|
Post by Alma on Apr 3, 2020 17:03:50 GMT -6
((Just three posts to get them back to x.0))
She never knew what to expect upon returning to the kennel. When she was lucky, it might be quiet as it ever was, the main door sealed and her personal room untouched, her beasts waiting patiently in their pens and cages. Such times were to be treasured,seemingly rarer than finding a bag of forgotten credits in the street. Had it been so this time upon entering, she might have taken both nullifiers to the small room she had claimed for herself, content to shove the books and the nullifiers onto her crowded desk for a bit of research before using them. Had the door been flung wide open, it was usually accompanied by a soft-skin that would start to screech at her the moment she neared them. Sometimes there was little enough time to press whatever credits they demanded in hand before she would have to rush out again to grab some opportunistic beast that the tat-lung had freed in for reasons she did not ever begin to understand. This time, the door was closed. It allowed her to consider hesitating using the nullifier, doubts returning now that the curiosity the old commander had inspired was not so immediate. A tat-lung was no hated dragon, a crafted beast that was rude to be sure, but she had heard of other methods that worked on crafted beasts without eliminating all or part of their mind and memory. The memory of being caught, of being toyed with would prevent her from discarding the nullifiers all together, but perhaps… And then she found what waited for her behind the door. The hallway was a mess of sand and dead spars of wood jutting up from miniature dunes. A few clumps of red hair randomly blossomed from sand, and more than a few withered vines had crawled across them, but it was the trail that caught her eye, something that had been seemingly dragged into one of the doors. She followed it, sparing only a peripheral look at the doorway that led to Sid’s room as she followed the obvious path, the only door that was still open. She would not put it past him to have done all of this, the spears and vines and hair clear proof of his involvement. But how had he gotten the sand to flood the room? He had never shown any ability to manipulate nongrowing things. The trail ended at a shut door, the sand somehow piled up the highest here. Opening it required clearing some of it away, and she could see that the metal had been scoured by sand and larger claws, a few snapped pieces of wood lying under the sands there. The door opened slowly after that, and she was greeted with a loud click and sound of grinding stone. Assuming a trap, not wondering how Sid had managed it, Haix threw herself backwards and to the side. She had a moment to wonder if the nullifiers, packed with tissue and trapped in their little box, might awake to the movement and think she was the beast. Might chew through the paper and plastic as easily as flesh and bone to reach her. She had to fight the urge to throw them down the hall. She lay flat on the ground for a second, watching the open door for any sign of the trap. The clicking continued, taking an almost inquisitive tone and the gnashing of stone became interwoven with clacks. The clicking halted then, replaced with a wheeze of pain, and Walker bounded out of the doorway only to stop and stare at Haix, his tail wagging so furiously that his entire rear moved along with it. Then the gem drake stopped for the briefest of moments, just long enough for her to be somewhat sure there was no obvious crack in his body, then he began to burrow into the sand. More confused than worried at that point, Haix pushed herself upright as Serj waddled out into the hallway, dragging his long tail in the sand. As he furiously clicked nonsense, waving his chubby arms around, Haix could see the places where dark bruises were beginning to form, and asked him a question that was a gibberish to him as his words were to her. He halted, silent as she repeated the question, pointing at the bruises. While there was no understandable reply, he seemed mollified and gave a few clicks. Leaving the gem drake to dig in the sand, she and Serj walked back to her small room near the entrance, and she looked him over, cleaning and applying bandages to a few scratches on his soft hide. She left the books and one nullifier in the room, as well as a decent amount of sand that she and the amphadron had tracked in. She would clean after she had dealt with Sid.
|
|
|
Post by Alma on Apr 3, 2020 17:04:42 GMT -6
Sid did not look up from his bed of stolen blankets and gems as she spoke.
The words had a ritualistic quality, and the lizard sounded serious about something, but he did not want to deal with her now, his mood soured by the fat salamanders that had stolen his living gem from him.
