(FlashBack) A mite of trouble (Solo)

[Wrenmae]

Spring 01, 510 AV

The Unforgiving was aptly named. Rows of dagger teeth rising in steady rigid solemnity kissed the horizon and stared down upon the passes beneath them with smug satisfaction. Wrenmae watched these passes carefully, wary of what may lurk within the jagged footholds and shallow caves pockmarking the cliffs. Weaver, his gildling horse, walked with uneven steps. The horse was complaining in its own sort of way, unused to such rocky soil and narrow trails. Wrenmae, previously untrained in the finer points of riding, made an effort to concentrate on the signs the horse gave him. Keeping tight hands in the reigns, the storyteller jerked the horse direction by direction till it was sore and nickering.

Learning Riding was almost as difficult as learning to live on the land. Thrice Wrenmae had held his stomach over a mountain stream and wretched out the colored berries growing in the hardy bushes sometimes dotting the lips of drops. They seemed colorful and held no ill effect for either Weaver or Ket, but ingested by Wrenmae they insisted on causing severe stomach pain, vomiting, and worst...diarrhea.

Building a fire had been just as eventful. Gathering the dried wood scattered seldomly across the trails, Wrenmae bent himself over a small pit trying to prepare fire. Rubbing sticks together held no spark or miracle of warmth, and even lighting them with an expendable torch had proven fruitless. Thrown together in a haphazard pile, the fire quickly burned out. Trail rations seemed to make up the majority of his meals, the feed for Weaver usually tiding him over rather well.

Now Weaver stood over a long descent toward a clear river. The ribbon of water glittered into the horizon, twisting a slicing path through rock and mountain to reach some far off destination. It was a snake, a wild clear snake of unfathomable size.

Smiling, Wrenmae set both heels against his horse, sending it trotting down the hill. The rough stones flew from under Weaver's hooves and Wrenmae had to fight to maintain his balance, gripping the horn of the saddle more than the reigns to keep from slipping off the jostled saddle. He leaned with the motions of the horse, muslces trying to hold some semblance of balance on the horse's broad flanks. Almost sensing his desperation, Weaver picked up the pace. Wrenmae bounced on the saddle, reaching down to grip around the gildling's neck and digging his fingers through its fur. The horse, unperturbed, continued on, almost trying to shake off its rider. Gear clattered at its haunches, eliciting a desperate glance from Wrenmae. He begged whatever power watching not to end him on a lonely mountainside at such a tender age. He hadn't yet seen the world to its full extent beyond the Kalea ranges. There was much more to do, to experience, to live for.

Jamming both legs into the horse's flanks, Wrenmae snatched the reigns and hurled back on them with all his minuscule strength could manage. Easily able to resist, Weaver instead chose to bend to his master's request...letting his hooves dig into the rocky soil and slow their descent to the stream below.

Holding himself in the half-balanced position he ended in, the boy was hesitant, at first, to relinquish his hold on the mount. Weaver whinnied in a chortle too human to be chance, eying his rider with what was easily wry amusement. Smacking the horse on the head, Wrenmae scuttled off and to the edge of the stream. Silvered fish glanced from rock to rock in the surprisingly deep run of water, flashing their bellies before vanishing quickly as they came.

Wrenmae's stomach growled.

Fishing a bit of rope from his bag, Wrenmae helped tease a long few strands loose, knotting them together in the ways he'd seen other travelers do before. It was hard work, the ins and outs of rope like riddles without hints. The first attempt landed him with a ball of twine-like mess, the second not much better. Sighing, Wrenmae forced himself to the task...producing a line at last, which he baited with a bit of dried beef from his rations and a hook from his tacklebox. Theoretically he could have used the rod, but making the strng himself could come in useful should he lose or damage it elsewhere.

Hurling his bait into the water, he waited.

Hours passed before he pulled the soggy morsel from the stream. It showed the signs of being nibbled, but no bite had given him a fish to cook. Sighing with frustration, he fished the bits of tool that would reconstruct his small animal trap, setting it in the hollow between a small bush a ways away from him. He'd check it in a few hours, tossing the line back into the water. Weaver drank from the stream, Ket watching the fish with wide eyed concentration. Her tail flickered back and forth, a clock of stumbled time managed in a world where time of day was read from the sun.

