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User:Pocsock/Story of a Weredragon/The human

2008-06-03T02:19:02Z

Pocsock: Adding new categories

{{title|name=Story Of A Weredragon: The Human|author=Pocsock|user=Pocsock}}

{{Side note|Although there still might be a few minor corrections, this part is officially finished. New content starts from green text.}}

{{Separator|d|'''The First Full Moon'''}}

{{dropcap|I}}t was the beginning of a long journey to the little girl that had drafted outside of his house and wandered into the very hearts of the woods. Panic had begun to consume her the moment she realized that the trail had long disappeared, replaced with uneaven and soft ground that craked now and then with some stray branch or leaf, and that the voice of her father had already been replaced with the terrorizing sounds of creeping creatures and hungry predators. As the realization of the perilous situation began to really sink into the poor child's mind and imagination, making every shadow casted a demon and every sound heard a possible hungry beast, fear began to take control of her actions and made her run with all her might deeper into the unknown, effectively cutting her from the rest of the world.

There, where the ground opened up to the sky and the mattress of grass was disturbed with the ocaccional boulder or small hill, was when her strength finally reached its end and her limbs collapsed into a tired ball near the center. For a very long time the only sound that was heard was a very loud crying, then the one of sobbing, and then there was silence until the first crickets began to play their song.

When the little one finally returned from the world of dreams she was received with a cover of darkness. At first she thought her eyes were closed, until the first set of amber spheres appeared on the horizon, followed by many others until she was surrounded by them. The alpha male, seeing the oportunity to catch an easy meal, was the first one to launch forward and was soon followed by the rest of the pack.

Just at that moment, the little girl screamed her lungs out, but instead of the ordinary high-pitched sound she had expected to hear, a roar came out of her throat, shaking the earth itself for far more time that should have even been possible. After that silence ruled over the clearing, followed shortly after by the busy movements of the retreating wolves. The little one didn't have much time to react to what had happened as a souring pain coursed through her body.

It started with her eyes, that went blind the moment she closed them, and spread through her head, neck, torso, arms, legs and ended in the very tip of her toes. It was as if her very skin was digging daggers into her muscles and her bones. She rolled over and hit the boulders many times, punching the skin and releasing the scales uderneath it. She trashed all over the place, making it easier for bones to reshape and flesh to realign for their new purposes. She had to hold onto the side of a low hill to steady herself as spines, claws, fangs, wings and tail made their way through. She finally collapsed on the ground when everything was over, panting softly from her new muzzle.

Her eyes finally found the energy to open up... and the world invaded her. Everything was sharp and focused, from the tanters of clothes she tore apart some meters away to the family of birds that was quietly resting on a branch in a tree half a mile away. The colors seemed to glow from things and she even found out some ones that hadn't existed before. At the end she managed to stand up, fix her gaze on the solid round moon that had just been revealed upon the world and roar at it until her lungs could take it no more and her long neck could go no further into the night sky.

That was the first time that Lizzette transformed into a dragon.

----

{{Separator|d|'''The Second Full Moon'''}}

The day came sooner than usual for our little child. The soft bed and warm coverings kept the little one at bay in the dreams realm, where she dreamt of rocky landscapes with mountains so high that could have touched the very stars at night. It was the morning sun that finally made her eyes open.

She normally woke up before the rooster gave his morning call, and even before the first sun rays invaded the sky, so she could help her father with the chores of the farm. Knowing this, it was unsurprising that the first thing she did was to send every cover flying to the other side of the room and to put on her working clothes as soon as possible.

When she got out her father had already fed all the animals and was about to go see how the field was coming out. The first thing she did was to go apologize with him for having dozed off all morning, again. Being still a youthful, she had a propency to have bad dreams take the better of her, making her stay alert all night and recovering the missing sleep hours later at day. Her father understood and sent her to wash some clothes on the nearby river that helped feed the farm. She immediately went to the house, grabbed all the things she needed and headed to the North road.

He watched her go, and was grateful that she thought of last night of only a dream in that little head of hers, and even more grateful that, somehow, she had been able to find her way back to the edge of the woods that surrounded the little farm.
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Time passed as it usually does, and before anyone knew it thirty days and twenty nine nights had already gone by in the blur of monotony and hard work. The sun had hidden in the horizon long ago and the only audible sound so far was the crickets and other insects singing in a chorus just in the border of the tree line. That, however, was cut off shortly with the sharp edge of a whinny.

Lizzete thought, not for the first time, that work at the farm was endless. Even at night some of the animals get startled by something, usually a rabbit or a fox from the nearby woods. Our little one is used to this kind of nightly errands, as her father sometimes goes into town to attend some important matters and she's in charge until he returns the next day. Despite the blinding darkness, she moved as swiftly as she would have in daylight and was soon in front of the mare's stall.

The old horse poked her head out and received the little one with some friendly poking of her very dextrous and strong lips. She, in return, smuggled her a carrot which she immediately accepted and petted her on those spots in her long muzzle that she liked the best. The animal had always been skinny to the point of poking her ribs out and had never really been much of a help in the farm anyways, even in her youth days. What had saved her so far had been the girl's love, that made it impossible for her father to get rid of her.

At one point the little cotton hands stopped rubbing and the horse opened her eyes to see what the problem was. Looking back at the steam of pure white light that was coming from one of the largest holes that adorned the roof, she could see her small human falling around on the ground. Being confused at first, she tried to poke even more of herself out to try and see what was going on, but confusion quickly became panic in the blink of an eye when she noted that something was wrong, and the whinnies started again even louder.

There, on the ground, our little child was going through a process that she thought had only existed in her dreams, only sligthly different than the previous time. The scales were growing out of her skin much like thick hairs instead of ripping it to shreds and leaving it on the ground. The bones shifted and accomodated with ease and swiftness, the movements of the new limbs easily coming to mind as it happened. Tail, muzzle and wings sprouted from their confinement and stretched. The horns, claws and fangs grew out, disscarding quickly the old hair, nails and theeth. In a lot less time than the previous occassion, and without all the previous pain, the transition from one body to the other was complete and the little one saw the world again from behind slitted eyes.

Not having as good vision as a human, or a dragon for that matter, a horse has to relay more on other senses to see the world around them, especially the hearing and the smell. So when the animal in the stall didn't hear any screams or any other threathening noise and didn't catch any hint of a predator or other danger in the air, she stopped her own panic and began to aknowledge the girl in front of her. Her eyes told her something huge and threathening was laying there, but her other senses said it was her girl, confused and afraid, so she did what she always does in this kind of situations. Going to the front of the stall once again, she poke her head through the top of the wooden fence and began to tug her face with her very leathery and strong lips, feeling a strange cold and hard sensation on her skin.

Lizzette, for her part, had been startled at first. A rush of ideas and feelings came through her head. Confusion at why she was now scaley all over. Fear of what her father and the town folk would think if they saw her in this deary state. Panic at the prospect of being stuck in that form forever. Anger at having ripped her clothes apart to shreds, yet again. All of them spinning in her head and effectively making a draconic statue of her, until the soft nips came. Slowly, but effectively, the mare's touch began to relax the solid muscles until movility returned, and to melt away the ideas into a constant and stable flow until her head was a great deal clearer. Reason and calmness finally returned to the young, and a claw reached up and carefully continued the job where it had left it. After a while it was over, so the animal gave her a good night's kiss in the only matter horses can, with yet another nip in the tip of the muzzle just below the little horn, and retreted to the back of the only used stall to doze off.

It had been just what the little one needed. Someone who told her that it was ok, that nothing had happened. She was still Lizzette, the humble kid of a farmer, only in a different form. She wondered if this was what her father had said about great changes in her future earlier today as she yawned and began to make herself comfortable. After all, she had been awoken in the middle of the night.

----

{{Separator|d|'''The Third Full Moon'''}}

Unlike the last time, the events of the other night came to the mind of Lizzette easily. It was in part thanks to the fact it was her second time around and, thus, she had a little bit more conciousness of her unique situation, and in part thanks to the cold breeze of the morning air. Before the farmer could get his first boot on she had already gone to put something to cover herself and was beginning her daily work. The torn fabrics and other indications of last night's events were never seen again among the hay and other wastes.
{{Separator|d}}
That night, the kid decided to face her father and find out if her suspicions of the mysterious future planned for her were correct. But the time wasn't right, it seemed, as the farmer had lost track of the intruder that ate the eggs today and was in a pretty grim mood about it. So she decided it would be best to wait until he cooled down again the next day.

The sun hid and rose again, and the time came again when the little one and the older one were face to face enjoying some of the rather short-sized meal. She was about to burst free and attack him with all her questions and doubts that had invaded her mind, but something was amiss. He hadn't opened his mouth all day except to give her instructions and eat, so something must still be bothering his soul to keep him so serious and quiet. The girl decided it was best to let him be for the moment and let him arrange everything, as he usually did, by himself.

As the morning started she was received by a rather joyful hug and peaks in the cheek every now and then. Apparently her father had managed to outsmart the grey menace and show him who 'the real hunter was around here' acording to his very own words. Noting his glee and pride at having saved everyone in the modest farm once again, the young one didn't want to disturb him with her childish problems. In fact, she reflected, she might even end up disturbing him, like that one time she had cut herself on a pointy rock near the water and had ran crying to him. She still reserved that red face full of anger, with his veins poking out and eyes about to fall out of their place, for her nightmares. It didn't matter if it had just been for one second, nor that he had appologized later on, it still stung her small heart and brought sour tears out to think about it, and so she decided to wait and see if tomorrow was a good day to tell him.

But tomorrow wasn't a good day either, so she waited for the next day.

And the next.

And the one after that.

Until she realized that the time for answers would come when her father decided to give them to her.
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The weeks passed. The moon had been hidding her beautiful face until it had been completely dark one night, and was now just pulling herself together, as our little one thought the round one did when passing her stages, until it was the time. Tonight was it, the night were the moon gave her full light to the world until her brother came at day.

Even when she had been prepared, working with renown effort at day so she could go early to bed and wouldn't doze off when the time came. Even when she would be close to the house in a nearby opening that she often visited. Even when her father had gone to those sleeps were he reaked of the awful stuff that she should never touch and couldn't be awaken until well beyond the next day. She still was nervous, not scared however as that had faded away the last time, and a little too anxious.

The shinning one couldn't be seen in the sky anymore, which meant that his sister would come any minute now that the sky was empty and darkness was consuming it. She carefully disrobed, putting what scarce belongings she had on the base of a nearby tree. Making herself as comfortable as anyone could on the cold roughness of the bare ground, she let her body relax and absorb the stars' light, closing her eyelids and covering her beautiful blue orbs. The next second, she opened them, and the world had changed.

Curiosity overwhelmed her. She pull her hands up and saw claws instead, heavy blue claws floating on a sea of lighter scales. She turned her long and flexible neck back and found spikes, a river of sapphire spikes that ran from the shrine of her head, through the smooth surface of pebbles and on to the end of the tail. Moving around she found how natural it felt to move on ground an all fours like a wild beast, the thin but amazingly strong and semi-translucent wings balancing and keeping stability by moving side to side, and the long and thick tail trailing behind. She reached the small mirror on the ground that some would have called a pond and peeked at her reflection. Her head had changed noticeably, a muzzle had attached itself, lenghting her head and fusing her nose so that now only two slits at the tip of it remained, and gained most of the face; a set of small fins much like her wings adorned the sides of the form; two rows of very strong and sharp fangs infested her mouth and a pair of horns had made their way through the back of her head. Even with all the draconic features it was unmistkeable who the creature was, her eyes, although slitted, hadn't lost the expressiveness that divides persons from animals and hadn't lost the sky hue that kept the old ladies at town wondering if she was a witch.

It didn't matter she wasn't human anymore, her soul was still one of a child and, as such, she could stay fixed on her reflection fooling with her face all night. She smiled, a sight that would have scared away anything that had at least a little sense, but she just giggled at how it just seemed out of place in such a predator. She then moved her ears, a feat that was impossible to her before but now was as easy as if they were just another pair of fingers attached to the sides of her head, and she discovered how to control her hearing so that the fall of a leaf could pierce her like a thunder, even if it had been far away, and how to silence the world at will. The not-so-little-anymore child next sticked her biforked toungue out and moved it in the air a little like snakes tended to do, and, mimicking a snake, she slid it back in and proved with the separated bits of flesh around her mouth for a while. It would have continued like that, doing faces and wasting time, if it hadn't been for a little green friend that jumped just at that moment and interrupted the busy reptile.

It saw her. She saw it. It began to hop out of the pond as soon as it aknowledged its mistake and she followed in persuit a very short time later. As for the outcome, lets just say that catching frogs wasn't a challenge for the little weredragon anymore.

The night followed its course and, among the running, the games and the failed attempts to fly and breath fire, it ended much sooner than our little one had expected, like all good things tended to do in life. As soon as the first sun ray peaked from the mountains she bagan to shrink. Her horns and head spines thined and began to turn to the brown tone she was used to, her claws retreated and flattened until just her normal dirty nails remained, her tail and wings disappeared to whatever place they go when she's human, her skin absorbed all the scales back, and as the face, neck, legs and arms returned to what she was used to, normality ruled over the woods once again. She picked up her things where she had lefte them and went to catch on some sleep before her father would wake up, which wouldn't happen for still some time.

----

{{Separator|d|'''The Tenth Full Moon'''}}

She had been extremely careful and lucky in her nightly errands so far. For the last five months she had gone through her metamorphosis, as one of them had been cloudy all night and the other one had been a moonless dark time, she had been sneaking out of the house either when his father was sleeping like a rock or when he was out minding his own business in town and didn't come back until the next day. But like many other things in her life, this wasn't something that was meant to hold up for much.

You didn't have to be a grown up to know when something's wrong. The animals, even the wild ones, had stayed silent all day long. The flowers and colors seemed to be out of place among the featureless gray. Even the sun had decided to stay off from the little mountain town, stepping away to make room to the colossal clouds and the collosal shadow they casted. All her father would tell her was to come along to the town square with him. He didn't even had to tell her to stay quiet as she already noted that no one needed words to talk, their faces told everything she needed to know and even more.

Her father went to meet with the other townsfolk, every single one of them with the heavy marks of age and work buried on their faces along with deep concern and fear of what the call had been for. The younger ones, however, had been put aside and were lead to a group of trees wide enough to cover everyone, not that it really made any difference at all.

“Come here children,” one of the elders say “come here and hear what I have to say”

Calling him an elder was mere formality of course. He still had the force to pin down a bull to the ground and his mind was easily as sharp as the horns of the poor beast. The only visible sign of age that could make it easy to track down in a crowd were his whites that made his hair a soft grey.

The children gathered around him and when every single one of the sons of the twenty families had arrived he began with a dry and heavy voice to pass down part of his wisdom.

“I know many of you are aware of the dangers that lay ahead of the tree line. The vastness of plants, the uncertain terrain and the nightmares and monsters that hunts those grounds is enough to make even the most brave men doubt before setting foot in it. Normally it's fine to wander in for a short distance to collect wood, as long as you keep to the paths. This, however, will no longer be possible as a new creature has arrived and made its lair there.”

This caught Lizzette by surprise, and her heart began to pund harder.

“Its strenght as powerful as twenty of the best knights of the king.”

She began to take in deep harsh breaths.

“Its armor so strong that not even a sword can break through it.”

She started to walk backwards, to retreat.

“Its wicked form can move faster than you can blink and can fuse with the shadows to make it invisible.”

She hit some of the others, who didn't seemed to mind as they were too deep in the words of the old one to even notice her.

“It can take down entire villages and towns from above, releasing its mortal breath and making fire rain from the skies.”

She came at last to the outside of the circle, her eyes never leaving the black eyes of his elder. He then looked at her directly on the face.

“This, my children, is a dragon.”

Just when the last word was spoken, her knees got weaker and her balance failed.

{{Separator|d}}

The town was on the very limits of one of the many kindoms that plaged the world at the time, and as such it was cut off from the rest of the world. That's why a group of the bravest men had been picked up to send news to whatever authority was in charge of taking down the dragon that hunted the poor population.

Lizzette woke up some moments after the party had long left for the west. She had been carried all the way and put in her bed by the herbolary's orders. Everyone thought she had been so scared of the story that she backed away slowly and tripped, hitting her head and becoming unconcious instantly. Of course, with such limited knowledge in the ways of medicine, except for some old plant remedies, they didn't notice that she had actually fainted.

With her head still spinning and her toughts all mixed in confusion, our little one took some time to aknowledge what had happened, when memory came back to her she began to understand more deeply the problem she was now facing. Before she could do anything more, however, something more important took her attention at that moment.

Light slowly began to filter through the spaces between the wood of the roof. The girl, being very agile and quick, climbed one of the walls like a little squirell and took a better look through one of the holes. She could see the big white eye of the sky slowly coming out of her blankets of the clouds. She immediately let go, landing rather painfully, and ger breaths began to increase. With a little effort she could stand up, with some parts hurt from the fall, and began to set her bed, so that her father woulsn't know of her monthly trips to the woods, with haste.

When it was already filled with enough hay, she turned towards the door, when a pain gripped at her stomach. 'Not here,' she thought 'not now', but it was already too late.

Knowing of the inevitable, the only thing Lizzette could do was to take all her garments off, which she did and just in time. For the first time she wanted to stop it. She gripped her what she could of her arms in an attempt to hold the little daggers in place, but was unsuccessful as they pierces trhough skin. She tried to tense her muscles so that her bones could stay in place, only to find it came as an unberable pain. She curled up on the floor, more in panic and exahustion than to prevent the changes, and her soft body began to lose all her innocence and pasiveness to become sharp and dangerous.

For the rest of the world it took only the blink of an eye, but for the dragon laying on her room it had been some of the worst minutes, if not hours, of her life. But, if it wasn't enough already, she was cramped in confines of her own dormitory by her enormous size. She tried to see if she could squeeze trough the door without damaging it too badly but to no avail. She was stuck and could hardly move without bumping into anything.

“Who's there?” a very familiar voice announced from the other side of the wooden frame. Lizzette froze in place, just now realizing how much noise she had been doing. The next thing she heard before covering her eyes was the knocking on her door.

When no one answered he began to worry about thiefs and kidnappers, despite already knowing that there was no business for those kind of people in this particular house. This made him wonder later on if the extravagant imagination of her sweet little one had been hereditary, among other things, but for now he just tightened his grip on the hoe he had fetched from the tools stand, which was conviniantely located near the entrance so as to protect them from the spring rains. He almost ripped the thing from its hinges, more from the poor door's decaying quality than from his kick, and then looked inside.

In his rush the old man had forgotten to bring a candle and was now regreting his stupidity as the bedroom was one of the darkest holes of the house. The only source of light was coming from the moonrays that casted some serpents of white that were spreaded around, except in the corner but the farmer didn't note this. At the first sound of the dry soil moving under him with the first step something crawled on his right. Turning quickly, with weapon raised high over his head and ready to attack, he just saw a bed. He let the air out of the breath his was holding and droped his stance, this was when that particular thought about excesive imagination popped in. There was her little daughter, exploring other worlds, while he was wasting his time doubting her safety. He decided to leave her alone and made a long line on the ground while dragging his hoe behind him.

If he had stayed a while more he would have probably seen a tail crawling and trying to hide under the blankets, followed a moment after by the rest of the body, this time in a silent way. All her inicial doubts began to come back to the surface, questions she had thought solved began to tease her head again like if her father knew of her. The more she thought back to all those times she tried to confess to him her secret the more she doubted he had any clue at all. As if on cue she heard the sound of metal dropping on the table, no doubt one of those special talismans that were sold at the local shop to protect from any animal attack, not that they worked but the fact her father had bought one and had had it clinged to him told her about his fear to the dragon out there. The same dragon he had as a daugther and was now starting to cry until her yellow eyes dried out. With sorrow in her heart she fell to sleep with her head resting on the naked bed, the rest of her body circling the room and with only her wings scarcely covered with the wool fabric.
{{Separator|d}}
As the sky cleared the next day so did Lizzette's mind. She now had a somewhat solid idea of the danger she was facing. She would have to go very far away on full moon nights, make sure no one sees her or follows her, and find a way to cure the curse. She still had no idea how she would do the latter or what kind of excuse she could tell her father in case he gets suspicious, but she still had some time before the next transition. As she began to stretch and yawn something hit the wall behind her. Turning around, she saw an extra appendage that shouldn't had been there stick out of her black covers, waving a ''good morning'' at her.

----

{{Separator|d|'''The Eleventh Full Moon'''}}

She stared in disbelief at the tail that extended a meter behind her, the soft pink skin merging with the smooth sky scales right at the base of her spine. It wasn't as long as in her other form, and instead of spikes emerging from the top of it, like the mountains did over the earth around the little town, it only had tuffs of short hairs running through it, a mere reflection of their original form. It twitched at her command as if it had been glued to her for a lifetime, and it even seemed to be able to tell her emotions as it was now trying to hide between her two legs, as would have done our little one if she could.

The one thought that was running through her mind was that this could not be happenning, that she should have returned to be a little child. Entranced by this idea, her heart almost jumped out of her chest when the front door opened to the morning with a loud noise and the farmer began his daily chores in the fresh air. This knocked Lizzette back to reality with a start and made her act quickly. Before her feet layed the still intact, although dirty, clothes from the night behind her.

She immediately saw an obvious problem even before trying them on, as such thing had been designed for a body that only had five protusions coming from it. Then the little snake attached to her, as if seeing her distress and trying to help, warped itself around her right leg, thight enough to make it pass unseen under the dress that had to cover her ankles but loose enough as to not make her trip while walking or moving at a quick pace. Once everything was back on she took a look at herself as best as she could, and although there was a slight bump on her rear it wasn't something too noticeable, at least not for her father. The man didn't even notice any difference when she passed by his gaze with a small bag of carrots hidden in her belly to take to the old mare, surely he wouldn't see anything different in her perfect small angel, and he didn't.
{{Separator|d}}
She had a whole week to train herself mentally and practically in the arts of hidding her little new friend and now was the time to test them in her first errand to the shop. She had seen how the town's folk reacted to lizards, or witches' eyes and ears as they often called them, and had an alarming idea of what they might think of if they discovered her newest development. So she took all the precautions she could, warping the hard and overdeveloped worm thightly with a piecce of rope as to making it even less noticeable and adding an extra belt of animal hide, borrowed from her father, to her hip in an attempt to flatten the inevitable stub that formed on her back. She succeded, but the tightness was uncomfortable and her new muscles were beginning to get numb from the pressure. The little one couldn't bear to walk or even stand with all that on for long, and sitting or running were strictly out of bounds, so she decided not to put it until it was absolutely necesary.

Behind one of the last couple of trees that stood between the farm and the first set of houses was where she decided to do it. Looking back, she felt sad for the poor thing.

It was comforting and warm to the touch, and it even felt to her like her best friend that she could talk to whenever she wanted or needed it, could hug it and play with it. The truth was, that little inanimated piece of flesh and metalic components was her best friend and confesor, even though it was just another part of her and even though it had no real feeling or sentience by itself. It was the child's imagination that gave it life, at least to her eyes, a very characteristic deed only treasures with her little amount of experience could make possible.

But still, she had to do it. Fighting back the urge to just get away from there, she forced the limb to warp around her leg companion and began spiraling the dead plant's fibers around again and again and at last pulled with what little strength she could muster. After that she covered everything in her barely white dress, as the dirt always seemed to like attaching itself there, and began circling the dead animal's dried skins over her. Barely able to breathe was how she entered the only civilization she knew of.

At the streets people didn't bother with a second glance, all they would see was the farmer's girl in her own business and then they continued with whatever they were doing. Even at the shop there was only a comment of how she shouldn't be using her father's garments, but that was all. The keeper wouldn't even remember to tell her father of that, and so the whole trip went without any memorable mark on the people's memory.

Again when she was far enough, she undid all the restrains, and even cut the rope in her desesperation to get her friend free. It was sorrow and bruised, a dark mark engulfing it like a vine would a tree before choking it to death. A little more time and she though it would have to be cut out, just like a decaying apendage in the stories of the few men that had gone to war. She suddenly realised just how important the little thing had become for her when the inanimated isles of stone and the desert of cheek flesh were divided by a river of tears.
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When the moment finally came she was ready for it. Her mind hadn't been able to think of a good excuse that an old and wise man like her father would believe, so instead she decided to risk escaping again, not without leaving her normal decoy behind of course. The little one went in the still dusk to stray far deep below the dense cover of leaves, where no one would find her, even at the risk of getting lost. Just when the world was devoured by darkness again she was finishing to put all her human things in a small grotto at the base of the local mountains, the places that girls like her weren't supposed to be in at any given time according to the elders.