For the clicking he turned, looking not at Haix but at the amphadron standing beside her. With a huff, Sid flicked his tail towards them, sending a small shower of sand onto the fabric at their feet, then turned back to his sulking. The hand holding the nullifier tightened then relaxed, annoyance not any less for that she could not risk breaking the device.
She walked over to the tat-lung, snarling at Serj to stay back when he tried to follow her.
There were several things Sid could have done then that might have saved him. Had he decided that he was bored of the kennel drama, he might have flown off and Haix would have failed to catch him. Had he turned to look at Haix as she spoke, she might have hesitated or taken it as a sign that there was a method beyond the nullifier. Had he turned and truly looked at her, he might have grown worried, caught the glint of silver in her hands as she clicked open the little box. Had he not been so certain that she would not dare bother him, she might not have been able to leap onto his back. Had his outrage and surprise been any less, he might have bucked her off instead of freezing with rage as he felt her weight on his back, her claws in his mane.
As it ended up, he whipped his body through the air as her touch brushed against his skull, flinging her through the air to smack against one of his decorated walls. The tapestry was thick, but Haix still crumpled to the ground from the impact, unfocused eyes meeting the clear gaze of the amphadron. A strangled roar erupted from the tat-lung as he turned gracefully in midair to down at Haix, fangs bared in a snarl as he looked every inch the wrathful dragon. Serj felt the magic flowing, his own hands beginning to wave through the air as he sought to counter it, but the tat-lung stopped.
Sid could still feel the presumption wretch’s touch on his scales, the back of his head feeling as though a stinging insect was trying to make its way through. He lifted up his clawed hands, ready to summon the spear that would see to it that she would never bother him again, then lowered them a moment later, contempt washing away his rage. The lizard was just a stupid beast. There was no point to killing her, not when she had proved to be so useful in the past, not when she had certainly learned her lesson. Not when he still cared for her, as a human might care for a half-deaf and blind hound. It had been a mistake on her part, that was all, and he would hope that neither she nor the tapestry she had struck would suffer any permanent damage. And though he would never admit it, for the tapestry bore a likeness similar to his own, he would rather replace it than the lizard.
He might have gone to her then to assure himself that there was no real damage, but the buzzing-grinding against his neck was beginning to send out lances of pain he could not ignore. It felt deeper than it had been and it hurt and the clicking would not stop.
The other lizard, the water dweller that denied him his prize. The pain increased as he thought of it, and he twisted about in midair to slam his teeth shut on its throat. That thing had made his most trusted servant and toy make him hurt her, and now it was hurting him as it had when the sands had poured out of the walls. It had blinded him then, taking away his prize, and now it dared to hurt him?
He saw the green eyes widen, claws thrown up in front of its face, but that would not save it.
|
|
|
Post by Alma on Apr 3, 2020 17:06:25 GMT -6
Serj was going to die.
He was not particularly okay with this. The concept of death, of listening to Mentat and Wisg debate death, these were fine distant things that he could ignore at will. Those deaths happened to others, usually in the imagination of the prehistoric as she flexed her claws and dreamed of hunts to come, or in the mind of Mentat as she wondered if the manner of death would affect what came after it. He himself knew of death, knew how to bring it without melting a mind or gutting some prey, but had little interest in facing it.
Still, he had heard the tat-lung escape many times before, heard the one-sided struggle that never seemed to resolve in the caretaker’s favor. His brother and sisters had considered going out to change that several times, but they always stayed in their pools and retreats of false stone and living plants. The tat-lung was her fault, and she would need to deal with it.
But he had gone to watch a few times, had seen how panicked the caretaker was when the tat-lung had taken a moving gem and tried to eat it. He knew, even if she did not, that the tat-lung returning it to her was only temporary, that he would just take it one of the times that she left. The others had grown bored of his concern, Wisg asking him why he did not go deal with it himself. Did he think the caretaker, their ‘slave-master’ would shower him with affection for keeping a bauble safe?
He had gone anyways, careful to shut the doors as he went, trying to avoid the snapping jaws of the living crystal. Then the tat-lung had emerged from his room, sparing him only a second glance as it saw what he held. It was strong, powerful, demanding that he give the gem thing that he had seen the caretaker fight to save. That it would have killed him if he resisted too much was not in doubt, for he could already feel it pulling at the energies to do just that.