Jerking the line a bit, Wrenmae mimicked the floundering of prey, a new approach over simply throwing it in and letting it sit. It still took a number of minuetes to get his first bite. A trout latched onto the hook and bait, tearing it away from the boy with such ferocity, he nearly lost the line. Pulling back with all his strength, he managed to use the fish's frenzied flopping to aid in his attempt to get it on land. Its body was a silver-gray, scales bright against the noonday sun. There was simply beauty in this creature, blinking up at him with someting akin to dumb terror in its staring eye.

Wrenmae smiled at it, pouring water over its gills and thanking it for being his food. It didn't take much to be polite to ones prey, even the terrified kind. In this manner Wrenmae invited all his prey to be a part of him, to give of themselves to his sustenance. In return, Wrenmae honored their singular survival.

He used his long knife to sever its head, making the cut quick and without letting the creature suffer. The head he threw to Ket, the cat immediately setting upon it and gnawing at the eyes so vacantly oblivious.

Pushing wood together in the semblance of a lean-to, one central log and several smaller wood serving as a side, Wrenmae tried burning smaller wood first, to feed the fire within. Surprisingly, and with much glee, he found it worked.

The fish he roasted over the open flame, as day grew longer and shadows were born into night. The trap remained unoccupied, but unworried Wrenmae enjoyed the fish he had caught. The simple times like these were the important ones, with moments being born of silence gave life to the empty mountains.

Beneath those stars he would eat and sleep, staring up at them even in the dangerous land of the Unforgiving. Weaver watched the shadows warily, nickering or whinnying at each unexpected shadow.

Wrenmae let him worry, content.

He was a fool to sleep so easily.

[Wrenmae]

The night was broken by a snarl, the sort of growl only a creature of predatory disposition could make. Wrenmae was up in an instant, the night pressing in like opaque hands. His fire had languished, only the spiteful glare of embers. Grabbing for his long knife he strained his eyes into the shadows, willing himself to see. Many creatures had adapted to such lightless conditions and with the power innately in his body, perhaps the boy could do the same. Straining he concentrated on Ket's eyes, those oblong pupils of dark knowledge. The pain in his eyes were immediate and unrelenting, the burning agony of a corona shifting without its consent. Wrenmae fell back with surprise, his arm brushing the hot coals which bore a yowl of pain to break the otherwise grim silence.

Another growl, this time closer...a promise.

Focusing his eyes again, Wrenmae tried to grasp the darkness, the shadows, to pull at the fabrics of what was lost to him with human eyes and to give to him what he did not readily have. Again the practice failed him, leaving him blinded and rolling dangerously near the embers.

Something came at him through the unseen smoke across the fire. He did not see it, only felt the air whoosh above him as something large batted the air where he had previously stood. Perhaps it was the situation, but panic forced Wrenmae into the art and flow of morhping, his eyes shifting strangely and suddenly flooding with new images.

The creature was a young mountain cat, large and sinuous with baleful green eyes and tawny fur. It prowled at the edge of the fire, evidently more interested in getting past Wrenmae to attack Weaver than anything else. The horse was beside itself, yanking at its moor it stamped the earth with frenzied hoof beats seeking freedom to run. The glowing nature of its fur and the smell of the cooking fish had likely drawn the predator, a further realization of the dangers here...dangers Wrenmae did not prepare for.

Reaching for his dagger, he foolishly put himself ahead of the beast stalking around the flames, directly impeding its path. It narrowed its eyes, uninterested in a weak morsel like Wrenmae, but not above killing him to get to what it wanted.

Panicked, the boy grabbed a glowing log of embers and shoved it at the cat. The creature snarled, batting at the log that Wrenmae kept fencing out ahead of him like some glowing rod of banishment. Unwilling to touch the embers, the cat backed away from Wrenmae for a moment, pushing back on its haunches and snarling.

Retreating back toward the gildling, he tried calming the animal but to no avail. Weaver was beyond terror, rooted to one spot as a predator sized up its meaty bits this was not the kind of experience the horse was seeking. Ket was nowhere to be found, lost in the jostling and night.

Swinging the log again, Wrenmae missed the cat, leaving himself vulnerable. The cat pounced, pushing the weapon from his hand and across the ground in a shower of red embers. Only the long knife remained, down near his side as the cat stood over him, snarling.

He could sense its barrier, sense its fury. To that he spoke, words spurred by a curious calm that descended over his eyes like a curtain. In the face of certain death, he stared at it and spoke. "Calm, calm, calm" he chanted, pushing the vibes of ease into the great cat. Against the wall of fury, the magic proved nearly useless, only giving it time enough to pause.

