whiteshade of blackness 'gaku june 12, 2006
5 saber-cuspids
The moist Air dampened her hair and dress, the thick pashmina glistened with tiny beads of moisture, her skin felt cold and raw by the wind as Deia's dragonfish cut trough the Air like a shooting star, -although you can't see the stars in Archantra. It's always the Stratus and the kaleidoscopic auroras and spectrals of arcane phantasmargorias on the Stratus's surface that could be seen marvelously at night; when there's no sunlight to be diffused, the Stratus gave its own glimmers. Outsiders would kill just to have the view for one night, for recreational or magical-education purposes, the view alone was a life-time blessing. And as seclusive as Archantra was, outsiders were not allowed freely to enter, just as far as the Air that's poisonous to most outsider races, humans or animals or plants.
It's early summer, but mornings in Archantra were always much cooler than in the outsides. Deia greeted her teeth, either by the temperature or by the wind, or her anxiety of the whole situation. Her sharp violet eyes trained only to the golden beast that managed to extend the distance between them more from time to time, she could only increase much stronger waves to boost her dragonfish to keep tailing the creature. Darken's naturally-armored back felt warmer than the Air, Deia flattened her upper body on it to avoid the thick wind, all the time worrying her small Prussian whom his body couldn't be seen by the beast's thick furs. She chanted '...be safe..' over and over in her heart for the boy, swallowing her desperation for just a glimpse of him that never revealed.
The beast headed to the southern suburb of the land, where the thickest part of the Forest that surrounded the land was. The giant white trees could be seen bigger and bigger as they aproached the Forest's edges.
Deia let out a hiss, if the beast get in there then it will be more difficult to chase it, all she could do right now was decreasing their distance so that she and her dragonfish were on the close tail after it. So Deia let loose her strongest Harmony waves as much as it is allowed for gaining speed was, she growled low as the process strained her to the limit. She's never been this fast in a chase before, but determinedly accelerated her Harmony. Just like Lyea used to say about her, burning with energy in action, she just hoped that her energy could last longer than what's necessary to chase the golden beast, because somehow she had a feeling she'd need more to gain her Prussian back.
The creature with metal-wings dove low to the grounds, then entered the forest on foot while the wings dematerialized back to its body, all the way never lost its momentum nor speed, if ever it only went faster and faster with each step, then the thick white forest swallowed its figure completely. Deia had managed to decrease the distance to only a few meters away, but the maneuver parted them again somemore meters, she hissed in frustration, the trees didn't give that much of difficulty, for the dragonfish's wing-shaped pectoral fins could penetrate anything since they're half-materials almost like air or water or light. But its black armored-body was solid, so Deia had to steer it to dodge the tree trunks. It slowed their pace a little and widened the distance for somemore.
Deia felt more than saw one of the beast's eyes flicked back to her sidelong, then it changed its course from ground-routing to jumping randomly from bough to bough, sometimes low, sometimes high, or sideways. Deia cursed something unintelligible under her breath and forced her instincts and reflexes harder. Smaller branches crushed when the dragonfish dashed by, the Harmony Deia let loose automatically formed a barrier of waves around its solid body and hers, it also leave scrape-marks on the tree trunks along the way.
They continued the chase for sometime through the Forest deeper and deeper towards the outer lands.
"The closest we could get to them, away from the city !" Howard grinned "...Lucky that the beast is heading to the outer lands, or else we couldn't drop you here..." leaving 'since we cannot enter the Forest's realm by teleportation or any kinds of magical-rides' behind as everyone already knows that fact implicitly.
Odin, a few guards, two Charms, and of course the Old Charms Howard, on their mounts, materialized on the edge of the Forest. Odin on his famous black warsteed, the guards on white horses, the Charms on their grey summon-seahorses, while Howard being the eccentric Charms on his summon-zebra-striped-camel.(1)
"...or NOT...!" he amended when seeing the dark look on Odin's face.
"It's heading to the outer lands..!!" the general spoke low through greeted teeth.
"...and Lady Dee would definitely follows !!" the old Charms added carefully.
"I don't like this side of the Forest !!" Odin scrunched his face "It's too thick with older trees, god knows what Wilds evolving in there !!"
