07-19-2017, 12:38 PM
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Bellefair|Cinzel" rel="stylesheet"><style type="text/css">.Crevan1_container {position: relative;z-index: 1;width: 500px;padding: 15px;background: #fff; border: 0px solid #000;box-shadow: 0 0 1em #000;}.Crevan2_container {position: relative;z-index: 1;width: 540px; /*frame width*/padding: 15px;background: #fff url("https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/1d/6f/4d/1d6f4d55e55355a358d018d690218c41.jpg");border:0px solid #000;box-shadow: 0 0 3em #000;}.Crevan2_container p {margin: 0;}.Crevan2_image {border: 0px solid #000; /*image border size, style, and color*/}.Crevan2_message {text-align: justify;font: 12px 'Times New Roman', serif; padding: 15px 0; color: #5A8E87;border-top: 1px solid #000;border-bottom: 1px solid #000;}.Crevan2_name {text-align: center;font: 70px 'Cinzel', serif;color: #5A8E87;padding: 0;text-shadow: 0 0 1em #000;}.Crevan2_quote {text-align: center;font: 14px 'Bellefair', serif;color: #2CA9AD;padding: 0;}</style><center><div class="Crevan2_container"><div class="Crevan1_container"><img class="Crevan2_image" src="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/55/e7/43/55e743df0c173a0252c6fc359f995220.jpg"><p class="Crevan2_name">Crevan</p><p class="Crevan2_quote">We forget all the names that we used to know</p><p class="Crevan2_message">On the deathly still shore Crevan exhales and succumbs to the weight of victory. Everything seems to crush him, even going so far as to drag his drooping lids down over his glassy eyes until he’s wading through a personal darkness more devoid of life than this place he’d been thrust into. It was a much needed moment of reprise for the injured yearling, the rattling of his chest bringing with it an ebb and flow of dull pain. He felt … <i>satisfied</i>, something close to pride for the feat he’d accomplished - it had been a terrifying ordeal. So terrifying, in fact, that from behind his shuttered eyes he can still see the faint outlines of the writhing creature, still <i>feel</i> the palpating, rancid breath over his skin and the phantom remnants of claws trailing across his sides.
With a sudden jolt forward, the shifter opens his eyes and does his best to shake loose that feeling. The spinning of his thoughts slows, stops, and clears to reveal the likeness of undulating hills. His new vision detects patterns, soft mounds of grey that are only interrupted by jagged, thrusting silhouettes to the East. It looks different, but it’s Loess alright; the honey-brown colt has seen it once from the North, peering Southerly, and then often from the spot he’s standing in now. Taiga’s sister kingdom by blood alone. Had he been given the choice of where he was to journey next, this particular Kingdom might have been his last option.
<i>“Too exposed,”</i> He mutters reasonably, <i>“too damn exposed and too risky.”</i> The boy concludes. A wild cry pierces the silence, anguished and <i>much</i> too close for comfort. The sound forces both muted gold ears backwards on his head and cements the fact he’s not going back (though he would have strayed far from trying, anyways.) It was a struggle, keeping up with the pace of this ordeal, but Crevan is primordial in nature: he will learn or he will suffer, so the first step ahead comes easily enough. Whatever lay within and beyond this passage seemed almost imperative for him to reach and the boy is consumed by the longing to unveil it.
Through the first creeping fingers of low-grown pine needles Crevan is unhurried. He needed the rest, in whatever fashion it could be afforded, especially now that his superficial wounds had hardened into clumps of ragged fur and clotted flesh. There’s a silence transfixed that muffles each hoofstep, though often he finds himself glancing towards the shadows where he’s <i>sure</i> something has just scampered by. Around lazy bends and deeper into the wilderness this mantra continues: step after step, glance after glance until the first teeth of grey rock begin to jut up from the earth.
As the formations grow in size so does his instinct to flee. Crevan feels pressed by some unnamed anxiety, a trace of that beast within him that had saved his forest-dwelling ancestors in their time of great need. He doesn’t dream of glancing behind, <i>to look back is to be lost</i>, but all the while the pressure of an unseen enemy drives him on. He could <i>hear</i> the thing, is almost <i>certain</i> that the convoluting fae have reanimated the enemy only to torment him, and his ambling walk hastens to put distance between himself and those damn woods.