A pause was all he needed.

Wrenmae brought the knife up through its chest, burying the blade as deep as he could wedge it and twisting. Falling away from him, scratching at its attacker, the cat scored deep gouges across Wren's stomach, splitting through his simple shirt with ease. Afire with pain, Wrenmae pulled back against his knife, retrieving it as the cat staggered and bounded around the clearing. Its yowls were like the agonized cries of ghosts, glancing off the peaks and roaring in his ears.

It took almost a minute for the creature to die, slumping onto its side and panting harshly, staring its own death into the eyes. Was it like the night? Did it have hands or paws or some other gruesome appendages? In the end, it died quietly, blood pooling from its mouth as the baleful light leaked from its eyes. Weaver was unable to be calmed, so Wrenmae let him struggled till it tired him. His eyes reverted, letting the darkness fill the void again. Sitting next to his kill, he looked at it with a mixture of respect and dismay. It was a large cat, but still young, the fur not a complete tawny but still young in vibrant color. Luckily it was too old to have a mother in the wings, but here a journey ended. Placing a hand on its head, Wrenmae offered up a quiet prayer of consolation to anyone listening. It had not been his intention to slay the beast, but in the way of its living, the victory was decided by the most prepared.

Wrenmae.

Light found him quiet, still beside the lion. For him, Wrenmae was upset, but not so much as to waste the day mourning. Turning to his horse, the storyteller sent forth his influence again, shaking away the whispers to give more, to be more, to HAVE more. Weaver calmed, the night events over and the sun dispelling its primal terror. Letting himself on the saddle, Wrenmae sent the horse to a gallop, hanging against the saddle and reigns as best he could. He wanted to feel the wind, feel it beat against his face and whip his neck. He felt as though the lion was in the wind, flying faster than him to some distant ideal, some animal paradise.

Weaver pounded across uneven ground, breath thundering in his nostrils. Wrenmae held on, pulling and directing as best he could as the horse circled the small clearing they had set up within and returned, eyes wide and alive.

Ket was by the stream, no doubt interested in continuing her hunt for fish. If she had been shocked by the night events, she showed no sign.

Wrenmae took a seat near the dead cat, staring along its blood splattered body, looking for some sign of purpose. Holding out a hand he focused, letting tawny fur race along his skin momentarily before vanishing into nothingness. The beast was a part of him now, a part of his story.

The first part of the day was spent skinning and cutting away its meat. He hummed while he worked, some tune he'd heard long ago with neither word nor composer. It was a mindless ditty and one without the inflection of purpose.

After attending to the carcass, Wrenmae sat with both feet dangling in the cool waters of the mountain river. He let his bait float down the river, followed by the quiet sonorous hums of his own, letting the magic whisper him into complacency, hypnotizing fish.

The bite was faster than before, Wrenmae standing quickly after being roughly jerked from his musings and forced to bring the next trout onto the ground. It looked at him as if to ask why the air wasn't as breathable, why it couldn't move, why everything was so strange. He was a bit like the fish, worried and afraid in this new world he was flopping and trying to find a purpose.

Tearing the hook from its lower jaw, Wrenmae let it go, let it back into the shelter of the world it knew. Would he end up the same? Back in Alvadas with little more than a dream?

Not if he had anything to say about it.

Casting his line back into the river, he focused his mind again, letting his relaxation carry to the fish.

Practice makes perfect.

[Wrenmae]

Late afternoon brought the sun to falling death throes. Bleeding in the horizon, clouds attended the falling monarch with gentle grace. Wrenmae sat without movement on the bank of the stream, staring down into the water, casting his will into the fish that swam lazy circles around his open hand. He could catch one, simply grasp it at this point and eat well, but instead he continued the magic. He could feel the whispers now, the ever present want and need to go on...to push farther...to overgive. He'd heard stories about hypnotists who gave too much, frightened paranoid creatures with naught but a shell of control to hold their forms together. Wrenmae feared that fate, always stopping just before the whispers rose to roars in his ears.

But sometimes his dreams were haunted by blind delusions, and even now he felt phantom eyes planted on his back, hiding in the brush and gathering darkness watching...always watching. Snapping his control from the fish, Wrenmae turned with wide eyes and scrutinized the shadows. Weaver and Ket watched him quietly, their knowing gazes comforting and patronizing all at once.

