Malina Amberlight
Member
- Messages
- 1
- Character Biography
- Link
The sun dripped below the horizon, bleeding to twilight, painting a landscape of stark cliffs and jagged fingers of rock in vivid golds and crimsons. The light touched the shimmering scales of a snake, as it burrowed beneath the sand for the night.
It ran through dry, brown shrubs, stubbornly holding fast to craggy rocks. And it illuminated a winding path, trod smooth from the steps first of wild things, and then the steady footfalls of man, tramping their footprints in the dust, to the sprouting trees, and the gleaming of evening light, like a mirror, off the water of an oasis.
There was no permanent settlement here--sometimes, no one spent the night here at all. But a ramshackle wooden shelter provided a thin veneer of shade off the side of the cliff. A small caravan had gathered around the oasis, growing raucous in their moment of relief, burly men with scales on their arms laughing away the stress of a day spent in the desert, clapping each other on the shoulder.
Someone had broken out some absolutely vile alcohol, and the men of the caravan were making a show out of forcing themselves as drunk as they could manage, while the pack drakes watched disapprovingly from where they'd been lashed, licking up water.
An old fire pit had been nursed back to life by a hooded young woman, her face shrouded in shadow, her eyes gleaming in the dark, marking her as Thagretian born as all the others.
There's a steady thud of heavy footfalls. The men raised their glasses in celebration, eager to welcome more to the oasis--
--And then they fell silent mid call, welcome strangled in their throat. Stupefied.
It was another pack animal piled high with with supplies. Another traveler, with an escort. A three men with a sword at their side. A woman with a bow, unstrung, on her back. They escorted a kirin. A Thanassian breed.
The caravan keeper's eyes snapped from it, to the swordsmen. The Kirin's handlers spotted the scales. The woman's eyes...
They all stood there, a moment, dumbfounded. None of them were soldiers. None of them wanted a fight. It wasn't worth killing for. It wasn't worth dying for.
Still, hands drifted toward weapons. "Move along," the caravan master said, squinting suspiciously at the Thanassians. "Don't give trouble, and you won't get any."
"We're not in Thegretis, mutant." The Kirin handler puffed out his chest, emboldened by the beast at his side. And while they weren't far, it was true. But... "This place doesn't belong to you--"
"Yeah? Well, it's not yours either. And we were here first. So get out." Dark murmurs filled the air, on both sides. Hands rested on hilts. The red-eyed woman's gaze wandered from one group to the other. Her hands clasp together, and she runs a finger, gently, across a golden bracelet. No one wanted to be the first to draw steel. But bluster inspired bluster, and every word put everyone more on edge...
It ran through dry, brown shrubs, stubbornly holding fast to craggy rocks. And it illuminated a winding path, trod smooth from the steps first of wild things, and then the steady footfalls of man, tramping their footprints in the dust, to the sprouting trees, and the gleaming of evening light, like a mirror, off the water of an oasis.
There was no permanent settlement here--sometimes, no one spent the night here at all. But a ramshackle wooden shelter provided a thin veneer of shade off the side of the cliff. A small caravan had gathered around the oasis, growing raucous in their moment of relief, burly men with scales on their arms laughing away the stress of a day spent in the desert, clapping each other on the shoulder.
Someone had broken out some absolutely vile alcohol, and the men of the caravan were making a show out of forcing themselves as drunk as they could manage, while the pack drakes watched disapprovingly from where they'd been lashed, licking up water.
An old fire pit had been nursed back to life by a hooded young woman, her face shrouded in shadow, her eyes gleaming in the dark, marking her as Thagretian born as all the others.
There's a steady thud of heavy footfalls. The men raised their glasses in celebration, eager to welcome more to the oasis--
--And then they fell silent mid call, welcome strangled in their throat. Stupefied.
It was another pack animal piled high with with supplies. Another traveler, with an escort. A three men with a sword at their side. A woman with a bow, unstrung, on her back. They escorted a kirin. A Thanassian breed.
The caravan keeper's eyes snapped from it, to the swordsmen. The Kirin's handlers spotted the scales. The woman's eyes...
They all stood there, a moment, dumbfounded. None of them were soldiers. None of them wanted a fight. It wasn't worth killing for. It wasn't worth dying for.
Still, hands drifted toward weapons. "Move along," the caravan master said, squinting suspiciously at the Thanassians. "Don't give trouble, and you won't get any."
"We're not in Thegretis, mutant." The Kirin handler puffed out his chest, emboldened by the beast at his side. And while they weren't far, it was true. But... "This place doesn't belong to you--"
"Yeah? Well, it's not yours either. And we were here first. So get out." Dark murmurs filled the air, on both sides. Hands rested on hilts. The red-eyed woman's gaze wandered from one group to the other. Her hands clasp together, and she runs a finger, gently, across a golden bracelet. No one wanted to be the first to draw steel. But bluster inspired bluster, and every word put everyone more on edge...