In fact, he’s at such a brisk pace that the first set of twinkling red eyes passes alongside him in a blur. The second set, however, cannot be missed. They scurry across his path and disappear into the shadows on the other side and Crevan knows the time for gentle passage is gone. He adopts a trot, squeezing a hushed whine from between his teeth at the soreness in his ribs but speed makes no difference; every few strides another pair of eyes is added to the mix and now and again, one or the other slimy creature darts into a hairsbreadth distance from his forefeet. From the rear he finds no comfort either - the Hydra is assuredly behind him, he can <i>hear</i> the clicking of sharp nails over rubble and that shuddering thud of a pounding heart.
A trap. They survey each other, the bloodied colt and the shapeless eyes steadily growing in number, one knowing that any step wrongly taken will excite a frenzy of activity while the other peers in hushed anticipation for that very misstep. His mind is too hazy with the terror of the Hydra gaining on him and with white eyes rolling in his head he stumbles - once, only once - but that’s all it takes for the black horde to come streaming over the bars of sediment, swelling like a pestilent flood that is sure to drown him.They had sensed his trepidation and now they sweep over him with the intention of feeding on it.
Adrenaline seizes him. The colt puffs his tender chest outward and breaths flame, a red-hot stream that pours itself out from his lungs and drenches the horde while he jerks back onto his haunches and circles with his forelegs. They’re not deterred, perhaps more invigorated by the idea that he’d felt the need to retaliate, and burning or not they launch themselves at him with grasping, strangely flesh-like claws. He’s never seen the likes of it, sizzling little creatures with whip-like snake tails for a bottom and pink flesh stretched over countable bones as a top. The fire eating away at them makes their shape perceptible to his heightened vision, and they are <i>dragging</i> themselves over the hard-packed earth with arms that extend from either side of their shoulders and rounded, melon-like heads with too-large eyes and wide mouths needled with teeth.
Too many to burn they seem to come from the very shadows themselves and though Crevan is stamping and blowing, they still manage to claw their way up his legs and onto his body. He leaps up and out in an arcing buck and comes down upon them with the satisfying crunch of bone. Hissing, screeching, they turn their full wrath upon him and without hesitation he scrambles forward into a labored gallop, some fiery Naga still clinging desperately to his mane and tail. The rest drive him on and down the confined path to a break in the scenery where above him, a hill stretches its back like a waking cat. It seems there’s nowhere else to run and with the encroaching promise of escape his demons lag as they try in vain to drag themselves through thick clumps of grass.
Upwards and onwards he struggles, losing speed and breaking the short-lived gallop down into a weak trot. Charred and lifeless, the few naga that remained clinging to him drop to the earth, black husks of scale and hairless skin. His mane, once thick and dyed navy, is now sparse and burnt much like his crop of a tail. Around his cannons and pasterns he can feel the nettling sting of tiny teeth marks, dotted with swelling, grey-colored buds of his lifesblood. Tired and breathless as he is, Crevan doesn’t stop until, shaking, he tops the rise and surveys a lifeless, black mouth of expansive water. A lake - deathly still and oily slick.
<i>“Perfect.”</i> He thinks.</p><p class="Crevan2_quote">Then our skin gets thicker, living out in the snow</p></div></center>
With a sudden jolt forward, the shifter opens his eyes and does his best to shake loose that feeling. The spinning of his thoughts slows, stops, and clears to reveal the likeness of undulating hills. His new vision detects patterns, soft mounds of grey that are only interrupted by jagged, thrusting silhouettes to the East. It looks different, but it’s Loess alright; the honey-brown colt has seen it once from the North, peering Southerly, and then often from the spot he’s standing in now. Taiga’s sister kingdom by blood alone. Had he been given the choice of where he was to journey next, this particular Kingdom might have been his last option.
<i>“Too exposed,”</i> He mutters reasonably, <i>“too damn exposed and too risky.”</i> The boy concludes. A wild cry pierces the silence, anguished and <i>much</i> too close for comfort. The sound forces both muted gold ears backwards on his head and cements the fact he’s not going back (though he would have strayed far from trying, anyways.) It was a struggle, keeping up with the pace of this ordeal, but Crevan is primordial in nature: he will learn or he will suffer, so the first step ahead comes easily enough. Whatever lay within and beyond this passage seemed almost imperative for him to reach and the boy is consumed by the longing to unveil it.