She didn't have to see it to know it was there. Unlike the other times the energy from the big round moon appeared to pass through blocked skies, layers of foliage and walls of stone to endow her of enough power to perform her change. It started with her tail, spreading the radiant blue all over her bare skin and leaving no patch uncovered. Then it moved to her bones and muscles, molding them like a strong fire would shape glass, and made them take a very different form from the fragile one she now had. Her mouth grew with impressive fangs that left no hole in the perfect row. Spikes, horns and fins surged to take their right places. Among all the rips and growing protusions a pair of strong yet very thin wings erupted and the once bruised and useless tail began to take more space, more muscle grew and fortified the the thickening bone until it was soon one of the most powerful tools this secluded land had ever lay its eyes upon.

She had planned to use this little cave, or any other hole available for that matter, to pass the night away from everything and everyone that she might hurt. After all, she blamed herself for all the missing cattle and the burned building, even though she didn't really remembered having done any of that.

The more time she thought about her curse and of how unpredictable it was, the more she actually believed it was her the source of all the problems that prompted in town. If she hadn't been able to change back completely the last time, what prevented her from going amok when she was a dragon and destroying everything? The fact that she couldn't remember what had happened in her first full moon only serving to back up her wild theories.

Right at that moment, the idea of passing the rest of her days in a tunnel as a hermit didn't sound bad at all, it was even appealing. Being so far away into the wilderness and at the base of a mountain would assure her that no one would bother come close and that there could be various amounts of food available for hunting and recollecting alike. She wouldn't starve and she would ensure her deathly weapons won't be used to kill or damage the town. It would have been like that, but aparently stronger forces were conspiring against poor Lizzette.

Just when she had made up her mind and was ready to embrace her new life, a tremendous thunder shock the earth. Not a thunder, no, something of similar power and capabilities, but with a different nature. A roar, it had to be, just like that first dreadful time.

It thightened the little one's heart to think of the implications of this unexpected event, she was now sharing grounds with another dragon. ''Presumably of your own creation too,'' the poisonous voice of guilt sliced at her inocent conciousness ''think about it, perhaps it was a survivor of the first attack that had scorged away the material's house and the safeguard of the winter's wheat, along with some of the villager's men, that night that the void first revealed your true wicked form''. Bearing the feeling no more, our little heroine dashed into the night to try and see if there was something she could do to protect her fellow humans.
{{Separator|d}}
A river span all around her vision, the tree trunks and leaves melted into a neverending tunnel of brown and green that only shivered every now and then when she needed to miss the obstacles, until she hit something. Having built up her ability to run through dense vegetation, were sometimes she could barely pass through the gaps or paths, Lizzette was certainly taken by surprise at this development. Forcing herself back into all fours, ignoring the inminnent headache that would surely develop later into a bump, she came upon a green view, but a very different kind of green than the one she was used to.

The figure in front of her was also composing itself, and then took notice of our little one. It was a litte larger than her, but not so that she couldn't see it at more less the same eye level. Before she did anything the other dragon had already positioned itself over a limp animal on the right, one of the town's sheep she noted, and was baring its fangs at her, signaling to not come any closer to its food. It was at this time that the two began to really stare at each other for the first time.

On closer examination she noted other differences besides the color and size. It was slender and had a rather skinny complexion, one would even dare to say that some bones were showing but its difficult to tell those kind of things underneath a layer of scales. The head didn't appear to have her fin-ears, and seemed to have seen enough battles as to have its right main horn torn almost from its base, and a few other scars of the like. This appeared to be the same to the rest of the body, some missing scales and spikes here, a set of cuts and dried blood there, but the most obvious wound so far, and one that even made our little observer flinch a bit, were the shredded wings that it was hauling limply on both of its sides.

The thin skin that should have been between each elongated finger wasn't there, and even some of those were broken to the point that some of the bone's white could be seen. The only untouched part was where the wings arms met the spine at its back, but even that looked weak as they didn't even have the force to at least lift them from the floor, making the gashes and wounds worse on the lower part.

It... no, he -as she noted from her nostrils when she had calmed down enough to make sense of what they were saying- had also finished examining her and had now taken a more relaxed stance, without bearing those pointy knives anymore, when he noted she wasn't interested in his dead animal, keeping an eye on it none the less. After a while of utter silence, even the air had seemed to calm down and waited for whatever would happen next, the green beast took a tentative step forward.

Lizzette didn't move or flinched from her place. What had once been determination and resolve to track down and deal with this creature quickly dissolved into fear and terror of what it might do to her when he began to circle around her, poking and smelling every now and then, sending a chill down her spine every time. It came at last to meet her face to face, if what dragons have can be called that way, their muzzles an inch from each others and he looked at her straight in her eyes.

The rough surface of pointy scales gave way to a stronger green in the eyes of the creature, her gaze was dragged by the continous flow and, like a river through a waterfall, it fell on the black slit that broke the monotony. In there she saw force, a force that had pushed through many barriers and crashed down many obstacle, a force that, despite having gone through so many things that now his body was slowly falling apart, was still as strong and as sharp as ever. It was that flame of will what made the smaller dragon back up a step. The green one just snorted and went to fetch his dinner.

The little weredragon was stunned to say the least. She had feared the creature because it was an animal, a beast driven by instincts alone that had no sense whatsoever, or so she had thought. Now she wasn't so sure about that anymore. After seeing that sparkle of life, of feelings, that can only by observed in sensible beings, she began to bear in mind the possibility that the elder's conception of dragons was entirely wrong. Which was confirmed a moment later when a ball of red splatered on the too distracted kid's foreclaws with an emty thud.

It was a chunk of meat, ripped off in a very crude manner as could be observed by the cords of scarlet flesh that clung to it like some kind of parasite. The green one just stared at her and waited. Our young one hesitated at first but then lowered her head until her muzzle's was just one quick bite away from it. She couldn't handle the sight for long, and just when she was about to get sick her nostrils catched the strong smell that clung near it.

It was by far the sweetest thing she had smelled. A combination of summer flowers bathed in warm light, cold water flowing from a spring, fresh pepper about to be served and a thinge of recently made leather came into her mind, and many other references to similar things were beginning to fill her spirit. Of course, this was in part due to the fact that she hadn't eaten a descent piece of meat for a while and her stomach was hollow and growling for food. Before she even noticed it, the juicy fiber was already traveling by her guts and a trickle of blood ran down the sides of her mountrous mouth.

The other one just smile upon her without the need to do all those complicated and exausting human facial movements. He had decided to have his meal while waiting for her to make up her mind. His fangs had just finished eating the soft tissue inside the bone and his lizard-like tonge was now searching the remotes gaps and fissures in his claws for any missing red stain.

When he was done he threw the carcass aside and, standing up, motioned her to tag along with him. Of course, all Lizzette saw was a pair of gestures and some growls that didn't have any meaning to her, so the other one, frustrated after the third attempt, bit her softly on her right forearm, without causing any pain or puncturing the skin, and dragged her from there. Eventualy the little scaly child got the meaning of it and presuaded the other one to let go of her, with a snap of her fangs, and they both tagged along in the silence of the night.
{{Separator|d}}
Some time later a grey wall came into view, the trees ending in the base of yet another one of the omnipresent rock giants. After some more steps of road, where Lizzette felt the first surge of jelousy of the other dragon's skills in using his claws on the rough terrain, they finally came to the entrance of his lair. It was located several meters from the ground below, a hole with a small protusion in the flat face of the mountain.

Although she had already been underground that night, there was a strange, yet reassuring, feeling emanating from the place. It had a warmness that increased the further you went, the moonlight illuminated all the dark stone around and it had enough room to open up the wings so one could dive down the cliff and into the valley infront. In other words, she strangely felt at home there.

Once he was sure there was nothing creeping inside and that no one was coming along the path, the big mass of green scales jumped into the other mass and made our poor girl stumble into the uneven cavern floor. She quickly stood up and shoot him a glance. He was just standing there, the front lower part of his body touching the black rock, his tail raised high up and his eyes begging to her. Just before anything else happened he was already gone into the maze of tunnels ahead.

She knew that pose, it was the same one the dogs that sometimes roamed the streets had whenever they are playing with one another. So, desiphering what her host wanted, she eagerly went after him.
{{Separator|d}}
As with any children's game, it comes a time when they eventually drain all their stamina and were just happy resting over the other's limp and ached body already with a wing in the dream's realm. And they would have dozed off if it weren't for a sound that startled the most experienced one of the pair and got him to take a quick peek down the only trail that lead there.

Lizzette's curiosity took hold of her. Making fatigue and exaustion aside, she also went to see what was going on, only to be stopped by his new friend. It requiered some rather loud growls and a very close snap of fangs to disuade the littlest one from venturing near the entrance. It only took a moment from him to know what was going on, and even less to disappear into the unknown.

After that things began to move very fast. Another roar made dust and some pebbles fall all around the little weredragon, which by now had her tail glued at the bottom of the first chamber. Then came forth some wild cries, and the metalic sound of blades being unsheated.

Screams and other nasty noises filtered into the dark shelter from the soldiers outside, among some softer growls, echoes that fainted a little more each time, and the unsettling chilling noise of fight. When all of a sudden it all stopped.

Taking the silence as a clue, the young ball of shivers gathered all the courage to go to the mouth of the cave, get her head out, low enough in the ground to not be too noticeable, and take a look at the narrow passage that sizzled all the way until there. She was just in time to see a half circle of shiny metal closing in with spears on her newest friend, who was barely keeping himself on the edge of the cliff right at that moment. He made one last blow, his daggers managed to split the wooden stick of one of the men into several pieces and sent the unfortunate one down the trail to gather up with the rest of his now decaying companions, before he looked up at her.

It only took an instant for her to see that light of his at his full power, more bright than anything else, before it went dead immediately, and with it the poor's creature hold on the edge. She ducked into the safety of the cave. She didn't have to see it to know what happened, the loud and horrible cracking of bones and other softer parts on the sharp inanimate figures below telling her a horrorific story without the need of her vision.

She automatically went into the corner she had been hidding during the whole event, curling until the tip of her tail touched her main horns in a futile atempt to protect herself. ''They killed him,'' she thought to herslelf, deep feelings buried since the day her mother left the world surging to the surface like a drowning man seeking air ''they just came all the way here and killed him. Just because he was a dragon.''

''I am a dragon.''

''They are coming for me, I can hear them''

''I don't want to be a dragon. I don't want to die!''

A soldier stuck his head to look inside, but the darkness once again covered the little dragon keeping it safe for the moment. The man walked away, for the moment.

''I'm just supposed to be the child of a farmer. I'm not special. Why me?!''

They fixed a torch from wood and a lonely cloth with oil that such expirienced travelers always carried for just this purpose. They slowly came back to the hole to see what was hidding in there.

''I don't want to die! I don't want to die...''

A cold glove touched her, and she retreated towards the wall even more. “I don't want to die” she said in a murmur.

“It's ok. The beast is already gone” the voice of a rather young soldier said. He came in slowly and hugged the weak and naked form of a human girl in front of him, a hug that she returned with a firm grip. The pure white light of the moon reflected over the knight's metalic armor and on the child's tears when he said “You're safe now”

----

{{Separator|d|'''Several Full Moons Later'''}}

The months passed and the legend of the dragon of Emdin's valley spread like fire on wood. It became the main song of many taverns and even one or two royal courts, but was soon forgotten by everyone, like all deed made out of blood should.

Lizzette's prayers were, apparently, heard by someone, and in the next full moon night nothing happened. No scales tearing soft skin, no muzzle taking over her cute face, no claws or wing tearing all of her clothes, nothing at all. This repeated month after month, season after season, year after year, until the mind of the now young adult had been softened and molded, like a rock in the rivers of time, making her forget all about her ability and the few moments she had been in possesion of it.

On the anniversary of the now full-time human, the one were she finally came of the age to be pronounced officially as an adult woman according to her people's customs and traditions, there was a huge celebration in town.

Tables as large as the height of the trees around them were taken out, she never found out from where, and placed into the open. The most expirienced women were in charge of all the food and drinks that would be served and the younger ones were put to make everyone in town presentable for the great ocaccion. The men put the lambs and the best hunt they had into the whole deal while the little boys helped every now and then with everything they could, which could be from carrying all the newly imported plates to just act as messengers in the whole sea of chaos that was becoming the once serene settlement.

While all this was being made, our now much older hero was being arranged by all kinds of women that she had only seen once or twice in her whole life, but that now threated her with the kind of attention and courtesy the maidens of the court would do to her real princess. The beautiful dress made of a purple so pure and a fabric so soft and strong that it had been by far the best present she would have dreamed of. Her father had told her when he had given the elaborately made piece of art to her that it was the least he could do before she became a full woman and had to leave to live with the gentleman she would soon be married to.

It had been fixed from the day her mother had died. A father without the aid and constant support of his right hand could have never been able to take care of a child and of his duties at the farm on his own. So, after a few negotiations with an outsider and an enormous amount of luck, he made a deal with a lord. The child would grow and, when the time was right, someone would come to take her.

That was the main reason why her only parent had aisolated her from the rest of the community, so she wouldn't be tempted by others, as the elders had told him. Now everyone was going to celebrate her birthday and make a whole farewell party in her honor. It was a bright day, but dark clouds in the horizon would ensure that this day would see the beginning of bad times in the valley and in Lizzette's life.
{{Separator|d}}
After all the meat had been cut, all the cups had been filled at least once with wine and some songs had been heard and danced, the time of the first toast came. The indeed very proud father raised up, calming all the noise and making the drunks look at least a little more vivid, held his wooden cup high in the air and spoke.

“My fellows, we are gathered here in the celebration of my, no, our young one's call to her fair duty in the world,” she blushed when the words came forth, her father giving her a quick look before continuing “Tonight, in the eve of Lizzette's journey to make a man happy forever and ever, we have been called to show her how much she has meant to everyone. For her!”

“For her!” everyone exclaimed as they raised their respective breverage's containers and took a big gulp of the sweet nectar.

However, before the poor farmer could do the same he suddenly stopped halfway through. His lips never touched the border of the cup again as he went to see a shadow that had suddenly materialized from nowhere. Her only daughter wanted to see where he had gone, but the rythm of the party and all the attention she had made the issue slip off her mind for the time being.

“It is time” the shadow said, the twisted teeth and buzzard's breath taking the father by surprise for a moment before he could interpret the words correctly.

“What? You said until tomorrow!”

“The caravan is already here,” he said, pointing at more menacing looking monsters and beasts just at the edge of the woods “and my master doesn't like the idea of waiting. Patience is certainly not his virtue” he added with a lifeless chuckle.

He didn't even think of complaining, after all she was his by right now. So, defeated, he went to fetch for her only child.

“Come with me” he said blunty to her and didn't even bother answer any questions she threw at him.

“Here she is”

“Father, who is him?” she said without trying to hide her fear and repulsion of the thing in front of them both.

“He will take you to your new home”

“But, I tought I was supposed to leave tomorrow!”

“Things change”

“But my stuff, and the people...”

“You don't need anything where you're going,” the voice hurt her ears and felt like venom in her blood “and I'm sure they all know you're leaving”

Without any more excuses in mind and still in shock of the violent twist of events, she was easily hauled by the back side of one of various cages, more fitted to hold animals than for any person to travel in it, and was literaly thrown and knocked unconcious in one of the bars of solid and thick wood.

“Here's your gold,” was the last thing Lizzette heard and she saw the monster throwing her father a large bag of something metalic before her forced sleep began.
{{Separator|d}}
After the last of the caravan was heard going away among the chat and laughs all around the farmer, he turned and began to talk to the nearest person he could find.

“Do you think she will be safe?” he asked.

“Don't worry about her,” the other responded “I'm sure she will be better wherever they are taking ... what was the name?”

“Lizzette” he said in clenched teeth.

“Who?” was all he replied.

“I don't know,” he continued even when he knew this fellow's mind was anywhere except in the valley “Maybe it wasn't the right thing to do”.

“Stop thinking of it, your head will hurt like mines if you do it,” he then fell to the ground but continued nevertheless “You got your gold and the rest of us ours, and will be getting it as all as you live, that's all that matters”.

“I guess you're right,” he said, throwing all the contents of the bag next to his now asleep body “After all, only kids and drunks tell those kind of truths”.
{{Separator|d}}
In the lonely barn, a poor mare was let loose, along with a handful of other similar animals, into the wildness to take care by themselves. A rope with a single knot in the form of loop hanged from the only piece of dead tree that could support it and the weight of a man.

As the night grew quieter, so did the breathing of one farmer in the valley.

----

{{Separator|d|'''The sixtieth full moon.'''}}

{{add|It wasn't the cart that balanced unsteadily through the uneven surface of the road inches from a sure death at the hands of a steep fall what had awaken Lizzette the next day, nor was the hot sting of the sun through the infinite small gaps that escaped from the roof.}} It was the smell, the taste of foreign air, distant from all the trees she knew and from all the normal animals she had encountered what had tickled the back of our hero's concience to the point of openning her eyes. The light was too bright at first and she adjusted until she could see again, but didn't like what she saw.

Everywhere around her there was wood. The only sign of the outter world the little windows that formed at the intersection of the beams. They showed a neverending field of grass, or what looked as grass from that distance. At the other side there was the solid and bare, almost white at that time of day, rock that even now seemed to be draining her dry from just being near it. And just behind her was an everlasting cloud of dust and, whenever the wind took the light brown particles elsewhere, a curve that seemed to never end no matter how far from it they appear to be getting. They were traveling through the mountains.

She was laying in the only piece that could be said to have a shadow in her rather spacious cage. Even to an untrained eye it was obvious that it hadn't been designed to hold a human in it. It was solid, yet light enough to be able to be carried easily by whatever beast of buden they had. As soon as she saw the tray of water and some grains sticking out of a fissure near the only solid wall, she threw the only table manners that such a humble peasant could have had aside and launched at the very welcome temporal exit to her thirst and hunger.

When she was done, she felt more empty than when she had started. The events of last night were still fresh in her memory, and the obvious scenery kept reminding her that this was all too real to be a dream or an allucination.
{{Separator|d}}
All her life Lizzette had been like a field, barren, deserted and void of anything, until the first seeds began to fall, nursing from the spring of life and youngness, holding firmly by innocence and trust and growing without limit on the eternal space that was her soul. Memories of her father taking care of her, of how all the people she knew was kind and friendly in their own way and of the only home she ever had were what covered it all and were everything in her life, until something new arrived.

Treachery, like many other foul things in the world, is a plague in the garden of the soul and spirit that starts out as a seed. It feeds upon the memories that are in our heads, distortioning and altering them in its own little way, leaving a town of nice people with only some drunks living in huts in the mind's eye. It expands far away from where it landed and begins to strangle everything it touches, making things like the warm sunshine, the refreshing breeze, the cold water and the kindness of the woods die and turn to nothing as the host becomes senseless. It roots deep into the soul, carring anger, hatred and many other things I could not even begin to describe with it and changing the very ground around itself so as to not let anything else through, blinding its prey to the danger it now has.

For our hero, the first thing to die was her father, and from that all other things began to rot. With each passing day and night her body grew weaker and more fragile, not only for the lack of movements in her confinement but also because of all the venom inside her, that carved deeper and stronger with each new pulse of agony.
{{Separator|d}}
The mountains gave way to sand, and crossing the golden dunes was a serpent of melted silver that just seemed to try to escape the looming giants. At the side of it stood three ships, one for all the food and supplies that would be needed for a very long journey, other for the goods and valuables from exotic lands, and the last one for all the slaves and wives that would go into the king's harem. Lizzette was guided towards the latter and put in one separate box as to not let anyone contaminate her.

At the night of their departure, the little one didn't have much time left. Hands and feet that had once been strong enough to endure hard work were now bruised and bleeding, muscles were cramped and hurt to move and her skin was bruised and burned. Inside of her, some of the lasts traces of the small girl we once knew were beginning to fade into the nothingness, until the full moon broke through her.

Alone in a cell with thousands of windows looking at the same thing and launching the same kind of white pure light was when she remembered some of her most frightening and obscure moments that shouldn't had been awakened. All of the images and feelings finally broke in her.

The light gave her the energy, the life force to free her now truly wiked form that had been distortioned by the roots of evil inside her. Skin tore and shattered in blood and scales as black as the shadow themselves. Muscles tensed to the point of breaking the bones, with sounds so horrific and frightening that the guards on deck believed a sea snake ate one of their boats. From the remains of the flesh new fibers and tissue began to emerge to fill in the widening skin into the proper form. Sharp things engulfed her so no racional being would even dare to go near her.

Nightmares would have haunted anyone's dreams if they had seen how the creature had broken from her prison, which had been rather small for her at some point during the horrific scene, crawled to the nearest batch of restrained humans and made her wings and horns out of their living ribs and other body parts.
{{Separator|d}}
Not much can be said about that night as no one discovered what happened. The river cleaned away all the remains of the ashes left behind and the wind took the rest into the sky. The only thing that survived was a black creature that now dragged her bloodstained claws in the dry sand.

Like anything else in it, the desert began to smooth out the dragon's features with its ethernal pacience. Scales got rough and paled out to fragile shells, horns and spines decayed and fell, the fangs dried up with the lack of water and became dust, the mighty claws lost their sharpness and were reduced to stubs, the tail and her general frame began to reduce thanks to the lack of food and her wings grew holes and eventually the membrane was torn by the furious winds.

Just in her last breath, the dragoness found a water passage, one that the slave traders and her would have passed weeks ago by now if they had continued. She didn't even notice it and kept walking until the overwhelming sun became cold and blue. The current took her in its guts to a place far away from that death pit.
{{Separator|d}}
Regardless of the horrible things that may have fallen on her body, her mind was even worse. The plague of revenge, fed up by her latests actions, had made the field of Lizzette full of death, the only signs of anything at all were the few parasitic plants that still clinged to her misery. But although it may seemed empty, there's still hope for our little one, for one place had not been touched by the weed.

Lizzette's mother had died giving birth to her, a healthy and formidable child at that time if I may add, so she never really understood motherly love quite well. Of course, she would see every now and then how the other girls learned chores and womanly duties from her beloved mothers, but she never had the chance to experience it first hand, and even less so with a father like hers. That was the special place in her heart, the one that the parasites, plagues and pests couldn't touch. It was the space for love of a kind she had never received before. It was empty at that point, but to the surprise of all, and especially from Lizzette herself, a small seed fell on it.
{{Separator|d}}
It had been literally a gift from the water, as it had been that element of life what had dragged the barely alive hatchling to the chores of the island. The dragoness had found her. Being also a sensible being herself, she understood immediately the signs of her broken body as the result of terrible feelings even though she couldn't tell exactly what had happened to her. So the noble creature took the former human back towards the hole that was her lair.

Unlike the human myths and legends of dragons using caves in the mountains to place their lairs, the reality was that the hatchery of such creatures could be placed anywhere, so long as it was safe from the elements and could be defended easily against intruders. Looking around where the near dead dragon had landed we could see no traces of land anywhere. All around the ocean covered the tropical island. It was a perfect spot as it had its own spring, easy to catch prey and anything aproaching could be seen many miles away before it could step on the paradise.

There, in the middle of a desert of a different kind, was where the dragoness decided to make her nest. There her hatchlings would roam freely, be safe and wouldn't lack of food. Of course, it was only a temporary home as the fish and animals would eventually run short and they would have to leave to land once again, but it was the perfect place for now.

As her slits grew to ovals once she came to the shade, she could make out the form of the eggs in front of her. There were seven, each one different from the other in her mother's eyes even when they all were the color of pearl. As delicately as she could she layed down Lizzette with her muzzle, putting her in her new place with her own children.
{{Separator|d}}
Day by day, the new dragon's body and soul began to heal thanks to the efforts and cares of her new mother. Water and pieces of chewed meat were poured down into her stomach, the dead scales were peeled off by delicate licks and new ones with the beauty of sapphire grew in their place, membrane grew thanks to her mother's only magical ability and her horns, spikes and fangs eventually recovered free from any stains. In her soul, the love that came from the warm embraces at night, the soft loving caresses of her muzzle and the songs in the form of purrs and growls returned her to life once again and cleared away treachery and revenge, and with them the last traces of her past.

The new dragon hatchling awoke to the sound of yelps and growls. She opened her eyes and found herself surrounded by the walls of a nest that had been carefully carved into the ground. There were broken pieces of egg shell everywhere she looked. With just a little effort she managed to stand up, her muscles and joints weak but holding her, and struggled to climb out.

When arriving at the top she encountered a massive white dragoness towering over her, easily twenty times as large as herself or even more surrounded by moving spots of colors. At last, she darted forward, fatigue fading away, and met with her siblings and her mother.

And that, my fellows, is how our story begins.

{{series bar|series=[[User:Pocsock/Story_of_a_Weredragon| Story of a Weredragon]]|next=The Dragon}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Story Of A Weredragon: The Human}}
[[Category:Story]]
[[Category:Pocsock]]
[[Category:Mythical]]
[[Category:Dragon]]
[[Category:Magic]]

Self-destruct Activated

2008-06-03T02:17:11Z

Pocsock: Adding new categories

{{title|name=Self-destruct Activated|author=Pocsock}}

Swim, swim, swim. We swim together.

Swim, swim, eat. We eat together.

Swim, swim, dodge. We swim from predator together.

