Fated (Chapter Ten)
Wednesday, July 22nd, 2015 03:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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mindcrackloveIn which we see a lot of Niel, Shred has a hobby other than being badass, and Nessy sits in a tent.
Chapter list: http://tanadin.dreamwidth.org/382.html
Map of the continent: http://tanadin.deviantart.com/art/F
Character status spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet
Chapter Ten
Ashwatch, Minecraftia. September 13, year 573. Time instance 483Z.
Niel scrambled back, away from the dragon, eyes wide. He opened his mouth, either to shout or scream, but the dragon held up one claw in front of its face and made a shushing noise. It drew back, perhaps to give him some space, and sat.
Niel hesitated, realizing that it wasn’t going to hurt him, and looked it over.
The dragon was about ten feet long and covered in dark purple scales. It had two batlike wings folded against its back and sides. It had four legs and a tail with arrowhead at the end. Its four horns, tailend, claws, and back spines were all black, while its eyes were a lighter, but still dark, purple. It had a single black nose spike as well as a spike on each of its four shoulders.
The dragon was looking at him curiously, and as Niel looked it over, he noted that it was a lot smaller than he had imagined dragons to be.
“Um…hi?” He tried. The dragon blinked. “Are you…friendly?” The dragon nodded. Niel sighed in relief. “Well, I’m glad there’s that.” He paused. “Why are you here?”
The dragon blinked at him again. “Are you capable of speaking?” It nodded. “Why aren’t you?” It shrugged. “Don’t want to?” The dragon nodded.
Niel shrugged. “That’s okay. I- hey!” Niel jumped as the dragon moved forward and prodded his side with its nose- the side that had the bandages showing. It looked at him curiously.
“I-it’s nothing.” He pulled his arm against his side to hide it. “Nothing.” He sniffed a little. The dragon whimpered and gently licked his cheek with its forked tongue, as if trying to comfort him.
Niel smiled a little. “You don’t say much, but you don’t really need to. You’re nice. I like you. What’s your name?” The dragon shook its head, unwilling to say. “Well, will you at least tell me if you’re a boy or a girl? Or are you…something else?” The dragon blinked and tapped its horns with a claw. “I don’t know what you mean by that.”
The dragon repeated the action. “Are you a boy?” The dragon shook its head. “A girl?” The dragon nodded. “Oh! Okay. My name’s Niel, and I’m a boy.” He faltered on the last word and crossed his arms across his chest.
The dragon nodded and gently nuzzled his shoulder. He smiled and patted her head. “I really don’t know what to call you but it’s okay. Hey, do you want to meet my other friends? They’re really nice- like Adrian! He’s really sweet.” Niel hesitated. “I…kind of ran away from him though. I shouldn’t have but…I got scared. Not of him! Just…I needed to be alone. But then I ran into you.”
The dragon shook her head in response. “Do you not want them to know about you?” She nodded. “You sure?” She nodded again. “Why?” The dragon sighed softly and made a motion around at the area. “You’re…not supposed to be here?” She nodded. “Ah. Well, I’m not really supposed to be here either, but there’s some kind of destiny something going on. I’m just sticking with Nia and Adrian, really. They kind of found me and took me in. You’re sure you don’t want to meet them?” The dragon nodded.
The dragon was more important than he realized.
“Okay.” Niel sighed a little. “Do you think-“
“Niel!”
Niel jumped at the sound of his name and turned around to look. The dragon scrambled backwards. “That’s my friend Adrian! If you want to remain hidden, you should go!”
The dragon nodded and quickly fled into the trees.
“Wait! Will I ever see you again? Wait!”
“Niel!”
Adrian burst through the trees moments after the dragon had completely vanished. “Niel!”
“Adrian!”
“Are you okay? I’m sorry, I don’t know what I-“
“No no no no, it’s fine, it’s nothing you did, just…” Niel covered up the rip in his shirt again. “Don’t ask me about it, okay? I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I won’t.” Adrian assured him, hugging him. “I won’t. It’s your business. I was just worried.”
Niel hugged him in return. “I’m sorry I ran.”
“Don’t be. You got freaked.” Adrian pulled away and smiled at him. “Do you want to head back to the others?”
Niel nodded. “Yeah. Let’s do that.”
As they walked, Niel looked over his shoulder at where the dragon had vanished, wondering if he would ever see her again.
~~~
“Nia.” Shred said slowly. “What are you doing with my cat?”
She had come into her house to find Nia lying on the floor, petting her cat. Nia seemed to be sniffling a little and sneezed when she looked up, but she seemed pretty content, as did the cat.
“I’m petting him.” Nia said, as if it should be obvious. “Does he have a name?”
“His name is Spire. He likes to jump up on tall things and perch on them.” Shred sat beside them and rubbed the silvery cat’s ears.
“I gathered. He jumped on me.” Nia laughed, then sneezed before resuming petting the cat.
Shred frowned. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Allergies.”
“Allergies? Are you allergic to cats?”
“Yes.” Nia sniffed. “But I love them.”
Some things don’t change.
“You should not be petting him. You sound like you’re very allergic.”
“Not really! I just have to not rub my eyes and it won’t get worse than sneezing. If I rub my eyes they get itchy and I’m miserable.” Nia shrugged. Spire yawned.
“You should really go outside.”
“Are you worried about me?”
“I don’t want to be responsible for your death.”
“Sure, that’s it.”
“Just…” Shred sighed. “I don’t want you in bad condition, alright? You’re one of the ones I can stand.”
