November 3rd, 2006
Roxborough State Park
11:50pm
"You're about to get your ass left behind, Ivan, and that's a fucking promise."
A pair of teenagers stood in the dark night, with only the swollen Gibbous moon above to cast light for them to see. The night was clear, mercifully, and the moon and stars were bright, cutting pale light across the landscape. But even that could only do so much, and without keen eyes and a sense of ease in the wilderness one would become hopelessly lost to be where these two were.
One scrawny teenager, looking younger than his years thanks to a late start at puberty, was sitting on the ground with his back against the base of a tall slab of red rock, hidden away in the pitch shadow that it created against the moonlight. The second teenager, his partner for the night, stood with her fists planted firmly on her hips and her feet perched between two rocks on what might have been a dried up pond bed at one point, but now was simply a gash in the grassy land filled up with rocks and pebbles and dry old sediment.
The boy, Ivan, appeared completely at ease. He didn't look like the sort that would survive the elements, for his limbs were skinny and his joints were knobby and he was careful not to break his glasses. Those very glasses were what he was focused on at this exact moment. He had a cloth in his hand, drawn from a hard case that was pulled from his pocket. This cloth, a slippery thing made of blue, was being used to meticulously clean the lenses of the glasses.
The teenaged Ahroun that accompanied him tonight was impatient. She kept walking ahead of him, circling back around to growl at him to go faster, grumbling that he would make them late, that they would lose the challenge, and that she would be scorned because she couldn't keep her Theurge at pace and it was her job as an Ahroun to Lead.
He sighed. He was tired of her. He put his glasses back on his face, but did not stand. Instead he looped his skinny arms around his knees and looked at her with a flat gaze to match his tone when he spoke.
"It's a threat."
She bristled, and he continued.
"You're not leaving me. You know you'd fail this challenge if you did."
"No, fucker, we're going to fail this challenge because you're taking your sweet ass time!" Lola was full of impotent Rage, bottled up from many moons and frustrations gone by that had not yet been able to be released with The Change. She was anxious for it, eager and itching. She wanted to reach out to the Moon, gather it to her breast, and use it to encourage her Change.
Then she could just pick up this scrawny little asshole and carry him the rest of the way.
They had gone about seven miles in the past two hours, and Lola felt like Ivan had stopped caring at the fourth mile. He slowed, he lingered, he took his time taking a piss and catching up to her. The sense of urgency kept swelling up in Lola's chest and anger would fall toward him like bile from her lips, but nothing would remedy it. The boy would not be bothered by the girl, and he wouldn't change his pace for much longer than five minutes to shut her up before slowing himself once more.
So, of course, they would hit a boiling point before this day bled into the next.
"Oh just shut up already," Ivan groaned and pushed his fingertips to his temples. "You keep going, but I'm camping here. I'm tired of hearing you bitch anyways."
Ivan tried to lay finality to his words by slouching back more comfortably against the rock and pulling the hood of his sweater up over his head. He was just pulling the drawstrings when he heard the quick crunch-crunch of rocks under boots. He knew Lola was approaching, quickly, and had just enough time to close his eyes, sigh in exasperation, and pull the drawstrings on his hood to try and close it up before she reached him.
Seeing this maneuver had Lola's temper flaring into a full inferno. She felt disrespected and frustrated, and the girl's patience was no lengthy thing to begin with. She leaned down and shoved her hand roughly into the boy's hood, then seized a fist-full of his shaggy black hair. Fingers wrapped into his hair, and he had barely enough time to shout his protest and grab onto her wrist before she took the shoulder of his sweater in her other hand and dragged-- literally, dragged the boy away from the rock wall.
"Fuck, you crazy bitch, let go!" Feet scrambled to get under him, and he bit into her arm with his fingernails to get her to yield. She said nothing to him, just marched into the night, continuing her trek northward. Her teeth were gritted together, bared to the air. With her jaw locked and her rage kicking around in her chest she didn't bother to form words. She was done with talk, and more than ready for action that she felt was a reasonable consequence for so stalwartly refusing to be helpful to their mission.
"Lola! Lola, let go!"
He tried to pry her fingers open while he marched along after her, head down. One hand was holding his glasses to his face now, as they'd almost fallen off a moment ago.
She would not relent, no matter how much he cried out or pulled or resisted. She was taller than he was, stronger too. His own sense of insult and bruised pride began to build, to push past his typical calm, and his pulling became more frantic.
"Stop it!"
"No," she finally growled out, but kept on going. The control felt good, and she didn't want to relinquish it.
"Sto-oop...!"