Predator will take one, but won’t take us.

Hurt, I’m hurt, as well as others.

One is taken, and is no longer us. He’s dead, but we are safe.

Predator hurts and predator takes, so being taken hurts.

Swim, swim, dodge. We swim from predator together.

Predator will take one, but won’t take us.

Predator takes one, I’m one. Predator takes me. I’m hurt.

Predator takes ones from outside, I’m outside. Predator takes me. I’m hurt.

Predator doesn’t take ones from inside, I’m inside. Predator doesn’t take me. I’m not hurt.

I go inside, other ones follow. We become many ones and me. Predator catches many ones, but not me.

{{Separator|d}}

Meanwhile, above the red sea with many creatures and coral reefs, beyond the automated fishing ships that patrolled now and then, beyond the yellow sky full of energy collectors and even farther away than the artificial satellites that kept watch on the surface of the planet in the void of space, two beings know everything that’s going on down there.

“There’s an abnormality in a school of fish” the most inexperienced informed the other, who didn’t even have to view the data from the various machines to know exactly what had gone awry.

After a while of deep thought he answered “Initiate self-destruct sequence”

{{Separator|d}}

Chaos got lose back in the planet as the order was transmitted among the various devices, who, in turn, released even smaller ones out in the environment, gave them instructions and then dissolved into red dust. The little machines entered the bigger forms of life and began changing them, sometimes destroying tissue and cells that served as constructions bricks for their job, sometimes expelling all the extra material so others could use it and sometimes even destroying other life forms in the organism, like bacteria, to obtain the components necessary for their work. Many forms couldn’t be turned, however, so they either liquefied into the most basic of the organic components or they just stayed as if nothing had happened.

Those who did change didn’t know what hit them. One moment they were surging the skies, jumping on trees, running in meadows or swimming, the next moment everything changed. Birds fell to earth as their feathers were pushed out of their skin, bones began to sprout from the naked wings and the stubby feet, together with muscles to move them, and beaks melded with the skull to allow terrain for the lips to grow. Tiny mammals lost grip of branches and also fell, some of them began to lose all their hair, they began to grow in mass and size thanks to all the nutritious goo that some of the others had become, and as some of them also lost their tails, they gained hands and feet to work with. The reptiles on the ground weren’t forgotten either, they were forced to change their skin and be replaced with a softer and more sensible one, scales gave way to hair and a cold chill ran through them as their insides changed so they could have warm blood running trough their veins.

Somewhere near a coral reef in one of the many chains of islands this world offered, a little fish got away from one of the many fishing boats, and was now enjoying eating some of the smaller creatures now that the school of fished had reorganized. The moment didn’t last long after the machines got into it and the others. Many fish started to spasm in the water and some of them even exploded in an underwater cloud of white, which our little fish began to absorb in order to begin its transformation. Some fins began to creep into its skin while others began to grow away from its body. Even before the new limbs were fully developed, it was forced to begin to swim with what little tail it had left to the nearest shore some meters away. Gills were closed permanently and scales dried and fell off the moment it touched land. The skin grew softer and gained a pinkish trait to it. The tail was only a stub at the base of a bigger spine now, and was becoming even smaller. The lungs took their first breath and a nose was added. The head separated from the rest of the body as it grew a neck and hair sprouted there and in other parts. Eyelids grew with eyelashes. Lips gained color and muscles. Nails grew from the tips of the toes and fingers at the end of the hands and feet.

Where there had once been a little fish no different from a thousand others that haunted these waters and that had been part of one being called a school of fish, now stood a unique creature known by many as a human.

It, no, ''she'', stood up, took a look around her and noted something. She was no longer part of an entity; she was now an individual, a ''unique individual''. She was now different, and others were different for her and no one was the same. And, deep down, she could almost hear a voice saying, whispering to her and to many others, you’re better than ''them''.

{{Separator|d}}

While preparing to depart and leave the planet to its fate, one of the beings’ curiosity stroke and he asked the other “Won’t they be able to survive?”

“No,” the other one answered “they will end up consuming all the resources before they are aware of what’s happening. It always ends up like that, and when they are gone and the planet void of everything, we will return to build it all once again”

<comments />
[[Category:Story]]
[[Category:Pocsock]]
[[Category:Alien]]
[[Category:Mental change]]

Nahual

2008-06-03T02:15:26Z

Pocsock: Adding new categories

{{title|name=Nahual (''na'wal'')|author=Pocsock}}

{{note|''Nahual'' is singular. ''Nahuales'' is plural}}

“…and I never saw my friend again” the professor said, everyone perched at the edge of their seats listening to the end of the story intently, except for me. “That’s why you have to stay away from animals who seem to have a hidden intelligence behind their eyes, because they must be a nahual.”

Yeah right, like they really existed. Evil sorcerers that turned into animals just to hurt people was probably the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard, but the professor was older and wiser so I didn’t argue with him about that.

Besides, it’s just a night story.

“Ok, time to go to bed” he said as he raised from the log he was sitting at, the fire making his wrinkles stand out more in the darkness and his face gained ten more years. Everyone began to protest. “We have to get up early tomorrow to continue our journey to the abandoned mine" he cut them off. "Now go, to your tents!”

{{Separator|f}}

All the history class had come to the expedition. In our case that would mean twelve people in total, not including the professor, going for a four days camping trip through some mountains.

We were looking for a town near this zone that had been a very important mining camp in the early stages of the colony, but, like many other towns, was abandoned when the mine was drained of the last piece of gold that the Spanish could find in it. The roads that led there had been destroyed by the lack of maintenance and the only way to get to the place was by hiking.

The professor had discovered it, and organized a journey every year with his history students so they could look at the still intact homes, instruments, garments and way of living in the pre-independence times.

It had been very exiting. Just the idea of going into the wood sent a chill of excitement down my spine. It would be four days with my best friends and getting a chance to annoy the girls a little bit on the way. I believe I was the first one to sign in for the trip. The day's walk had been long, however, so I could only think of sleeping for a very long time after attending some other business outside. I bedded down and dozed off quickly, but my rest was cut short only minutes later by Luke.

“Wake up,” he whispered, moving my shoulder vigorously

“I’m up” I said, raising my head from the pillow and sitting on my sleeping bag. “What is it?” I asked the duo in front of me.

Alan was the sort of guy that couldn’t stand still for more than three seconds, and it usually took him less than that to get into trouble. Luke, on the other hand, could stand unnoticed in any crowd, moving silently through it, hearing everything and planning ahead what kind of pranks would be funnier to pull with Alan. Although it annoys me that I’m the one that always talks them out of everything, it’s really entertaining to hang out with them.

They showed me a video camera.

“Oh no” I muttered. An animal association had offered a reward to anyone that showed proof of the continued existence of a presumed extinct species of wolf that was last seen around this area. Luke and Alan had brought the camera only because they wanted to catch it on tape so they could claim the reward. But they didn’t know anything about the Mexican wolf, or what it looked like. That’s why they always showed me if what they caught on tape really looked like one.

“You know you’ll never find him. Everyone had been looking for one for more than thirty years.”

“This time is different,” Alan whispered. “Just take a look at it”

I reluctantly took the camera and turned it on. When it came to life it showed a black screen with some branches and leaves.

“You fell asleep in the middle of the woods and left the camera on?!” I scolded them. The image was upside down and it had been recording the same things for the last ten minutes of filming.

“Just keep looking” Luke said.

As I was about to tell them to go and leave me alone, a green object (actually, everything was green because the night vision was on) moved to the middle of the screen, turned around and two fluorescent green circles appeared on it. It moved a little bit closer to the camera and soon the silhouette of a wolf showed. It sniffed the air once and then stood only on its hind legs and disappeared behind a tree.

“Shit” I said, dropping the camera.

“Yeah,” Alan said. “It scared the shit out of me too when I first saw it just a few minutes ago.”

“We need to tell the professor that we have a nahual around,” Luke suggested. “He’ll know what to do.” He started heading towards the exit of the tent.

“No!” I half screamed. We waited for a moment to see if I woke anyone up, but the quiet remained. “That thing could still be out there. It should be better if we all sleep here tonight and tomorrow I’ll take the video to him.”

They both agreed with me and slept the rest of the night in my tent.

{{Separator|f}}

“What did he said?” Alan asked when I was done talking to the professor.

“He thought it was a very elaborate prank, and said that he would flunk us if we talk about it again,” I said, walking between the two of them.

“But we have a video of it!” Luke objected, taking out the camera.

“Yeah, but you two have a reputation for doing this kind of stuff. I told you it was a bad idea to glue his pants to the chair.”

They both smiled at that memory. Luke then snapped out of his reverie and said “What are we going to do then? We can’t allow that thing to eat us while we sleep.”

“I know!” Alan said “The three of us could take shifts to guard the camp at night. That way, we’ll be able to wake everyone up if it shows up.”

“I don’t like that idea” I said.

“Do you have a better one?” he asked, and sadly, I didn’t.

{{Separator|f}}

“Here we are!” The professor shouted to everyone when we got to the arch that marked the beginning of the town.

It was literally a ghost town. No one had lived here for over four hundred years, and the state of its decay showed it. All the buildings and roads have been slowly claimed by the vegetation of the wilderness. Tuffs of grass and moss were scattered on every rock of the pavement and of the main plaza.

All the wood roofs and structures, like warehouses, were missing and many of the buildings were even collapsed under trees that had grown up through them.

The only habitable building that had a roof, and would hold us for the night, was what used to be the mayor’s house.

It was a large complex of solid rock, one floor and many rooms to spare at the center of the town. Some of the external covering of the walls had been peeled by the pass of time, but there was no sign of any major structural damage as the vegetation have barely reached these parts of the town. It would be nice to not waste time mounting and dismounting the tent for tonight.

Luke picked one of the only rooms with a door so that we would be safe of any critter that would want to eat us, but was having a hard time opening it. It took the strength of the three of us to push the old waxed wood, probably the only reason it still stood, full of holes and gaps of the door so we could open it. Its rusty hinges didn’t help either in the task, but they finally gave in with a loud squeak and we managed to make a crack wide enough for our heads to squeeze inside and take a look. We were shocked by the contents of the room.

It held the carcasses, raw meat and blood of various deer and rabbits that had been torn apart and scattered everywhere. For a very long moment our gazes were fixed on the brown stains and corpses in front of us.

“What’s going on there?” the professor asked from the other side of the hallway. He must have heard the metal squeak and was on his way to see what we were up to.

“Professor” Alan started “we found…” but I cut him off with a little punch on his stomach from my elbow. “He can’t see this” I said softly to him “He will believe this is all part of the video prank and flunk us”

“And how do you plan to hide all this mess?” Luke asked. Not thinking, I grabbed the cold knob of the door, concentrated my energy and pulled with everything I had.

The door felt to its original place and sealed. “Easy for you to move it now that the three of us made it soft” Luke said.
As the professor approached I twisted the knob until it broke from the wood. “What were you doing?” he asked.

“We were trying to see if we could use this place” I said panting a little and pointed where the handle used to be “but we accidentally broke it and jammed the door”.

“What a shame” he said “this was the dinning room and had some very beautiful silver decorations” and with that he went to attend some complaint of a girl.

{{Separator|f}}

“Do you believe that mess could have been done by an animal?” Luke asked me while he prepared for the first turn on guard.

“I don’t think so. Animals wouldn’t just go around killing everything on their way and leaving it to rot” I said while unrolling my sleeping bag “Besides, there aren’t any predators around here that are big enough to carry something that heavy through a window, even if it’s only some inches from the ground”

“So it could be the nahual?” Alan asked

“Yeah, that would explain some of the stains in the room…” my thoughts wandered for a while from there, analyzing the strangeness of the situation until I fell asleep.

{{Separator|f}}

“What am I going to do now with a crazy shaman on the loose?” I asked the air in front of me during my night shift. There was no doubt in my mind now that we were facing a nahual sorcerer, but I didn’t want to startle my friends too much, much less the professor and the others.

Then I caught a very faint sound, as if someone was pouring sand on top of a drum. Something was slowly crawling through the stairs. I turned the corner, and my flashlight revealed the silky body of a snake slowly approaching. It was brownish, so it got confused with the dirt walls, and there was a strange gleam in its eyes, a sparkle of intelligence.

“Back off,” I said. It coiled and began to ready itself to jump on me and use the deathly fangs. I took out my pocket knife, which always took on trips like this one, and swung it around in front of me so it could see what it was.

“I said, back off!” It stopped, preparing to attack. Knowing I had the advantage, as I would probably kill it even if it managed to bite me with my knife, and that there was no other way to go except for the stairs behind, it retreated to the dark beyond.

I sighed in relief when it was gone.

{{Separator|f}}

“Here it is,” the professor said after two hours of walking north of the town. We reached a place where a huge hole had been dug on the floor very close to a natural rock wall about ten meters tall. Some very old-looking and rusty gear lay spread all over the place, most probably the machine used to take in and out the miners when the place was fully operational. “We will descend with the rappel and then continue on foot inside the caves. I want everybody to stay with their group at all times.” One by one we went down.

Our group, Luke, Alan and I, had been the last one to climb down and I the first of the three of us to go through the humid darkness of the fissure.

“Luke, you are next!” I yelled before he would be out of earshot. “Luke!” I yelled again, but there was no answer. I began to get worried. “I’m coming back up!”

Some time later I managed to get out and into flat ground once again, but there was no sign of Luke or Alan anywhere. “Guys, this isn’t funny at all!” I yelled, but then I heard a scream from some distance away and recognized it as Luke. “Shit” I swore. I grabbed the rope I used to get back up and pulled it until I had it all next to my feet. There was no need to expose everyone to this.

{{Separator|f}}

“What is it?!” I asked after locating them.

They were utterly paralyzed and didn’t answer. I got close to them from behind to try and see what was going on, and saw the same brown snake coiled and preparing to attack some meters away. It knew it had an advantage over my terrified friends, and was planning on using it.

Just when I turned to try to run out of its way and drag my friends along, a small wolf appeared out of nowhere in that direction. Its eyes gleamed with the wisdom and knowledge of a millennial lifetime. That was when I understood what I had to do.

The wolf ran at full speed towards me, faster than anything material could be capable of. I turned just in time to see the snake jumping, heading to Alan’s neck were his venom was most effective, when everything suddenly froze in its place and I felt something at my back.

I experienced the familiar warmness all over me as fur spread across my skin. I knew the pattern by heart; black at the tip of the tail, which fused to the brownish-red to make a gray effect at my back, head and neck; it then divided again when reaching the sides of my body, arms and legs; and the color continued to erase until it was completely white at my chest. My mouth and nose started to elongate, slowly merging into one and molding my teeth to small knifes in my mouth, until a large and solid muzzle formed, and I felt my ears begin to grow and move to the top of my head. My neck began to lengthen as well, so my head would be able to move better and a small mane began to grow from the sides of my cheeks until the base of the neck. My fingers became stiff and began to shorten and grow black claws from the tips of the nails at the moment they were void of motion. My hands and feet became big paws and my heels stood from the ground by a series of new and powerful muscles, making me drop to all fours. My tail had grown along the whole process and was reaching its final size by now. At the end, I passed from being a normal human to become one of the last Mexican wolves that had walked here.

When the transformation was over, time began to take its normal course. The snake was only a meter away from Alan. I didn’t have much time to react. So I took impulse, jumped and sank my fangs at the foul animal’s tail before it got to its target. I took advantage of my jumping momentum to swing the snake and hit it with the ground when I landed. The impact was enough to send sounds of broken bones to my very sensitive ears. I saw one last gleam of intelligence behind those split pupils before they became black as night as the body died.

It had to be done. He had spent too much time as an animal. His human intelligence had been abandoning him little by little, until he became a being that was ruled by mere instincts, grunting and growling instead of speaking, and wandered mountains in solitude, avoiding other humans at all costs. He probably had killed wild animals easily with the deathly venom of the snake and then dragged them to the town and ate their meat off of the bone while in his human form.

I knew that everyone is born accompanied by an animal spirit that serves as guidance and protection throughout life, which are called nahuales. Sometimes the bond between them is so strong that the person can take some traits of the animal the spirit represents, like the sight of a hawk or the ears of a jaguar, and even become the animal itself, like me. These persons are called nahuales in honor to the spirits from which they get their powers. These powers are very strong, and their main purpose is to serve as a means to aid people in finding answers through introspection, although many people believe we only use them for evil purposes. It is easy to get corrupted by them though, that’s why I rarely use them and kept them secret, even if it had meant to have lied to Luke and Alan about talking to the professor.

I turned and looked at both of them. As I was still fused with my nahual, I could clearly see Alan’s, a red bird that was holding strongly on his shoulder, an obvious symptom that both of them were scared. Luke’s was a different story, it was an ocelot and was slowly approaching me with a curiosity that only cats could bear, showing that both were more intrigued of me than scared, but cautious nevertheless.

I stood on my hind legs. My paws returning to hands and feet, my tail growing back into my spine, my fur sucked by my pink skin and my face returned to normality. I was myself again, as if nothing had ever happened, and a familiar spirit was standing beside me.

Now I wondered which should be the best way to explain all of this to them…

<comments />
[[Category:Story]]
[[Category:Pocsock]]
[[Category:Animal]]
[[Category:Canine]]
[[Category:Reptile]]
[[Category:Magic]]

I Need More Maple Syrup

2008-06-03T02:13:36Z

Pocsock: Putting in the new categories

{{title|name=I Need More Maple Syrup|author=Pocsock}}
{{editing requested}}

“Crap” I cursed. The empty bottle made a loud hollow sound when it landed in the garbage bin. “I need more maple syrup.”

I headed over to the lonely table sitting in the four-by-four meter-square box someone dared to call a dining room, once. It didn’t have to be fancy, it only had to stand my three daily meals , and right now there were a pair of round waffles ready for me to eat.

Without maple syrup they would taste plain and dry. I didn’t even have a glass of milk to wash them down.

The computer was on, and a soft bell sounded indicating I had received a new e-mail. I sighed and threw both pieces of conglomerated flour into my mouth and quickly made my way to the seat in front of the screen.

As usual, the thing didn’t respond to my commands.

''“Work!”'' I yelled at it and hit the keyboard. It hummed and the message came into view.

I read through it. I had been assigned a new job. If everything turned out as planned, I would be having breakfast tomorrow with a stomach full of maple syrup.

I was about to leave when a familiar feeling came to me all of a sudden. I couldn’t leave yet, not without empty hands at least. So I opened the only window in my room, with only a little complaint from the wood.

“Carl, I know you’re here Carl. I need some provisions,” I said with a clear and audible voice. A light breeze came by and the beginnings of rush hour could be heard in the distance.

“I know I haven’t paid you back, but this is really an emergency.” I continued after some minutes. “I got a job just now and I promise I’ll make it up to you.” The air remained silent.

As I waited at the decaying frame of the window, the city around me continued to move. The lights on skycrapers and apartment buildings began to fade one by one as the sun made its entrance from the concrete horizon. I just stood there as the intense sunrays cast away the darkness and replaced it with light.

Until a bag of gummy bears suddenly fell from the sky.

“This is the last one I’ve got left,” a raspy voice came from the same direction of the bag. A gray figure landed with a loud noise on the window frame next to the multicolored retainer of sweets. If you ever combined the body of a one-meter-long lizard with the head of a wild boar and the wings of a bat into one whole flexible stone being, the result would be the living gargoyle that had just come out in front of me.

“You’re lucky your neighbors haven’t noticed that I’ve been stealing from them,” he scolded me, moving a menacing finger in my direction. A rough screech always seemed to scape from his joints every time he moved them.

“You’re the best!” I said, grabbing the bag and starting to open it on my way to the door. “I swear I’ll pay you back!”

“Just don’t forget it,” he said.

I knew he muttered something about me and my manners as I closed the door and made my way down the stairs.

{{Separator|j}}

Damned mini-stores, the only thing they got in there were those new soured candies. What has become of the world? What happened to the old-fashioned candies that rot your teeth and left you an enjoyable feeling in the mouth? Fortunately for me, chocolates haven’t fallen to another victim of fashion yet, and I was even able to find these wonderful round ones that came in various colors.

I was opening the package of these, that I held in my left arm, when my objective came down the corner inside a limousine. I immediately knew it was him because the mail had said he would be taking this route and because he was the only millionaire that lived around this part of the city. It would be very easy to follow the black car on foot as all the traffic made him go very slow, and then delivering the ultimatum would be a piece of cake.

Just as I thought this was going to be a good day after all a yellow-scaled hand grabbed my bag of chocolates.

“Hi there,” the cloaked figure said with the taint of a growl “It’s been a while since we last saw each other.” I recognized the voice, and reluctantly turned to face the creature.

A beak the size of a hand was poking from under the violet robes of silk that he wore. The only other visible parts were a golden tail with a black tuff of shiny hair that swayed from a hole in the back of the fine clothes and a pair of paws the size of four fists bulged together that held claws that could easily torn through the strongest bones in the animal kingdom.

''He was touching my candies!'' “You’re touching my candies.” I said, trying to control my temper.

“I’ve heard that they have finally assigned you a mission.” he said, revealing his white feathered face with his left claw. He had eyes that could freeze of terror any living being, or so I was told. I had actually seen more frightening eyes than just the cold stare of a completely round pupil surrounded by another circle of yellow. “How long has it been from the last one eh?”

''He was still touching my candies!'' “You’re still touching my candies!” I said in a higher tone than what I had intended.

“Why, here I am, an old friend of yours trying to start a nice conversation after a long time, and you can only think of these sugar-saturated human food.” He waggled his head from side to side. “I thought you had gotten over them by now?”

''I had had enough of him!'' “If you don’t remove your foul self off my chocolates I’ll rip off your magic disguise right here and now, on this crowded street!” I warned him, my eyes looking down and never leaving the shrinking gryphon in front of me.

He didn’t hesitate for long as he already knew I had done something similar once. So he freed his grasp from my munchies. “As you wish,” he said as he headed down the street once again. “Never really liked them that much.”

I began to relax when he was finally gone. Some people were staring, but eventually continued with their own business. It could have been worse if I had dropped the hallucination covering Alex.

The guy believed he was the center of the universe just because he had came up with the pose most of the gryphons are portrayed in most coats of arms. He was pompous and arrogant and his goal was to make miserable as much people as he could. It would have served him right if the human police captured him and conducted some painful experiments in some far away dessert, but I would have been the one that would eventually have to clean up the whole mess, and HQ would probably cut my supplies for some months, something I didn’t want to happen, so I just let him get away with it this time.

“Crap!” I cursed as the traffic had miraculously sped up and my target had moved far away by now. The bird’s brains had distracted me and allowed traffic to flow quickly with a spell so I would lose the target.

Now I had to turn for plan B, something I didn’t want to do but I had no choice now. So I reluctantly turned to go to the rendezvous point that was some blocks away from here.

I had a craving for roasted chicken all of a sudden.
{{Separator|j}}
“He’s late,” I muttered as I entered one of the many similar dark, humid and lonely alleys of the city. The contact was supposed to meet me here if, by some reason, I wasn’t able to find the secret hideout of the target.

I usually did everything on my own, too many chances that something might go wrong, especially on stealth missions like this one. The bigger the number, the easier it is to get detected by human means. Not that I couldn’t handle some dangerous situations myself, but HQ had ordered me to stick with normal protocols as much as I could, or something like that.

I then heard a loud screech. I looked up and saw a brown figure circling above, a small peregrine falcon by the looks of it. It started a stoop towards me and for a moment it was hard to see it. At the last moment he tried to slow down, only to discover he had too much momentum. It stumbled in the air for a moment and managed to land in a nearby dumpster.

I rolled my eyes as I made my way to help him. They had to send me a rookie, a showoff rookie at that. It was evident he had planned the entrance as he had come from the opposite side that the target had taken, and even more obvious that he was still getting used to his new body.

“Ouch!” I heard him say when he stumbled out of the container and hit the pavement with his human body, which was much older than the one I had. He had some egg shells on his brown curly hair and his jeans and white shirt stank of sour milk and some rotten fruits.

“I think you’re lucky you survived something like that,” I said as I offered him my hand and put him back to his feet “Next time you try to brag about your flight capabilities, make sure you do it right ok?”

“I didn’t ask for your opinion kid,” he said as he cleaned a little bit. “I’m waiting for someone to show up at any time now and was just making my way down here so we could meet.”

“Sure, whatever you say,” I said in the most sarcastic tone I could muster. "Now, just hang over the package and we can get on with the mission.”

He then began to acknowledge my presence and began to examine me thoroughly with his gaze. I didn’t blame him; everyone that didn’t know me assumed I was just another twelve-years-old boy on the street. “You got to be kidding me.”

I sighed, closed my eyes and thought of the package. It immediately appeared from the void between us and I grabbed it before gravity took grip of it.

“How did you..?” he stammered.

“Trans-dimensional spells for object are among the easiest ones to counter-spell, as even an amateur like you can do it in order to transport things,” I said opening the package and revealing some cookies filled with taffy. “Excellent,” I muttered as I began munching on them.

