Riven Wight

A Land of Wonder and Nightmare

*Gives you a thumbs-up.* For sure! There's a lot to keep up with and watch out for, especially when you have multiple things going on simultaneously.

I feel so lazy on the drawing front right now. Heh. So many other things to do! AAAH! That would be so adorable! ^.^ If you end up doing that, do please send pictures! :-D

A Land of Wonder and Nightmare

When Elayra mounted the red shadowmire, the black one moved as if to help its ilk, but Ghent drew its attention. It’s glowing red eyes, the most prominent feature about it in the dimness of the alleyway, narrowed as it growled and hissed at Ghent. It slunk to the side, keeping an eye on him, its too-many fangs bore and strung with saliva. The creature watched him for a short moment, stalking to the side, its body hunched like a predator circling its prey. Its gaze flicked away only once to look to the red one as it made its final buck.
“… You’re not scared, are you?”
The black cat gave another, angered hiss as Ghent’s focus shifted from it to the red one.
Elayra tried to turn her body midair to land on her feet as she had seen Drust do before, but she did not move fast enough. She opted for keeping her head from smacking into the concrete as she skidded over it. The rough stone scraped at her arms through the thinner fabric of the sleeves before she stopped with a groan just inside the ring of light near the sidewalk.
With a gurgling hiss, the red cat turned to face her, its movements jerky, pain and anger making the glow of its eyes intensify.
The delay between her frantic thought to get up and her reluctant body obeying made Elayra’s heart beat faster. Her sword had not provided a quick kill; she could hear the cat shuffling almost drunkenly closer behind her.
The red cat paused for only a moment when Ghent called out to it, one of its pointed ears twitching toward him, but otherwise paid him no mind.
But Ghent had his own shadowmire to deal with. The black cat’s form still scrunched to hide the scaly segments, it took advantage of the boy’s distraction as Elayra managed to flip onto her back and prop herself up to face the beast and battle taking place.
“Ghent! Watch out!” she shouted as the black cat hopped toward him in a zigzag motion, closing the majority of the distance between them before its body sprung forward, stretching out and claws extended toward Ghent.
She did not have time to watch the outcome before the now sluggish red cat stretched its own claws toward her with a ferocious snarl.

Melodramatic Deities and an Ageless Taste for Pizza

Anora placed her glass down and watched Pahn with curiosity as his demeanor changed with just a bit of pizza. Her brows raised further when even his words came more willingly and naturally. She cast a worried glance to Dino, trying to remind Pahn of the chef’s presence, but Dino did not so much as cock his head at the statements she was sure would sound rather odd at best.
Anora absently tore off part of the bread stick and mopped it around a pool of the red sauce on her plate. Her action fell still, letting the bread soak in the sauce as Pahn’s behavior grew that much stranger.
What in the world? She watched his seated dance with an expression somewhere between inquisitive, amused, and a bit fearful that he had gone insane. She shifted in her seat with no idea how to react to his bizarre display that was all, she could only assume, because of his pizza.
She looked away only when movement caught her attention from the table nearest them as a well-dressed man stood, then glanced to Dino when he walked away, looking even less undisturbed by Pahn’s actions as he had been by his words.
“Was that your ‘Happy Pizza Dance?’” she asked with a smirk, her brows still raised. “Or something I should be worried about?”
She stole another glance to the table with the man, who had since removed the more expensive-looking aspects of his attire, but still stood. As she moved to return her attention to Pahn, she saw all four pairs of eyes look to her and Pahn’s table in unison, for the first time noticing the similar eye color.
A sense of foreboding again stepped down Anora’s spine, and she quickly looked back to the helping of lasagna in front of her.
I thought green was a rare eye color? And who… Urgh! Stop it! she ordered herself silently, again reaching for the glass of water. She momentarily contemplated excusing herself and following the woman into the bathroom to prove to herself that she was just being overly paranoid, but then Pahn began to speak to her again, his tone more friendly than she had yet to hear it.
“But, if you’re connected to the titan I’m suspecting, then…”
She inhaled and choked into the glass on the sip of water she had taken. She quickly placed the glass back on the table, and wiped at her mouth with the back of her opposite hand.
“The… what?”
She could only gape at him as he continued, still trying to process the first thing he had said, let alone the existence of Olympus, or that Pahn lived there. The rabbit hole she had plunged into just kept getting curiouser and curiouser.
She raised a palm toward him. “Hold on. Back up. I’m connected to a titan? And a follow-up question, if I may:” she placed her hand on the table, the people with matching eyes temporarily forgotten, “titans exist? You've got to be joking!”