This time, Lola did stop. She stopped because the hand wrapped around her wrist was joined by a second, and those hands had begun to grow. The hair on his head grew shaggier, took on a different texture (but stayed that same pitch black), and his bent curled body grew and hunched more severely for her grasp on his hair, for the moment, kept him stooped.
Eyes widened some, but not by much, while Lola watched the boy change. It looked like a painful, difficult thing. It wasn't at all like seeing the Cliaths change. They tended to be smoother, faster about the transition. Ivan looked like he didn't know the order in which things went, for his face was still squashed like a human's but his mouth was trying to hold too many sharp teeth.
She let go, finally, and took a few steps back from the boy that would be Shadow Lord. Her arms were at her sides, fists balled up tight, chest out and chin high. Even in the dark he would see the whites of her eyes-- she wasn't sure if she was seeing a Frenzy or not, and knew that she would need to Change to handle him or otherwise face death.
Unfortunately, her skin did not prickle and her vision did not bleed red (what she'd been told the indicators were that you were going to Change) when Ivan reached forward quite suddenly, surged from his crouched and curled posture toward her.
Giant hands with impossibly long fingers, tipped with similarly long black claws, wrapped around her body and lifted her from the ground. She went up about four solid feet before she felt herself being shaken. Her head tossed around, threatened to strain or snap, then was pulled back forward and her nose was brought to touch the wet black tip of a young Crinos's muzzle.
He did not roar or bellow, though. He didn't open his jaws and chew her into pieces. Instead, with ice blue eyes that followed from his human form to his War one boring into her, he growled. The sound carried mutilated words, garbled out through teeth and a tongue that weren't made for language, pushed through black lips that curled far enough to show pink gums.
"Lisss-ten. To. Me."
With her arms pinned at her sides, her feet so far from the ground, and impossible strength wrapped around her body like a vice, Lola had no choice but to comply. She stared him in the eyes, though, refusing to cower for the skinny little asshole that wouldn't listen to her.
"We ccaahhhmp. Cahhmp here. Ohhh-kayyy?"
She didn't move. He shook her a little so that her head bobbed involuntarily.
"Gooooohhd."
And so, the pair would return to the shelter that the rock wall had provided. Ivan feeling empowered, keeping his War form, and Lola sullen but more compliant than before.
Roxborough State Park
11:50pm
"You're about to get your ass left behind, Ivan, and that's a fucking promise."
A pair of teenagers stood in the dark night, with only the swollen Gibbous moon above to cast light for them to see. The night was clear, mercifully, and the moon and stars were bright, cutting pale light across the landscape. But even that could only do so much, and without keen eyes and a sense of ease in the wilderness one would become hopelessly lost to be where these two were.
One scrawny teenager, looking younger than his years thanks to a late start at puberty, was sitting on the ground with his back against the base of a tall slab of red rock, hidden away in the pitch shadow that it created against the moonlight. The second teenager, his partner for the night, stood with her fists planted firmly on her hips and her feet perched between two rocks on what might have been a dried up pond bed at one point, but now was simply a gash in the grassy land filled up with rocks and pebbles and dry old sediment.
The boy, Ivan, appeared completely at ease. He didn't look like the sort that would survive the elements, for his limbs were skinny and his joints were knobby and he was careful not to break his glasses. Those very glasses were what he was focused on at this exact moment. He had a cloth in his hand, drawn from a hard case that was pulled from his pocket. This cloth, a slippery thing made of blue, was being used to meticulously clean the lenses of the glasses.
The teenaged Ahroun that accompanied him tonight was impatient. She kept walking ahead of him, circling back around to growl at him to go faster, grumbling that he would make them late, that they would lose the challenge, and that she would be scorned because she couldn't keep her Theurge at pace and it was her job as an Ahroun to Lead.
He sighed. He was tired of her. He put his glasses back on his face, but did not stand. Instead he looped his skinny arms around his knees and looked at her with a flat gaze to match his tone when he spoke.
"It's a threat."
She bristled, and he continued.
"You're not leaving me. You know you'd fail this challenge if you did."
"No, fucker, we're going to fail this challenge because you're taking your sweet ass time!" Lola was full of impotent Rage, bottled up from many moons and frustrations gone by that had not yet been able to be released with The Change. She was anxious for it, eager and itching. She wanted to reach out to the Moon, gather it to her breast, and use it to encourage her Change.
Then she could just pick up this scrawny little asshole and carry him the rest of the way.
