(no subject)
Kyran sat on a rock and tried in vain to polish the rust off his favorite sword. The sun, low on the horizon, left the world dimly lit in a blanket of orange which made it hard for the tired woodsman to see what he was doing. His clothes were still wet from his trip down the river. Deep down in the core, Kyran almost didn't care anymore. He'd been running for quite some time now and his path had crossed relatively few friendly faces as of late. Even some of his more favored adversaries had been routinely absent over the recent months. He sighed into the sunset and put his sword away. The rust could travel with him a little while longer.
It was time to move again. His joints screamed at him as he stood. With a grimace the hunter laughed at himself. He was starting to feel the way people had been describing him for at least a decade: beyond his years; must be time to slow down a bit. Shivering slightly as the breeze tickled through his wet clothes, he picked an arbitrary direction and continued into the woods. He wasn't sure where he was going any more but there was no use putting off his arrival. He felt eyes watching him through the leaves. The forest was silent. Even the smaller animals he happened across chose to stay put instead of chancing it in the open.
Without some kind of a clearing to move around in, Kyran knew he'd be limited to using his shortsword in the brush. He hated his shortsword; then again, he was always an over-achiever and a showoff. Boldly swinging one's shiny little blade in the sun just isn't very impressive no matter how red it turns the fields. Fortunately, it wouldn't matter much and he knew it. He was too tired, too hungry, and too complacent with the idea that he was going to die this time around.
A patch of darkness darted through the trees and shot for him. Kyran spun and dropped his left hand to his lower-back, pulling his blade. The small one he hated. Following through in his cliché but personal fashion, Kyran leaned back and let himself drop through his spin, lashing out with his over-glorified knife as his attacker flew atop him. Something shiny in the dying sunlight filtering through the mostly dead leaves connected rather solidly with something mostly dark in the increasing darkness. Exactly how solidly, Kyran couldn't tell. It's always hard to tell how hard you hit something with a sword that's uselessly small.
The hunter finished his turn, caught himself against the ground, and already in perfect position, took his own turn to take a lunge. He sprung from the ground, throwing his sword from his left hand to his right then striking forward with his left forearm, pinning the shadowy assailant against a tree. Using the rest of his momentum and weight, Kyran thrust his sword deep into its center of existence and pushed all the way through until he'd pinned it to the tree with his blade as well. With a jerk and a twist he yanked the large knife free and spun again in tune to the tingle of his senses. Both hands behind blade, he deflected a second patch of shadow that came seemingly from nowhere and sent it tumbling off to a side. Coming around the other way, he swung up from below to meet the third.
That was when he knew he'd been had. A fourth struck him squarely between the shoulders and the darkening forest exploded into light. Unfortunately, it was a blinding light that didn't seem to have much to do with illuminating his surroundings and left him feeling dizzy with a strong coppery smell in his sinuses. The second shadow sprung on him..or maybe it was the third. He couldn't tell anymore because the world wouldn't stop spinning so he could keep his bearings. A deep gash appeared on his left arm that would have probably appeared between a couple of ribs if the ground hadn't suddenly shifted and sent him lurching off to the right. Sparks flew as he instinctively slammed his blade against a few high-speed objects repeatedly moving towards him. Contrary to the bright flash of light which was now a spotty darkness behind his eyelids, these sparks actually revealed some of his surroundings. They were equally as useless to him though because by the time any new glimpses registered, he was already face to face with shadows number four and five with the what was left of shadow previously known as One clawing at him from below. Oh wait..it was just shadow number four in front of him. He was seeing two of them.
The world outside his consciousness became impossibly slow as a quick status check revealed to him that his arms were for some reason both above his shoulders. This was good. If they could find each other things might be even better. If wonders would never cease, his two hands managed to meet. After brief reintroductions to each other, the right one showed a nice sword handle it'd found to the left one and they decided to go in on it together and split the rent. The paperwork was a bit confusing so they decided to sort it all out later and just put in the application as a place to start. To Kyran's brain, that was enough to hold them to an implied legal responsibility and he decided to continue the process.