So with a few flicks of the wrist hidden by his bowing and subservient head, he had called into being the storm that threw off the tat-lung’s aim just enough so that spears that should have skewered him instead slid and burned against his flesh and he ran back to the room on all fours, the gem thing’s tail in his mouth as he dragged it.
He had survived then, slamming the door against the buffeting winds that cared not who they scoured with sand, hearing the howling winds and roar of the tat-lung just over the ringing blows of its claws against the door.
Then the caretaker had returned, bandaged his few wounds, and went to confront the tat-lung. He had followed, hoping to help even as he recalled the way the door had shook with the blows, and now, with its teeth reaching to snap shut on his throat as he could do nothing but watch, he would die for it.
But they stopped, shutting inches away instead. The eyes were wide as his own, as if the tat-lung was just as surprised that his throat had not been there, jaws clicking shut a second time as if to confirm it.
Then it recoiled, screaming and launching itself up to smash against the ceiling, then tangling itself in the walls line with tapestries. It seized and shook, the screaming never ending as flecks of drool sprayed from its mouth, twisting over itself as if a malevolent invisible giant was playing with a rope. The limbs spasmed without purpose, clawing and gripping at nothing, and rammed its head into a bare wall and ceiling, its horns bending slightly by never seeming to break. But why would he not feel what magic was happening?
And under the screams there was something else. He turned to find Haix was no longer dazed, eyes clear as she laughed at the creature. Not the happy chuckles he had heard from her before, that had grown more rare after they had sprouted legs, but laughter that reminded him of the screams of the creature struggling above them.
Then the screams cut out, the laughter following a moment later, and the body fell to the floor, landing with the tinkling of broken glass as treasures were shattered beneath his weight. The body still twitched, but now the twitches seemed to be purposeful, starting small and leading into full movements as if the invisible giant was learning how each part worked. The eyes snapped open, and he expected to see the tat-lung narrow them, turn again upon both himself and the caretaker in return for whatever she had done. He scampered over to her, intending to drag her out of the room if necessary as he had done with the gem thing.
She laughed and gently shoved him away, slowly standing as he warned her that they would not get a second chance. Then she did leave, albeit much too slowly for his liking, and he craned his head to look back at the slowly standing tat-lung. At the blank expression it still wore. At the lack of movement beyond the eerily shutter-stop motions that moved it into a standing position.
He looked back up to the caretaker, noting the way her frills were slightly raised, the small chuckling sound she made as she walked him back to his siblings.
What. What had she done? ((Sid-25.0, nullified Serj-18.0))
|
|
|
Post by Alma on Apr 17, 2020 14:29:06 GMT -6
It was rare that she could scrape up enough of the special currency that allowed those in the city to purchase special services from the labs, and, what little she had, she tended to hoard, storing the cards of plastic and metal alongside a small book of possible purchases. The items on the list usually outnumbered the value of the cards, but indecision coupled with the realization of how impractical said purchases would be kept her from spending the currency. Better to hold onto it, to wait for some truly worthwhile purchase like one of the cheaper, mass manufactured customs than waste it on some silly design that had already been outclassed years ago. Then had come a call for a special crossbreed, one that would only cost her one of the cards, a price that would have netted her a special creature or custom. She had been skeptical at first, expecting some manner of scam.
|
|
|
Post by Alma on Apr 17, 2020 14:29:22 GMT -6
Either the soft-skins were attempting to net themselves good will, showing benevolence as they freely allowed others to join in and risked making the creatures less valuable as collector items, or this was a trick to take the funds of all who applied. In the case of the former, she had no idea who the soft-skins were, and continued to never meet them throughout the entire process, even the choosing day limited to images of the beasts sent to her so that she might decide which hide she wanted. For the latter, she delivered the card to the address given personally, watching from a tree across the street and studying the one who came out to take it. If they sought to cheat her, she would take it out of the soft-skin’s hide, hive laws be damned.