Clutching his dagger, the storyteller sighed deeply, then returned to the waning fire. A few embers had remained, easily fanned and fostered to a growing life amid dry branches. He packed the fire carefully this time, taking uneeded amounts of care and time to lean each individual piece of kindling for maximum effect.

The fishing tackle was out, a hook baited with a bit of the cougar meat and hurled into the water. As the fire grew and flickered an all-consuming birth cry, Wrenmae waited by the dark waters for the hungry fish to come.

To pass the time he worked on morphing, knowing the statutes of the strange art and practicing on a patch of skin the length of his forearm. Scales, fur, hair, craggy skin...he felt the strange shifting of internal structure with each application of the skill, fearful that this time would be his last,

That he would remain in some hybrid state of monstrous countenance.

All magic had a drawback. All magic was poison.

But its allure called even the most stalwart souls to quaff deeply its bounty and brace themselves for effect. Of course, morphing seemed like the most natural sort of magic, a link between man and any other creature the world had to offer. Crawling on ones belly as a snake or flying high as an eagle. While not versed enough to try a full transformation, the boy allowed himself to dream what it might be like to soar on the wind currents.

A nibble at his line bade him move, hurling the fish from the water and dealing it a sudden blow from his axe, separating its head and flicking it toward Ket. The cat, ever vigilant in her own lazy way, languished near the proffered offering, eyes glittering in the firelight.

Preparing the fish was a work of patience, cutting it open and removing its spine. He worked quickly, pausing only to leave the fish unattended in order to check on his trap, the small thing laying quietly in the bushes.

Captured, frightened, shaking as it stared out at Wrenmae was a young rabbit. For a moment he was prisoner in its wide dark eyes, the larger predator in its tiny world. For the rabbit, nothing was as sudden as the knowledge it was captured and likely to die. Humanity lived in the future, constantly stressing for the uncontrollable idea of the unknown, of the tomorrow. For the rabbit? Nothing lay ahead of it but the moment after the moment it was living. Sighing, alright with just the fish for the evening, Wrenmae freed the young rabbit and collapsed his trap, letting the creature scuttle off into the shadows.

"Fare well," he called after it, shocked for a moment by the stark difference his voice had to the world around him, "Grow strong and maybe we'll meet again one day."

It was a foolish thing to say, no way could he possibly identify this bunny from a horde of its brothers. Weaver snorted, a callous disregard for its master's lack of credibility.

It had calmed since the cat attack, but still maintained a distrustful gaze on the surrounding area.

Returning to the fire, Wrenmae cast the fish against the blaze, its body held aloft by sticks just above the fire. He had precious few spices, a bit of clover from the trail, and did his best to season the fish lightly, a means to wash away the stout smoky texture of its burned skin with some alternate flavor, a bite.

After eating, the storyteller took his feet. In this unfavorable wasteland, it was impossible to imagine going place to place without better knowledge on how to handle himself. Taking out his long knife, Wrenmae held it out in front of him, blade extended over the flames. It glittered there, shard of moonlight and tempered steel. He stepped into form, swinging the weapon up and down in wide arcs and sweeps. Each movement was ended or punctuated by a vicious stab, the turning of a blade. He practiced agains the stout river bushes, pushing his strikes to land precisely. Feet moved a sweeping, nimble hop and he imagined he was being pressed, seeing the strikes of a larger opponent and trying to weave under its grasp.

He rolled, spun, pushed his lithe body to its limits around the fire in some sort of dancing spin. His knife was up and down and flickering in the glow, his feet always a step ahead of his mind.

He maintained the pace only temporarily, crossing legs and tripping headlong, dashing his head against the ground.

Laying there, prostrate, the boy chuckled amid short breaths of pain, imagining what he might have looked like to any watching. Blood seeped from his forehead, patterning lightly down the bridge of his nose. Standing and brushing himself off, Wrenmae wiped the blood from his forehead and gingerly washed the wound in the stream. The cut was not deep, but the bump forming beneath it certainly would be visible. Weaver chuckled in his own sort of way, even as Wrenmae replaced the knife and kicked the fire into dust. He couldn't risk falling asleep here, not smelling of blood and fish. Saddling up Weaver he took to the dark paths carefully, letting the horse lead him by its instincts rather than Wrenmae's raw travel experience. His destination? Questionable....but regardless he would make it to wherever he was going.

Fate would lead him by the strands of his soul.

Reaching into himself he transformed his eyes into that of a cats, looking into the dark with a pained smile.