They had gone about seven miles in the past two hours, and Lola felt like Ivan had stopped caring at the fourth mile. He slowed, he lingered, he took his time taking a piss and catching up to her. The sense of urgency kept swelling up in Lola's chest and anger would fall toward him like bile from her lips, but nothing would remedy it. The boy would not be bothered by the girl, and he wouldn't change his pace for much longer than five minutes to shut her up before slowing himself once more.
So, of course, they would hit a boiling point before this day bled into the next.
"Oh just shut up already," Ivan groaned and pushed his fingertips to his temples. "You keep going, but I'm camping here. I'm tired of hearing you bitch anyways."
Ivan tried to lay finality to his words by slouching back more comfortably against the rock and pulling the hood of his sweater up over his head. He was just pulling the drawstrings when he heard the quick crunch-crunch of rocks under boots. He knew Lola was approaching, quickly, and had just enough time to close his eyes, sigh in exasperation, and pull the drawstrings on his hood to try and close it up before she reached him.
Seeing this maneuver had Lola's temper flaring into a full inferno. She felt disrespected and frustrated, and the girl's patience was no lengthy thing to begin with. She leaned down and shoved her hand roughly into the boy's hood, then seized a fist-full of his shaggy black hair. Fingers wrapped into his hair, and he had barely enough time to shout his protest and grab onto her wrist before she took the shoulder of his sweater in her other hand and dragged-- literally, dragged the boy away from the rock wall.
"Fuck, you crazy bitch, let go!" Feet scrambled to get under him, and he bit into her arm with his fingernails to get her to yield. She said nothing to him, just marched into the night, continuing her trek northward. Her teeth were gritted together, bared to the air. With her jaw locked and her rage kicking around in her chest she didn't bother to form words. She was done with talk, and more than ready for action that she felt was a reasonable consequence for so stalwartly refusing to be helpful to their mission.
"Lola! Lola, let go!"
He tried to pry her fingers open while he marched along after her, head down. One hand was holding his glasses to his face now, as they'd almost fallen off a moment ago.
She would not relent, no matter how much he cried out or pulled or resisted. She was taller than he was, stronger too. His own sense of insult and bruised pride began to build, to push past his typical calm, and his pulling became more frantic.
"Stop it!"
"No," she finally growled out, but kept on going. The control felt good, and she didn't want to relinquish it.
"Sto-oop...!"
This time, Lola did stop. She stopped because the hand wrapped around her wrist was joined by a second, and those hands had begun to grow. The hair on his head grew shaggier, took on a different texture (but stayed that same pitch black), and his bent curled body grew and hunched more severely for her grasp on his hair, for the moment, kept him stooped.
Eyes widened some, but not by much, while Lola watched the boy change. It looked like a painful, difficult thing. It wasn't at all like seeing the Cliaths change. They tended to be smoother, faster about the transition. Ivan looked like he didn't know the order in which things went, for his face was still squashed like a human's but his mouth was trying to hold too many sharp teeth.
She let go, finally, and took a few steps back from the boy that would be Shadow Lord. Her arms were at her sides, fists balled up tight, chest out and chin high. Even in the dark he would see the whites of her eyes-- she wasn't sure if she was seeing a Frenzy or not, and knew that she would need to Change to handle him or otherwise face death.
Unfortunately, her skin did not prickle and her vision did not bleed red (what she'd been told the indicators were that you were going to Change) when Ivan reached forward quite suddenly, surged from his crouched and curled posture toward her.
Giant hands with impossibly long fingers, tipped with similarly long black claws, wrapped around her body and lifted her from the ground. She went up about four solid feet before she felt herself being shaken. Her head tossed around, threatened to strain or snap, then was pulled back forward and her nose was brought to touch the wet black tip of a young Crinos's muzzle.
He did not roar or bellow, though. He didn't open his jaws and chew her into pieces. Instead, with ice blue eyes that followed from his human form to his War one boring into her, he growled. The sound carried mutilated words, garbled out through teeth and a tongue that weren't made for language, pushed through black lips that curled far enough to show pink gums.
"Lisss-ten. To. Me."
With her arms pinned at her sides, her feet so far from the ground, and impossible strength wrapped around her body like a vice, Lola had no choice but to comply. She stared him in the eyes, though, refusing to cower for the skinny little asshole that wouldn't listen to her.
"We ccaahhhmp. Cahhmp here. Ohhh-kayyy?"
She didn't move. He shook her a little so that her head bobbed involuntarily.
"Gooooohhd."
And so, the pair would return to the shelter that the rock wall had provided. Ivan feeling empowered, keeping his War form, and Lola sullen but more compliant than before.