A Land of Wonder and Nightmare

“Can’t even keep track of each other! How have you survived this long?” Elayra called as she stepped beside Ghent. She cast him only a quick glance, not wanting to take her eyes from the shadowmire as she waited for them to sort themselves out, their forms currently one unpredictable mass of snarling fur, scales, claws, and teeth.
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“Immensely,” Elayra answered, twirling her sword once beside her. She was surprised Ghent had chosen to stay instead of run, and unsure which she would have preferred.
At least now he was asking the right questions.
“Keep them angry, and you’ll keep them stupid and out of their shadows,” she explained as quickly as she could as the beasts nearly freed themselves of each other. “Inside, they’re virtually untouchable. Outside, they can be killed like any animal. Leave the leader—the red one to me. Watch out for any others, and do not let them escape!”
Untangled and enraged, the red cat stood on its haunches, its body spreading out as it slashed out with a clawed hand at the black one, making it cower away with another series of grinding hisses.
Elayra twirled her sword once more. “And do try to not get yourself killed!” she called as she sprinted off toward the red cat.
Not wanting to take any chance of her legs not offering full cooperation, she ran closer to the beast than she thought comfortable, the cat still stretched out on its hind legs so it towered above her, and attention on the black shadowmire. As its body began to bend down and turn toward her, she jumped onto its back near its extended neck.
The moment she touched it, the beast roared and started to buck, trying to throw her off, but she gripped a handful of the beast’s fur and skin as hard as she could and held on, its movements making it difficult to position her sword where she wanted it.
“No wonder you’re such a low suit, little clover-kitty! Such a disposable creature.”
With another snarl, the cat arched its back violently.
Elayra released her hold, letting the cat’s action propel her upward and forward the last few inches she needed toward its head, and gripped her sword in both hands, blade facing down.
She hissed when she felt the cat’s tail wrap around her leg, and angled to make herself fall faster as the beast’s tail tugged.
It was difficult to tell which happened first; the cat let out a pained, gurgled howl when Elayra’s sword drove into the space between fur and scales where the textures met at the base of its head only milliseconds before the cat’s shockingly strong tail yanked her from its back and flung her across the alleyway.

A Land of Wonder and Nightmare

Really? Well, for it being something you struggle with, you’ve been doing pretty darn good!

Phew. Glad you think so. He was saved by the shadowmire. xD Seems to me that Ghent’s had a pretty bad day.

Oh, thanks. :-) Eh, maybe I’ll give it a go. Just have a huge stack of papers at the ready. Animals aren’t exactly my forte. Heh. Well, if you get around to it and get inspired, I look forward to it!

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“Well, for one thing,” she glanced around again, this time in emphasis, “get out of the open.” She offered him a small smile, then cleared her throat awkwardly; she had neither explained nor had he asked how she had saved his life. “A vampire’s blood has healing properties. Which makes sense if you think about it.” She turned to continue down the street, trying to think of a suitable, out-of-the-way spot. “So I don’t suppose you have a pocket knife or something on you, do you?”

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Izzy took a deep breath, her gaze never straying from Trevor, though he looked away. Recognizing it would be pointless to press the matter further, and hoping her lecture had not made him regret telling her, she sighed. Her lips pursed to the side in contemplation at his reason for the bandage.
“Maybe I can help with that.” She glanced around the street, making sure no one else was within hearing range, then looked back to Trevor, her voice low as she continued. “I might not be capable of saving a life, but I might still be capable of at least healing a bruise. If you’ll let me.”

