Drache

A Heart Frozen (Ebonfort)

The moon fey tried to ignore the grinding, cracking sounds of Svarak's battle with the stony golem creature. It was difficult enough to stay on Kona's back without any kind of saddle to help secure her. Gripping his fur with her thighs was growing tiring, and doubley so with her head pounding from her brief bout with unconsciousness. She couldn't even lean forward to clutch Kona's feathered neck because it took two hands to keep the crystalline sword from accidentally killing them both.

For his part, Kona flew beautifully, though the injury to his ribs caused a sharp ache when he turned a certain way. At least it had stopped bleeding freely, the blood crusting and blackening against his monochromatic hide.

"Well done you two!"

It was a compliment. A recognition. And not only did it make Rilana's heart swell, it served to galvanize her and stave off her flagging determination. How silly to be excited about so simple a comment. Kona's back arched, the beaked face of the gryphon turning to follow the path the huge stalactite had taken as it barely missed crushing them, and together the druid and her familiar watched the mighty charr charge towards the golem.

There was a blue flash and a deep sound like ice cracking heard from within a glacier. A painful icy light swept through the bottom of the cavern and Rilana screamed, feeling the dangerous cold of the deadly rimefire even from a distance. "No!"

The concussion shivered the immense cavern, and Kona watched as cracks jerked their way up the walls, chunks beginning to fall in slow motion but gaining speed even as the devastation spread. Fear lanced through him, his instincts urging him out of this deadly underground trap. The need to have open sky over his head was almost maddeningly overpowering.

We must go. Now.

Rilana could barely see Svarak lying far below, his shape fractured and obscured through the transparent but deadly shards of ice. The full comprehension of what had just happened dawning slowly.

...no. "No! Kona, we have to do something..."

Her eyes flicked back and forth over the opening to the pit, looking desperately for a way down, but every inch seemed as ice-locked as the last. Fear and...something else...began to fill the moon fey's chest and she nearly dropped the sword.

There is nothing to do. There is no way down, only a way out. We must go or we will die too.

"Don't say that!"

He can't be dead. He can't. She would have clenched her fists if her hands weren't busy.

They both knew that Svarak had a task to do. A task that, by all reasoning, seemed to be something only he could accomplish on behalf of everything else in the world. Rilana could barely begin to comprehend what would happen if the un-named God with crimson eyes managed to break free of his prison before Svarak could kill her, but the moon fey knew it would be Bad. Her own life meant nothing compared to that.

But more than that, Rilana couldn't bear to see Svarak dead. There was so much more she wanted to...

Not yet. It's to soon!

Too soon for who? For him? Or for you?

Kona ignored Rilana's wish to dive desperately towards the pit to save the Lord Knight, his majestic form circling only once before powering madly towards the opening that promised safety from the deadly falling stone that rumbled deafeningly as they began to strike the floor below.

Her Familiar's chastisement sileneced Rilana, shamed so strongly that it nearly made her sick. Of course, the gryphon was right, as he usually was. Three hundred years was a long time, and the yearning for something to bloom new between her and the charr was just her selfishness and naievette showing. He could see Kona's wisdom, and if only because of the others, she let self-preservation reign.

That still left her with the puzzle of what to do about Juloya, and as Rilana glanced down at the sword in her hand she felt a sick sort of dread. Her despair was roiling so strongly that she almost missed the strange voice of the tired dragon and it made her breath catch in her throat amid the jarring thumps of Kona's wings. She clung to the distant voice, clutching at it as ineffectually as trying to grab at smoke.

Please! Save him, if you can! He...he means much to me. The dragon's mind was strong and Rilana was not used to protecting her thoughts from others, having no need or desire to do so from her Familiars. So the unfortunate dragon would be subject to everything Rilana felt about Svarak, as confused and convoluted as it might be.

There was no way to know if the beautiful creature had heard her, and she doubted she would ever see it again, though she would certainly never forget the sensation of its thoughts in her head. Gritting her teeth against the confused and distraught tears on her face, Rilana leaned as close to Kona as she could as the gryphon folded his wings to blast through the opening to the tower.

Trying to tear her thoughts from handsome charr and crystal swords and saving the world, Rilana focused on her other Familiar and protecting her friends. She was supposed to be an Envoy, curse it, and this journey had been nothing more than one disaster after another! She'd lost Lyle, she'd lost the other drow, she'd possibly lost Tricia. And now Svarak which felt worse than the terrible cold of the magical cold that had been plaguing her for days.

Apart from the distant subterranean rumble, the tower seemed fine, though the statues had in the main floor had been moved around. Rilana cast out her thoughts for Ortha, sorting through the disjointed impressions from the two-headed beast.

"Upstairs. Something has happened to Alya." She didn't know what, and Ortha's general apathetic attitude towards just about everything didn't help assuage her concern.