“You’re a sorcerer?!” he asked incredulous and oblivious that he had protected a package that contained candies all this time.

“I have an innate magic ability if that’s what you mean,” I said, spilling some crumbs from my mouth. “Now let’s continue. In which direction is the lab?”

“Over there,” he said, pointing somewhere opposite from were he had come from. “at about a mile. But I think it would be better if we just transported inside the place,” he added quickly.

I wasn’t a fool by any means. He just wanted to see a little magic in action. Most new recruits were eager to learn all about this new world they discover and do almost anything, even offer to be the pet of someone HQ had had an eye for some time or to help ‘repopulate’ the world by transforming into animals and be freed in the wild until balance was restored.

Come to think of it, a transportation spell didn’t sound that bad after all. It would help me get over with this faster.
“As you wish” I said, a grin creeping on his face “Hold this.” and I handed the box over. “And don’t even think about stealing one. I already counted all of them” I warned him.

“Don’t you need a chalk or something to draw a pentagram on the floor?” he asked as I was turning around towards the direction he pointed at.

“That’s only for the mages at HQ.” I said without turning. “They always like to complicate matters with words in forgotten languages or amulets made of expensive materials. You should never forget,” I turned around and faced him for a moment “that the best magic is the simple magic”

“Yeah right.” he said, but I had more important matters to attend than scold him. I began to feel the threads of space all around me, until I found the one. I began to fold it over until a connection was made, then I just had to open the way wide enough so we could pass through it.

“Open sesame.” I muttered, and an ethereal door manifested itself in front of me.

“You got to…” he began when he saw the air change with his very own eyes.

“It worked, didn’t it?” I said to him. I recovered my cookies from his perplexed self and pushed both of us towards the portal “Come on. I want to get this over with.”
{{Separator|j}}
“So what’s your name?” Matt asked after explaining almost half of his life to me. Not that it had been boring, but I was just too busy making our way through the complex.

The genius had pointed to the right place alright. He had just missed the fact that the target’s office was some stories higher than where we appeared. I think I made myself clear when I asked him to point out the place.

Either way, it could have been worse. At least he had had the distance right and we were now slowly approaching the top floor by complicated routes as to not touch anyone. After all, being invisible didn’t mean that people couldn’t stumble on you.

But all in all, we were doing a good progress so far, so a little chat wouldn’t hurt anyone. “Sirrehll.”

“Sir Ehl?” He asked, pronouncing it bad. “Man, everyone in the Alliance has strange unpronounceable names.” he said as we approached the stairwell.

“They just sound strange to you because most of them were first used millennia before your tongue was invented.” I said, pushing the door open and going through. “Alliance eh? They changed the names again. Last time I heard it, it was a coalition.”

“They change names?” he asked, moving behind me as we climbed yet another floor. “Why can’t they just stick to one?”

I shrugged “Political affairs. You know, the dwarves claim the elves have too much power, the elves say centaurs always hunt in their sacred secret forests, etc. They always come to an agreement and a new pact is formed and the only difference in the organization is the name.” We exited on this floor. “It also changes according to the place and country you’re in. But every change is linked to the unicorns one way or another, that’s for sure.”

“It makes sense” he said. “After all, the unicorns are the most powerful of all races as they were the ones who practically won the war against the dragons.”

This guy was promising after all. “Who told you about the great war?” I turned and asked him.

He shrugged. “I found out about it on my own in the great Elven library. They have some of the most amazing paintings of it in there. It still sends a chill down my spine when I see all the three main races fighting against swarms of dragons.”

“The paintings are good. Better than any human one” I said, continuing towards another set of stairs “but they always exaggerate in the account of numbers.”

“What do you mean?” he asked. His curiosity was clearly visible.

“Although there are persons that know the truth, almost everyone believes or tell that the dragons were the ones who started the war in order to rule over all the other races. The reality is that the war started by a conflict between the elves and the unicorns.

“The elves dominated the smiths and were beginning to span their crafts further with magic, which they had only discovered recently back at that time. They were developing a vast industry and needed more and more the resources of the earth.

“The unicorns, on the other hand, had always known magic. It was a natural part in them that came with the force of life itself, which is why they are considered the guardians of the world. With time, they began to develop a strong hate towards the machinery of the elves.

“As you may already be thinking, a war started between them. Most of the other races took sides so their power could grow with the victory of whoever won. Of course, the unicorns managed to eventually drag almost everyone to their side through blackmail, as they have total control over earth’s resources” we stepped through another door and walked down another hall.

“The elves had been left alone and heavy outnumbered. As a desperate move, they turned to the dragons. Are you following me?” I asked as I have just been hearing the occasional agreement from him all this time.

“Yes, the unicorns were winning against the elves and the elves asked help from the dragons.” he answered.

“Yes. Now, you need to know some things about dragons” I said as we dodged a crowd. “They are classified as one of the most powerful races that have ever existed. Their immense physical power overwhelms almost anything at its pace with thick skin reinforced with metal scales and enough force to hold back even the most terrible beasts of the deep. Their natural magic, which is passed from generation to generation, is a mystery to most races but it is often compared to the one unicorns wield. And their astuteness and eloquent speak is a very feared and dangerous weapon in the field of negotiation.

“But unlike most of the other races, Dragons are simple creatures that prefer to live simple lives. They enjoy simple pleasures like eating, sleeping or making hordes, and they do it a lot, and avoid conflicts at all costs, unless it is utterly necessary.

“The elves in their arrogance thought of them as simple talking animals at first, but when the situation came that they couldn’t rely on anyone else they were force to seek their help.

“As their was no central dragon government, as all dragons were independent from one another and only communicated if necessity aroused, the elves had to search for all over the world what dragons they could find, which were no more than half a hundredth…”

“Are you telling me that the dragon army was only of fifty creatures?!” Matt cut me. “I don’t believe it.”

“Believe it or not it’s true,” I continued as we approached an open empty elevator. “Dragons rarely mate and some don’t even bother to do it at all. Add to that the predators that eat the eggs and the hatchlings, the diseases, the occasional fight among them, and you have a population of some hundreds all around the world.”

“Ok, I get the picture,” he said as he pushed the button up some stories. “But how did the elves convince them to fight?”

“Gold.” I stated. “The elves are the best craftsmen in the world, and in exchange of help in their war they offered the scaly beasts tons of jewels. Of course they only had a limited quantity of these, that’s why they could only afford half a hundredth warriors.”

“So the elves joined forces with the dragons.” Matt stated when the bell announced we had arrived.

“Not exactly,” I said, getting out of the steel box. “The elves had originally planned to put them as a front against the other armies. That way they would gain some time for planning a solid strategy and find weak points in the enemy’s defenses. But their plan backfired when the dragons showed what they were really capable of. Oh! A bending machine!” I called out and headed to it.

“Can you please continue with the story?” Matt pleaded me.

“Patience is a virtue young fellow.” I replied as the machine gave me a bag of marshmallows. I took them and began to tear at them with gusto. “Where were we?” I asked with my mouth full.

“The elves’ plan for the dragons.” Matt said, a vein poking from his brow.

“Oh yeah!” I said, swallowing the puffy candy. “In only one year of fight they managed more than all the elves in two centuries of war. They not only held back the continuous invasions to the Elven country, they even began to make the enemy withdraw back to their territory and were starting to claim it for the elves.

“When the world began to take notice that the dragons were a practically unstoppable force it was already too late, they were already knocking at the doors of the sacred forests and woods of the immortal, so the unicorns immediately began to take actions. They quickly restarted negotiations with the elves and offered a deal they wouldn’t resist. They would share their knowledge with them, complete control over nature, beauty beyond anything terrestrial and touching divinity and immortality, in exchange for the destruction of the dragons.

“So they double-crossed the dragons, tricking them so they couldn’t use their magical abilities and lurking the warriors to a trap.”

“The battle of the Seven Empires,” Matt whispered. “the one portrayed in the library.”

“Precisely, but even then it took armies to finish them… Matt are you ok?” I asked when he stopped moving behind me. When I turned around a thin layer of brown was slowly consuming him.

His body was starting to distort. Feathers were growing all over his bare skin. Hands and arms were becoming stiff and began to position themselves at his sides. The bones on his feet were snapping as they rearranged themselves in new positions, the skin there spurting little yellow scales and his nails lengthen into razor sharp black claws. He couldn’t speak as a beak had begun to grow from inside his mouth and was almost done.

Something was definitely not right, as his eyes showed total panic just the moment before they turned amber and he began to shrink.
“Matt!” I screamed and tried to run to him. But the walls of the corridor began to spin all around the two of us, a sign that transportation was taking place in most cases.
{{Separator|j}}
But it didn’t feel like transportation at all. Then I knew that the place had been rearranged by magic, the same magic that had transformed the companion next to me.

“Matt are you alright?” I asked him. For a moment I was afraid his mind had slipped away as he was just staring at random directions all around, but I eventually recognized a nod.

“Don’t worry, I promise I’ll turn you back.” I said, kneeling down so I could stare at the now peregrine falcon in the eye.

“And I wonder,” a very deep voice said from my left. “How do you plan to do that?”

“Norman I presume?” I said standing up and facing the darkness from where the voice had come.

“The one and only.” he answered. Why did all the eccentric, crazy and evil millionaires have to hide in the dark? It was probably the fashion of this century.

“In the name of the Alliance, nature… and all that other stuff,” I began. “I hereby give you a last chance to stop doing… whatever it was that you were doing and summit yourself to the justice of the Seven Empires. And that includes turning Matt here back to his original form” I said, eyeing him. Matt contributed with a screech of his own.

The bass voice just laughed, starling Matt a little. But I kept calm, eating my bag of marshmallows.

“I must admit he has served me well, both as a pet and as an informer,” the voice continued. “It was thanks to him that I discovered your secret society, was able to get a hold of many powerful magical items and could track you down with magic ever since you departed from that alley”

“Really?” I asked, skeptically. I was sure we couldn’t have been located by any magical means, unless…

I turned to see Matt again; a faint blue glowed in the back of his wings, unnoticeable under a shirt in human form. “Oh yeah, there it is. I wonder why I didn’t see it before?” I said. “I must be getting a little rusty”

“And your friend will be the one who pays for your incompetence.” the voice boomed.

Then a series of lights came to life all around us except for where the voice sounded. They revealed a completely flat room the size of a football stadium with a big dome serving as ceiling.

All around us, animals of every kind and species were running, jumping, flying, eating, fighting… it was a complete jungle in here.
“As you can see, I’ve been quite busy with my magic.” the voice said in a lower volume. “All the animals around you were people once. It only took me one spell to turn them all completely into wild beasts. I can see from the looks of your friend that he’s starting to lose his mind as well”

He was right; Matt was starting to show symptoms of a full change. He was shaking his head now and then and I could feel him struggling to maintain control, but he’ll eventually lose it and be at the mercy of the primal instincts of the prey bird in a little while, trapped forever in that feathered body without any control over it.

But as much as I hated the situation Matt was in, there was still something not quite right in all of this. How could a simple beginner have done all of this with just one spell?

That was when I decided to check the currents of energy, and found my answer. This very building was the intersection of two powerful energy lines, increasing the effects of magic, including wizard spells. This could be a very dangerous thing if placed in the wrong hands, like the ones it was in right now.

“Stop this at once!” I said, my voice echoing from the walls.

“And who’s going to stop me, you?” he laughed maliciously. “A twelve years old boy who’s not even big enough to be affected by magic and whose weapons are thumb-sized marshmallows?” and he laughed some more.

“You don’t know who you’re messing with.” I replied, taking another bite.

“No, it is you who doesn’t know who you’re messing with”. The last light then turned on above him.

I was so shocked at the sight in front of me that I dropped the bag of candies.

“A dragon…” I muttered. “it can’t be…”

“Oh, but it is.” it said.

''This guy was pushing me to my limits…''

He managed to get his four meters tall ass up and stood an all fours. He was covered in scales so black, so opaque that even the light refused to touch them, making the figure have a complete cover of darkness all around him. His hide smelled of corruption and ambition and looked rotten in some places. Bare bones served him as spines from his muzzle, elongated and twisted into a distorted evil grin that showed fangs that couldn’t fit inside it, all the way through his hideous back and ended with a black blade in an unbelievable thin and long tail.

''His mere presence was drawing me insane…''

“You just wouldn’t believe how wonderful it feels to have so much power” the creature hissed, a slimy bifurcated tongue escaping the dry lips. He then lowered himself from behind a desk that had once belonged to a human and slowly made his way towards me. “I can feel things that no man will ever know. I can sense magic currents like this one in many other places. Their energy calls to me, and tempts me to use it to feed upon the entire world!”

“That’s your own ambition and tainted nature,” I told him, my hands turning into fists and my head low. “The same one that has consumed your body and left a demon in its place.”

''He was filling me with more anger by the second…''

“Fool little human” he said. His blood red gaze never leaving me “You know nothing. My race will take its rightful place on top of the world, enslaving the Seven Empires and destroying anyone who opposes us with my guide.”

''I couldn’t control myself anymore…''

“The dragons shall rise once again!” he boomed, extending the holed leather of his wings at his full length and sending a crimson flame on my way.

''…and I didn’t want to.''

The scorching flames burned at flesh in less than a second, releasing my coppery hide from its confinement. My scales glittered in different shades of orange and dark amber as the fire passed next to them without doing harm.

I stretched the strong muscles on my thick and powerful tail as it grew from the end of my spine. The soft leathery plates on my stomach touched the floor for a moment as my posture changed with the growth of claws on what were once my hands and feet. My skull snapped as my muzzle grew outward, dissolving my nose into only two lines on its front, pushing my eyes, which were the purest amber and with a slit instead of round pupils, a little to the sides so that I could have a wider view range, and my fins finally opening after being hidden all this time and overwhelming with sounds once again. My neck lengthened to be almost as long as my increasingly bulking body, its flexibility, dexterity and power allowed me to use it similarly to a hand. I spread my wings that easily doubled the distance from my nostrils to the end of my white tail-blade, my chest easily lifting all the extra mass thanks to uncountable hours of flying throughout the world.

The ashes of my human body rested on the ground around me, making the air reek of burnt flesh and hair. And as the air cleared of the smoke, I could see the small figure in front back a little at the sight of a real dragon that could easily been mistaken for a two stories rock of fine metal.

The monster snapped into reality again quickly, and began to attack me with everything he had in despair. He threw fire at me again, but the heat couldn’t do anything against my scales. He tried to tackle me, only to find out he was too weak. He launched at me with his claws directed to my neck, only to find them cut with my own. He attempted to use his tail as a whip against me, only to find it cut with my blade before he even blinked. He flapped his barely usable wings and was able to get off the ground, only to fall to it with the wing one beat of mines made.

As his last resource he crawled to his desk and drew out of a drawer a book enveloped in leather, a wizard’s spell book by the useless runes engraved in it, and recited the last enchantment in it. The waves of the magic lines began to vibrate, until I reached them and calmed them with my spirit. The most powerful spell the humans had been able to muster had been to change the position of natural magic currents and, with it, a little bit of reality. But he was so weak and had so limited magic knowledge that the only thing that he did was to disrupt a little the surface of magic’s calmed waters. Even if what he did wasn’t of great relevance, it was better to restore balance quickly before someone got hurt.

Realizing his spell hadn’t work and that he couldn’t wield magic anymore, he took shelter under the fine wooden furniture he had gone to. All this time I had been harvesting energy from the lines in here and now was the moment to use their full power.

''“I am Sirrehll!”'' I roared into the room. ''“Son of Sarrhall and descendant of Ardera, who slaughtered the great Eslathian sea snake in the name of Gaia herself!”'' I pushed the currents from their course so they could feed a deed that the human age hasn’t seen.

''“The purest dragon blood runs within my veins, ever since I was born in the molten center of the earth!”'' The energy began to canalize through me, the light emitted so intense that no dark corner was left.

''“And you!”'' I said, pointing at where the coward laid. “You have dared to insult my kin and my ancestors by comparing us to the insolent stereotypes in other races’ stories! You even thought we were animals that you could have easily manipulated to achieve your material goals! And you also made me drop a bag of my favorite food, ''candies!''”

I released the power and watched the world change. “And now you’re going to pay for it.”
{{Separator|j}}
All the material objects began to distort in random and chaotic forms as the dimension shifted around them. Patches of the floor took different shapes; sand, vegetation, rocks, magma, plasma, water, all were scattered as far as the sight could see and were turning into other shapes as time passed. The dark brown desk joined the water that touched it from below and the curling and shaking ball was revealed.

All this time I’ve been the one manipulating the forces so that a dimension fusion wouldn’t happen. And as I was the one with complete control here I forced the giant lizard to uncurl, turn around and face me, just when the floor on his claws turned to a sandy little hill. So I began the process.

His body dried up and began to take a brighter color as silicates began to substitute living tissue. He just stood there the whole time, his body not twitching at all but his eyes were consumed by growing fear.

Finally, his body was completely consumed by the process and he was now a sand statue that resembled just a little a reptile with wings. Without any real support, and with the increasing wind, the sculpture quickly collapsed on itself and joined the other sand in the pile below.

As that had been taken cared of, I focused on another matter. The temporal fusion had affected the whole room, and with it the rest of the people that had been forced into animals. They were hovering all over the place, their animal forms slowly returning to normal humans with every passing second.

That’s when I took a good look at someone. It was Matt, but his form wasn’t changing. He was still a peregrine falcon, which shouldn’t have been surprising at all. We were in Chaos after all, one of the few realms where dreams and thoughts have strong power over other universes. It was only logical to assume that the kid truly wanted to be a bird.

As much as I liked to fly in a zero gravity ambient, the more time we spend here, the bigger the chances that a fusion would happen. So I focused again on the original currents of magic that had brought us here and were feeding the connection to this place and moved them until they were in their original state.
{{Separator|j}}
Everyone was still unconscious when the reinforcements came in. Two unicorns, five elf mages and a number of phoenixes went to see that the entire human’s memories were erased, the magical items were dealt with accordingly and all evidence was removed from normal human’s hands, all normal procedure.

Matt had woken up shortly after we returned and was being thoroughly questioned now. I don’t think he minded that much that he couldn’t turn back to human form and would remain forever a bird of prey. Of course, it had been his choice after all.

“This was supposed to be a simple message delivery mission!” the white equine figure yelled at me in the neighs and whinnies of the language of their kin. “And imagine my surprise when I find out you sent the last three floors of a skyscraper in a trip across universes!”

My human hair had just finished growing and I looked the same way I had when I took the first step in here. “We delivered the ultimatum. The other stuff was in self defense.”

“What could he have possibly done that you needed to use a trans-dimensional enchantment?!”

“He dropped my marshmallows” I stated. He couldn’t argue against that, and he knew it.

“This isn’t over yet!” the unicorn snorted. “I’ll keep a close eye on you” and he then turned to open a portal back to their kin’s woods.

Everyone parted from my way as I headed to the still intact bookshelves and stands. They were afraid of me and what I’ve done, but I didn’t care as it would be easier to find what I wanted if no one disturbed me.

As I was searching shelves located behind were the desk should have been, I saw Matt land on one of the highest ones. He must have been done with debriefing.

''Why didn’t you tell me?'' he told through telepathy, yet another gift from his stay in Chaos.

“Would you have still gone with me if you knew?” I answered. My now human hands opened little doors, and revealed some scotch behind them. I close them again and kept looking. “Besides, HQ doesn’t like that much when I go around yelling I’m a dragon when they take pride in their great battle.”

''Then why do you work for them? It’s obvious even to me that they don’t like you and would rather see you dead.''

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” I said as I revised between some books. “They need me and, as you can see, it would be very hard for any of them to kill me.”

''It still doesn’t make any sense. Don’t you hate to think they killed your own kind and take joy in it?''

I sighed “Yes, I don’t like the idea.” I the turned to him. “But my brothers also deserved it. They allowed their greed to control their minds and made the fatal mistake to enter a war, and I don’t plan on doing the same thing by fighting everyone whose ignorance doesn’t allow him to see wider.

“Besides, who cares what ''they'' think!” I said and waved at all the busy people around, who turned and stared at me. “I’m a dragon. I have a simple life, simple needs and simple joys. I only hope that some day the other races will open their eyes and begin to see the wonders in these things before you all end up ''destroying'' everything.” and I continued my search.

A moment of silence followed and then they continued cleaning the place. I felt that something disturbed Matt.

''I kind of feel sorry for the poor guy'' he said eyeing the empty space some feet away. ''I don’t think he deserved to die like that after all.''

“You shouldn’t worry about those things Matt. It’s Chaos justice after all. Oh, so here they are!” I said, opening what must have been the final drawer of the room and taking out a fine wooden box with chocolates. I tasted one; they were filled with honey! “Do you want one?” I offered Matt.

''I think I’ll pass.'' he said and flew away.

“You’re the one who misses it.” I said just as he was out a window.

“I would offer one to you Norman, but I don’t think you can eat anymore.” I whispered to the amethyst geode that had rolled somewhere next to this furniture after we returned. “Don’t worry, it’s not permanent. I believe some thousands of years will be enough for you to think about what you did.” and with that I was out of there.
{{Separator|j}}
The bell on the computer rang again and I went to see it. As always, I still hadn’t got a clue as to how to operate the damn thing, so I used a little bit of magic.

''“Work!”'' I yelled at it and hit the keyboard. It hummed and the message was displayed.

It was another job, one of some lake contamination industry. But what caught my attention was that a side note said that Matt had offered to be my partner on this one.

I liked the kid. He was still a rock-head but had a rather insatiable thirst of knowledge that will eventually correct that. I was even feeling some kind of connection with him. Dragons don’t mate that often, and even if the season came I still hadn’t found a likely dragoness of my likes. But even if I didn’t bear hatchlings, at least I won’t be forgotten by the sands of time with Matt as my pupil.

I suddenly felt a spell taking place, and went immediately to check out the source of it.

I opened my fridge, and found that it was stoked with all kinds of sweets and things that would make any dentist faint.

“Thank you.” I said to the air. I then grabbed the maple syrup and proceeded where my waffles were waiting to be bathed with it.

<comments />
[[Category:Story]]
[[Category:Pocsock]]
[[Category:Animal]]
[[Category:Mythical]]
[[Category:Inanimate]]
[[Category:Avian]]
[[Category:Dragon]]
[[Category:Magic]]

All You Need to Know

2008-06-03T02:08:55Z

Pocsock: Categorizing

{{byline|name=All You Need To Know|author=Pocsock|user=Pocsock}}

Everyone had been quite nervous for today’s test, but not me. I knew everything that might come in an exam like this one, even more, so I wasn’t nervous at all, until I saw a green scale growing on the back of my hand. I got startled by this and dropped my pencil to the ground.
I could see and feel my new claw when I lowered myself to recover my pencil. That was when I saw a pair of black shoes with a red-scaled tail behind. I looked up at the human face.
“Hi” I said, trying not to say too much in a delicate situation like this one.
“What are you doing down there, trying to copy your classmate?” she said in a stern tone.
“No Miss, I just dropped this” I said, showing her the feather with the black ink at the end of it.
Her eyes shot wide and she began to take a big breath. I didn’t have to hear what she was about to shout to me to know I was in a deep trouble.

“You said ''Miss'' to a teacher?!” my friend said while we waited for the bus home. He was standing on lion’s paws and feathers were growing all the way from his big yellow beak to his elbows and belly, he wasn’t wearing any shirt, and they were still spurting out from under his skin.
“Yes” I said through my new light-green muzzle “And she sent me to the principal’s office”.
“I’m not surprised. It was the least she would do, having insulted all her family. Good thing you’re a good student and your family has prestige” he said with, what I guessed was, a smile.
“Yeah, could have been worse” and added ‘much worse’ to my insides.
He then looked at the sky and said “The hour is growing late” he then looked at me “I must head back to my house now” and with that started walking to the sidewalk.
“Aren’t you going to wait for the bus?” I asked him.
He pierced at me with those yellow eyes the next second. “''Are you crazy?'' Those are only for stinking humans” he said, pointing at the crowd behind me “Besides, we don’t need those when we can fly” and he opened his wings and shot to the sky.

“I heard about what happened at the academy” a four-meters-tall anthro dragoness told me as I was exploring the maze of the cave that should be my home with my new enhanced vision “and I already told your parents and grand parents. We’ll talk about your attitude after dinner hatchling, when the baron goes away” and with that she disappeared.
“You’re in trouble!” a squeaky voice said behind me. I spun around and saw a little anthro dragon “Gran-gran wouldn’t have told you that if you weren’t. I’m going to tell the others!” and he also disappeared in a little tunnel on the silvery surface of the wall.

