05-22-2017, 01:01 PM
(This post was last modified: 01-04-2018, 01:32 AM by King Ghidorah.
Edit Reason: weathers > feathers. Just one word, but that typo was driving me crazy.
)
The fire spreads quickly, consuming the dry grasslands in a cauldron of orange flames. Constellations of embers spiral skyward, born aloft on smoky tendrils, drifting out over the edge of the cliff to settle on pines below.
Sadly, the blaze doesn't spread beyond the forests edge. The deciduous specimens atop the plateau are broad and healthy, and well-fed by the river and its tributaries - too moist to burn without serious encouragement. Besides which, they're very territorial, with expansive root-systems stretched nobbly and sprawling across the forest floor. Each tree claims a wide area, strangling the earth with its gnarled wooden tentacles, leaving practically no room for lesser growth within their realm.
I grin. Flammable or not, they'll have their turn.
I enter the forest just ahead of the fires I've started. The sense of claustrophobia remains to some extent, but the knowledge that I can shed it at any time and assume a more fitting stature makes it far less irritating - besides, relative to being indoors, being in a forest is far less confining. I move easily through the broad spaces between the trees. Their bark is like the rutted hide of ancient beasts, stretched taught across their wide trunks, and the air is cool beneath their shade. Insects buzz and caper in abundance, tiny and diverse. Some of them even light up, glowing brilliant shades of yellow and green, though to what purpose I couldn't possibly guess.
I'm struck again by the sheer diversity. This is the third forest I've been in since arriving in Camelot, and each one has been markedly different from its predecessor. I make a challenge of spotting the discrepancies among the different creatures and plants, each one new, each a part of the whole.
Almost an hour passes, wandering, cursing, and roasting insects with my crackling pseudo-electric breath, before I actually find any elves.
It happens fast. Six of them melt from the shadows and descend from the canopy, barefoot men and women, dressed in tanned hide trousers, bits of leather and woven green fibers. They all wear jewelry, beads and bracelets threaded with leather and string, odd pieces of metal and shiny rocks, and every one holds a weapon - steel-tipped spears, staves and swords, intricately carved and decorated with exquisite arboreal motifs. They surround me before I quite realize what's happened, and I take a moment to study them, fascinated.
They look like me! Or at least, they look a lot more like I do than the dull-skinned mammals I've moved among up until this point. Their skin, though obviously pitifully soft and lacking my scales, shines a lustrous gold, and their eyes are red. Their ears are pointed, and almost as long as my own, and like me their faces are narrow and sharp. Their hair is long, worn in braids, silver, gold an green. One of them has shades of all three in streaks atop his head, braided out into individual tones and woven with feathers and beads of colored glass. They're all regrettably short, no larger than the humans, and their bodies are thin, fit but almost frail-looking. Still, they're the least ugly people I think I've ever met.
And I'm going to get to kill them all. A rumble of deep future satisfaction, a dark cloud of impending aesthetic fulfillment, begins to grow within me.
The elves regard me with equal curiosity. I get the feeling they're trying to decide whether I'm one of them or not.
"Take me to the rest of your people," I hiss.
They look disturbed, adjusting their grips on their various weapons. They begin to talk to each other in a language I don't understand, high and warbling, like flowing water or strong wind among trees. It's extremely frustrating. Communication is one of the best parts of this new, diminished mode of existence, and now they're doing it in a way that excludes me!
I'm about to show them the depths of their folly, but then the one with the multi-colored hair sheathes his longsword and addresses me in more comprehensible tones.
"You are half dragon?" he asks. His voice is smooth and low.
Dragon.
Dawnika Snow used that word, but back then it passed unnoticed, lost amidst her meaningless ranting. This time it echoes in my brain, resounding through my vocabulary, unlocking conceptual doors. There's so much tied up in it, so many ideas - pride, fury, greed, cunning, power - unrivaled power... its a word that growls, and broods, threatens and bellows, lays claim to all it sees. It demands tribute, and gives nothing in return save for ruin and regret.
I like it very much, though in my current form - as compared to my true glory - it does only half-apply.
"Yes," I respond, my frustration quelled. Beyond the canopy, the sun emerges, and little rays of light shine down between the boughs, penetrating the deep-forest gloom with tiny pools of gold.
The elf I've been talking to frowns. His fellows talk among themselves again, a brief flurry of sharp words. One of them, a woman with a spear and an impressive collection of necklaces and talismans, doesn't sound happy. The leader - for such he seems to be - addresses me once more.