A Land of Wonder and Nightmare

Elayra ignored Ghent as the shadowmire played into her hand. She crouched, her malicious grin only widening and sword held in a neutral position as she waited for the last possible second to push Ghent out of the way and go in for the attack. But Ghent apparently had no desire to wait for the last possible moment.
She shouted in surprise when Ghent tackled her, throwing both himself and her well from the beast’s path and to the hard ground.
The shadowmire landed on soft paws, the scaly skin retracting into the fur with the force of its landing.
Careful to keep a grip on her sword this time, Elayra, a snarl twisting her face, pushed Ghent from her. What sounded like a series of sirens went off further in the distance, but they were faint enough for her to pay them little mind. If it was something else after them, they still had time, and it would just have to wait its turn.
“You moron!” she growled as she hurried to her feet, refusing aid. It took an extra moment, her muscles slow to react, but stand she did. Taking a quick mental note to account for that while facing the shadowmire, she drew her dagger, turned to the beast, and moved to rush it before it could regain itself and focus back on them, but Ghent held out an arm.
“Are you insane?! We need to go!”
“Then go!” she said, her furious words rushed. Her grip on her sword tightened as the beast’s glowing eyes turned toward them, part of its body expanding to create a partial U shape. “There’s no time to explain! Either run,” she threw her dagger near Ghent’s feet, where its tip embedded harmlessly into a crack in the concrete and making it stand up at an angle, “or make yourself useful!” She raised the tip if her sword threateningly. “But stay out of my way.”
With that, she moved around Ghent, prepared to push him out of her way if need be.
Elayra made a tisking sound as she hurried away from Ghent to keep the beast from going after him instead. As she expected, the cat’s eyes settled on her. “Aww,” she began in a mocking baby voice, “the ‘ittle kitten is too slow. Poor thing. You must go hungry without your mother around.”
The cat gave a hiss that sounded more like stone grinding on stone, its claws digging into the concrete and fur prickling.
With her back angled toward the wall of the alleyway obscured by the night, she placed her empty hand almost thoughtfully to her chin and gave a sad shake of her head. “It’s a wonder your master hasn’t just put you and the rest of your litter out of your misery.”
Elayra’s confident attitude faltered when, instead of just lunging out of blind anger, the cat grinned, its tail curving into various impossible shapes.
Another angered growl came from behind her a second before another pair of glowing eyes appeared in the wall as the first readied to jump.
Elayra looked behind her as another shadowmire emerged from its own shadow a couple feet above the ground, this one an inverse of the first with black fur that made it nearly impossible to discern, and red three-leaf clovers.
She leapt out of the way, expertly tucking her sword in and summersaulting as she hit the concrete. One of the cats claws ripped the hem of her dress and made her summersault give out sooner than expected, but she still just managed to get out of their reach.
The two cats, black and red, collided with each other with an earsplitting yowl. Their extended bodies scrunched inward when their skulls hit, a pair of accordions squeezed by an infuriated musician.
A gloating, vicious smirk on her face, Elayra got to her feet and stepped toward the red one’s flanks, enjoying watching the cats untangle themselves with a series of frustrated snarls and growls.

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Izzy frowned at the reason he gave, as if being nosy with his father’s work justified their actions. She sighed heavily when he tried to make his point clear to her.
“That’s just it.” She gripped his arm to stop him, and turned to fully face him. “That’s not fine, Trevor. Blood related or not, they’re still your legal guardians. They don’t have a right to treat you like that. Even once. No matter what. You need a bandage for it, for crying out loud!" She removed her hand from him and instead placed it with the other on her walking staff. "Did he get you with a ring or something?”

Melodramatic Deities and an Ageless Taste for Pizza

No worries! I completely understand. Family and holidays are quite important! I look forward to whenever you get the chance to get around to a PM. :-)

Awesome sauce. Aaaand now I want a piece of pizza... Thanks a lot. :-P

Thanks! Extra awesome points for recognizing that! xD It's a fun movie. I haven't watched it in ages... like most movies. Heh. I love how they animated Eris.