Drache

[Ebonfort] Cave, Sweet Cave

The green female snorted, feasting her eyes on a drake who barely looked to be in his second century, let along past his third. Obviously he wasn't just a liar, but a bad one at that. As he stood up, the turned her body to the side. It was a strange move, opening her flank and left wing for attack when most dragons tried to minimize their profile when facing off.

"Even if that were true, I'm afraid you have to show your face more often than that if you expect to keep your hunting grounds, dolt."

Suddenly, the dragoness arched her body to the side, her head whipping towards Genrit with a loud hiss, the black flesh of her mouth glistening wetly behind sharp teeth. Something viscous and sticky and warm splattered against him, missing his eyes, but only just. The sweet rotting-fruit smell intensified.

The reason for her strange posture was explained an instant later when the thin end of her long tail whip-cracked across Genrit's snout, breaking a tooth and bloodying his nose, though the strike didn't have quite the dizzying effect she had hoped for. She danced away towards the cover of the trees.

[Ebonfort] The Longest Night

Dancing was a delicious sort of freedom. It was hard to compare it to running with the wolves or flying in the breathless heights on the wings of the falcon, but the graceful spinning and balancing on her own feet came with a certain amount of pride. Perhaps it had something to do with a physical representation of emotion and beauty she carried within. These were things that Rilana felt, though she would not have been able to describe them in words, having not paid attention to her dancing instructor when she was young.

But everything came to a terrifying halt when a warm paw lunged out of the darkness and seized her hip, another gripping her hand as the lion-faced charr intruded onto her private celebration. She twirled beautifully into his embrace, though the shock of his sudden appearance precluded her ability to appreciate the move. The skyfire was bright in his yellow eyes and Rilana gasped, her belly tight with fear as she was suddenly plunged forcibly into the nightmare that had plagued her nights since the day Svarak had given her the silver sash.

Her free palm had come to rest as a clenched fist against Svarak's chest and she pushed against him, her features ashen. Her back itched as Kona raged indignantly on her behalf, and inside her mind the gryphon shrieked and snarled, urging her to scratch and bite at the Lord Knight, or release him so that he could do it himself. It was a miracle that the charr didn't find his arms wrapped around the foreleg of a panicked mastadon

But the Moon Fey froze at his words, looking up at him as sapphire eyes searched his face, her lips parted as she tried to quell her fluttering heartbeat. The wetness of her tears had turned to rime on her lashes and she blinked with surprise.

What?

What?!

"I'm not really alone," she contradicted him, leaning back but not truly pulling away. "At least you're using my name now instead of just calling me 'Envoy'." It was an improvement.

The charr moved into her, the deft shift of his sheer size guiding her back into the pattern of the dance she had started. The Moon Fey's steps were stiff and resisting, lacking the effortless grace of before. Following his lead implied that she trusted him, and she didn't. She didn't like his assumption, his smug self-satisfaction, and after the initial shock faded she felt a little angry that he had presumed to intrude on her...whatever it was she was doing.

Cavorting carelessly on the ice?

I'm allowed to be a little frivolous on my birthday, even if I did get caught.

But why is it only wrong if there is someone there to see? Kona wondered, calmed now that it seemed Svarak wasn't going to throttle the life of out his Mistress.

It was perhaps this thought that eased the Moon Fey's resistence and she relaxed in the Knight's embrace, her lissome figure matching Svarak's motion as they moved across the ice. There were so many questions. She was curious about the charr and after all this time knew him not at all. Who was he, behind the severe black armour and the authority of his station? And why was he here now, dancing with her? What did it mean? And why did she care? It was nice, wasn't it?

It's what you wanted.

In the abscence of conversation, Rilana became acquainted with the liquid-steel power in Svarak's muscled figure as he twirled or dipped her with ease. She began to trust his touch where his hand rested on the small of her back or her waist. She felt his soft fur between her fingers and watched aurora play impossible colours along the course hair of his mane. He was somehow different without the armour, as though the carapace of black steel barricaded more than just his formidable physique.