I threw my backpack to the other side of my cave-room and began to search for that book.
“Here it is” I whispered as I extracted it from beneath the mattress of my bed.
It was thick, with a leather cover with an elaborate silver and golden design all over it. The letters were also very detailed and read '''All You Need to Know''', underneath a small sentence stated ''by Jeremiah''. I released my breath as my name hadn’t changed that much in this universe. 
I hated shifts. They were unpredictable and always put me in troubles. At least this one had been slow and given me time to at least get to the book before anything serious happened.
Thank god I came up with the idea of writing this thing! Ever since the reality changes started to happen to me, and it seems I’m one of the only ones that senses them, I have had difficulties trying to figure out the new worlds I’ve been visiting with all their different laws and ways of living, just like this one. The book had all I needed to know, autobiography, brief universal history, knacks and abilities I have, language (in case it also changed), etc. and, fortunately for me, it adjusted to the new universe every time it shifted. 
It told me that polymers had been discovered some decades ago, but the economical system had been a feudal one for over two thousand years and remained like that, that my family owned all the land around this mountain-castle, and that I had twenty five annoying little brothers like the one I saw on my way here and another thirty that were older than me. Oh yeah, and that the humans were seen as inferiors by all the other anthropomorphic creatures. 
“Great” I said, threw the book aside and lay on my bed, being careful not to land painfully over my wings. Yes, I didn’t like the thought of living here when I believed in concepts like equality of rights and had seen what energy-based materials could do, but it could have been worse. 
That was when I saw a photograph near a bookshelf. It was a beautiful turquoise dragoness posing in front of a fountain. It read ‘To my handsome boyfriend. Happy two weeks!’ in the down right corner. 
This wouldn’t be that bad after all.

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{{series bar|series=All You Need to Know|previous=None|next=[[I See Red Fur]]}}
[[Category:Story]]
[[Category:Pocsock]]
[[Category:Mythical]]
[[Category:Anthropomorphic]]
[[Category:Dragon]]
[[Category:Reality Shift]]

I See Red Fur

2008-06-03T02:08:35Z

Pocsock: New Story

{{byline|name=I See Red Fur|author=Pocsock|user=Pocsock}}

It started just like any other errand into town. Go get some groceries here, pick up some things there, fill the tank, the usual everyday stuff. Of course what starts out as normal doesn't usually end up that way, and even though I had hopes that this might be an exception, someone else had other plans in stock for me.

I saw the first one at the gas station, looking through a variety of products, of a rather unhealty kind I may add. At first I noted nothing wrong on him, after all people in fursuits and with plastic ears and fake tails were not that uncommon around here this time of the year (I think furs is the word for them, but I can't be sure of it), but then I saw the ear twitch.

I would have sworn that there had been nothing else there but plastic and fabric a moment ago, and I was sure it couldn't have moved like that, not even with animatronics at play, but I just saw it happen.

There, as if to mock me, it moved again and this time the other one followed, making two small stumps on top of the head where once a pair of little red triangles stood straight. Afraid I would look a little down and see him frowning, not to mention being caught staring, I quickly settled everything up and was on the calm streets once again.

''It was the gases of the station playing tricks on you,'' I told myself ''I just have to convince mom and dad to buy one of the new hydrogen models sometime in the future.''

''And why am I driving this prehistoric thing anyway?''

The next stop was going so smoothly, that it was just boring. I was just staring at the shelves and letting the list and my body pick up the various familiar brands while my mind wandered in the clouds of the future. That is, until I heard one of the strangest and most unimaginable sound at that particular moment and place. I turned around, not sure what to make out of the strange yelp and bark, and once again my gaze stood frozen on the scene in front of me.

There were two boys, or at least that's what their clothes told me they were, and they were fighting with fangs and claws, in the literal sense. There they were, two perfect fox-boys, with bushy tail included, struggling in the middle of the aisle and I was just standing there with my jaw large enough to hit the floor. Kind of reminded me of those puppies they often show playing on the nature channel.

If I hadn't believed that my mind could play any more tricks on me I was definately wrong as just some moments later, when the biggest one was about to pin the other to the ground, a big vixen came walking on two legs out of the corner with a cart in tow. I almost tought I was back at home, seeing the morning cartoon show at that moment, but the I saw her angry face and the dream fell apart. All at once she was towering her small male copies and abruptly separated them with a strong pull, or so I imagined from the sound of pain that came after, from their tails, moving them to either side of the metal vehicle and keeping an eye on them.

She then turned to address me “You have to excuse them,” she bagan to apologise “they are normally well behaved, but, you know, they are just kids”

I must have really been wide-eyed and with a lot of drool coming out of my mouth due to the shock that little scene had provocked on me, because the next thing I knew a red paw hit me square on the cheek and sent me looking at the shelves again. As my brain rewired itself back to conciousness I could hear the sound of claws on tiles getting away and the sniker of one of the kids.

I didn't lose any moment after that. I held to my cart as a life saver and in no time I was at the cashier, giving all the cash I had with my at the rather surprised young normal lady there, and leaving through the automatic doors.

I was sure that I had blood lines of the claws on my face, but I didn't care as a cold shill ran down my spine, making me have chicken skin all of a sudden.

I'm not a paranoid kind of person, but when anthropomorphic foxes start following you around you tend to act a little like one. I still had a firm determination to go pick up that present my mom had bought to one of her friends in one of the many stores that adorned a way-too-small-and-full-street-to-park-on-it avenue. It was either going there, possibly discovering an army of beast-men along the way and maybe a dragon or two, or facing my mother back at home. I opted for the safest choice and was walking rather rapidly through the sidewalk, turning around every now and then in case someone was following me.

It was on the brisk of sanity, when everything returned to normal and I swore never to eat dad's mystery loaf again, that I saw the first flash of red among the crowds, followed by another... and another... and another. In an instant all I was seeing was red fur, but not only from foxes anymore. There were bikers going down the road with a rather human body if it weren't for the paws instead of hands and feet thing, with a fluffy red tail. There were businessmen with expensive suits with no other difference than a long red muzzle and a fluffy red tail behind. There were old women sitting on a bench, ordinary in every sense except for the little red ears on top of their heads that turned at every sound, and the fluffy red tail behind.

I was going crazy, the world was going crazy, everyone was plotting against me! Running as if a big purple dinosaur was chasing me -in case you didn't notice, I don't like purple dinosaurs that much- I went to look for a way that would take me out of there, but I was completely surrounded so I just pushed open the nearest door and jumped inside.

I found myself in the exact place I wanted to be, a refuge from the outside and the antique store. There was nothing red here, no muzzles, no paws and especially no bushy tails, only the smell of rust, ancient wood and dust greeted me. I was just starting to breathe normally once again when I saw it, at the very far wall of the store staring at me.

He was tall, not as tall as me of course but still tall enough. His ears, that could obviously move in every direction they wanted, were now focused on me. His blackened nose smelled the air in my direction. His tail had frozen behind him but moved stiffly every now and then. His claws, the ones in all four limbs, were drawn and ready to strike. His face, if rather confused at first, began to change into a snarl, bared fangs included.

All this time, my own temper had been slowly rising. They had chased me, cornered me, made me act like a madman and I had finally become one. At the end, I would rather fight than watch them take over the world. With only that thought in mind, I charged the figure in front of me, and was glad he took in the challenge and was also driving at the inevitable point where we would meet some moments later. At the lenght of a meter or two, I took impulse, jumped... and the world got dark.

When lights and sounds started making sense again, I found myself sitting on a bench of an old style bar of the likes displayed at the cowboy movies, except this one had a shattered mirror. Soon enough, a familiar face looked back at me with half moon spectacles balancing dangerously at the tip of a rather white muzzle.

“Are you okay sweety?” the calm and soft voice of Ms. Fastpaw greeted me “That was a big hit you took back there”

“I'm fine, I think” I said, half believing it myself as my skull knocked at full volume once again and my ears went flat against it to try and quiet down the rather loud noises “But I believe the invaders are finally gatting into my mind” I added with a grin.

“I know they can be quite annoying at times,” she said while replacing the bag of ice and drying the wet fur with a piece of cloth “I frankly don't understand them. Dressing up in artificial bare skin and walking around with those flat faces and covered foot-paws is not my ideal of fun”

“Tell me about it,” I smiled at her “everyone knows that there could never be such a thing as humans, but some people just seem to love them without reason”

At that last bit, she also smiled at me.

When The old good lady made sure I wasn't hurt as bad as to merit a visit to the white building, I made my way home, silently thanking that no other human got in my way. Soon enough, I found myself holding the door open at the entrance of our den, when one of my little brothers, the oldest of the two, went pass me in what I could only describe as a foul mood in him. As if on cue, I heard him moving and scrambling things in his room until he found the book that no one else was allowed to even think about, and I knew he had begun to read through it and would be a long while before he came out of there.

''I'll never understand him'' I muttered as I made my way to the kitchen to deliver everything and then moved my tail to the couch.
Footpaws on one armrest, head on the other, tail falling to the ground on one of the holes especially made for them, and a clawproof remote in one hand was just exactly what I needed to get all this day out of my head. I turned up the TV just in time to catch the last cartoon, Superfox, the most powerful superhero of all times.

''Humans, yeah right''

<comments />

{{series bar|series=All You Need to Know|previous=[[All You Need to Know]]|next=None}}

[[Category:Fox]]
[[Category:Anthropomorphic]]
[[Category:Pocsock]]
[[Category:Story]]
[[Category:Reality Shift]]
[[Category:Mental change]]

User:Pocsock

2008-06-03T02:08:09Z

Pocsock: New story, and adding a little more order

I'm a very recent author who has only been posting on [http://lists.integral.org/listinfo/tsa-talk TSA-Talk], until now. Now I'm beginning to expand my horizons a little further, starting here.

If you feel the need to contact me, whether you loved my stories or just want to tell me how bad I am and that I should stop writing immediately, you can leave a comment [[User_talk:Pocsock|here]], or you can send an e-mail at [mailto:pocsock@yahoo.com pocsock@yahoo.com] and I'll try to write back at you as soon as possible (but I warn you, I don't plan on quitting anytime soon)

==Stories==

*[[All You Need to Know]]- Have you ever had that strange feeling that you don't understand the world around you?
*[[A New Beginning]]- A little glimpse at a not-that-far-away future, where researchers have accidentally stumbled upon a miraculous cure for most diseases, with some little side effects. Currently on hiatus.
*[[I Need More Maple Syrup]]- The things some people have to do in order to have a descent breakfast.
*[[I See Red Fur]]- A little story that demostrates why you have to fear normal mornings.
*[[Nahual]]- There are also tales of werecritters in Mexico, and they also have a bad reputation among normal men.
*[[Self-destruct Activated]]- Could you believe all the trouble a little fish can cause?
*[[User:Pocsock/Story_of_a_Weredragon|Story Of A Weredragon]]- What does it mean to be a weredragon? Someone is about to find out.

[[Category:Author]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pocsock}}

User:Pocsock/Story of a Weredragon/The human

2008-04-19T02:51:54Z

Pocsock: Last part updated and some minor formatting.

User:Pocsock/Story of a Weredragon/The human

2008-03-30T06:55:46Z

Pocsock: An update, possibly one of the last ones of the first part.

{{title|name=Story Of A Weredragon: The Human|author=Pocsock|user=Pocsock}}
{{WIP}}
{{Side note|New content starts from green text.}}
=={{Separator|d|The First Full Moon}}==
{{dropcap|I}}t was the beginning of a long journey to the little girl that had drafted outside of his house and wandered into the very hearts of the woods. Panic had begun to consume her the moment she realized that the trail had long disappeared, replaced with uneaven and soft ground that craked now and then with some stray branch or leaf, and that the voice of her father had already been replaced with the terrorizing sounds of creeping creatures and hungry predators. As the realization of the perilous situation began to really sink into the poor child's mind and imagination, making every shadow casted a demon and every sound heard a possible hungry beast, fear began to take control of her actions and made her run with all her might deeper into the unknown, effectively cutting her from the rest of the world.

There, where the ground opened up to the sky and the mattress of grass was disturbed with the ocaccional boulder or small hill, was when her strength finally reached its end and her limbs collapsed into a tired ball near the center. For a very long time the only sound that was heard was a very loud crying, then the one of sobbing, and then there was silence until the first crickets began to play their song.

When the little one finally returned from the world of dreams she was received with a cover of darkness. At first she thought her eyes were closed, until the first set of amber spheres appeared on the horizon, followed by many others until she was surrounded by them. The alpha male, seeing the oportunity to catch an easy meal, was the first one to launch forward and was soon followed by the rest of the pack.

Just at that moment, the little girl screamed her lungs out, but instead of the ordinary high-pitched sound she had expected to hear, a roar came out of her throat, shaking the earth itself for far more time that should have even been possible. After that silence ruled over the clearing, followed shortly after by the busy movements of the retreating wolves. The little one didn't have much time to react to what had happened as a souring pain coursed through her body.

It started with her eyes, that went blind the moment she closed them, and spread through her head, neck, torso, arms, legs and ended in the very tip of her toes. It was as if her very skin was digging daggers into her muscles and her bones. She rolled over and hit the boulders many times, punching the skin and releasing the scales uderneath it. She trashed all over the place, making it easier for bones to reshape and flesh to realign for their new purposes. She had to hold onto the side of a low hill to steady herself as spines, claws, fangs, wings and tail made their way through. She finally collapsed on the ground when everything was over, panting softly from her new muzzle.

Her eyes finally found the energy to open up... and the world invaded her. Everything was sharp and focused, from the tanters of clothes she tore apart some meters away to the family of birds that was quietly resting on a branch in a tree half a mile away. The colors seemed to glow from things and she even found out some ones that hadn't existed before. At the end she managed to stand up, fix her gaze on the solid round moon that had just been revealed upon the world and roar at it until her lungs could take it no more and her long neck could go no further into the night sky.

That was the first time that Lizzette transformed into a dragon.

=={{Separator|d|The Second Full Moon}}==
The day came sooner than usual for our little child. The soft bed and warm coverings kept the little one at bay in the dreams realm, where she dreamt of rocky landscapes with mountains so high that could have touched the very stars at night. It was the morning sun that finally made her eyes open.

She normally woke up before the rooster gave his morning call, and even before the first sun rays invaded the sky, so she could help her father with the chores of the farm. Knowing this, it was unsurprising that the first thing she did was to send every cover flying to the other side of the room and to put on her working clothes as soon as possible.

When she got out her father had already fed all the animals and was about to go see how the field was coming out. The first thing she did was to go apologize with him for having dozed off all morning, again. Being still a youthful, she had a propency to have bad dreams take the better of her, making her stay alert all night and recovering the missing sleep hours later at day. Her father understood and sent her to wash some clothes on the nearby river that helped feed the farm. She immediately went to the house, grabbed all the things she needed and headed to the North road.

He watched her go, and was grateful that she thought of last night of only a dream in that little head of hers, and even more grateful that, somehow, she had been able to find her way back to the edge of the woods that surrounded the little farm.
{{Separator|d|}}
Time passed as it usually does, and before anyone knew it thirty days and twenty nine nights had already gone by in the blur of monotony and hard work. The sun had hidden in the horizon long ago and the only audible sound so far was the crickets and other insects singing in a chorus just in the border of the tree line. That, however, was cut off shortly with the sharp edge of a whinny.

Lizzete thought, not for the first time, that work at the farm was endless. Even at night some of the animals get startled by something, usually a rabbit or a fox from the nearby woods. Our little one is used to this kind of nightly errands, as her father sometimes goes into town to attend some important matters and she's in charge until he returns the next day. Despite the blinding darkness, she moved as swiftly as she would have in daylight and was soon in front of the mare's stall.

The old horse poked her head out and received the little one with some friendly poking of her very dextrous and strong lips. She, in return, smuggled her a carrot which she immediately accepted and petted her on those spots in her long muzzle that she liked the best. The animal had always been skinny to the point of poking her ribs out and had never really been much of a help in the farm anyways, even in her youth days. What had saved her so far had been the girl's love, that made it impossible for her father to get rid of her.

At one point the little cotton hands stopped rubbing and the horse opened her eyes to see what the problem was. Looking back at the steam of pure white light that was coming from one of the largest holes that adorned the roof, she could see her small human falling around on the ground. Being confused at first, she tried to poke even more of herself out to try and see what was going on, but confusion quickly became panic in the blink of an eye when she noted that something was wrong, and the whinnies started again even louder.

There, on the ground, our little child was going through a process that she thought had only existed in her dreams, only sligthly different than the previous time. The scales were growing out of her skin much like thick hairs instead of ripping it to shreds and leaving it on the ground. The bones shifted and accomodated with ease and swiftness, the movements of the new limbs easily coming to mind as it happened. Tail, muzzle and wings sprouted from their confinement and stretched. The horns, claws and fangs grew out, disscarding quickly the old hair, nails and theeth. In a lot less time than the previous occassion, and without all the previous pain, the transition from one body to the other was complete and the little one saw the world again from behind slitted eyes.

Not having as good vision as a human, or a dragon for that matter, a horse has to relay more on other senses to see the world around them, especially the hearing and the smell. So when the animal in the stall didn't hear any screams or any other threathening noise and didn't catch any hint of a predator or other danger in the air, she stopped her own panic and began to aknowledge the girl in front of her. Her eyes told her something huge and threathening was laying there, but her other senses said it was her girl, confused and afraid, so she did what she always does in this kind of situations. Going to the front of the stall once again, she poke her head through the top of the wooden fence and began to tug her face with her very leathery and strong lips, feeling a strange cold and hard sensation on her skin.

Lizzette, for her part, had been startled at first. A rush of ideas and feelings came through her head. Confusion at why she was now scaley all over. Fear of what her father and the town folk would think if they saw her in this deary state. Panic at the prospect of being stuck in that form forever. Anger at having ripped her clothes apart to shreds, yet again. All of them spinning in her head and effectively making a draconic statue of her, until the soft nips came. Slowly, but effectively, the mare's touch began to relax the solid muscles until movility returned, and to melt away the ideas into a constant and stable flow until her head was a great deal clearer. Reason and calmness finally returned to the young, and a claw reached up and carefully continued the job where it had left it. After a while it was over, so the animal gave her a good night's kiss in the only matter horses can, with yet another nip in the tip of the muzzle just below the little horn, and retreted to the back of the only used stall to doze off.

It had been just what the little one needed. Someone who told her that it was ok, that nothing had happened. She was still Lizzette, the humble kid of a farmer, only in a different form. She wondered if this was what her father had said about great changes in her future earlier today as she yawned and began to make herself comfortable. After all, she had been awoken in the middle of the night.

=={{Separator|d|The Third Full Moon}}==
Unlike the last time, the events of the other night came to the mind of Lizzette easily. It was in part thanks to the fact it was her second time around and, thus, she had a little bit more conciousness of her unique situation, and in part thanks to the cold breeze of the morning air. Before the farmer could get his first boot on she had already gone to put something to cover herself and was beginning her daily work. The torn fabrics and other indications of last night's events were never seen again among the hay and other wastes.
{{Separator|d}}
That night, the kid decided to face her father and find out if her suspicions of the mysterious future planned for her were correct. But the time wasn't right, it seemed, as the farmer had lost track of the intruder that ate the eggs today and was in a pretty grim mood about it. So she decided it would be best to wait until he cooled down again the next day.

The sun hid and rose again, and the time came again when the little one and the older one were face to face enjoying some of the rather short-sized meal. She was about to burst free and attack him with all her questions and doubts that had invaded her mind, but something was amiss. He hadn't opened his mouth all day except to give her instructions and eat, so something must still be bothering his soul to keep him so serious and quiet. The girl decided it was best to let him be for the moment and let him arrange everything, as he usually did, by himself.

As the morning started she was received by a rather joyful hug and peaks in the cheek every now and then. Apparently her father had managed to outsmart the grey menace and show him who 'the real hunter was around here' acording to his very own words. Noting his glee and pride at having saved everyone in the modest farm once again, the young one didn't want to disturb him with her childish problems. In fact, she reflected, she might even end up disturbing him, like that one time she had cut herself on a pointy rock near the water and had ran crying to him. She still reserved that red face full of anger, with his veins poking out and eyes about to fall out of their place, for her nightmares. It didn't matter if it had just been for one second, nor that he had appologized later on, it still stung her small heart and brought sour tears out to think about it, and so she decided to wait and see if tomorrow was a good day to tell him.

But tomorrow wasn't a good day either, so she waited for the next day.

And the next.

And the one after that.

Until she realized that the time for answers would come when her father decided to give them to her.
{{Separator|d}}
The weeks passed. The moon had been hidding her beautiful face until it had been completely dark one night, and was now just pulling herself together, as our little one thought the round one did when passing her stages, until it was the time. Tonight was it, the night were the moon gave her full light to the world until her brother came at day.

Even when she had been prepared, working with renown effort at day so she could go early to bed and wouldn't doze off when the time came. Even when she would be close to the house in a nearby opening that she often visited. Even when her father had gone to those sleeps were he reaked of the awful stuff that she should never touch and couldn't be awaken until well beyond the next day. She still was nervous, not scared however as that had faded away the last time, and a little too anxious.

The shinning one couldn't be seen in the sky anymore, which meant that his sister would come any minute now that the sky was empty and darkness was consuming it. She carefully disrobed, putting what scarce belongings she had on the base of a nearby tree. Making herself as comfortable as anyone could on the cold roughness of the bare ground, she let her body relax and absorb the stars' light, closing her eyelids and covering her beautiful blue orbs. The next second, she opened them, and the world had changed.

Curiosity overwhelmed her. She pull her hands up and saw claws instead, heavy blue claws floating on a sea of lighter scales. She turned her long and flexible neck back and found spikes, a river of sapphire spikes that ran from the shrine of her head, through the smooth surface of pebbles and on to the end of the tail. Moving around she found how natural it felt to move on ground an all fours like a wild beast, the thin but amazingly strong and semi-translucent wings balancing and keeping stability by moving side to side, and the long and thick tail trailing behind. She reached the small mirror on the ground that some would have called a pond and peeked at her reflection. Her head had changed noticeably, a muzzle had attached itself, lenghting her head and fusing her nose so that now only two slits at the tip of it remained, and gained most of the face; a set of small fins much like her wings adorned the sides of the form; two rows of very strong and sharp fangs infested her mouth and a pair of horns had made their way through the back of her head. Even with all the draconic features it was unmistkeable who the creature was, her eyes, although slitted, hadn't lost the expressiveness that divides persons from animals and hadn't lost the sky hue that kept the old ladies at town wondering if she was a witch.

It didn't matter she wasn't human anymore, her soul was still one of a child and, as such, she could stay fixed on her reflection fooling with her face all night. She smiled, a sight that would have scared away anything that had at least a little sense, but she just giggled at how it just seemed out of place in such a predator. She then moved her ears, a feat that was impossible to her before but now was as easy as if they were just another pair of fingers attached to the sides of her head, and she discovered how to control her hearing so that the fall of a leaf could pierce her like a thunder, even if it had been far away, and how to silence the world at will. The not-so-little-anymore child next sticked her biforked toungue out and moved it in the air a little like snakes tended to do, and, mimicking a snake, she slid it back in and proved with the separated bits of flesh around her mouth for a while. It would have continued like that, doing faces and wasting time, if it hadn't been for a little green friend that jumped just at that moment and interrupted the busy reptile.

It saw her. She saw it. It began to hop out of the pond as soon as it aknowledged its mistake and she followed in persuit a very short time later. As for the outcome, lets just say that catching frogs wasn't a challenge for the little weredragon anymore.

The night followed its course and, among the running, the games and the failed attempts to fly and breath fire, it ended much sooner than our little one had expected, like all good things tended to do in life. As soon as the first sun ray peaked from the mountains she bagan to shrink. Her horns and head spines thined and began to turn to the brown tone she was used to, her claws retreated and flattened until just her normal dirty nails remained, her tail and wings disappeared to whatever place they go when she's human, her skin absorbed all the scales back, and as the face, neck, legs and arms returned to what she was used to, normality ruled over the woods once again. She picked up her things where she had lefte them and went to catch on some sleep before her father would wake up, which wouldn't happen for still some time.
=={{Separator|d|The Tenth Full Moon}}==
She had been extremely careful and lucky in her nightly errands so far. For the last five months she had gone through her metamorphosis, as one of them had been cloudy all night and the other one had been a moonless dark time, she had been sneaking out of the house either when his father was sleeping like a rock or when he was out minding his own business in town and didn't come back until the next day. But like many other things in her life, this wasn't something that was meant to hold up for much.

You didn't have to be a grown up to know when something's wrong. The animals, even the wild ones, had stayed silent all day long. The flowers and colors seemed to be out of place among the featureless gray. Even the sun had decided to stay off from the little mountain town, stepping away to make room to the colossal clouds and the collosal shadow they casted. All her father would tell her was to come along to the town square with him. He didn't even had to tell her to stay quiet as she already noted that no one needed words to talk, their faces told everything she needed to know and even more.

Her father went to meet with the other townsfolk, every single one of them with the heavy marks of age and work buried on their faces along with deep concern and fear of what the call had been for. The younger ones, however, had been put aside and were lead to a group of trees wide enough to cover everyone, not that it really made any difference at all.

