a single path. Do not allow this to happen! We're all counting on you!"

The voice eventually faded away, and the girl was left standing in the dark room, surrounded by the sounds of dripping water. She turned and left, storing the memory of this place and the boy in some far corner of her mind.

Now, one year later, those memories were beginning to fade. She had never even seen a sign of the boy, and her body was still slowly mutating, taking her mind along with it.

She shook herself out of her reverie and continued walking. She was pacing around the edge of a crystal clear lake that mirrored the moon above it. A thick grove of trees was growing some distance off, surrounding a small but often-trodden path that lead to a natural corridor, overgrown with bushes and moss, and structured by huge, ancient trees.

The sun was setting over the unnamed lands. It was a beautiful sight, one that no mortal eyes should deserve to behold.

Wait. She could have sworn she saw movement among the green, growing things.

She paced cautiously towards the grove, taking care to silence her steps. When she heard the shouts again, she quickened her pace. She was never one to refuse help to anyone who needed it. Shadows danced among the leaves, and she began to run, the Great Fairy's gift running anew through her mind. Yes, this was the forest. This was the time and place. It was finally here!

She ran faster, sprinting. She brushed the briars and twigs aside, running towards the sounds and the source of the shadows. She stumbled out into a small clearing among the thick layer of growth, almost tripping over a young woman sleeping on the ground. She looked down, shocked, and ran headlong into a boy. She sat down hard, rubbing her sore head with her right hand, so as not to injure herself. A slight moan escaped her lips- then she looked up.

She locked eyes with the boy, who was rubbing sleep out of his eyes. It wasn't just any boy; it was the boy from the gift. She almost smiled for the first time in many, many years. She noticed that the boy was staring at her, just as surprised as she.

The dream was alive.

***

( Apprentice, what have you seen? )

He is tormented. He sees himself as a killer.

( And...? )

And he despises the image others have of him. He hates the attention. He wants to live a simple life with the One Who Holds Many Secrets. He is more fond of her than he lets on.

( What of she? )

She is confused. He has not yet confronted her about the night of his sickness, and she has no idea why.

( Well? Why hasn't he? )

I don't think he remembers, Scholar.

( You don't *think*? )

Well, I-

( You must be sure! I need something to give to the Circle! )

I'm sorry. Their minds circle around each other's, and they have so many sorrows... Especially the Hero. He is haunted by something that happened in his past, but he does not dream of it.

( Why not? )

His mind has blocked it from him. He knows it happened, but doesn't recall what it was that happened.

( Intriguing. What else? )

Nothing as of-wait. Another mind has joined them. It...it cannot be.

( What? What is it, Apprentice? )

I believe it is the third. The Hybrid.

( The Prophecies? )

Just as has been suspected. It is all coming together now.

( Hmm. It may not be for some time yet. The last element is not in place. )

Is that a good or a bad thing?

( I'm not sure. I just can't be sure. We will see. )

***

Fin. Sorry it took so stinkin' long, I hit a really big, painful brick wall. Thanks to Anonymous for reviewing twice, just to tell me to get a move on! It's nice to know I have a frequent reader. Gives me a reason for keeping this going. More new characters to come, including one with real pizazz! That's the only hint I'm giving out right now.

Yep.

-Shawshank