She even risked a smile, colour returning to her cheeks in the exhiliration of dancing with a partner, and when they finally stopped Rilana was laughing breathlessly.

"That was wonderful, Svarak, thank you," thinking the timeless moment over, expecting him to become the aloof and snide creature again, she was surprised by not only his question, but his comparing her to a flower. "Oh. I'm..."

She had to stop and think. "Thirty-six. Though I suppose that makes me little more than a child to someone who's lived as long as you have." Lithe and long-legged as a deer, she was pressed against him, brimming with curiosity.

[Ebonfort] Cave, Sweet Cave

The female snorted contemptuously at Genrit's words, a throaty chuckle in the back of her throat. A thin line of pain down her back is the only wound the white dragon managed to score, a few of her scales dislodged and a glob of lake slime mucking up his taloned paw. Emerald green she was, under the disguise.

"How dare you insult my ear-frills with your weak lies, drake! I've been the Mistress of this lake for more than a century and I've never been assaulted by your noisome stench before. I think I would remember a dragon who looked like a bloated codfish!"

Noticing the flicker of fire at the corners of his mouth and the acrid smoke, the she-drake was wary. Her own weapon had yet to reveal itself to him, though a sickly sweet smell accompanied her words. His drooling, however, made him look slow-witted.

A Heart Frozen (Ebonfort)

Lyle was several people back in the line from where Rilana had been leading the group, so she hadn't realized just how hopelessly sauced he had become. It was tragic just how close but yet how far away he was on his own saddle-beast when he lifted his arm to throw the flask.

"No, wait!--" Rilana hissed, lifting her hand as though she could will the broken thing to halt in its trajectory. The sound of fracturing glass against the Moon Fey's eardrums sounded as concussive as a bomb, but it was nothing to the sound that happened next. Rilana managed to shoot Lyle a frigid glare before more important things demanded her attention. The creaking of wood and the rustling of snow and ice-laden limbs as the very trees began to creak and shift in ways that were unnatural and deeply terrifying. Trees were steadfast silent sentinels, a backdrop of life against which the animals Rilana knew best performed the screenplay of their primal dramas. Trees did not glare and snarl and bare vicious teeth, moving with swift indignation to challenge drunkards.

Kona's reaction to the danger was strong, and even as Rilana felt the gryphon's instinct to take flight surge through her so strongly that she almost assumed a winged form herself and abandoned the group to the treant's ire, her skin and back prickled as the familiar's Mark flapped his wings.

Let's fly!

No! Refusing him was difficult. They weren't often at odds.

Instead, the moon fey kicked her calves against Bruin's sides. The sensation of the bulky beast underneath her helped ground her, and it gave the trained horse some direction. He had been pacing and stomping in place at the first shimmer revealing the treants. But now he edged towards the stream, the one place that wasn't swarming with walking flora. Rilana for the knights and the rest of the party to follow quickly. If the treants swarmed en masse, they would all die. Short of truly flying away, there was no way they could face so many.

But the massacre didn't come. The treants lingered in a circle around Lyle and Rilana remained silent, blue eyes flicking back and forth as Svarak finally volunteered something informative and useful.

Well that's a relief. Let the idiot get himself killed, we can get far away by the time they turn their attention to us.

There was a strange trilling call, and then another. Rilana's eyes narrowed as she glanced at the two empty saddles that had previously been occupied by drow. Knowing that the rams would soon take it upon themselves to flee danger without the direction of their absent riders, Rilana stooped to grab their reigns and thrusted one set into the hands of one of the knights to pony with him until the ebon-skinned women returned.

The Moon Fey was getting angry, her gaze icy as she moved Bruin closer to Alya. "I'm not sure where you picked that one up, Alya, but I'm not going to put everyone else at risk to save a drunkard. If anyone wants to fight with him, be my guest, but I'm not going to wait until someone else gives the rest of these treants a reason to kills us all." She handed Alya the second set of reigns. "Loop this around your saddle-horn so it wont run off."