Nia sat up straighter. “Really?”
“Yes.” Shred shrugged.
“Huh.” Nia went back to petting the cat, letting the silence stretch for a few minutes. Eventually, she asked, “What do you do in your spare time, anyway? We don’t talk a lot.”
“Other than train and look after my brother? I…like to draw.” Shred looked away as if this was embarrassing.
“Wait, really? Are you any good?”
“A little.”
“I want to see!” Nia sat up and sneezed. “Do you have anything?”
“I…have a sketchbook.”
“Will you show me?” Nia jumped to her feet.
“…Sure?” Shred stood and went to find it, moving some things off of a table and picking it up. It was roughly bound together, as if she had made it herself. “My dad had to travel all the way to western Illian to get the paper.”
“Your dad?” Nia questioned. “I haven’t met him.”
“You’ve probably seen him. He’s a Sunspine, so you might not have realized we were related. He has a white mask. You’ll probably meet him before we leave.” Shred flipped open the book to a random page.
Shred wasn’t a little bit good- she was excellent, at least according to Nia. The drawing that Shred had flipped to was of a dragon, perched on a mountain with its wings spread as it gazed down upon the landscape before it. It wasn’t colored, but it looked as if it had taken time as well as a lot of effort.
“Holy shit.” Nia breathed. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”
“I’ve never seen a dragon before, so I kind of had to guess.” Shred admitted.
“It’s glorious.” Nia informed her. “Neither Adrian nor I can draw anything like that.”
“It’s not that good.”
“It’s great!” Nia protested. “What else do you have?”
Shred flipped through the pages of her sketchbook, showing Nia about a dozen drawings and growing more and more flustered from praise as time went on. Eventually she set it down and looked at Nia directly.
“Your art is lovely.” Nia informed her. “Don’t ever think otherwise.”
“Thank you.” Shred’s voice was quiet. “Really. Thank you.”
Nia smiled. “I offer honest opinions of art anytime.”
Shred nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Maybe she’s human after all. She had seemed almost inhuman in her coldness and her lack of clear emotion other than frustration or anger, but this made Nia question her previous thought that Shred wasn’t really human.
She still wasn’t sure, though.
-~-
“Davions never change, do they?” Blame asked, looking at Vechs.
The mapmaker grinned sheepishly. “Not really.” He sneezed.
“Leave my cats alone.” Blame grumbled. “Maybe you wouldn’t feel sick all the time.”
“I love them.” Vechs complained and reached to pet one of them, but was stopped by Aureylian.
“No.” She ignored all of Vechs’s whining and protestations and moved to sit between him and Blame’s two cats.
Meanwhile, Nebris and Etho were sitting beside each other, silent but troubled.
“That’s very interesting.” Nebris muttered. “How did that happen?”
“I don’t know.” Etho admitted. “I’m still worried…”
“Poor Niel.” Nebris sighed.
“Poor Niel.” Etho agreed.
-~-
Nessy returned to their camp just after sundown. She had gone for a walk earlier and the day and was finally returning, tired and ready to crash. She passed Samuel taking a sleeping Tranpar into their tent and almost tripped over Adrian and Niel, who were lying on the ground looking through a gap in the leaves at the stars as they slowly became visible. She sighed as she slipped into her own tent, the one that she shared with Nia. She had honestly expected Nia and Adrian to share a tent- being cousins and all- but Adrian had taken one with Niel in order to make sure that the guy wasn’t left with someone that he didn’t like.
Nessy personally was glad that the Skullblades didn’t have room to accommodate all of them inside houses- she dislikes the indoors. A tent or a cave was really all she could stand.
She flopped down on her bedroll, sighing a little. Nia wasn’t ready to sleep yet, as she wasn’t in the tent, so Nessy was alone.
She honestly wasn’t sure if she was glad or upset about this. On one hand, people made her uneasy, as she hadn’t dealt with them a whole lot. On the other, she wanted to get to know them. She had some kind of grand destiny with this group, and they hadn’t rejected her.
Not yet, at least. She sat up and looked at her hands, thinking, then sighed. Her mind wasn’t clear enough for any kind of thinking. She slowly turned her palms to face each other, keeping them several inches apart, as she focused her spatial manipulation powers. A quiet hum filled the air and space warped around her hands, a black rift forming between them that filled the tent with a purple glow.
Abruptly, the space flashed a brighter color and the rift, hum, and glow vanished. Nessy quickly moved to catch what she had summoned between her hands.
Summoned, not created.
She took a bite of the golden apple, closing her eyes to focus and to deal with the sudden plummet in energy that summoning an object always caused.
She had to figure out how she would act around these people, and whether they would ever know what she was hiding.
She also had to figure out whether or not she trusted them. That, she supposed, was the most important part.
no subject
Date: Wednesday, July 22nd, 2015 08:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: Wednesday, July 22nd, 2015 10:39 pm (UTC)-awkward anon again
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Date: Thursday, July 23rd, 2015 03:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: Thursday, July 23rd, 2015 04:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: Thursday, July 23rd, 2015 05:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: Thursday, July 23rd, 2015 03:04 pm (UTC)And I think I know several things about the characters. Specifically Niel and Nessy. I can't wait to know if I'm right.
Great chapter)s! Have many cookies! (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::) (::)
-the lurkiest lurker
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From: (Anonymous) - Date: Thursday, July 23rd, 2015 04:54 pm (UTC) - Expandno subject
Date: Friday, July 24th, 2015 09:32 pm (UTC)Vechs never learns.
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