“Come here children,” one of the elders say “come here and hear what I have to say”

Calling him an elder was mere formality of course. He still had the force to pin down a bull to the ground and his mind was easily as sharp as the horns of the poor beast. The only visible sign of age that could make it easy to track down in a crowd were his whites that made his hair a soft grey.

The children gathered around him and when every single one of the sons of the twenty families had arrived he began with a dry and heavy voice to pass down part of his wisdom.

“I know many of you are aware of the dangers that lay ahead of the tree line. The vastness of plants, the uncertain terrain and the nightmares and monsters that hunts those grounds is enough to make even the most brave men doubt before setting foot in it. Normally it's fine to wander in for a short distance to collect wood, as long as you keep to the paths. This, however, will no longer be possible as a new creature has arrived and made its lair there.”

This caught Lizzette by surprise, and her heart began to pund harder.

“Its strenght as powerful as twenty of the best knights of the king.”

She began to take in deep harsh breaths.

“Its armor so strong that not even a sword can break through it.”

She started to walk backwards, to retreat.

“Its wicked form can move faster than you can blink and can fuse with the shadows to make it invisible.”

She hit some of the others, who didn't seemed to mind as they were too deep in the words of the old one to even notice her.

“It can take down entire villages and towns from above, releasing its mortal breath and making fire rain from the skies.”

She came at last to the outside of the circle, her eyes never leaving the black eyes of his elder. He then looked at her directly on the face.

“This, my children, is a dragon.”

Just when the last word was spoken, her knees got weaker and her balance failed.

{{Separator|d}}

The town was on the very limits of one of the many kindoms that plaged the world at the time, and as such it was cut off from the rest of the world. That's why a group of the bravest men had been picked up to send news to whatever authority was in charge of taking down the dragon that hunted the poor population.

Lizzette woke up some moments after the party had long left for the west. She had been carried all the way and put in her bed by the herbolary's orders. Everyone thought she had been so scared of the story that she backed away slowly and tripped, hitting her head and becoming unconcious instantly. Of course, with such limited knowledge in the ways of medicine, except for some old plant remedies, they didn't notice that she had actually fainted.

With her head still spinning and her toughts all mixed in confusion, our little one took some time to aknowledge what had happened, when memory came back to her she began to understand more deeply the problem she was now facing. Before she could do anything more, however, something more important took her attention at that moment.

Light slowly began to filter through the spaces between the wood of the roof. The girl, being very agile and quick, climbed one of the walls like a little squirell and took a better look through one of the holes. She could see the big white eye of the sky slowly coming out of her blankets of the clouds. She immediately let go, landing rather painfully, and ger breaths began to increase. With a little effort she could stand up, with some parts hurt from the fall, and began to set her bed, so that her father woulsn't know of her monthly trips to the woods, with haste.

When it was already filled with enough hay, she turned towards the door, when a pain gripped at her stomach. 'Not here,' she thought 'not now', but it was already too late.

Knowing of the inevitable, the only thing Lizzette could do was to take all her garments off, which she did and just in time. For the first time she wanted to stop it. She gripped her what she could of her arms in an attempt to hold the little daggers in place, but was unsuccessful as they pierces trhough skin. She tried to tense her muscles so that her bones could stay in place, only to find it came as an unberable pain. She curled up on the floor, more in panic and exahustion than to prevent the changes, and her soft body began to lose all her innocence and pasiveness to become sharp and dangerous.

For the rest of the world it took only the blink of an eye, but for the dragon laying on her room it had been some of the worst minutes, if not hours, of her life. But, if it wasn't enough already, she was cramped in confines of her own dormitory by her enormous size. She tried to see if she could squeeze trough the door without damaging it too badly but to no avail. She was stuck and could hardly move without bumping into anything.

“Who's there?” a very familiar voice announced from the other side of the wooden frame. Lizzette froze in place, just now realizing how much noise she had been doing. The next thing she heard before covering her eyes was the knocking on her door.

When no one answered he began to worry about thiefs and kidnappers, despite already knowing that there was no business for those kind of people in this particular house. This made him wonder later on if the extravagant imagination of her sweet little one had been hereditary, among other things, but for now he just tightened his grip on the hoe he had fetched from the tools stand, which was conviniantely located near the entrance so as to protect them from the spring rains. He almost ripped the thing from its hinges, more from the poor door's decaying quality than from his kick, and then looked inside.

In his rush the old man had forgotten to bring a candle and was now regreting his stupidity as the bedroom was one of the darkest holes of the house. The only source of light was coming from the moonrays that casted some serpents of white that were spreaded around, except in the corner but the farmer didn't note this. At the first sound of the dry soil moving under him with the first step something crawled on his right. Turning quickly, with weapon raised high over his head and ready to attack, he just saw a bed. He let the air out of the breath his was holding and droped his stance, this was when that particular thought about excesive imagination popped in. There was her little daughter, exploring other worlds, while he was wasting his time doubting her safety. He decided to leave her alone and made a long line on the ground while dragging his hoe behind him.

If he had stayed a while more he would have probably seen a tail crawling and trying to hide under the blankets, followed a moment after by the rest of the body, this time in a silent way. All her inicial doubts began to come back to the surface, questions she had thought solved began to tease her head again like if her father knew of her. The more she thought back to all those times she tried to confess to him her secret the more she doubted he had any clue at all. As if on cue she heard the sound of metal dropping on the table, no doubt one of those special talismans that were sold at the local shop to protect from any animal attack, not that they worked but the fact her father had bought one and had had it clinged to him told her about his fear to the dragon out there. The same dragon he had as a daugther and was now starting to cry until her yellow eyes dried out. With sorrow in her heart she fell to sleep with her head resting on the naked bed, the rest of her body circling the room and with only her wings scarcely covered with the wool fabric.
{{Separator|d}}
As the sky cleared the next day so did Lizzette's mind. She now had a somewhat solid idea of the danger she was facing. She would have to go very far away on full moon nights, make sure no one sees her or follows her, and find a way to cure the curse. She still had no idea how she would do the latter or what kind of excuse she could tell her father in case he gets suspicious, but she still had some time before the next transition. As she began to stretch and yawn something hit the wall behind her. Turning around, she saw an extra appendage that shouldn't had been there stick out of her black covers, waving a ''good morning'' at her.

=={{Separator|d|The Eleventh Full Moon}}==

She stared in disbelief at the tail that extended a meter behind her, the soft pink skin merging with the smooth sky scales right at the base of her spine. It wasn't as long as in her other form, and instead of spikes emerging from the top of it, like the mountains did over the earth around the little town, it only had tuffs of short hairs running through it, a mere reflection of their original form. It twitched at her command as if it had been glued to her for a lifetime, and it even seemed to be able to tell her emotions as it was now trying to hide between her two legs, as would have done our little one if she could.

The one thought that was running through her mind was that this could not be happenning, that she should have returned to be a little child. Entranced by this idea, her heart almost jumped out of her chest when the front door opened to the morning with a loud noise and the farmer began his daily chores in the fresh air. This knocked Lizzette back to reality with a start and made her act quickly. Before her feet layed the still intact, although dirty, clothes from the night behind her.

She immediately saw an obvious problem even before trying them on, as such thing had been designed for a body that only had five protusions coming from it. Then the little snake attached to her, as if seeing her distress and trying to help, warped itself around her right leg, thight enough to make it pass unseen under the dress that had to cover her ankles but loose enough as to not make her trip while walking or moving at a quick pace. Once everything was back on she took a look at herself as best as she could, and although there was a slight bump on her rear it wasn't something too noticeable, at least not for her father. The man didn't even notice any difference when she passed by his gaze with a small bag of carrots hidden in her belly to take to the old mare, surely he wouldn't see anything different in her perfect small angel, and he didn't.
{{Separator|d}}
She had a whole week to train herself mentally and practically in the arts of hidding her little new friend and now was the time to test them in her first errand to the shop. She had seen how the town's folk reacted to lizards, or witches' eyes and ears as they often called them, and had an alarming idea of what they might think of if they discovered her newest development. So she took all the precautions she could, warping the hard and overdeveloped worm thightly with a piecce of rope as to making it even less noticeable and adding an extra belt of animal hide, borrowed from her father, to her hip in an attempt to flatten the inevitable stub that formed on her back. She succeded, but the tightness was uncomfortable and her new muscles were beginning to get numb from the pressure. The little one couldn't bear to walk or even stand with all that on for long, and sitting or running were strictly out of bounds, so she decided not to put it until it was absolutely necesary.

Behind one of the last couple of trees that stood between the farm and the first set of houses was where she decided to do it. Looking back, she felt sad for the poor thing.

It was comforting and warm to the touch, and it even felt to her like her best friend that she could talk to whenever she wanted or needed it, could hug it and play with it. The truth was, that little inanimated piece of flesh and metalic components was her best friend and confesor, even though it was just another part of her and even though it had no real feeling or sentience by itself. It was the child's imagination that gave it life, at least to her eyes, a very characteristic deed only treasures with her little amount of experience could make possible.

But still, she had to do it. Fighting back the urge to just get away from there, she forced the limb to warp around her leg companion and began spiraling the dead plant's fibers around again and again and at last pulled with what little strength she could muster. After that she covered everything in her barely white dress, as the dirt always seemed to like attaching itself there, and began circling the dead animal's dried skins over her. Barely able to breathe was how she entered the only civilization she knew of.

At the streets people didn't bother with a second glance, all they would see was the farmer's girl in her own business and then they continued with whatever they were doing. Even at the shop there was only a comment of how she shouldn't be using her father's garments, but that was all. The keeper wouldn't even remember to tell her father of that, and so the whole trip went without any memorable mark on the people's memory.

Again when she was far enough, she undid all the restrains, and even cut the rope in her desesperation to get her friend free. It was sorrow and bruised, a dark mark engulfing it like a vine would a tree before choking it to death. A little more time and she though it would have to be cut out, just like a decaying apendage in the stories of the few men that had gone to war. She suddenly realised just how important the little thing had become for her when the inanimated isles of stone and the desert of cheek flesh were divided by a river of tears.
{{Separator|d}}
When the moment finally came she was ready for it. Her mind hadn't been able to think of a good excuse that an old and wise man like her father would believe, so instead she decided to risk escaping again, not without leaving her normal decoy behind of course. The little one went in the still dusk to stray far deep below the dense cover of leaves, where no one would find her, even at the risk of getting lost. Just when the world was devoured by darkness again she was finishing to put all her human things in a small grotto at the base of the local mountains, the places that girls like her weren't supposed to be in at any given time according to the elders.

She didn't have to see it to know it was there. Unlike the other times the energy from the big round moon appeared to pass through blocked skies, layers of foliage and walls of stone to endow her of enough power to perform her change. It started with her tail, spreading the radiant blue all over her bare skin and leaving no patch uncovered. Then it moved to her bones and muscles, molding them like a strong fire would shape glass, and made them take a very different form from the fragile one she now had. Her mouth grew with impressive fangs that left no hole in the perfect row. Spikes, horns and fins surged to take their right places. Among all the rips and growing protusions a pair of strong yet very thin wings erupted and the once bruised and useless tail began to take more space, more muscle grew and fortified the the thickening bone until it was soon one of the most powerful tools this secluded land had ever lay its eyes upon.

She had planned to use this little cave, or any other hole available for that matter, to pass the night away from everything and everyone that she might hurt. After all, she blamed herself for all the missing cattle and the burned building, even though she didn't really remembered having done any of that.

The more time she thought about her curse and of how unpredictable it was, the more she actually believed it was her the source of all the problems that prompted in town. If she hadn't been able to change back completely the last time, what prevented her from going amok when she was a dragon and destroying everything? The fact that she couldn't remember what had happened in her first full moon only serving to back up her wild theories.

Right at that moment, the idea of passing the rest of her days in a tunnel as a hermit didn't sound bad at all, it was even appealing. Being so far away into the wilderness and at the base of a mountain would assure her that no one would bother come close and that there could be various amounts of food available for hunting and recollecting alike. She wouldn't starve and she would ensure her deathly weapons won't be used to kill or damage the town. It would have been like that, but aparently stronger forces were conspiring against poor Lizzette.

Just when she had made up her mind and was ready to embrace her new life, a tremendous thunder shock the earth. Not a thunder, no, something of similar power and capabilities, but with a different nature. A roar, it had to be, just like that first dreadful time.

It thightened the little one's heart to think of the implications of this unexpected event, she was now sharing grounds with another dragon. ''Presumably of your own creation too,'' the poisonous voice of guilt sliced at her inocent conciousness ''think about it, perhaps it was a survivor of the first attack that had scorged away the material's house and the safeguard of the winter's wheat, along with some of the villager's men, that night that the void first revealed your true wicked form''. Bearing the feeling no more, our little heroine dashed into the night to try and see if there was something she could do to protect her fellow humans.
{{Separator|d}}
{{add|A river span all around her vision, the tree trunks and leaves melted into a neverending tunnel of brown and green that only shivered every now and then when she needed to miss the obstacles, until she hit something.}} Having built up her ability to run through dense vegetation, were sometimes she could barely pass through the gaps or paths, Lizzette was certainly taken by surprise at this development. Forcing herself back into all fours, ignoring the inminnent headache that would surely develop later into a bump, she came upon a green view, but a very different kind of green than the one she was used to.

The figure in front of her was also composing itself, and then took notice of our little one. It was a litte larger than her, but not so that she couldn't see it at more less the same eye level. Before she did anything the other dragon had already positioned itself over a limp animal on the right, one of the town's sheep she noted, and was baring its fangs at her, signaling to not come any closer to its food. It was at this time that the two began to really stare at each other for the first time.

On closer examination she noted other differences besides the color and size. It was slender and had a rather skinny complexion, one would even dare to say that some bones were showing but its difficult to tell those kind of things underneath a layer of scales. The head didn't appear to have her fin-ears, and seemed to have seen enough battles as to have its right main horn torn almost from its base, and a few other scars of the like. This appeared to be the same to the rest of the body, some missing scales and spikes here, a set of cuts and dried blood there, but the most obvious wound so far, and one that even made our little observer flinch a bit, were the shredded wings that it was hauling limply on both of its sides.

The thin skin that should have been between each elongated finger wasn't there, and even some of those were broken to the point that some of the bone's white could be seen. The only untouched part was where the wings arms met the spine at its back, but even that looked weak as they didn't even have the force to at least lift them from the floor, making the gashes and wounds worse on the lower part.

It... no, he -as she noted from her nostrils when she had calmed down enough to make sense of what they were saying- had also finished examining her and had now taken a more relaxed stance, without bearing those pointy knives anymore, when he noted she wasn't interested in his dead animal, keeping an eye on it none the less. After a while of utter silence, even the air had seemed to calm down and waited for whatever would happen next, the green beast took a tentative step forward.

Lizzette didn't move or flinched from her place. What had once been determination and resolve to track down and deal with this creature quickly dissolved into fear and terror of what it might do to her when he began to circle around her, poking and smelling every now and then, sending a chill down her spine every time. It came at last to meet her face to face, if what dragons have can be called that way, their muzzles an inch from each others and he looked at her straight in her eyes.

The rough surface of pointy scales gave way to a stronger green in the eyes of the creature, her gaze was dragged by the continous flow and, like a river through a waterfall, it fell on the black slit that broke the monotony. In there she saw force, a force that had pushed through many barriers and crashed down many obstacle, a force that, despite having gone through so many things that now his body was slowly falling apart, was still as strong and as sharp as ever. It was that flame of will what made the smaller dragon back up a step. The green one just snorted and went to fetch his dinner.

The little weredragon was stunned to say the least. She had feared the creature because it was an animal, a beast driven by instincts alone that had no sense whatsoever, or so she had thought. Now she wasn't so sure about that anymore. After seeing that sparkle of life, of feelings, that can only by observed in sensible beings, she began to bear in mind the possibility that the elder's conception of dragons was entirely wrong. Which was confirmed a moment later when a ball of red splatered on the too distracted kid's foreclaws with an emty thud.

It was a chunk of meat, ripped off in a very crude manner as could be observed by the cords of scarlet flesh that clung to it like some kind of parasite. The green one just stared at her and waited. Our young one hesitated at first but then lowered her head until her muzzle's was just one quick bite away from it. She couldn't handle the sight for long, and just when she was about to get sick her nostrils catched the strong smell that clung near it.

It was by far the sweetest thing she had smelled. A combination of summer flowers bathed in warm light, cold water flowing from a spring, fresh pepper about to be served and a thinge of recently made leather came into her mind, and many other references to similar things were beginning to fill her spirit. Of course, this was in part due to the fact that she hadn't eaten a descent piece of meat for a while and her stomach was hollow and growling for food. Before she even noticed it, the juicy fiber was already traveling by her guts and a trickle of blood ran down the sides of her mountrous mouth.

The other one just smile upon her without the need to do all those complicated and exausting human facial movements. He had decided to have his meal while waiting for her to make up her mind. His fangs had just finished eating the soft tissue inside the bone and his lizard-like tonge was now searching the remotes gaps and fissures in his claws for any missing red stain.

When he was done he threw the carcass aside and, standing up, motioned her to tag along with him. Of course, all Lizzette saw was a pair of gestures and some growls that didn't have any meaning to her, so the other one, frustrated after the third attempt, bit her softly on her right forearm, without causing any pain or puncturing the skin, and dragged her from there. Eventualy the little scaly child got the meaning of it and presuaded the other one to let go of her, with a snap of her fangs, and they both tagged along in the silence of the night.
{{Separator|d}}
Some time later a grey wall came into view, the trees ending in the base of yet another one of the omnipresent rock giants. After some more steps of road, where Lizzette felt the first surge of jelousy of the other dragon's skills in using his claws on the rough terrain, they finally came to the entrance of his lair. It was located several meters from the ground below, a hole with a small protusion in the flat face of the mountain.

Although she had already been underground that night, there was a strange, yet reassuring, feeling emanating from the place. It had a warmness that increased the further you went, the moonlight illuminated all the dark stone around and it had enough room to open up the wings so one could dive down the cliff and into the valley infront. In other words, she strangely felt at home there.

Once he was sure there was nothing creeping inside and that no one was coming along the path, the big mass of green scales jumped into the other mass and made our poor girl stumble into the uneven cavern floor. She quickly stood up and shoot him a glance. He was just standing there, the front lower part of his body touching the black rock, his tail raised high up and his eyes begging to her. Just before anything else happened he was already gone into the maze of tunnels ahead.

She knew that pose, it was the same one the dogs that sometimes roamed the streets had whenever they are playing with one another. So, desiphering what her host wanted, she eagerly went after him.
{{Separator|d}}
As with any children's game, it comes a time when they eventually drain all their stamina and were just happy resting over the other's limp and ached body already with a wing in the dream's realm. And they would have dozed off if it weren't for a sound that startled the most experienced one of the pair and got him to take a quick peek down the only trail that lead there.

Lizzette's curiosity took hold of her. Making fatigue and exaustion aside, she also went to see what was going on, only to be stopped by his new friend. It requiered some rather loud growls and a very close snap of fangs to disuade the littlest one from venturing near the entrance. It only took a moment from him to know what was going on, and even less to disappear into the unknown.

After that things began to move very fast. Another roar made dust and some pebbles fall all around the little weredragon, which by now had her tail glued at the bottom of the first chamber. Then came forth some wild cries, and the metalic sound of blades being unsheated.

Screams and other nasty noises filtered into the dark shelter from the soldiers outside, among some softer growls, echoes that fainted a little more each time, and the unsettling chilling noise of fight. When all of a sudden it all stopped.

Taking the silence as a clue, the young ball of shivers gathered all the courage to go to the mouth of the cave, get her head out, low enough in the ground to not be too noticeable, and take a look at the narrow passage that sizzled all the way until there. She was just in time to see a half circle of shiny metal closing in with spears on her newest friend, who was barely keeping himself on the edge of the cliff right at that moment. He made one last blow, his daggers managed to split the wooden stick of one of the men into several pieces and sent the unfortunate one down the trail to gather up with the rest of his now decaying companions, before he looked up at her.

It only took an instant for her to see that light of his at his full power, more bright than anything else, before it went dead immediately, and with it the poor's creature hold on the edge. She ducked into the safety of the cave. She didn't have to see it to know what happened, the loud and horrible cracking of bones and other softer parts on the sharp inanimate figures below telling her a horrorific story without the need of her vision.

She automatically went into the corner she had been hidding during the whole event, curling until the tip of her tail touched her main horns in a futile atempt to protect herself. ''They killed him,'' she thought to herslelf, deep feelings buried since the day her mother left the world surging to the surface like a drowning man seeking air ''they just came all the way here and killed him. Just because he was a dragon.''

''I am a dragon.''

''They are coming for me, I can hear them''

''I don't want to be a dragon. I don't want to die!''

A soldier stuck his head to look inside, but the darkness once again covered the little dragon keeping it safe for the moment. The man walked away, for the moment.

''I'm just supposed to be the child of a farmer. I'm not special. Why me?!''

They fixed a torch from wood and a lonely cloth with oil that such expirienced travelers always carried for just this purpose. They slowly came back to the hole to see what was hidding in there.

''I don't want to die! I don't want to die...''

A cold glove touched her, and she retreated towards the wall even more. “I don't want to die” she said in a murmur.

“It's ok. The beast is already gone” the voice of a rather young soldier said. He came in slowly and hugged the weak and naked form of a human girl in front of him, a hug that she returned with a firm grip. The pure white light of the moon reflected over the knight's metalic armor and on the child's tears when he said “You're safe now”

=={{Separator|d|Several Full Moons Later}}==

The months passed and the legend of the dragon of Emdin's valley spread like fire on wood. It became the main song of many taverns and even one or two royal courts, but was soon forgotten by everyone, like all deed made out of blood should.

Lizzette's prayers were, apparently, heard by someone, and in the next full moon night nothing happened. No scales tearing soft skin, no muzzle taking over her cute face, no claws or wing tearing all of her clothes, nothing at all. This repeated month after month, season after season, year after year, until the mind of the now young adult had been softened and molded, like a rock in the rivers of time, making her forget all about her ability and the few moments she had been in possesion of it.

On the anniversary of the now full-time human, the one were she finally came of the age to be pronounced officially as an adult woman according to her people's customs and traditions, there was a huge celebration in town.

Tables as large as the height of the trees around them were taken out, she never found out from where, and placed into the open. The most expirienced women were in charge of all the food and drinks that would be served and the younger ones were put to make everyone in town presentable for the great ocaccion. The men put the lambs and the best hunt they had into the whole deal while the little boys helped every now and then with everything they could, which could be from carrying all the newly imported plates to just act as messengers in the whole sea of chaos that was becoming the once serene settlement.

While all this was being made, our now much older hero was being arranged by all kinds of women that she had only seen once or twice in her whole life, but that now threated her with the kind of attention and courtesy the maidens of the court would do to her real princess. The beautiful dress made of a purple so pure and a fabric so soft and strong that it had been by far the best present she would have dreamed of. Her father had told her when he had given the elaborately made piece of art to her that it was the least he could do before she became a full woman and had to leave to live with the gentleman she would soon be married to.

It had been fixed from the day her mother had died. A father without the aid and constant support of his right hand could have never been able to take care of a child and of his duties at the farm on his own. So, after a few negotiations with an outsider and an enormous amount of luck, he made a deal with a lord. The child would grow and, when the time was right, someone would come to take her.

That was the main reason why her only parent had aisolated her from the rest of the community, so she wouldn't be tempted by others, as the elders had told him. Now everyone was going to celebrate her birthday and make a whole farewell party in her honor. It was a bright day, but dark clouds in the horizon would ensure that this day would see the beginning of bad times in the valley and in Lizzette's life.
{{Separator|d}}
After all the meat had been cut, all the cups had been filled at least once with wine and some songs had been heard and danced, the time of the first toast came. The indeed very proud father raised up, calming all the noise and making the drunks look at least a little more vivid, held his wooden cup high in the air and spoke.

“My fellows, we are gathered here in the celebration of my, no, our young one's call to her fair duty in the world,” she blushed when the words came forth, her father giving her a quick look before continuing “Tonight, in the eve of Lizzette's journey to make a man happy forever and ever, we have been called to show her how much she has meant to everyone. For her!”

“For her!” everyone exclaimed as they raised their respective breverage's containers and took a big gulp of the sweet nectar.

However, before the poor farmer could do the same he suddenly stopped halfway through. His lips never touched the border of the cup again as he went to see a shadow that had suddenly materialized from nowhere. Her only daughter wanted to see where he had gone, but the rythm of the party and all the attention she had made the issue slip off her mind for the time being.

“It is time” the shadow said, the twisted teeth and buzzard's breath taking the father by surprise for a moment before he could interpret the words correctly.

“What? You said until tomorrow!”

“The caravan is already here,” he said, pointing at more menacing looking monsters and beasts just at the edge of the woods “and my master doesn't like the idea of waiting. Patience is certainly not his virtue” he added with a lifeless chuckle.

He didn't even think of complaining, after all she was his by right now. So, defeated, he went to fetch for her only child.