There was a rhythmic crunching of hooves on snow as Rilana spun Bruin and trotted him to ride beside Svarak. Her lips pursed in a thin line as she listened to him, cold in her irritation and strain in her shoulders under the hateful gazes of the angry treants. Ortha, who had been spitting and hissing with both maws at the treants from the dubious safety of Rilana's saddle, finally quieted as her attention was refocused to the task of hanging on.

"I didn't want to take the mountain pass. I thought the forest would be easier for..." she tried to think of a kind word "...amateurs. Perhaps if I had taken this route myself on my way south I would have learned better." Admitting her fault was easy, making the decision to change her decision was harder. "But now it seems the safer road. Treacherous, but at least I am more familiar with it." She took a breath, as though about to add something else, but after a searching look into the charr's eyes she simply let it out and shook her head. It wasn't the whole truth, but this wasn't the time to talk of stable boys who spoke in prophecy.

Rilana glanced back at Lyle as she moved the party away from the fight, but a feathery fluttering against her torso and a throaty cackle distracted her from what she assumed would be Lyle's last moments alive.

"Oh! I thought I'd lost you in Stone Crest." She couldn't help but grin as she looked down into the bright blue eye of the silver-white raven. Somehow, the beaked creature always seemed to be smiling impishly, she same way Kona always seemed to be sneering haughtily.

I can't help it that I'm better than everyone else.

Yeah well right now you're a pain in my patella.

The bird's small talons gripped the oiled caribou leather with ease and Rilana stroked her fingers lightly down the raven's back, working her nails under the feathers around her neck where she knew birds liked to be stritched. It was then that the bird thrust something smooth and cold into her palm and took off with a flap.

The Moon Few could feel the chill radiating down into her white skin, and frowned in puzzlement as she looked at the object.

"Now what do you suppose...?"

Not a stone.

No, it almost looks like a...

But what has scales that big? A drag--

"Don't you dare. That's the last thing we need." She wasn't entirely aware that part of the conversation was whispered out loud, though Svarak was the only one close enough to hear. She pocketed the scale and rocked forwards in the saddle, urging Bruin out of the stifling gloom towards the ice-capped mountains that twinkled merrily like blades of ice.

[Ebonfort] Cave, Sweet Cave

The impact of the attacking she-drake cut Genrit off mid-roar and their snarling echoed across the water. He was larger, but she was longer of neck and tail, overly lean, and quick as a snake. And she was furious. He lowered himself so bit at him. Her neck whipped forwards like a viper, needle-sharp teeth snatching a patch of white scales out of the pit of Genrit's out-stretched wings. And the move was simply a drive-by, pebbles showering him as her talons dug into the ground to change her direction and avoid what she assumed would be a torrential blast of flame.

"Go back to your volcano, interloper!" she hissed viciously in Draconic, her tone savage and imperious as she spat the white scale out onto the rocky beach. "This is my lake!" She was well-versed in fighting other dragons, and kept shifting her balance lightly from forequarters to haunches, strafing just out of reach of his shorter neck, brilliant green eyes searching for an opening to attack again.

Ebonfort

Four Little Orclings, Mean and Green has been started between GM and Bula Do'Gash. Welcome @Wild Alyssa!!

Cave, Sweet Cave is a solo with some GM assistance featuring Genrit’khaath by @Tuddums!

[Ebonfort] Four Little Orclings, Mean and Green

@Wild Alyssa

[Ebonfort] Four Little Orclings, Mean and Green

Starting Date and Time: 32nd Day of Saffra, 300 DM, mid-morning

Starting Location: Millmont, tiny village outside Ebonfort rule north of Scream Watch and west of Green Falls in the Chartric Forest

CS URLs: Bula Do'Gash

If anyone had to give the tiny scattered collection of thatch-roofed cottages and log huts a name they would have probably titled it Millmont. The mill-house, attached to the only stone building still standing, was no longer functional. The fragmented and water-blackened remains of the waterwheel still jutted up out of the swift stream like the fractured ribs of some great beast. No one who lived near it was alive when the machine still worked, and so it had seemed to always be that way. The stone miller's cottage served as the town's meeting hall, courthouse, theatre, and church for anyone who still believed in the unbelievable.