"You are a curiosity," he says. "Come with us. Don't try to use your lightning - we've warded ourselves against it. Our executor of the Watch will decide your fate."
It's all I can do not to laugh in his face.
Sadly, the blaze doesn't spread beyond the forests edge. The deciduous specimens atop the plateau are broad and healthy, and well-fed by the river and its tributaries - too moist to burn without serious encouragement. Besides which, they're very territorial, with expansive root-systems stretched nobbly and sprawling across the forest floor. Each tree claims a wide area, strangling the earth with its gnarled wooden tentacles, leaving practically no room for lesser growth within their realm.
I grin. Flammable or not, they'll have their turn.
I enter the forest just ahead of the fires I've started. The sense of claustrophobia remains to some extent, but the knowledge that I can shed it at any time and assume a more fitting stature makes it far less irritating - besides, relative to being indoors, being in a forest is far less confining. I move easily through the broad spaces between the trees. Their bark is like the rutted hide of ancient beasts, stretched taught across their wide trunks, and the air is cool beneath their shade. Insects buzz and caper in abundance, tiny and diverse. Some of them even light up, glowing brilliant shades of yellow and green, though to what purpose I couldn't possibly guess.
I'm struck again by the sheer diversity. This is the third forest I've been in since arriving in Camelot, and each one has been markedly different from its predecessor. I make a challenge of spotting the discrepancies among the different creatures and plants, each one new, each a part of the whole.
Almost an hour passes, wandering, cursing, and roasting insects with my crackling pseudo-electric breath, before I actually find any elves.
It happens fast. Six of them melt from the shadows and descend from the canopy, barefoot men and women, dressed in tanned hide trousers, bits of leather and woven green fibers. They all wear jewelry, beads and bracelets threaded with leather and string, odd pieces of metal and shiny rocks, and every one holds a weapon - steel-tipped spears, staves and swords, intricately carved and decorated with exquisite arboreal motifs. They surround me before I quite realize what's happened, and I take a moment to study them, fascinated.
They look like me! Or at least, they look a lot more like I do than the dull-skinned mammals I've moved among up until this point. Their skin, though obviously pitifully soft and lacking my scales, shines a lustrous gold, and their eyes are red. Their ears are pointed, and almost as long as my own, and like me their faces are narrow and sharp. Their hair is long, worn in braids, silver, gold an green. One of them has shades of all three in streaks atop his head, braided out into individual tones and woven with feathers and beads of colored glass. They're all regrettably short, no larger than the humans, and their bodies are thin, fit but almost frail-looking. Still, they're the least ugly people I think I've ever met.
And I'm going to get to kill them all. A rumble of deep future satisfaction, a dark cloud of impending aesthetic fulfillment, begins to grow within me.
The elves regard me with equal curiosity. I get the feeling they're trying to decide whether I'm one of them or not.
"Take me to the rest of your people," I hiss.
They look disturbed, adjusting their grips on their various weapons. They begin to talk to each other in a language I don't understand, high and warbling, like flowing water or strong wind among trees. It's extremely frustrating. Communication is one of the best parts of this new, diminished mode of existence, and now they're doing it in a way that excludes me!
I'm about to show them the depths of their folly, but then the one with the multi-colored hair sheathes his longsword and addresses me in more comprehensible tones.
"You are half dragon?" he asks. His voice is smooth and low.
Dragon.
Dawnika Snow used that word, but back then it passed unnoticed, lost amidst her meaningless ranting. This time it echoes in my brain, resounding through my vocabulary, unlocking conceptual doors. There's so much tied up in it, so many ideas - pride, fury, greed, cunning, power - unrivaled power... its a word that growls, and broods, threatens and bellows, lays claim to all it sees. It demands tribute, and gives nothing in return save for ruin and regret.
I like it very much, though in my current form - as compared to my true glory - it does only half-apply.
"Yes," I respond, my frustration quelled. Beyond the canopy, the sun emerges, and little rays of light shine down between the boughs, penetrating the deep-forest gloom with tiny pools of gold.
The elf I've been talking to frowns. His fellows talk among themselves again, a brief flurry of sharp words. One of them, a woman with a spear and an impressive collection of necklaces and talismans, doesn't sound happy. The leader - for such he seems to be - addresses me once more.
"You are a curiosity," he says. "Come with us. Don't try to use your lightning - we've warded ourselves against it. Our executor of the Watch will decide your fate."
It's all I can do not to laugh in his face.