"I'm not a god, but I could find out about that...!" Howard grinned again. Odin flicked sidelong at him in annoyance, only to widened the old Charms' grin that's almost took two-third of his face.
"Let's go !!" Odin charged the Forest, then. Followed by his men, while the two Charms automatically dashed off in front of them as scouts to anticipate any possible dangers. Howard's summon-camel followed lazily on their tail, but strangely the ruminating-creature was never left behind.
Deia took short strained breaths, the chase in the Forest already felt like hours, but probably it's only been for some tens of minutes, she couldn't be sure, with this kind of speed even the pace of the wheel of Time turnings felt slowing by. Her body ached by the strains, and she felt the nausea and dizzyness eating her insides. Letting out a small cough, she wheezed and clutched her dress colar with one hand. Her sight had started to blur and darkened, while the golden creature in front of her didn't seem to be tired at all. It's only about time for her energy to burnt out and she'd have to surrender the chase.
The beast flicked its eye to her again. The little girl was adamantly pursue them still, it narrowed its golden eyes in appreciation, one tip of its lips turned upward in a smirk. Then, unexpectedly it jumped high and vanished around ground level when it plunged back down.
Deia's eyes widened in surprise at that, when suddenly the ground beneath them gone and the dragonfish dove the opening in great speed, having its course locked to the beast it pursued. It was an opening about a kilometer wide, with steep rocky walls on both sides, and a torrent river far down, bending in a great arc, lenght about one-fifth of the circling-land. The golden beast was running defying gravity along the steep fartherside-wall to their right, Deia couldn't steer her dragonfish to swerve in time to avoid coliding with the wall headfirst, she let out a small squawk when Darken's underside abraded the rocky wall with such force they bounced off and uncontrollably spinned above the water surface and grazed the opposite wall a few times, before she could stabilize the dragonfish better along the high-walled river. Darken instinctively had took the burnt of the collisions so as to not hurt its summoner on its back.
Deia swallowed hard between her labored gasps, and looked up ahead to the outer-side wall where the golden beast ran alongside the vertical rocky-structure. She murmured Prussian's name wearily with sadden anguish, then reboosted her dragonfish to shorten the distance between them again. Took a deep breath, she called out on the top of her lungs..
"...PRUSSIAAAANN ...!!!!"
The high pitched voice bounced off the walls and echoed along the river body.
The golden beast's smirk widened at hearing the desperation in her voice, but let out an animal chuckle amusedly at her determination and stubborness to chase them. Humans and their stupid massochisms...!
You've found yourself a very stubborn tail, Kidling...! a soft echo of a male's voice.
The boy's small hands tightened their clutches at the beast's furs, and he let out a small inaudible hiss. The golden beast chuckled affectionately in return. Then took flight along the river line, spreading its liquid-metal-wings that emerged from its back again, and boosted up its high-speed much more to a blur of goldenish.
Deia gasped sharply and let out a small whimper, feeling the painful bites of rejection in her melting-void of heart, then howled a long piercing cry, centering her left-over energy, and blasted to chase the beast.. HER Beast ...with prussian-colored eyes...!!
"...What was that..?!" Odin stopped his warsteed abruptly. The others followed around him.
Howard frowned in concentration, letting out waves of search, he widened his eyes in realization.
"The river !! THEY'RE CIRCLING THE FOREST...!!!" he blasted his summon-camel to the right, leaving the others, the other two Charms followed him not too fast, knowing the horses wouldn't be able to follow their sumon-beasts' speed.
Odin cursed, and followed to where the Charms were heading. They managed to follow after the two Charms after some time, but Howard on his summon-camel was no longer in sight. Yeah, that lazy oddly-striped-ruminating-creature knows how to run like lightning...!!
Her explosive short breaths sounded too loud in her ears, her vision dimmed, centered only to the golden beast that flew so fast it only looked like a blur of light. And she could think of only about her small Beast clutching for his live to the golden beast's belly. The torrent stream of the river would definitely crushed his little body if he ever fall down, what was that beast thinking?! Prussian was wounded and even he hadn't healed completely from his previous severe wounds. Deia wheezed painfully for some air to fill her lungs, feeling her head spined like a raging tornado, and the world gone dark.