“Come with me” he said blunty to her and didn't even bother answer any questions she threw at him.

“Here she is”

“Father, who is him?” she said without trying to hide her fear and repulsion of the thing in front of them both.

“He will take you to your new home”

“But, I tought I was supposed to leave tomorrow!”

“Things change”

“But my stuff, and the people...”

“You don't need anything where you're going,” the voice hurt her ears and felt like venom in her blood “and I'm sure they all know you're leaving”

Without any more excuses in mind and still in shock of the violent twist of events, she was easily hauled by the back side of one of various cages, more fitted to hold animals than for any person to travel in it, and was literaly thrown and knocked unconcious in one of the bars of solid and thick wood.

“Here's your gold,” was the last thing Lizzette heard and she saw the monster throwing her father a large bag of something metalic before her forced sleep began.
{{Separator|d}}
After the last of the caravan was heard going away among the chat and laughs all around the farmer, he turned and began to talk to the nearest person he could find.

“Do you think she will be safe?” he asked.

“Don't worry about her,” the other responded “I'm sure she will be better wherever they are taking ... what was the name?”

“Lizzette” he said in clenched teeth.

“Who?” was all he replied.

“I don't know,” he continued even when he knew this fellow's mind was anywhere except in the valley “Maybe it wasn't the right thing to do”.

“Stop thinking of it, your head will hurt like mines if you do it,” he then fell to the ground but continued nevertheless “You got your gold and the rest of us ours, and will be getting it as all as you live, that's all that matters”.

“I guess you're right,” he said, throwing all the contents of the bag next to his now asleep body “After all, only kids and drunks tell those kind of truths”.
{{Separator|d}}
In the lonely barn, a poor mare was let loose, along with a handful of other similar animals, into the wildness to take care by themselves. A rope with a single knot in the form of loop hanged from the only piece of dead tree that could support it and the weight of a man.

As the night grew quieter, so did the breathing of one farmer in the valley.

{{Separator|x|Work in Progress}}
{{series bar|series=[[User:Pocsock/Story_of_a_Weredragon| Story of a Weredragon]]|next=The Dragon}}
<comments />
{{DEFAULTSORT:Story Of A Weredragon: The Human}}
[[Category:Story]]
[[Category:Pocsock]]
[[Category:Mythical]]

User:Pocsock/Story of a Weredragon/The human

2008-03-18T01:38:48Z

Pocsock: Fixed some typos and added a little bit.

User:Pocsock/Story of a Weredragon/The human

2008-03-17T06:34:41Z

Pocsock: An update

User:Pocsock/Story of a Weredragon/The human

2008-03-13T03:44:40Z

Pocsock: another update

User:Pocsock/Story of a Weredragon/The human

2008-03-12T05:15:28Z

Pocsock: a little update

Talk:Self-destruct Activated

2008-03-05T06:07:47Z

Pocsock:

Heh. No design is without it's flaw, and no killer virus can truely be controlled or contrained.
The idiots shouldn't have given their pet virus sentience, that means it's behavior is self correcting. Their pet virus is going to spread from world, to world, they have no idea the power they've unleased on the cosmos.

-- Matthew Lenz 2008 03 1st

:That's one big possibility, especially when they don't have any natural predators and a whole new planet to conquer. However, the beings could still come around and discover everything dead and covered in radioactive dust. But that depends entirely to the readers' imagination. [[User:Pocsock|Pocsock]] 01:07, 5 March 2008 (EST)

User:Pocsock/Story of a Weredragon

2008-03-05T05:42:04Z

Pocsock:

{{title|name=Story Of A Weredragon|author=Pocsock|user=Pocsock}}
{{WIP}}

[[User:Pocsock/Story_of_a_Weredragon/The_human| Part I: The Human]]

Part II: The Dragon

Part III: The Weredragon

[[Category:Pocsock]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Story Of A Weredragon}}

User:Pocsock/Story of a Weredragon/The human

2008-03-05T05:39:28Z

Pocsock:

{{title|name=Story Of A Weredragon: The Human|author=Pocsock|user=Pocsock}}
{{WIP}}

=={{Separator|d|The First Full Moon}}==
{{dropcap|I}}t was the beginning of a long journey to the little girl that had drafted outside of his house and wandered into the very hearts of the woods. Panic had begun to consume her the moment she realized that the trail had long disappeared, replaced with uneaven and soft ground that craked now and then with some stray branch or leaf, and that the voice of her father had already been replaced with the terrorizing sounds of creeping creatures and hungry predators. As the realization of the perilous situation began to really sink into the poor child's mind and imagination, making every shadow casted a demon and every sound heard a possible hungry beast, fear began to take control of her actions and made her run with all her might deeper into the unknown, effectively cutting her from the rest of the world.

There, where the ground opened up to the sky and the mattress of grass was disturbed with the ocaccional boulder or small hill, was when her strength finally reached its end and her limbs collapsed into a tired ball near the center. For a very long time the only sound that was heard was a very loud crying, then the one of sobbing, and then there was silence until the first crickets began to play their song.

When the little one finally returned from the world of dreams she was received with a cover of darkness. At first she thought her eyes were closed, until the first set of amber spheres appeared on the horizon, followed by many others until she was surrounded by them. The alpha male, seeing the oportunity to catch an easy meal, was the first one to launch forward and was soon followed by the rest of the pack.

Just at that moment, the little girl screamed her lungs out, but instead of the ordinary high-pitched sound she had expected to hear, a roar came out of her throat, shaking the earth itself for far more time that should have even been possible. After that silence ruled over the clearing, followed shortly after by the busy movements of the retreating wolves. The little one didn't have much time to react to what had happened as a souring pain coursed through her body.

It started with her eyes, that went blind the moment she closed them, and spread through her head, neck, torso, arms, legs and ended in the very tip of her toes. It was as if her very skin was digging daggers into her muscles and her bones. She rolled over and hit the boulders many times, punching the skin and releasing the scales uderneath it. She trashed all over the place, making it easier for bones to reshape and flesh to realign for their new purposes. She had to hold onto the side of a low hill to steady herself as spines, claws, fangs, wings and tail made their way through. She finally collapsed on the ground when everything was over, panting softly from her new muzzle.

Her eyes finally found the energy to open up... and the world invaded her. Everything was sharp and focused, from the tanters of clothes she tore apart some meters away to the family of birds that was quietly resting on a branch in a tree half a mile away. The colors seemed to glow from things and she even found out some ones that hadn't existed before. At the end she managed to stand up, fix her gaze on the solid round moon that had just been revealed upon the world and roar at it until her lungs could take it no more and her long neck could go no further into the night sky.

That was the first time that Lizzette transformed into a dragon.

=={{Separator|d|The Second Full Moon}}==
The day came sooner than usual for our little child. The soft bed and warm coverings kept the little one at bay in the dreams realm, where she dreamt of rocky landscapes with mountains so high that could have touched the very stars at night. It was the morning sun that finally made her eyes open.

She normally woke up before the rooster gave his morning call, and even before the first sun rays invaded the sky, so she could help her father with the chores of the farm. Knowing this, it was unsurprising that the first thing she did was to send every cover flying to the other side of the room and to put on her working clothes as soon as possible.

When she got out her father had already fed all the animals and was about to go see how the field was coming out. The first thing she did was to go apologize with him for having dozed off all morning, again. Being still a youthful, she had a propency to have bad dreams take the better of her, making her stay alert all night and recovering the missing sleep hours later at day. Her father understood and sent her to wash some clothes on the nearby river that helped feed the farm. She immediately went to the house, grabbed all the things she needed and headed to the North road.

He watched her go, and was grateful that she thought of last night of only a dream in that little head of hers, and even more grateful that, somehow, she had been able to find her way back to the edge of the woods that surrounded the little farm.
{{Separator|d|}}
Time passed as it usually does, and before anyone knew it thirty days and twenty nine nights had already gone by in the blur of monotony and hard work. The sun had hidden in the horizon long ago and the only audible sound so far was the crickets and other insects singing in a chorus just in the border of the tree line. That, however, was cut off shortly with the sharp edge of a whinny.

Lizzete thought, not for the first time, that work at the farm was endless. Even at night some of the animals get startled by something, usually a rabbit or a fox from the nearby woods. Our little one is used to this kind of nightly errands, as her father sometimes goes into town to attend some important matters and she's in charge until he returns the next day. Despite the blinding darkness, she moved as swiftly as she would have in daylight and was soon in front of the mare's stall.

The old horse poked her head out and received the little one with some friendly poking of her very dextrous and strong lips. She, in return, smuggled her a carrot which she immediately accepted and petted her on those spots in her long muzzle that she liked the best. The animal had always been skinny to the point of poking her ribs out and had never really been much of a help in the farm anyways, even in her youth days. What had saved her so far had been the girl's love, that made it impossible for her father to get rid of her.

At one point the little cotton hands stopped rubbing and the horse opened her eyes to see what the problem was. Looking back at the steam of pure white light that was coming from one of the largest holes that adorned the roof, she could see her small human falling around on the ground. Being confused at first, she tried to poke even more of herself out to try and see what was going on, but confusion quickly became panic in the blink of an eye when she noted that something was wrong, and the whinnies started again even louder.

There, on the ground, our little child was going through a process that she thought had only existed in her dreams, only sligthly different than the previous time. The scales were growing out of her skin much like thick hairs instead of ripping it to shreds and leaving it on the ground. The bones shifted and accomodated with ease and swiftness, the movements of the new limbs easily coming to mind as it happened. Tail, muzzle and wings sprouted from their confinement and stretched. The horns, claws and fangs grew out, disscarding quickly the old hair, nails and theeth. In a lot less time than the previous occassion, and without all the previous pain, the transition from one body to the other was complete and the little one saw the world again from behind slitted eyes.

Not having as good vision as a human, or a dragon for that matter, a horse has to relay more on other senses to see the world around them, especially the hearing and the smell. So when the animal in the stall didn't hear any screams or any other threathening noise and didn't catch any hint of a predator or other danger in the air, she stopped her own panic and began to aknowledge the girl in front of her. Her eyes told her something huge and threathening was laying there, but her other senses said it was her girl, confused and afraid, so she did what she always does in this kind of situations. Going to the front of the stall once again, she poke her head through the top of the wooden fence and began to tug her face with her very leathery and strong lips, feeling a strange cold and hard sensation on her skin.

Lizzette, for her part, had been startled at first. A rush of ideas and feelings came through her head. Confusion at why she was now scaley all over. Fear of what her father and the town folk would think if they saw her in this deary state. Panic at the prospect of being stuck in that form forever. Anger at having ripped her clothes apart to shreds, yet again. All of them spinning in her head and effectively making a draconic statue of her, until the soft nips came. Slowly, but effectively, the mare's touch began to relax the solid muscles until movility returned, and to melt away the ideas into a constant and stable flow until her head was a great deal clearer. Reason and calmness finally returned to the young, and a claw reached up and carefully continued the job where it had left it. After a while it was over, so the animal gave her a good night's kiss in the only matter horses can, with yet another nip in the tip of the muzzle just below the little horn, and retreted to the back of the only used stall to doze off.

It had been just what the little one needed. Someone who told her that it was ok, that nothing had happened. She was still Lizzette, the humble kid of a farmer, only in a different form. She wondered if this was what her father had said about great changes in her future earlier today as she yawned and began to make herself comfortable. After all, she had been awoken in the middle of the night.

=={{Separator|d|The Third Full Moon}}==
Unlike the last time, the events of the other night came to the mind of Lizzette easily. It was in part thanks to the fact it was her second time around and, thus, she had a little bit more conciousness of her unique situation, and in part thanks to the cold breeze of the morning air. Before the farmer could get his first boot on she had already gone to put something to cover herself and was beginning her daily work. The torn fabrics and other indications of last night's events were never seen again among the hay and other wastes.
{{Separator|d}}
That night, the kid decided to face her father and find out if her suspicions of the mysterious future planned for her were correct. But the time wasn't right, it seemed, as the farmer had lost track of the intruder that ate the eggs today and was in a pretty grim mood about it. So she decided it would be best to wait until he cooled down again the next day.

The sun hid and rose again, and the time came again when the little one and the older one were face to face enjoying some of the rather short-sized meal. She was about to burst free and attack him with all her questions and doubts that had invaded her mind, but something was amiss. He hadn't opened his mouth all day except to give her instructions and eat, so something must still be bothering his soul to keep him so serious and quiet. The girl decided it was best to let him be for the moment and let him arrange everything, as he usually did, by himself.

As the morning started she was received by a rather joyful hug and peaks in the cheek every now and then. Apparently her father had managed to outsmart the grey menace and show him who 'the real hunter was around here' acording to his very own words. Noting his glee and pride at having saved everyone in the modest farm once again, the young one didn't want to disturb him with her childish problems. In fact, she reflected, she might even end up disturbing him, like that one time she had cut herself on a pointy rock near the water and had ran crying to him. She still reserved that red face full of anger, with his veins poking out and eyes about to fall out of their place, for her nightmares. It didn't matter if it had just been for one second, nor that he had appologized later on, it still stung her small heart and brought sour tears out to think about it, and so she decided to wait and see if tomorrow was a good day to tell him.

But tomorrow wasn't a good day either, so she waited for the next day.

And the next.

And the one after that.

Until she realized that the time for answers would come when her father decided to give them to her.
{{Separator|d}}
The weeks passed. The moon had been hidding her beautiful face until it had been completely dark one night, and was now just pulling herself together, as our little one thought the round one did when passing her stages, until it was the time. Tonight was it, the night were the moon gave her full light to the world until her brother came at day.

Even when she had been prepared, working with renown effort at day so she could go early to bed and wouldn't doze off when the time came. Even when she would be close to the house in a nearby opening that she often visited. Even when her father had gone to those sleeps were he reaked of the awful stuff that she should never touch and couldn't be awaken until well beyond the next day. She still was nervous, not scared however as that had faded away the last time, and a little too anxious.

The shinning one couldn't be seen in the sky anymore, which meant that his sister would come any minute now that the sky was empty and darkness was consuming it. She carefully disrobed, putting what scarce belongings she had on the base of a nearby tree. Making herself as comfortable as anyone could on the cold roughness of the bare ground, she let her body relax and absorb the stars' light, closing her eyelids and covering her beautiful blue orbs. The next second, she opened them, and the world had changed.

Curiosity overwhelmed her. She pull her hands up and saw claws instead, heavy blue claws floating on a sea of lighter scales. She turned her long and flexible neck back and found spikes, a river of sapphire spikes that ran from the shrine of her head, through the smooth surface of pebbles and on to the end of the tail. Moving around she found how natural it felt to move on ground an all fours like a wild beast, the thin but amazingly strong and semi-translucent wings balancing and keeping stability by moving side to side, and the long and thick tail trailing behind. She reached the small mirror on the ground that some would have called a pond and peeked at her reflection. Her head had changed noticeably, a muzzle had attached itself, lenghting her head and fusing her nose so that now only two slits at the tip of it remained, and gained most of the face; a set of small fins much like her wings adorned the sides of the form; two rows of very strong and sharp fangs infested her mouth and a pair of horns had made their way through the back of her head. Even with all the draconic features it was unmistkeable who the creature was, her eyes, although slitted, hadn't lost the expressiveness that divides persons from animals and hadn't lost the sky hue that kept the old ladies at town wondering if she was a witch.

It didn't matter she wasn't human anymore, her soul was still one of a child and, as such, she could stay fixed on her reflection fooling with her face all night. She smiled, a sight that would have scared away anything that had at least a little sense, but she just giggled at how it just seemed out of place in such a predator. She then moved her ears, a feat that was impossible to her before but now was as easy as if they were just another pair of fingers attached to the sides of her head, and she discovered how to control her hearing so that the fall of a leaf could pierce her like a thunder, even if it had been far away, and how to silence the world at will. The not-so-little-anymore child next sticked her biforked toungue out and moved it in the air a little like snakes tended to do, and, mimicking a snake, she slid it back in and proved with the separated bits of flesh around her mouth for a while. It would have continued like that, doing faces and wasting time, if it hadn't been for a little green friend that jumped just at that moment and interrupted the busy reptile.

It saw her. She saw it. It began to hop out of the pond as soon as it aknowledged its mistake and she followed in persuit a very short time later. As for the outcome, lets just say that catching frogs wasn't a challenge for the little weredragon anymore.

The night followed its course and, among the running, the games and the failed attempts to fly and breath fire, it ended much sooner than our little one had expected, like all good things tended to do in life. As soon as the first sun ray peaked from the mountains she bagan to shrink. Her horns and head spines thined and began to turn to the brown tone she was used to, her claws retreated and flattened until just her normal dirty nails remained, her tail and wings disappeared to whatever place they go when she's human, her skin absorbed all the scales back, and as the face, neck, legs and arms returned to what she was used to, normality ruled over the woods once again. She picked up her things where she had lefte them and went to catch on some sleep before her father would wake up, which wouldn't happen for still some time.
=={{Separator|d|The Tenth Full Moon}}==
She had been extremely careful and lucky in her nightly errands so far. For the last five months she had gone through her metamorphosis, as one of them had been cloudy all night and the other one had been a moonless dark time, she had been sneaking out of the house either when his father was sleeping like a rock or when he was out minding his own business in town and didn't come back until the next day. But like many other things in her life, this wasn't something that was meant to hold up for much.

You didn't have to be a grown up to know when something's wrong. The animals, even the wild ones, had stayed silent all day long. The flowers and colors seemed to be out of place among the featureless gray. Even the sun had decided to stay off from the little mountain town, stepping away to make room to the colossal clouds and the collosal shadow they casted. All her father would tell her was to come along to the town square with him. He didn't even had to tell her to stay quiet as she already noted that no one needed words to talk, their faces told everything she needed to know and even more.

Her father went to meet with the other townsfolk, every single one of them with the heavy marks of age and work buried on their faces along with deep concern and fear of what the call had been for. The younger ones, however, had been put aside and were lead to a group of trees wide enough to cover everyone, not that it really made any difference at all.

“Come here children,” one of the elders say “come here and hear what I have to say”

Calling him an elder was mere formality of course. He still had the force to pin down a bull to the ground and his mind was easily as sharp as the horns of the poor beast. The only visible sign of age that could make it easy to track down in a crowd were his whites that made his hair a soft grey.

The children gathered around him and when every single one of the sons of the twenty families had arrived he began with a dry and heavy voice to pass down part of his wisdom.

“I know many of you are aware of the dangers that lay ahead of the tree line. The vastness of plants, the uncertain terrain and the nightmares and monsters that hunts those grounds is enough to make even the most brave men doubt before setting foot in it. Normally it's fine to wander in for a short distance to collect wood, as long as you keep to the paths. This, however, will no longer be possible as a new creature has arrived and made its lair there.”

This caught Lizzette by surprise, and her heart began to pund harder.

“Its strenght as powerful as twenty of the best knights of the king.”

She began to take in deep harsh breaths.

“Its armor so strong that not even a sword can break through it.”

She started to walk backwards, to retreat.

“Its wicked form can move faster than you can blink and can fuse with the shadows to make it invisible.”

She hit some of the others, who didn't seemed to mind as they were too deep in the words of the old one to even notice her.

“It can take down entire villages and towns from above, releasing its mortal breath and making fire rain from the skies.”

She came at last to the outside of the circle, her eyes never leaving the black eyes of his elder. He then looked at her directly on the face.

“This, my children, is a dragon.”
{{Separator|x|Work in Progress}}
{{series bar|series=[[User:Pocsock/Story_of_a_Weredragon| Story of a Weredragon]]|next=The Dragon}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Story Of A Weredragon: The Human}}
[[Category:Story]]
[[Category:Pocsock]]
[[Category:Mythical]]

User:Pocsock/Story of a Weredragon/The human

2008-03-05T05:31:31Z

Pocsock: Adding a little bit and doing some editing

{{title|name=Story Of A Weredragon: The Human|author=Pocsock|user=Pocsock}}
=={{Separator|d|The First Full Moon}}==
{{dropcap|I}}t was the beginning of a long journey to the little girl that had drafted outside of his house and wandered into the very hearts of the woods. Panic had begun to consume her the moment she realized that the trail had long disappeared, replaced with uneaven and soft ground that craked now and then with some stray branch or leaf, and that the voice of her father had already been replaced with the terrorizing sounds of creeping creatures and hungry predators. As the realization of the perilous situation began to really sink into the poor child's mind and imagination, making every shadow casted a demon and every sound heard a possible hungry beast, fear began to take control of her actions and made her run with all her might deeper into the unknown, effectively cutting her from the rest of the world.

There, where the ground opened up to the sky and the mattress of grass was disturbed with the ocaccional boulder or small hill, was when her strength finally reached its end and her limbs collapsed into a tired ball near the center. For a very long time the only sound that was heard was a very loud crying, then the one of sobbing, and then there was silence until the first crickets began to play their song.

When the little one finally returned from the world of dreams she was received with a cover of darkness. At first she thought her eyes were closed, until the first set of amber spheres appeared on the horizon, followed by many others until she was surrounded by them. The alpha male, seeing the oportunity to catch an easy meal, was the first one to launch forward and was soon followed by the rest of the pack.

Just at that moment, the little girl screamed her lungs out, but instead of the ordinary high-pitched sound she had expected to hear, a roar came out of her throat, shaking the earth itself for far more time that should have even been possible. After that silence ruled over the clearing, followed shortly after by the busy movements of the retreating wolves. The little one didn't have much time to react to what had happened as a souring pain coursed through her body.

It started with her eyes, that went blind the moment she closed them, and spread through her head, neck, torso, arms, legs and ended in the very tip of her toes. It was as if her very skin was digging daggers into her muscles and her bones. She rolled over and hit the boulders many times, punching the skin and releasing the scales uderneath it. She trashed all over the place, making it easier for bones to reshape and flesh to realign for their new purposes. She had to hold onto the side of a low hill to steady herself as spines, claws, fangs, wings and tail made their way through. She finally collapsed on the ground when everything was over, panting softly from her new muzzle.

Her eyes finally found the energy to open up... and the world invaded her. Everything was sharp and focused, from the tanters of clothes she tore apart some meters away to the family of birds that was quietly resting on a branch in a tree half a mile away. The colors seemed to glow from things and she even found out some ones that hadn't existed before. At the end she managed to stand up, fix her gaze on the solid round moon that had just been revealed upon the world and roar at it until her lungs could take it no more and her long neck could go no further into the night sky.

That was the first time that Lizzette transformed into a dragon.

=={{Separator|d|The Second Full Moon}}==
The day came sooner than usual for our little child. The soft bed and warm coverings kept the little one at bay in the dreams realm, where she dreamt of rocky landscapes with mountains so high that could have touched the very stars at night. It was the morning sun that finally made her eyes open.

She normally woke up before the rooster gave his morning call, and even before the first sun rays invaded the sky, so she could help her father with the chores of the farm. Knowing this, it was unsurprising that the first thing she did was to send every cover flying to the other side of the room and to put on her working clothes as soon as possible.

When she got out her father had already fed all the animals and was about to go see how the field was coming out. The first thing she did was to go apologize with him for having dozed off all morning, again. Being still a youthful, she had a propency to have bad dreams take the better of her, making her stay alert all night and recovering the missing sleep hours later at day. Her father understood and sent her to wash some clothes on the nearby river that helped feed the farm. She immediately went to the house, grabbed all the things she needed and headed to the North road.

He watched her go, and was grateful that she thought of last night of only a dream in that little head of hers, and even more grateful that, somehow, she had been able to find her way back to the edge of the woods that surrounded the little farm.
{{Separator|d|}}
Time passed as it usually does, and before anyone knew it thirty days and twenty nine nights had already gone by in the blur of monotony and hard work. The sun had hidden in the horizon long ago and the only audible sound so far was the crickets and other insects singing in a chorus just in the border of the tree line. That, however, was cut off shortly with the sharp edge of a whinny.

Lizzete thought, not for the first time, that work at the farm was endless. Even at night some of the animals get startled by something, usually a rabbit or a fox from the nearby woods. Our little one is used to this kind of nightly errands, as her father sometimes goes into town to attend some important matters and she's in charge until he returns the next day. Despite the blinding darkness, she moved as swiftly as she would have in daylight and was soon in front of the mare's stall.

The old horse poked her head out and received the little one with some friendly poking of her very dextrous and strong lips. She, in return, smuggled her a carrot which she immediately accepted and petted her on those spots in her long muzzle that she liked the best. The animal had always been skinny to the point of poking her ribs out and had never really been much of a help in the farm anyways, even in her youth days. What had saved her so far had been the girl's love, that made it impossible for her father to get rid of her.

At one point the little cotton hands stopped rubbing and the horse opened her eyes to see what the problem was. Looking back at the steam of pure white light that was coming from one of the largest holes that adorned the roof, she could see her small human falling around on the ground. Being confused at first, she tried to poke even more of herself out to try and see what was going on, but confusion quickly became panic in the blink of an eye when she noted that something was wrong, and the whinnies started again even louder.