Oh Alya, where are you? She thought, her mindvoice pained in more ways than one.

Kona was already moving, claws scraping the cold stairs as he prowled, wings folded along his sides.

"Wait a minute. I have to do something with this sword. It's heavy and I can't just keep holding it up like this." That was an understatement. It was nearly as tall as she was and trying to resist the urge to let it touch Kona's back to keep it steady was overwhelming.

The gryphon stood still, watching Rilana and eyeing the statues suspiciously as the druid threw the sword on the ground and slid off of his back. Digging through her bag, the moon fey found a length of extra fur and wrapped it around the blade. She had no scabbard, no rope, so she wedged the weapon between her back and her backpack and climbed gingerly back onto Kona's back. It was uncomfortable and started to slip. Reaching back to adjust it, she accidentally curled her fingers around the sharp edge and made a soft noise of surprise.

--

Ortha made a bunch of noise, scraping her armoured body around where she was wedged under the boarded up ceiling, her plates bumping hollowly against the cheap blockade. She could smell the old blood and both her mouths salivated as the balauradon leaped somewhat clumsily back down the stairs.

The creature essentially ignored Chartrose. Being no smarter than the average predator, the only words she knew were the commands Rilana had taught her, and she was even less likely to obey the other Druid than the Moon Fey. Her tail lashed back and forth as she watched Becker appear and then take off down the stairs, but ultimately she loped purposefully towards the bloody book and scooped it up, now carrying two of them. Her tongue scraped all over it, relishing the crispy, gory remains, one set of eyes on Drisceya as if daring her to challenge her possession.

Ortha could sense that Rilana was on her way, and could hear her voice in her heads.

They Have Returned (Ebonfort)

The day slipped by while Drache and Laurel waited outside near the shifting saddlehorses, both of them keeping an eye out for strangers who might approach them. While both ladies were at risk of becoming targets of the strangely aggressive townspeople, Laurel would have been able to pass much easier than a scaled and winged half-dragon like Drache.

She kept her hooded head bowed slightly, though an ember-like glow of her eyes flickered now and then as she glanced around. It was difficult to keep her long, snake-like tail from swishing back and forth under the hem of her cloak so she stooped briefly to dig in her bag, coming up with her journal and a pen.

The half-dragon had covered nearly half a page with her observations and was in the middle of sketching a figure in the bottom half when Raffey emerged from his tent. The hybrid hollowed him with her eyes but didn't try to impede him as he approached the guards on the road. The sound of her pencil hissing smoothly across the paper continued, but her attention was mostly on Raffey's interaction with the guards, her ear-frills flexing under the cloth of her hood.

They were too far away to hear what the guards were saying, but the snatches of their tone that floated back over the distance were far from friendly. Drache quickly sketched one of the petal tattoos she had seen, with Laurel helping correct her since she had gotten a better look.

The half-dragon glanced briefly at the tavern, wishing she knew how to mindspeak to her allies so she could find out what was going on inside. When Raffey finally came back and spoke to them, her hidden snout was slow to turn back in his direction. He wasn't the only one who was distracted.

"Ruins?" Not only was that right up her alley, it was potentially part of what Peridiath had hired her to find. Wanting to be away from this hostile town, the dragoness agreed eagerly, though she didn't expect Laurel to be so ready to leave the rest of her people behind.

"I was considering striking off on my own anyways, it will be nice to be away from..." there was a subtle wing-motion under her cloak towards the guards and she made a silent hand-motion that technically meant "scavengers" but with a focus on the creepy watchfulness. "They're making my scales itch. Besides, you could do with someone to watch your back."

It only took a few minutes for Drachiathoryx to secure her belongings and join Raffey, watching the land around them. The monster hunter didn't seem keen on conversation so Drache quashed her inclination to flirt with him. She didn't notice the beetle tracks. Or more accurately, she didn't recognize them for what they were and was resigned to her unfamiliarity with the creatures in this land enough that she didn't bother to mention their strangeness. Knowing now that she could, she let another level of awareness surround her, feeling for things like torches and campfires that might betray the presence of those they might want to avoid. "It occurs to me that if you wanted to escape the kvaren who enslaved you, now might be a good time." There was simple curiosity in her tone, puzzling out a stranger.

Yet even with the town and guards behind them, she couldn't help but feel watched, and finally dispensed with her cloak in the interest of being unencumbered by it. "Did the guards give you any indication of what kind of ruins they are?" She asked finally, moving close so that she could keep her voice down. It sounded almost sultry and purring when she did that.

She thought she saw gleaming canine eyes in a bush and paused, her head moving back and forth slowly to try to reproduce the glint.