Darken swayed a little in its course, feeling its summoner blacked out, but still she let out waves of Harmony to boost it through the chase by her willpower only. The dragonfish let out a wave of worry to her, if this continue she'd be burning her life for the sake of it..!! Too bad, Darken was a summon-beast meant for rides only, its existence as tangible-creature was dependent to its summoner Harmony, it genuinely NOT meant to be in this level of realm, it definitely couldn't gave her any other support other than just waves of affections to try to alleviate her exhaustion. Hopefully it's enough to wake her somewhat, so that her Harmony wouldn't be sucked out while she's unconscious. It's not fair if you died in your sleep, without knowing your life's separated from your body, and you wake up as something else.
Your tail's out..! the soft echo of a male's voice said to the boy.
The brown haired boy widened his eyes, tried to looked back to see the violet eyed human through the golden beast's furs, but couldn't. His heart ached with stabbing worry, and he felt panic rising from the pit of his stomach, forming a bile through his throat. He swallowed hard a few times before managed a low hiss through clenched teeth to the beast.
We're almost there... can't stop now ! the soft echo said levelly.
The small boy let out a soft whimper, his expression begging the beast to slow down. He didn't hate the violet eyed human, instead he felt a strong pull towards the human. He felt wretched when he thought the violet eyed human despised him, but truthfully he cared for the human...his human, ...not like others, ...not like anything...! He let out a harder low hiss to the beast and shakily tightened the grips on its furs, feeling his nails bit through his palm-skin and wetted the furs.
The beast narrowed its eyes in remorse, but didn't slow down. Suddenly it changed course of flight, made a sharp turn upward in short distance, soaring skyward like a rocket vertically. The boy arched his neck to see the wall of rocks that cuts the river that continue to flow underground, he impossibly widened his eyes more as the realization hit him painfully like the stakes of the bull-crossbow.
Opening his mouth in horror he tried to shout for warning to the human tailing them, but no sound came out, he only felt a cold-burning shot through his throat and making him choked misserably. Shutting his eyes in pain, and feeling his heart lurched down with the possibility of what's going to happen to his human. He curled his neck trying to burry his face in the thickness of the beast's furs.
Deia felt a shock of pain stabbing her chest, and gasped weakly as she tried to open her heavy eyes. Her vision still darkened and blurry, her little mind supplied her with the realization that she was on Darken's back and flying in a crushing-bones speed which was making her vision blurry. She widened her eyes as the wall of rocks cutting the river suddenly appear in front of them. Cried a strained scream, she managed to reflexively send out command for her dragonfish to turn upward. Covering her head with both hands from the debris of rocks that showering her from where Darken's underside abraded the wall again, leaving a long vertical trail of dragonfish-body's mark. Her barrier waves had long gone since she had nomore power enough to sustain it.
The dragonfish still lurched upward even after the wall ended somewhere in the middle of the way, slowing down as it undeniably lost its momentum, and completely stopped and floated for a brief second at its peak of climbing. Then plunged forward and gaining speed fast as it wildly spinning in the air towards where the golden beast went to.
Darken sent out alarm waves frantically to its sumonner, deliberately screw-propelling the trees out as it lurched between the Forest's trunks again, knowing its sumonner's barrier were nolonger surrounding them, forming a gravitational-cavity in the center of its rotations so wood splinters and broken branches didn't touch Deia's body. But the small girl barely holding to her consciousness, the spinning didn't help any, either.
She whimpered agonically 'Prussian.., please...I'm sorry...' was her last conscious mind, before she instinctively spread out her hands on Darken's back and sent out waves of gratitudes. The dragonfish flew horizontally back after a few seconds, dodging a few giant treetrunks smoothly, but Darken awareness was frantic as it realized what that waves usually means. The dragonfish let loose a desperate pleading cry that no other could hear, then its figure started to dispersed slowly to transparant then to nothing.
Howard's camel neighed(2) aloud in warning, sensing the desperate pleads for its summoner's sakes through the summon-realm links from the dragonfish's last awareness. Howard understood what his camel was allert for, and cursed outloud in several languages he could think of.
Odin felt his talisman-sword vibrating with waves of alarms. He could only greeted his teeth and rushed his warsteed to run faster.