The creature had been delivered though, still wrapped in the coma newly crafted creatures from the labs seemed to always be in.
|
|
|
Post by Alma on Apr 17, 2020 14:29:41 GMT -6
Rumors had circulated that this breeding of crafted beasts originally included the blood of a true dragon, but due to the morality of such a thing, it had been replaced with crafted beasts whose similarities were purely superficial. It seemed more likely to her that the soft-skins had found themselves confronted by a few of the more deadly residents and changed their minds. She never heard of any protests or great moral decisions against the crossbreeding of harachiu after all.
But the creature in its cage certainly resembled what had been promised, a faux dragon that could be owned without fear of reprisal from the real ones. She had been amused by the idea, both by how far the soft-skins would go to ‘own a dragon’ as she was to own such a creature herself. That it looked the part had startled her at first during the delivery, and it was only the return of the amusement that kept her from skinning it while it slept.
|
|
|
Post by Alma on Apr 17, 2020 14:29:54 GMT -6
It, for it had no easily found scent that would denote it as male or female, crossbreeds in general being without any manner of reproductive organs anyways, was large. Not so large as a wiurn, for that creature had only comprised one third of the breeding, but large enough to bite through her neck with ease. The blatantly poetic information card that had come with it made it clear that the crossbreed would not need to rely on such things to kill her as it waxed on as if to sell her on the purchase of the creature she already owned.
Dragging its sleeping body to the new cage required ropes and Cork, the sarane losing interest in it when Haix shooed her away after an inquisitive sniff. Whatever the labs drugged the new creatures with was potent to be sure, a great deal stronger than anything she could craft without killing the body, but she doubted it would be lingering for too much longer. A bite from the sarane, of hunger, of threat, or of simple play could be enough to wake it before it was properly stored.
|
|
|
Post by Alma on Apr 17, 2020 14:30:13 GMT -6
The lines had been run through the cage’s grid of bars on the side opposite of the door, and she alternated between making the sarane pull its limp body and readjusting ropes to keep from damaging the fragile wings or the limbs and skin from catching on the frame or falling in its water trough. It slept on as its body was pulled against the back wall of the cage, the sarane left to stand and hold it in place as Haix wedged herself inside the cage with manacles and ropes woven with wire rather than fiber.The legs, front and back, were secured to points inside the cage, run through rings underneath where its body would rest, and she had the sarane back up a few paces to give them enough slack to be attached.
She tested it then, noting that one limb could be moved a few feet in any direction freely, if the rest were pinned against the ground closest to the metal rings.
|
|
|
Post by Alma on Apr 17, 2020 14:30:28 GMT -6
The tail was tied against the wall with loops of cable, the woven wires allowing little slack as she pulled and tested them that they would not cut into the tail at rest any more than they would allow it to slip free. The spikes running along it proved useful for that, the metal catching against them.
For the head, she produced an ignored manacle, seemingly crafted for the wrist of some great creature, and clicked it in place around the false dragon’s throat as its legs were held outstretched like the legs of a table. The sarane was visibly straining as she finished the last checks, making sure one last time that the collars of metal were locked, the chains free of flaws, the loops of wire were carefully woven and tied. Then she had the sarane back up, lowering the weight of the creature to the ground, and untied both of them.
|
|
|
Post by Alma on Apr 17, 2020 14:30:56 GMT -6
The cage was locked behind her, checked a second time with a pull and a push as she rattled the door, before she took the sarane back to her own cage for some fresh meat and a rest. She should have cleaned the sarane as well, if for no other reason than to loosen her muscles after the strain that had been placed on them, but the crossbreed would wake soon. The pamphlet had warned her of what to expect from such an event.