[Ebonfort] Four Little Orclings, Mean and Green

Since it has been nearly a month since your last post I am considering this RP inactive and I am unsubscribing from it. Please tag and PM me if you decide to post again. @Wild Alyssa

[Ebonfort] Heat

Since it has been nearly a month since your last post I am considering this RP inactive and I am unsubscribing from it. Please tag and PM me if you decide to post again. @Wild Alyssa

[Ebonfort] Out of the Pan

"Yes, Laurel, yes. We will," the half-dragon murmured, letting Laurel lean on her. She glanced at Kraven, who would be the only one who noticed the look of dismay on Drache's normally unperturbed features, proving her to be a bit out of her depth when it came to comforting someone over something serious.

Thus, she wasn't looking at the quiet drow when he disappeared, but as they were already moving towards the rocks it would become somewhat apparent what had happened soon enough.

"Oh, shit, Sirik" the cross-breed cursed quietly, and she would have circled the pit to look in if Laurel hadn't been nearly attached to her by then. Leaning down as much as she could, the archaeologist tried to make out the markings but didn't recognize them at all. Even languages she couldn't read or write she could usually at least pinpoint what language the symbols belonged to, but strangely this one was completely alien. Touching them only deepened the mystery, and thankfully didn't reproduce the spell that had dropped Sirik thirty feet into a watery hole.

Drache looked up just in time to see the torch leave Kraven's hand and lifted her clawed fingers, "No, wait...!"

But it was too late, Drache's breath hissed as she took a breath and held it with anticipation, her ear-frills flattening back against her head. The gyser shot up, pelting them all with spray, and the half-dragon barely had time to lift her wing to block the worst of it from splattering all over her and Laurel.

"Kraven, you idiot!" Drache snarled, her voice low but burning with ire through her teeth as she rounded on the klutzy human, being careful to avoid standing over the pit. "That's obviously some sort of enchanted booby-trap. Can't you do anything about it? And keep quiet before you get us all killed!"

Tail swishing hotly, Drache peered down through the gloom, able to see through the blackness to where Sirik was motioning with his hands. Thankfully able to understand him, the hybrid had to ask him to repeat himself only once or twice and then asked if he wanted rope tied up on the surface and left to dangle for him or if he wanted a whole coil thrown down to him. Once she got her answer, Drache dug in her pack, pulling her rope up from the bottom and situating it for Sirik.

"See if you can find another way up," she signed to him. "I don't think we can get down this way." And it wouldn't be wise to try to get Sirik up this way either, even if they decided to abandon whatever waited from them down there.

While waiting for the drow to do whatever if was he was going to do, Drache found a piece of thin parchment and took a rubbing of the strange glyphs, not wanting to forget what they looked like.

"We will get to her as fast as we can, pet, but it wouldn't be helpful to get killed on the way, would it? Tell me what else you can feel." Even if Laurel couldn't sense anything useful, it might keep her focused on something for a few minutes. Drache herself could only sense the fire, but was still feeling a bit haunted by the scream.

Moving in the same direction Sirik had mentioned he had seen the tunnel, Drache looked for anything else in this thicket that might hint at a way to get underground.

A Heart Frozen (Ebonfort)

The big gryphon was not impressed by the Charr's grin, and simply stared unblinkingly, lifting Rilana's unconscious form protectively towards his white and black underbelly with both sets of fore-talons as he leaned back on his haunches. Kona's dark wings flared outwards just as Svarak lifted his sword, anticipating the strike as the glittering sword slashed through the invisible barrier and the ground fell out from underneath them. The pit was too narrow for him to glide properly, so the gryphon flapped hard, letting air spill out from under his impressive feathers to slow his descent and avoid landing on the huge dragon at the bottom. Carrying his Mistress was little different from carrying prey, though Kona was much more gentle with the limp Moon Fey than he would have been with a horse or reindeer.

Kona set Rilana down on the stone, leaning down with his huge beaked face to nuzzle her head from side to side, small birdlike squeaks of distress whistling through his maw as he pawed at her worriedly. His ear-tufts twitched. He put himself between her and both Svarak and the dragon, trusting no one, especially when the charr came towards them with the sword. Did he not care that she was hurt?! Kona tilted his head at the sword as Svarak embedded it in the rock and ruffled his wings angrily.

It was only the repetitive concussive shaking of the ground under the massive footsteps of the huge ice monster that earned a flutter of Rilana's eyelashes. "Svarak?" Only the Lord Knight made her head hurt this much. She moaned softly, her face twisting with a pained frown as she lifted her hand, reaching dazedly towards where she thought Kona was. "Kona?" Missing, her hand landed on the very tip of the dragon's tail, and his voice, weak as it was, seemed to hammer reverberatingly inside her skull.