Normal time resumed (though for the rest of the world it never really stopped) and he swung straight down in a mighty fashion bringing what WOULD have been all of his weight down with it if his weight weren't already otherwise committed to other arrangements, which, at the moment, included falling rather decidedly to the left since the leg that was under a contractual agreement to support him seemed to be in breach of its obligations due to an unauthorized transaction with shadow Formerly-One. He'd have to address that one another time though. The blade, despite being ventured forth without any kind of backup or support, struck true; so well and true in fact that it decided to be continue venturing out on its own as a free agent. Kyran's hands, realizing that their application for residency had ultimately been denied, went their separate ways. In short order, Kyran was on his backing looking up at what he could only assume to be the sky, though it was hard to tell. His eyes weren't accustomed to looking through duplicates images of several solid masses of black inky darkness and there were coincidentally several such masses towering over him now.
A high-pitch whine filled the air. A shaft of even blacker darkness came seemingly from nowhere and whollopped one of his attackers in the head. It spun in a counter-rotary fashion to the rest of the world, tracing some patterns through the air the one could only DREAM of creating on a gyrosketch. Another dark thing went flying. The darky dark thing finally quit moving long enough for Kyran to make out what it was hovering protectively over him. Dammit. He recognized it and hated what it represented right now. It was a failed attempt at creating something truly marvelous in one of his past lives..a failed attempt resulting in the existence of something ELSE truly marvelous. More specifically for now, it meant that the damned elf was here to drag him out of danger by his ankles again. The light had faded too much for him to see anything other than the natural earthen darkness of the air around him, the darker voids in space that represented his would-be killers, and the even darker shaft of nothingness that was exactly what it seemed to be: a literal and impassable void in space conveniently shaped like a staff which happened to now inconveniently belong to an annoyingly perpetually annoyed elf.
Despite not being able to see her, he could feel her warmth as she moved through the air over and around him. He could hear numerous bone-crunching thuds as her staff made contact with the boneless apparitions. He felt already the dread of waking up next to a campfire with her blanket pulled over him and her grumbling down at him about inconveniencing her. Again. He closed his eyes as the commotion around him came to a stop and he felt his legs rise off the ground under the influence of some kind of tugging force which pulled him unceremoniously through the brush. He let the warmth of unconsciousness overtake him and silently prayed for death. It would just be so much easier than opening his eyes and seeing Laurelei.
It was time to move again. His joints screamed at him as he stood. With a grimace the hunter laughed at himself. He was starting to feel the way people had been describing him for at least a decade: beyond his years; must be time to slow down a bit. Shivering slightly as the breeze tickled through his wet clothes, he picked an arbitrary direction and continued into the woods. He wasn't sure where he was going any more but there was no use putting off his arrival. He felt eyes watching him through the leaves. The forest was silent. Even the smaller animals he happened across chose to stay put instead of chancing it in the open.
Without some kind of a clearing to move around in, Kyran knew he'd be limited to using his shortsword in the brush. He hated his shortsword; then again, he was always an over-achiever and a showoff. Boldly swinging one's shiny little blade in the sun just isn't very impressive no matter how red it turns the fields. Fortunately, it wouldn't matter much and he knew it. He was too tired, too hungry, and too complacent with the idea that he was going to die this time around.
A patch of darkness darted through the trees and shot for him. Kyran spun and dropped his left hand to his lower-back, pulling his blade. The small one he hated. Following through in his cliché but personal fashion, Kyran leaned back and let himself drop through his spin, lashing out with his over-glorified knife as his attacker flew atop him. Something shiny in the dying sunlight filtering through the mostly dead leaves connected rather solidly with something mostly dark in the increasing darkness. Exactly how solidly, Kyran couldn't tell. It's always hard to tell how hard you hit something with a sword that's uselessly small.
The hunter finished his turn, caught himself against the ground, and already in perfect position, took his own turn to take a lunge. He sprung from the ground, throwing his sword from his left hand to his right then striking forward with his left forearm, pinning the shadowy assailant against a tree. Using the rest of his momentum and weight, Kyran thrust his sword deep into its center of existence and pushed all the way through until he'd pinned it to the tree with his blade as well. With a jerk and a twist he yanked the large knife free and spun again in tune to the tingle of his senses. Both hands behind blade, he deflected a second patch of shadow that came seemingly from nowhere and sent it tumbling off to a side. Coming around the other way, he swung up from below to meet the third.