There was no real road to Millmont. The people who lived there melted in and out of the woods if they needed to travel, using wilderness lore and game trails. Supplies brought back from Scream Watch or Green Falls, days to the south or east, respectively, were only seasonal excitements or even less often than that. The hamlet, if it could even be called that, had an unstable population. People came and left as they saw fit, and the next season's newcomers built their shacks out of what had been left behind. The people lived on what the land provided; fishing in the river, subsistence farming, and panning.

Only a few residents lingered on through the years, tough and stubborn as barnacles on a jetty as they watched the harsh seasons turn and the strangers drift in and out like a campfire's smoke. Perhaps a half-dozen families at most, barely within sight of each other's houses through the trees. Old Man Djoth was one of these regulars, a tall man who had been formidable as a bear once upon a time. The faint tattoos, green with age now, as well as a strong preference for leather clothing, marked him as a Kvaren, and his graying eyes marked him as unfit for life in a saddle.

It was with a grim expression that Djoth greeted the day, leaning against one of the crude stalls in an open dirt-packed clearing where the minute populace could either come together for what they optimistically called "Market Day" and also where they could set up for holiday celebrations. The sky was overcast but still cast a flutter of reflection off the pitted longsword in the man's hand as he spun it contemplatively. There was no atmosphere for celebration today. The sun was barely up, and the old Screamer should be able to hear the sounds of children playing through the trees, but another child had gone missing in the night.

[Ebonfort] Cave, Sweet Cave

The sickle-winged shadow of a dragon passing overhead had gone un-challenged, but not un-noticed. Concealed by the depths of the lake, something lurked beneath the reflective surface, biding her time until the stranger was past, as so many others had simply flown by. Though it seemed that would not be the case this time.

Blood in the water.

She could taste even those few drops, diluted and dispersed as they were by the time the invisible currents of the lake brought them to her waiting jaws. The interloper, a thief as well as a trespasser, had killed her prey on the shores of her lake!

The massive creature stirred again, dredging up the dark tendrils of lake-weed and blooming clouds of mud under wicked talons as she shoved off the bottom and moved towards the shore. The bright sunlit sky overhead shimmered on the surface of the water, concealing her every move through the cool lake.

It wasn't hard to find the snoozing drake, so brilliantly he gleamed there at the edge of the water against a backdrop of dark river stones and verdant foliage. A wavering white slab until the lake-dweller's eyes broke the surface, third eyelids sliding back just as her narrow nostrils appeared. Like a great alligator, her progress towards him was no more notable than the listless drifting of a log, the undulations of her long tail barely rippling the water to move her closer.

She caught the scent of gore and blood and male dragon, her nostrils flaring wide before clamping shut with distaste. He'll be slow on an empty stomach.

The serenity of the soporific scene shattered in an instant. The dark smudge of eyes and snout floating harmlessly on top of the water erupted in a geyser of white-water, the deluge spraying in all directions as a scaled monster came charging out of the lake, massive fanged jaws agape with a challenging snarl, wings outstretched, tail lashing with violent intent. The dragoness brayed with righteous indignation as she pounded up the rocky beach, preceded by the forbidding mucky scent of the watery depths from whence she emerged. The terrible sound echoed starkly against the trees and back across the lake, small animals panicking and birds lifting from the canopy in fright.

It would be difficult to tell exactly what colour the dragoness was with all the algae clinging to her scales, though as the greenish film cracked under unfamiliar strain it would turn out to be very nearly the same jade hue as the creature underneath.

Ebonfort

GM note: Due to the apparent popularity of dragons as a PC race, we are imposing a limitation on them. Your initial character must be active for one in-game season of RP before you can create a dragon character. Current dragons (Genrit) are exempt. This is an attempt to not have 5038439753 dragons running around. (Not that dragons aren't freaking awesome, but variety is the spice of life.) If you have questions, see me.