Through the first creeping fingers of low-grown pine needles Crevan is unhurried. He needed the rest, in whatever fashion it could be afforded, especially now that his superficial wounds had hardened into clumps of ragged fur and clotted flesh. There’s a silence transfixed that muffles each hoofstep, though often he finds himself glancing towards the shadows where he’s <i>sure</i> something has just scampered by. Around lazy bends and deeper into the wilderness this mantra continues: step after step, glance after glance until the first teeth of grey rock begin to jut up from the earth.
As the formations grow in size so does his instinct to flee. Crevan feels pressed by some unnamed anxiety, a trace of that beast within him that had saved his forest-dwelling ancestors in their time of great need. He doesn’t dream of glancing behind, <i>to look back is to be lost</i>, but all the while the pressure of an unseen enemy drives him on. He could <i>hear</i> the thing, is almost <i>certain</i> that the convoluting fae have reanimated the enemy only to torment him, and his ambling walk hastens to put distance between himself and those damn woods.
In fact, he’s at such a brisk pace that the first set of twinkling red eyes passes alongside him in a blur. The second set, however, cannot be missed. They scurry across his path and disappear into the shadows on the other side and Crevan knows the time for gentle passage is gone. He adopts a trot, squeezing a hushed whine from between his teeth at the soreness in his ribs but speed makes no difference; every few strides another pair of eyes is added to the mix and now and again, one or the other slimy creature darts into a hairsbreadth distance from his forefeet. From the rear he finds no comfort either - the Hydra is assuredly behind him, he can <i>hear</i> the clicking of sharp nails over rubble and that shuddering thud of a pounding heart.
A trap. They survey each other, the bloodied colt and the shapeless eyes steadily growing in number, one knowing that any step wrongly taken will excite a frenzy of activity while the other peers in hushed anticipation for that very misstep. His mind is too hazy with the terror of the Hydra gaining on him and with white eyes rolling in his head he stumbles - once, only once - but that’s all it takes for the black horde to come streaming over the bars of sediment, swelling like a pestilent flood that is sure to drown him.They had sensed his trepidation and now they sweep over him with the intention of feeding on it.
Adrenaline seizes him. The colt puffs his tender chest outward and breaths flame, a red-hot stream that pours itself out from his lungs and drenches the horde while he jerks back onto his haunches and circles with his forelegs. They’re not deterred, perhaps more invigorated by the idea that he’d felt the need to retaliate, and burning or not they launch themselves at him with grasping, strangely flesh-like claws. He’s never seen the likes of it, sizzling little creatures with whip-like snake tails for a bottom and pink flesh stretched over countable bones as a top. The fire eating away at them makes their shape perceptible to his heightened vision, and they are <i>dragging</i> themselves over the hard-packed earth with arms that extend from either side of their shoulders and rounded, melon-like heads with too-large eyes and wide mouths needled with teeth.
Too many to burn they seem to come from the very shadows themselves and though Crevan is stamping and blowing, they still manage to claw their way up his legs and onto his body. He leaps up and out in an arcing buck and comes down upon them with the satisfying crunch of bone. Hissing, screeching, they turn their full wrath upon him and without hesitation he scrambles forward into a labored gallop, some fiery Naga still clinging desperately to his mane and tail. The rest drive him on and down the confined path to a break in the scenery where above him, a hill stretches its back like a waking cat. It seems there’s nowhere else to run and with the encroaching promise of escape his demons lag as they try in vain to drag themselves through thick clumps of grass.
Upwards and onwards he struggles, losing speed and breaking the short-lived gallop down into a weak trot. Charred and lifeless, the few naga that remained clinging to him drop to the earth, black husks of scale and hairless skin. His mane, once thick and dyed navy, is now sparse and burnt much like his crop of a tail. Around his cannons and pasterns he can feel the nettling sting of tiny teeth marks, dotted with swelling, grey-colored buds of his lifesblood. Tired and breathless as he is, Crevan doesn’t stop until, shaking, he tops the rise and surveys a lifeless, black mouth of expansive water. A lake - deathly still and oily slick.
<i>“Perfect.”</i> He thinks.</p><p class="Crevan2_quote">Then our skin gets thicker, living out in the snow</p></div></center>