That was when he knew he'd been had. A fourth struck him squarely between the shoulders and the darkening forest exploded into light. Unfortunately, it was a blinding light that didn't seem to have much to do with illuminating his surroundings and left him feeling dizzy with a strong coppery smell in his sinuses. The second shadow sprung on him..or maybe it was the third. He couldn't tell anymore because the world wouldn't stop spinning so he could keep his bearings. A deep gash appeared on his left arm that would have probably appeared between a couple of ribs if the ground hadn't suddenly shifted and sent him lurching off to the right. Sparks flew as he instinctively slammed his blade against a few high-speed objects repeatedly moving towards him. Contrary to the bright flash of light which was now a spotty darkness behind his eyelids, these sparks actually revealed some of his surroundings. They were equally as useless to him though because by the time any new glimpses registered, he was already face to face with shadows number four and five with the what was left of shadow previously known as One clawing at him from below. Oh wait..it was just shadow number four in front of him. He was seeing two of them.
The world outside his consciousness became impossibly slow as a quick status check revealed to him that his arms were for some reason both above his shoulders. This was good. If they could find each other things might be even better. If wonders would never cease, his two hands managed to meet. After brief reintroductions to each other, the right one showed a nice sword handle it'd found to the left one and they decided to go in on it together and split the rent. The paperwork was a bit confusing so they decided to sort it all out later and just put in the application as a place to start. To Kyran's brain, that was enough to hold them to an implied legal responsibility and he decided to continue the process.
Normal time resumed (though for the rest of the world it never really stopped) and he swung straight down in a mighty fashion bringing what WOULD have been all of his weight down with it if his weight weren't already otherwise committed to other arrangements, which, at the moment, included falling rather decidedly to the left since the leg that was under a contractual agreement to support him seemed to be in breach of its obligations due to an unauthorized transaction with shadow Formerly-One. He'd have to address that one another time though. The blade, despite being ventured forth without any kind of backup or support, struck true; so well and true in fact that it decided to be continue venturing out on its own as a free agent. Kyran's hands, realizing that their application for residency had ultimately been denied, went their separate ways. In short order, Kyran was on his backing looking up at what he could only assume to be the sky, though it was hard to tell. His eyes weren't accustomed to looking through duplicates images of several solid masses of black inky darkness and there were coincidentally several such masses towering over him now.
A high-pitch whine filled the air. A shaft of even blacker darkness came seemingly from nowhere and whollopped one of his attackers in the head. It spun in a counter-rotary fashion to the rest of the world, tracing some patterns through the air the one could only DREAM of creating on a gyrosketch. Another dark thing went flying. The darky dark thing finally quit moving long enough for Kyran to make out what it was hovering protectively over him. Dammit. He recognized it and hated what it represented right now. It was a failed attempt at creating something truly marvelous in one of his past lives..a failed attempt resulting in the existence of something ELSE truly marvelous. More specifically for now, it meant that the damned elf was here to drag him out of danger by his ankles again. The light had faded too much for him to see anything other than the natural earthen darkness of the air around him, the darker voids in space that represented his would-be killers, and the even darker shaft of nothingness that was exactly what it seemed to be: a literal and impassable void in space conveniently shaped like a staff which happened to now inconveniently belong to an annoyingly perpetually annoyed elf.
Despite not being able to see her, he could feel her warmth as she moved through the air over and around him. He could hear numerous bone-crunching thuds as her staff made contact with the boneless apparitions. He felt already the dread of waking up next to a campfire with her blanket pulled over him and her grumbling down at him about inconveniencing her. Again. He closed his eyes as the commotion around him came to a stop and he felt his legs rise off the ground under the influence of some kind of tugging force which pulled him unceremoniously through the brush. He let the warmth of unconsciousness overtake him and silently prayed for death. It would just be so much easier than opening his eyes and seeing Laurelei.