There was an eruption of alertness in the boy's mind, before his hypersensitive ears picked up a faint cry for help reverberating in the thick Air from a creature not of this realm. He straightened his head trying to comprehend the direction it came from, his pain-clouded mind jumbled with unfocused thoughts, when suddenly it occured to him it must be from the violet eyed human's summon-creature. He hyperventilated by the over-excitement and conflicting emotions, and he started to quake uncontrollably, his small body losing temperature fast like winterdays and his hitched breaths starting to fog.
The golden beast felt the surge of cold-power emanating from the boy's chest coursing up through its body like electricity. It stopped at a tree bough and craned its neck to look at the boy cradled to its belly.
..Kidling...? the soft echo laced with deep concern. The boy's face was stricken and lost of its color, even through the discoloration of bruises, and pinched as if in deep agony, his eyes were unfocus, and he was wheezing chokedly as if trying to catch a breath that wouldn't fill his lungs. His quivering lips moved trying to form a word, but no sound came out. He sent pleading feelings in desperate attemp to urge the golden beast to go back to find the violet eyed human.
The beast furrowed its animal-brows and tsk-ed in dislike, then leaped to the direction it came from moments ago.
Vaguely feeling her dragonfish vanishing slowly from under her, Deia covered both hands to her head, the momentum of the speed they were in threw her body forward. Her distant mind somehow aware of the imminent hazard of the trees and she instinctively called for a Spell-of-Protection out.
A glimmer of faint purple-light materialize around her body before it slammed violently through a few giant tree trunks and crashed to the soil-ground in a heap of white and splinters and sawdust. The faint light fade out as she lost consciousness again and the imminent danger had passed, leaving her bare to the Forest for any Wilds to come and preyed on her.
Her breaths hitched as she fade in and out of consciousness, not knowing how long she'd been there on the Forest's ground, where she laid bent half crouching down on her front, the damp soil soaked her exposed skin and felt cool on her face. Somehow she could muster enough will to open one eye to search her surrounding, with only one thing in her mind: prussian colored eyes wide with hurt and fear and rejection.
She had to shut and re-open the one visible eye from under her loose strands and damp pashmina, trying to focus her dimmed sight at something. After some time had passed, her wavering vision caught some movements on the far limb of the tree above her. It was the color of slightly brownish-blur. She closed her eye for a while and tried again.
A few more appeared on the lower tree limbs, reddish-brown fuzzy blurs, and her subconscious mind aware that a pack of Wilds had found her. Feeling like it was her last chance to say it, she whispered inaudibly to herself '...Prussian...sorry...' and succumbed to the exhaustion.
She felt more than heard a soft whimper from somewhere on the grounds, and barely open the eye again. The big fuzzy blur was near her body, she couldn't distinct the colors anymore, after some moments of empty-gazing the thing she widened her eye a little more.
That was the golden beast gazing down her prone body with impassive eyes.
She mustered more consciousness trying to move her head, but only succeeded to only twitched her lips a little. Desperately focusing her vision, she could see the small boy's brown haired head under the beast's underside furs. She tried to call out but managed only a soft sigh. Her vision dimmed again and focused to the creature's underside, realizing some metal gleams that caught her eye.
She weakly gasped as she acknowledge the things were. They were two pairs of human-hands made of the silvery-liquid-metals cradling the small boy's body to the beast's, one pair under his armpits and the other pair at his hips, securing him firmly.
'...you're safe... good...' the visible violet eye drooped in an attemp of a smile, then closed, and only then she surrender to the blackness completely.
Catching his hitched breath again, although still shakily, the boy let out a small whimper. The cold shooting from the craft-plate in his chest was more bearable as they neared the prone body on the Forest's ground. But it's still not enough, his insides still felt like being frozen and burnt to ashes at the same time, he let out an animal whine after seeing the human's visible eye closed for the last time.
The metal-made hands loosened their cradling of the quaking small body, and let it dropped to the ground between the beast's four-legs. The boy instinctively landed on his front on his bent legs and arms, and laid there waiting for the pains to ebb.
After his pain-induced mind cleared a bit, he propped his body with his hands, and slowly crawled to the violet eyed human's body.
The golden beast watched the procession with cold stares, its golden eyes clouded a little. Knowing something that out of the boy's and Deia's knowledge had already occured. It let out a derissive snort then leaped to the high tree limb above them.