Fate would lead him, but Wrenmae would prefer to at least see if fate was the kind of humorous god to send him off a cliff.

[Wrenmae]

It was in the dawn light that he paused, took a break overlooking the winding expanse of mountains below, clouds above. In their own way, the sky was another Kalea ranges. The peaks looked softer, made of down and dreams rather than unyielding stone. If a bird flew upside down and hurled itself far enough, could it land on those drifting peaks? He imagined himself, drifting on feathered wings, rising up toward that distant place. Feathers poked from his arms and hands, responding to the user's desire. Wrenmae stopped them, reverted back, not confident enough in his study of bird wings to try them on himself. It was up here that he began carving, or at least he beginnings. The bones he'd carried from fish and the splotched skull of the mountain cat dead far away were with him. The smell did not fill him with confidence for the night ahead so he'd use them and discard them.

Slipping off Weaver's back, he settled up against a large stone. Placing the bones in front of him he retrieved his dagger and stared at them, the milky white offset by the splotches of dried blood. He took the cougar's skull first, pressing the blade into it with a quiet snap and rubbing the edge in the beginnings of shape. It was a circle he worked to first, the basics of Malediction preached on the importance of a circle. With care and silence he worked, trying to master the curve without punching through the skull and ruining it entirely. Thrice he tested his dagger on the large expanse, and thrice he failed, his circles lopsided or with angles and misshapen. Exhaling silently, Wrenmae set himself to the task at hand. Each motion was made slowly, speed taking a backseat to careful care. When the circle was completed, Wrenmae practiced again, etching circle after circle into the beast's skull before finally laying it aside. From the back of the creature he had taken handfulls of hair...the very stuff he was now trying to weave into a suitable necklace.

The material was coarse, thick, and difficult to use. Time spent working pushed along endlessly as the boy tried to tie bits of hair to bits of hair, threading it in inexplicable knots until some seemed to work. The process took hours, trying to tie individual strands before working to thicker bunches of the stuff, always in the attempts to loop it.

With a rough model created, Wrenmae turned back to the skull, digging his long knife into the jaw and prying out the largest of its teeth. The stink of blood and saliva still layered them and with light starting to fade, he needed to work quickly. With steady hands he etched a circle into each tooth, fitting in the letters FIE into the first and RCE into the second. Fierce, his malediction word of choice. It was rough, probably faulty, but as he hadn't practiced in a bit it would do. Threading the hair through two small holes he dug through the teeth, he affixed the necklace into its proper place. Primitive and ugly, he almost wanted nothing to do with it. He had to remind himself that this was necessary, that failure was only a stone to a bank of success...or at least he wouldn't wear this thing openly.

Pricking his finger, Wrenmae focused his Djed through the drop of blood and into the object. The two fangs glistened for a second, quick flashes of light before fading.

Hesitantly, Wrenmae stuck the item in his pocket, not confident enough to use it on himself.

Taking to Weaver's back, the storyteller searched out somewhere quiet to make camp, leaving the skull behind like some ugly gravestone.

He hoped whatever smelled the blood on its bleached skull wouldn't be irate enough to follow the lingering smell of a horse to where he ended up.

[Tabarnac]

XP Award! Wrenmae XP Award: Riding + 4; Land Navigation +3; Mountaineering +3; Wilderness Survival +4; Fishing +5; Gadgeteering +1; Fishing +4; Trapping +2; Cooking +2; Morphing +4; Knife +3; Horsemanship +2; Hypnotism +3; Food Preservation + 3; Malediction +3; Carving +3 Lore: Cat Eyes (model) Loot: Maledicted Fang Necklace : This item will make the wearer’s canine teeth elongate over a period of hours, causing mild soreness. They will remain elongated until the fetish is removed, at which point they will retract over the period of hours. This effect is similar to Morphing, and will conflict with any Morphing the wearer tries to do while under its influence. Additional Notes: Okay, you did quite a lot of things, so you got plenty of XP. If you didn’t max out on any, it was because I was hoping for a bit more detail in your description. And please bear in mind that you are a Novice in even your most developed skills at this point, so nothing should come easily. You now have a Cat Eye model to morph to, so you can do that more quickly, but really you should take more time for him to do anything new with his Morphing. As for all the skills you’re getting now that you had no XP with before, these should be entirely new to Wrenmae or else they would already be on his sheet as learned skills. Please do try to play correctly for your skill level! Feel free to PM me if you have any questions or concerns. Keep writing!