"...ow. Shush, my love. Don't worry." She wasn't sure if she said it out loud or inside her head, or both, her tone as gentle as if she was tiredly comforting a kitten. Her eyes opened blearily, taking in the scene as she repeated her attempt to grab at Kona, who her her use his neck as he lifted her to her feet. Glancing around, it took a silent query at the gryphon to figure out what had just happened, and together they backed away from the approaching monster, though all of Kona's fur raised in fluffy irritation and mistrust as they scooted closer to the dying dragon.

Turning somewhat gingerly as she continued to recover from smacking into the shield, Rilana turned and looked at the dragon, reaching out to touch his sickly-feverish graying scales. "Oh you poor thing." She stroked her fingertips across the ridges over its eyes, hoping that the first dragon she ever touched wouldn't die so soon.

The sword, Kona reminded her. He says not to touch the blade.

Fear, greater than any she had felt since entering the tower, slid uncomfortably into Rilana's belly as she thought about touching the Null Shard. Almost as though ignoring it, she climbed back up onto Kona's back, only reaching down for the handle of the massive blade and trying to pull it. She could barely lift it, and grunted as she laid it across her lap so that it wouldn't flail about as Kona jumped into the air again.

With a glance back at Svarak, who was literally punching the ice golem to death, Rilana and Kona flew up to the bubble-shield and the gryphon hovered in place while Rilana carefully poked at it with the huge sword. She held the hilt with one hand and balanced the blade across her forarm, both to help control the weight and to keep it from touching Kona's back.

The shape of the shield lit up before her eyes, illuminated by the power of the sword. Rilana couldn't explain how she knew, but she could feel that the funneling shape shooting up through the tower was the link between the dragon and whatever was draining its life away. Shoving the sword-point through the barrier and urging Kona forwards, the pair swept swiftly around the pit to destroy the shield.

--

Upstairs, Ortha dutifully followed Alya into the Library, one head keeping an eye on the tiny half-elf while the other promptly began sniffing around and began scarfing the edge of a large book. The balauradon had no interest in loot, not even as something Rilana might be interested in. The two-headed creature seemed to grow especially gluttonous for a few minutes while the Moon Fey was unconscious, growling wetly at Drisceya when the drow moved closer to her, but then looked up with irritation.

The songweaver had disappeared again.

Grumbling, the balauradon sniffed around and began to climb the staircase, most of a book still sticking out of one of her mouths.

Play with Fire!

Bump

[Ebonfort] A Little Bird

Asher frowned a little as he pinched the first small thread of twine, pulling it away from Lyriia's body so that he could slip the point of his dagger under it and slice through it without cutting the fairy herself.

"I said I'd let you out," Asher repeated grimly, "I didn't say I'd let you free, Lyriia. You wandered too far from Ebonfort lands, don't you think?"

The handsome-but-scarred man let his stormy eyes fall on the fairy's pretty face at that, noting her tear-streaked cheeks, but ultimately letting his words have time to sink in as he continued to work at the net, piece by piece. It was slow and tedious work, not the kind that Asher appreciated, and Lyriia had gotten herself quite tangled. Now and then his fingers, callused from the weapons he weilded, brushed against her tiny body, but it was always an accident.

"It is the tradition of my people to capture yours and bring them back to the Tribe. I like to think it's a better policy than the Ebon Knights rule to slaughter every Kvaren they find, don't you?" There was a bitterness there, born out of a cultural and historical hatred for Ebonfort, but tempered and honed by some personal tragedy into the surliness that filled Asher's gray gaze like a cloud.

When the Swordmaster could actually reach it, he teased Lyriia's dagger out of the sheath on her hip and threaded it like a pin through the hem of his shirt like a straight pin, out of her reach.

The golden shafts of light falling like pillars all around the thicket were still full of the sights and sounds of tiny birds fluttering and chirping almost frantically in their busy way, though there was a loud squeaking that seemed more panicked than the rest of the noise.

When the last thread was cut, Asher returned his dagger to his hip and curled his fingers around underneath Lyriia like a cage, lifting her free from the leafy ground up to his face where he could look at her better. There was room in his hand for the fairy to wiggle around, but his fingers were stiff, one in between each of her limbs so that she wasn't quite free to fly off.

"Luckily for you, I don't carry a birdcage with me or I'd be tempted to bring you back to camp. And you're far too small for my handcuffs." His lips turned up in a grin that suggested he hadn't intended to take her captive at all but needed an excuse not to.

"My name is Asher. Asher Kincade of the Thunderfangs. And you don't need to call me 'Sir', I'm no cursed Knight. But I do want to know what you're doing out here. Are you alone?"

He twisted his hand a little to get a better look at her wings, still trying his best to not crush the tiny creature.

Sum up your week in roleplaying in just 3 words

Dragons, Magic, Smut.

[Ebonfort] A Little Bird

@RomanAria Please let me know if you're interested in continuing this.