She had expected something of the kind. One of the pieces it had been made from was the defective tat-lung, but the description that had been provided upon delivery revealed just how dangerous it would be until tamed. Filled with pride and fury, unstable and unwilling to obey anyone until it learned its place, able to vomit fire and roar loud enough to kill, and some hinted ability that it would use when it was not winning that had something to do with electricity. It even had the ability to pick minds, that fact alone convincing her to confine it in a smaller cage, far from herself and her creatures so that it might find no minds to corrupt.
|
|
|
Post by Alma on Apr 17, 2020 14:31:17 GMT -6
The soft-skins had gotten as they wished, and she could not blame them for the beast in her kennel. Though a small part of her was annoyed that the labs seemed to relish sending out beasts like this that required so much groundwork before training could begin, she would at least be prepared for this one as she had not been for the others.
It was still sleeping as she returned, this time with a creature much smaller and frail compared to the sarane and the beast in the cage. The lights had been dimmed for his comfort so that she could barely make out the sleeper. The ghaenelt had no such issues, walking alongside her as they approached the cage. She let him walk around the perimeter of the cage, the sound of clicking claws and rustling of paper-thin wings giving his location away. A few clicks came from him that were not the sound of claws on concrete, and she hoped that was a good sign.
|
|
|
Post by Alma on Apr 17, 2020 14:31:30 GMT -6
When she judged his back was towards her, she smacked the cage and leapt back with a yelp. The clicking, rustling noise melded together growing louder as it moved between her and the sleeper, and, for a moment, she swore the patch of darkness around the ghaenelt’s claw grew darker, the bars of the cage ringing out as he struck them. When there was no reaction from the sleeper, no second strike on the bars from the ghaenelt, she worried that her plan had failed, and that she would need to take the time to train him how to do the move on command, returning long after the false dragon woke.
In the silence that followed, as the ringing of the metal faded back into nothingness, she heard a new sound. A sound like a choked cough, a wheeze that would have never been heard under the reverberating metal and was considerably less impressive. She skipped back a few steps as she heard it, calling him back to her a moment later to wait with her in the dark.
|
|
|
Post by Alma on Apr 17, 2020 14:31:46 GMT -6
There was nothing but the sound of their breathing, the half breaths she took to keep them silent, the constant breath of the ghaenelt, and near silent breathing of the sleeper, the coma not requiring too much air. And then, a sound from the sleeper, a snore perhaps if it were not like the wheeze she had heard in the dark what felt like minutes ago. She left with the ghaenelt as the wheezing continued. The sarane needed cleaning, other creatures needed food, with a special weaver leg for Cai’n now that he had helped with the last piece of the false dragon’s confinement. She might have felt sorry for the creature, for it was dragon in name only, and a tool laughingly crafted with a sharpened handle to cut any who tried to wield it. It had been built impressively but poorly, and she would not merely allow time and her blood to blunt it into a more useful form.
|
|
|
Post by Alma on Apr 17, 2020 14:32:02 GMT -6
The dreams were always the same.
It did not know this, for each dream was like a new day, a new life that informed it of who it truly was. Its wings, strong and magnificent, carried it over mountains and forests, over seas of water and grass that it might duck down and take bleating, terrified prey in its claws that only existed to satisfy its hunger. It knew which of the small, weak things were prey to eat, and which would be better ignored, not out of respect or fear, for what should a being like it fear, but simply as if they were nothing more than a swaying tree. Sometimes they had things it wanted, whether prey or something that glistened like fire as the light danced within it, and the beast would take it. None could ever stop it, none were fast enough, none clever enough to hide them from its eyes.
Then the dream would start anew.
|
|
|
Post by Alma on Apr 17, 2020 14:32:12 GMT -6
It was likely that the first few times it experienced the dream that the beast had not known what to do. It might have failed to fly properly, chasing after the burning eye in the sky only to be gripped with pain as its wings failed it, or a strike at the not-prey creatures that saw it torn apart, each piece feeling exquisitely detailed pain that had no place in the realm of dreams. It knew now to skim the thoughts, to catch a few that flattered it but rarely gave any information, but it would never recall that attempts to communicate with anything had resulted in the same pain as being torn apart. It was better than that, the dream repeated and confirmed, better than them, it did not need to speak to them, only to skim and take a few words of boring flattery. The creatures were simple, uninteresting, not to be bothered with.
|
|