The boy whined louder a few times, but seemingly afraid to touch the human. He cocked his head to the sides assessing the human's injury, finding none, he let out an impatient hiss. The human didn't move the slightest, and he began to worry more. He stretched his neck near the human's ear and whined somemore. Feeling dread of the worst for not receiving any response from the human, he hesitantly stuck out his tongue, and fearfully gave a small lick to the limp hand laid near the face.
He blinked as collective thoughts and emotions assaulting his mind from that one lick, fear, worry, proudness, repentance, joy, remorse, afraid, sad, affection, lonelyness, sorrow, desperation, pleasantness, and many more. But they all centered on him. The boy let out a strangled sob and whined again.
The human's face contorted a little in discomfort, and the boy stilled. Of course !! Nightmare ! The violet eyed human always seem to have uncomfortable sleeps. He sat on his legs and hastily searched for something under his tunic, not finding anything, he swallowed and stilled. Then clutching both hands to his chest he trembled as if in a great pain, with eyes shut tightly, letting out a soft sob he bent in a balled pose, forehead touching the damp ground, submissively letting the pains tormented his small already-injured body from the insides.
Suddenly the body slumped and the trembling lessened, he wheezed painfully and whimpered once. The prussian eyes opened slowly locking their gaze to the human's face. Ever so slowly as the pain seized him he pulled out his right hand from under his body, clutching weakly a rectrix of deep-blue color. Gave a pleased sob, he put the feather's stem between the human's limp fingers. The stem was covered by a thin layer of white-metal, and so the feather had a few specks of the metal on it. He narrowed his eyes in blissful expression as the human's fingers curled unconsciously around the small object.
A loud roar from above made the boy sat bolt upright in surprise. Angry growls and snarls reverberating from all around them. Venomous hisses heard from every directions from the trees.
The boy stiffened and slowly and carefully moved his body crouching over the human's, one limb at a time.
A reddish-brown wolf of the size of a horse landed in front of them, letting out a mad roar and showing its sharp teeth. Its two-ears pricked flat and the four-beast-nails on each of its front claws gleamed menacingly. The boy lowered his crouching reflexively above the human's body. His wide eyes wild and gleaming, locked to the wolf's.
More wolves jumped down around them, circling them and growling and ready to pounce by the slightest movement of their focus of interest under the boy's body. The boy lowered his head and bared his teeth, eyes frantically focusing on the beasts movements. The wolves slowly walked in a circle around them, assessing weak points of where they could attack first, their saliva dripped to the ground. Feeling outnumbered, the boy let out a defending hiss.
Trying their chances, one of the wolves pounced from behind. The boy opened his mouth and let his saber-cuspids out in a flash, circling on his spot above the human's unmoving body, leaving circle-trails of nails around them on the grounds. The wolf jumped back and growls with feverish eyes. In a frantic movement the boy bared the cuspids at a few of them while turning around again so that his head was back above the human's.
The saber-cuspids were about 5-6 centimeters long, protruding from the upper front-teeth line, small trickles of blood trailed down on them from which the gum compromised their abrupt emerging. A few needle-teeth scattered on the grounds. Those teeth were the detachable teeth where the fangs should be, they will come loose when the saber-cuspids emerge. The lower cuspids was much shorter and bulkier, acting as the scissoring devices to the longer saber-cuspids curving in front of them. But they wouldn't be in a good use if the boy couldn't bite at any of the wolves. He let out laboring breaths as his stomach lurched with cold feelings for once not coming from the craft-plate. A cold shiver run his back and subconsciously let out a small whine.
The wolves roared again in a frenzy. Arranging themselves in position to attack as a group, confining the two small bodies in the center of the small space allowed...
-tbc
(1) It's nothing to do with anything, saru just thought that Howard with his ever presence hawaiian shirt looked good on a 'cheerful' looking camel... why camel? because camels looked 'elegantly' rilex with long eye-lashes and ever-chewing the cuds, ruminating... you know... why zebra-striped ? well, because there never were camels with the stripes... Hu??
(2) Howard's camel even sounded like a horse... haahahahaa XD
It nickered, and snort, and bray; and also could grin like a camel and bathing eyelashes !