There, on the ground, our little child was going through a process that she thought had only existed in her dreams, only sligthly different than the previous time. The scales were growing out of her skin much like thick hairs instead of ripping it to shreds and leaving it on the ground. The bones shifted and accomodated with ease and swiftness, the movements of the new limbs easily coming to mind as it happened. Tail, muzzle and wings sprouted from their confinement and stretched. The horns, claws and fangs grew out, disscarding quickly the old hair, nails and theeth. In a lot less time than the previous occassion, and without all the previous pain, the transition from one body to the other was complete and the little one saw the world again from behind slitted eyes.

Not having as good vision as a human, or a dragon for that matter, a horse has to relay more on other senses to see the world around them, especially the hearing and the smell. So when the animal in the stall didn't hear any screams or any other threathening noise and didn't catch any hint of a predator or other danger in the air, she stopped her own panic and began to aknowledge the girl in front of her. Her eyes told her something huge and threathening was laying there, but her other senses said it was her girl, confused and afraid, so she did what she always does in this kind of situations. Going to the front of the stall once again, she poke her head through the top of the wooden fence and began to tug her face with her very leathery and strong lips, feeling a strange cold and hard sensation on her skin.

Lizzette, for her part, had been startled at first. A rush of ideas and feelings came through her head. Confusion at why she was now scaley all over. Fear of what her father and the town folk would think if they saw her in this deary state. Panic at the prospect of being stuck in that form forever. Anger at having ripped her clothes apart to shreds, yet again. All of them spinning in her head and effectively making a draconic statue of her, until the soft nips came. Slowly, but effectively, the mare's touch began to relax the solid muscles until movility returned, and to melt away the ideas into a constant and stable flow until her head was a great deal clearer. Reason and calmness finally returned to the young, and a claw reached up and carefully continued the job where it had left it. After a while it was over, so the animal gave her a good night's kiss in the only matter horses can, with yet another nip in the tip of the muzzle just below the little horn, and retreted to the back of the only used stall to doze off.

It had been just what the little one needed. Someone who told her that it was ok, that nothing had happened. She was still Lizzette, the humble kid of a farmer, only in a different form. She wondered if this was what her father had said about great changes in her future earlier today as she yawned and began to make herself comfortable. After all, she had been awoken in the middle of the night.

=={{Separator|d|The Third Full Moon}}==
Unlike the last time, the events of the other night came to the mind of Lizzette easily. It was in part thanks to the fact it was her second time around and, thus, she had a little bit more conciousness of her unique situation, and in part thanks to the cold breeze of the morning air. Before the farmer could get his first boot on she had already gone to put something to cover herself and was beginning her daily work. The torn fabrics and other indications of last night's events were never seen again among the hay and other wastes.
{{Separator|d}}
That night, the kid decided to face her father and find out if her suspicions of the mysterious future planned for her were correct. But the time wasn't right, it seemed, as the farmer had lost track of the intruder that ate the eggs today and was in a pretty grim mood about it. So she decided it would be best to wait until he cooled down again the next day.

The sun hid and rose again, and the time came again when the little one and the older one were face to face enjoying some of the rather short-sized meal. She was about to burst free and attack him with all her questions and doubts that had invaded her mind, but something was amiss. He hadn't opened his mouth all day except to give her instructions and eat, so something must still be bothering his soul to keep him so serious and quiet. The girl decided it was best to let him be for the moment and let him arrange everything, as he usually did, by himself.

As the morning started she was received by a rather joyful hug and peaks in the cheek every now and then. Apparently her father had managed to outsmart the grey menace and show him who 'the real hunter was around here' acording to his very own words. Noting his glee and pride at having saved everyone in the modest farm once again, the young one didn't want to disturb him with her childish problems. In fact, she reflected, she might even end up disturbing him, like that one time she had cut herself on a pointy rock near the water and had ran crying to him. She still reserved that red face full of anger, with his veins poking out and eyes about to fall out of their place, for her nightmares. It didn't matter if it had just been for one second, nor that he had appologized later on, it still stung her small heart and brought sour tears out to think about it, and so she decided to wait and see if tomorrow was a good day to tell him.

But tomorrow wasn't a good day either, so she waited for the next day.

And the next.

And the one after that.

Until she realized that the time for answers would come when her father decided to give them to her.
{{Separator|d}}
The weeks passed. The moon had been hidding her beautiful face until it had been completely dark one night, and was now just pulling herself together, as our little one thought the round one did when passing her stages, until it was the time. Tonight was it, the night were the moon gave her full light to the world until her brother came at day.

Even when she had been prepared, working with renown effort at day so she could go early to bed and wouldn't doze off when the time came. Even when she would be close to the house in a nearby opening that she often visited. Even when her father had gone to those sleeps were he reaked of the awful stuff that she should never touch and couldn't be awaken until well beyond the next day. She still was nervous, not scared however as that had faded away the last time, and a little too anxious.

The shinning one couldn't be seen in the sky anymore, which meant that his sister would come any minute now that the sky was empty and darkness was consuming it. She carefully disrobed, putting what scarce belongings she had on the base of a nearby tree. Making herself as comfortable as anyone could on the cold roughness of the bare ground, she let her body relax and absorb the stars' light, closing her eyelids and covering her beautiful blue orbs. The next second, she opened them, and the world had changed.

Curiosity overwhelmed her. She pull her hands up and saw claws instead, heavy blue claws floating on a sea of lighter scales. She turned her long and flexible neck back and found spikes, a river of sapphire spikes that ran from the shrine of her head, through the smooth surface of pebbles and on to the end of the tail. Moving around she found how natural it felt to move on ground an all fours like a wild beast, the thin but amazingly strong and semi-translucent wings balancing and keeping stability by moving side to side, and the long and thick tail trailing behind. She reached the small mirror on the ground that some would have called a pond and peeked at her reflection. Her head had changed noticeably, a muzzle had attached itself, lenghting her head and fusing her nose so that now only two slits at the tip of it remained, and gained most of the face; a set of small fins much like her wings adorned the sides of the form; two rows of very strong and sharp fangs infested her mouth and a pair of horns had made their way through the back of her head. Even with all the draconic features it was unmistkeable who the creature was, her eyes, although slitted, hadn't lost the expressiveness that divides persons from animals and hadn't lost the sky hue that kept the old ladies at town wondering if she was a witch.

It didn't matter she wasn't human anymore, her soul was still one of a child and, as such, she could stay fixed on her reflection fooling with her face all night. She smiled, a sight that would have scared away anything that had at least a little sense, but she just giggled at how it just seemed out of place in such a predator. She then moved her ears, a feat that was impossible to her before but now was as easy as if they were just another pair of fingers attached to the sides of her head, and she discovered how to control her hearing so that the fall of a leaf could pierce her like a thunder, even if it had been far away, and how to silence the world at will. The not-so-little-anymore child next sticked her biforked toungue out and moved it in the air a little like snakes tended to do, and, mimicking a snake, she slid it back in and proved with the separated bits of flesh around her mouth for a while. It would have continued like that, doing faces and wasting time, if it hadn't been for a little green friend that jumped just at that moment and interrupted the busy reptile.

It saw her. She saw it. It began to hop out of the pond as soon as it aknowledged its mistake and she followed in persuit a very short time later. As for the outcome, lets just say that catching frogs wasn't a challenge for the little weredragon anymore.

The night followed its course and, among the running, the games and the failed attempts to fly and breath fire, it ended much sooner than our little one had expected, like all good things tended to do in life. As soon as the first sun ray peaked from the mountains she bagan to shrink. Her horns and head spines thined and began to turn to the brown tone she was used to, her claws retreated and flattened until just her normal dirty nails remained, her tail and wings disappeared to whatever place they go when she's human, her skin absorbed all the scales back, and as the face, neck, legs and arms returned to what she was used to, normality ruled over the woods once again. She picked up her things where she had lefte them and went to catch on some sleep before her father would wake up, which wouldn't happen for still some time.
=={{Separator|d|The Tenth Full Moon}}==
She had been extremely careful and lucky in her nightly errands so far. For the last five months she had gone through her metamorphosis, as one of them had been cloudy all night and the other one had been a moonless dark time, she had been sneaking out of the house either when his father was sleeping like a rock or when he was out minding his own business in town and didn't come back until the next day. But like many other things in her life, this wasn't something that was meant to hold up for much.

You didn't have to be a grown up to know when something's wrong. The animals, even the wild ones, had stayed silent all day long. The flowers and colors seemed to be out of place among the featureless gray. Even the sun had decided to stay off from the little mountain town, stepping away to make room to the colossal clouds and the collosal shadow they casted. All her father would tell her was to come along to the town square with him. He didn't even had to tell her to stay quiet as she already noted that no one needed words to talk, their faces told everything she needed to know and even more.

Her father went to meet with the other townsfolk, every single one of them with the heavy marks of age and work buried on their faces along with deep concern and fear of what the call had been for. The younger ones, however, had been put aside and were lead to a group of trees wide enough to cover everyone, not that it really made any difference at all.

“Come here children,” one of the elders say “come here and hear what I have to say”

Calling him an elder was mere formality of course. He still had the force to pin down a bull to the ground and his mind was easily as sharp as the horns of the poor beast. The only visible sign of age that could make it easy to track down in a crowd were his whites that made his hair a soft grey.

The children gathered around him and when every single one of the sons of the twenty families had arrived he began with a dry and heavy voice to pass down part of his wisdom.

“I know many of you are aware of the dangers that lay ahead of the tree line. The vastness of plants, the uncertain terrain and the nightmares and monsters that hunts those grounds is enough to make even the most brave men doubt before setting foot in it. Normally it's fine to wander in for a short distance to collect wood, as long as you keep to the paths. This, however, will no longer be possible as a new creature has arrived and made its lair there.”

This caught Lizzette by surprise, and her heart began to pund harder.

“Its strenght as powerful as twenty of the best knights of the king.”

She began to take in deep harsh breaths.

“Its armor so strong that not even a sword can break through it.”

She started to walk backwards, to retreat.

“Its wicked form can move faster than you can blink and can fuse with the shadows to make it invisible.”

She hit some of the others, who didn't seemed to mind as they were too deep in the words of the old one to even notice her.

“It can take down entire villages and towns from above, releasing its mortal breath and making fire rain from the skies.”

She came at last to the outside of the circle, her eyes never leaving the black eyes of his elder. He then looked at her directly on the face.

“This, my children, is a dragon.”
{{Separator|x|Work in Progress}}
{{series bar|series=Story of a Weredragon|next=The Dragon}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Story Of A Weredragon: The Human}}
[[Category:Story]]
[[Category:Pocsock]]
[[Category:Mythical]]

User:Pocsock/Story of a Weredragon

2008-02-28T04:50:23Z

Pocsock:

User:Pocsock/Story of a Weredragon

2008-02-28T04:37:58Z

Pocsock:

User:Pocsock

2008-02-28T04:36:20Z

Pocsock: Adding the new story

I'm a very recent author who has only been posting on [http://lists.integral.org/listinfo/tsa-talk TSA-Talk], until now. Now I'm beginning to expand my horizons a little further, starting here.

If you feel the need to contact me, whether you loved my stories or just want to tell me how bad I am and that I should stop writing immediately, you can leave a comment [[User_talk:Pocsock|here]], or you can send an e-mail at [mailto:pocsock@yahoo.com pocsock@yahoo.com] and I'll try to write back at you as soon as possible (but I warn you, I don't plan on quitting anytime soon)

==Stories==

*[[All You Need to Know]]- Have you ever had that strange feeling that you don't understand the world around you?
*[[A New Beginning]]- A little glimpse at a not-that-far-away future, where researchers have accidentally stumbled upon a miraculous cure for most diseases, with some little side effects. Currently on hiatus.
*[[Self-destruct Activated]]- Could you believe all the trouble a little fish can cause?
*[[User:Pocsock/Story_of_a_Weredragon|Story Of A Weredragon]]- What does it mean to be a weredragon? Someone is about to find out.
*[[Nahual]]- There are also tales of werecritters in Mexico, and they also have a bad reputation among normal men.
*[[I Need More Maple Syrup]]- The things some people have to do in order to have a descent breakfast.

[[Category:Author]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pocsock}}

User:Pocsock/Story of a Weredragon

2008-02-28T04:34:42Z

Pocsock: New story

{{byline|name=Story Of A Weredragon|author=Pocsock|user=Pocsock}}
{{WIP}}

[[User:Pocsock/Story_of_a_Weredragon/The_human| Part I: The Human]]

Part II: The Dragon

Part III: The Weredragon

[[Category:Story]]
[[Category:Pocsock]]
[[Category:Mythical]]

User:Pocsock/Story of a Weredragon/The human

2008-02-28T04:31:35Z

Pocsock: New page: {{title|name=Story Of A Weredragon: The Human|author=Pocsock|user=Pocsock}} =={{Separator|d|The First Full Moon}}== {{dropcap|I}}t was the beginning of a long journey to the little girl th...

{{title|name=Story Of A Weredragon: The Human|author=Pocsock|user=Pocsock}}
=={{Separator|d|The First Full Moon}}==
{{dropcap|I}}t was the beginning of a long journey to the little girl that had drafted outside of his house and wandered into the very hearts of the woods. Panic had begun to consume her the moment she realized that the trail had long disappeared, replaced with uneaven and soft ground that craked now and then with some stray branch or leaf, and that the voice of her father had already been replaced with the terrorizing sounds of creeping creatures and hungry predators. As the realization of the perilous situation began to really sink into the poor child's mind and imagination, making every shadow casted a demon and every sound heard a possible hungry beast, fear began to take control of her actions and made her run with all her might deeper into the unknown, effectively cutting her from the rest of the world.

There, where the ground opened up to the sky and the mattress of grass was disturbed with the ocaccional boulder or small hill, was when her strength finally reached its end and her limbs collapsed into a tired ball near the center. For a very long time the only sound that was heard was a very loud crying, then the one of sobbing, and then there was silence until the first crickets began to play their song.

When the little one finally returned from the world of dreams she was received with a cover of darkness. At first she thought her eyes were closed, until the first set of amber spheres appeared on the horizon, followed by many others until she was surrounded by them. The alpha male, seeing the oportunity to catch an easy meal, was the first one to launch forward and was soon followed by the rest of the pack.

Just at that moment, the little girl screamed her lungs out, but instead of the ordinary high-pitched sound she had expected to hear, a roar came out of her throat, shaking the earth itself for far more time that should have been possible. After that silence ruled over the clearing, followed shortly after by the busy movements of the retreating wolves. The little one didn't have much time to react to what had happened as a souring pain coursed through her body.

It started with her eyes, that went blind the moment she closed them, and spread through her head, neck, torso, arms, legs and ended in the very tip of her toes. It was as if her very skin was digging daggers into her muscles and her bones. She rolled over and hit the boulders many times, punching the skin and releasing the scales uderneath it. She trashed all over the place, making it easier for bones to reshape and flesh to realign for their new purposes. She had to hold onto the side of a low hill to steady herself as spines, claws, fangs, wings and tail made their way through. She finally collapsed on the ground when everything was over, panting softly from her new muzzle.

Her eyes finally found the energy to open up, and the world invaded her. Everything was sharp and focused, from the tanters of clothes she tore apart some meters away to the family of birds that was quietly resting on a branch in a tree half a mile away. The colors seemed to glow from things and she even found out some ones that hadn't existed before. At the end she managed to stand up, fix her gaze on the solid round moon that had just been revealed upon the world and roar at it until her lungs could take it no more and her long neck could go no further into the night sky.

That was the first time that Lizzette transformed into a dragon.

=={{Separator|d|The Second Full Moon}}==
The day came sooner than usual for our little child. The soft bed and warm coverings kept the little one at bay in the dreams realm, where she dreamt of rocky landscapes with mountains so high that could have touched the very stars at night. It was the morning sun that finally made her eyes open.

She normally woke up before the rooster gave his morning call, and even before the first sun rays invaded the sky, so she could help her father with the chores of the farm. Knowing this, it was unsurprising that the first thing she did was to send every cover flying to the other side of the room and to put on her working clothes as soon as possible.

When she got out her father had already fed all the animals and was about to go see how the field was coming out. The first thing she did was to go apologize with him for having dozed off all morning, again. Being still a youthful, she had a propency to have bad dreams take the better of her, making her stay alert all night and recovering the missing sleep hours later at day. Her father understood and sent her to wash some clothes on the nearby river that helped feed the farm. She immediately went to the house, grabbed all the things she needed and headed to the North road.

He watched her go, and was grateful that she thought of last night of only a dream in that little head of hers, and even more grateful that, somehow, she had been able to find her way back to the edge of the woods that surrounded the little farm.
{{Separator|d|}}
Time passed as it usually does, and before anyone knew it thirty days and twenty nine nights had already gone by in the blur of monotony and hard work. The sun had hidden in the horizon long ago and the only audible sound so far was the crickets and other insects singing in a chorus just in the border of the tree line. That, however, was cut off shortly with the sharp edge of a whinny.

Lizzete thought, not for the first time, that work at the farm was endless. Even at night some of the animals get startled by something, usually a rabbit or a fox from the nearby woods. Our little one is used to this kind of nightly errands, as his father sometimes goes into town to attend some important matters and she's in charge until he returns the next day. Despite the blinding darkness, she moved as swiftly as she would have in daylight and was soon in front of the mare's stall.

The old horse poked her head out and received the little one with some friendly poking of her very dextrous and strong lips. She, in return, smuggled her a carrot which she immediately accepted and petted her on those spots in her long muzzle that she liked the best. The animal had always been skinny to the point of poking her ribs out and had never really been much of a help in the farm anyways, even in her youth days. What had saved her so far had been the girl's love that made it impossible for her father to get rid of her.

At one point the little cotton hands stopped rubbing and the horse opened her eyes to see what the problem was. Looking back at the steam of pure white light that was coming from one of the largest holes that adorned the roof, she could see her small human falling around on the ground. Being confused at first, she tried to poke even more of herself out to try and see what was going on, but confusion quickly became panic in the blink of an eye when she noted that something was wrong, and the whinnies started again even louder.

There, on the ground, our little child was going through a process that she thought had only existed in her dreams, only sligthly different than the previous time. The scales were growing out of her skin much like thick hairs instead of ripping it to shreds and leaving it on the ground. The bones shifted and accomodated with ease and swiftness, the movements of the new limbs easily coming to mind. Tail, muzzle and wings sprouted from their confinement and stretched. The horns, claws and fangs grew out, disscarding quickly the old hair, nails and theeth. In a lot less time than the previous occassion, and without all the previous pain, the transition from one body to the other was complete and the little one saw the world again from behind slitted eyes.

Not having as good vision as a human, or a dragon for that matter, a horse has to relay more on other senses to see the world around them, especially the hearing and the smell. So when the animal in the stall didn't hear any screams or any other threathening noise and didn't catch any hint of a predator or other danger in the air, she stopped her own panic and began to aknowledge the girl in front of her. Her eyes told her something huge and threathening was laying there, but her other senses said it was her girl, confused and afraid, so she did what she always does in this kind of situations. Going to the front of the stall once again, she poke her head through the top of the wooden fence and began to tug her face with her very leathery and strong lips, feeling a strange cold and hard sensation on her skin.

Lizzette, for her part, had been startled at first. A rush of ideas and feelings came through her head. Confusion at why she was now scaley all over. Fear of what her father and the town folk would think if they saw her in this deary state. Panic at the prospect of being stuck in that form forever. Anger at having ripped her clothes apart to shreds. All of them spinning in her head and effectively making a draconic statue of her, until the soft nips came. Slowly, but effectively, the mare's touch began to relax the solid muscles until movility returned and to melt away the ideas into a constant and stable flow until her head was a great deal clearer. Reason and calmness finally returned to the young, and a claw reached up and carefully continued the job where it had left. After a while it was over, so the animal gave her a good night's kiss in the only matter horses can, with yet another nip in the tip of the muzzle just below the little horn, and retreted to the back of the only used stall to doze off.

It had been just what the little one needed. Someone who told her that it was ok, that nothing had happened. She was still Lizzette, the humble kid of a farmer, only in a different form. She wondered if this was what her father had said about great changes in her future earlier today as she yawned and began to make herself comfortable. After all, she had been awoken in the middle of the night.

=={{Separator|d|The Third Full Moon}}==
Unlike the last time, the events of the other night came to the mind of Lizzette easily. It was in part thanks to the fact it was her second time around and, thus, she had a little bit more conciousness of her unique situation, and in part thanks to the cold breeze of the morning air. Before the farmer could get his first boot on she had already gone to put something to cover herself and was beginning her daily work. The torn fabrics and other indications of last night's events were never seen again among the hay and other wastes.
{{Separator|d}}
That night, the kid decided to face her father and find out if her suspicions of the mysterious future planned for her were correct. But the time wasn't right, it seemed, as the farmer had lost track of the intruder that ate the eggs today and was in a pretty grim mood about it. So she decided it would be best to wait until he cooled down again the next day.

The sun hid and rose again, and the time came again when the little one and the older one were face to face enjoying some of the rather short-sized meal. She was about to burst free and attack him with all her questions and doubts that had invaded her mind, but something was amiss. He hadn't opened his mouth all day except to give her instructions and eat, so something must still be bothering his soul to keep him so serious and quiet. The girl decided it was best to let him be for the moment and let him arrange everything, as he usually did, by himself.

As the morning started she was received by a rather joyful hug and peaks in the cheek every now and then. Apparently her father had managed to outsmart the grey menace and show him who 'the real hunter was around here' acording to his very own words. Noting his glee and pride at having saved everyone in the modest farm once again, the young one didn't want to disturb him with her childish problems. In fact, she reflected, she might even end up disturbing him, like that one time she had cut herself on a pointy rock near the water and had ran crying to him. She still reserved that red face full of anger, with his veins poking out and eyes about to fall out of their place, for her nightmares. It didn't matter if it had just been for one second, nor that he had appologized later on, it still stung her small heart and brought sour tears out to think about it, and so she decided to wait and see if tomorrow was a good day to tell him.

But tomorrow wasn't a good day either, so she waited for the next day.

And the next.

And the one after that.

Until she realized that the time for answers would come when her father decided to give them to her.
{{Separator|d}}
The weeks passed. The moon had been hidding her beautiful face until it had been completely dark one night, and was now just pulling herself together, as our little one thought the round one did when passing her stages, until it was the time. Tonight was it, the night were the moon gave her full light to the world until her brother came at day.

Even when she had been prepared, working with renown effort at day so she could go early to bed and wouldn't doze off when the time came. Even when she would be close to the house in a nearby opening that she often visited. Even when her father had gone to those sleeps were he reaked of the awful stuff that she should never touch and couldn't be awaken until well beyond the next day. She still was nervous, not scared however as that had faded away the last time, and a little too anxious.

The shinning one couldn't be seen in the sky anymore, which meant that his sister would come any minute now that the sky was empty and darkness was consuming it. She carefully disrobed, putting what scarce belongings she had on the base of a nearby tree. Making herself as comfortable as anyone could on the cold roughness of the bare ground, she let her body relax and absorb the stars' light, closing her eyelids and covering her beautiful blue orbs. The next second, she opened them, and the world had changed.

Curiosity overwhelmed her. She pull her hands up and saw claws instead, heavy blue claws floating on a sea of lighter scales. She turned her long and flexible neck back and found spikes, a river of sapphire spikes that ran from the shrine of her head, through the smooth surface of pebbles and on to the end of the tail. Moving around she found how natural it felt to move on ground an all fours like a wild beast, the thin but amazingly strong and semi-translucent wings balancing and keeping stability by moving side to side, and the long and thick tail trailing behind. She reached the small mirror on the ground that some would have called a pond and peeked at her reflection. Her head had changed noticeably, a muzzle had attached itself, lenghting her head and fusing her nose so that now only two slits at the tip of it remained, and gained most of the face; a set of small fins much like her wings adorned the sides of the form; two rows of very strong and sharp fangs infested her mouth and a pair of horns had made their way through the back of her head. Even with all the draconic features it was unmistkeable who the creature was, her eyes, although slitted, hadn't lost the expressiveness that divides persons from animals and hadn't lost the sky hue that kept the old ladies at town wondering if she was a witch.

It didn't matter she wasn't human anymore, her soul was still one of a child and, as such, she could stay fixed on her reflection fooling with her face all night. She smiled, a sight that would have scared away anything that had at least a little sense, but she just giggled at how it just seemed out of place in such a predator. She then moved her ears, a feat that was impossible to her before but now was as easy as if they were just another pair of fingers attached to the sides of her head, and she discovered how to control her hearing so that the fall of a leaf could pierce her like a thunder, even if it had been far away, and how to silence the world at will. The not-so-little-anymore child next sticked her biforked toungue out and moved it in the air a little like snakes tended to do, and, mimicking a snake, she slid it back in and proved with the separated bits of flesh around her mouth for a while. It would have continued like that, doing faces and wasting time, if it hadn't been for a little green friend that jumped just at that moment and interrupted the busy reptile.

It saw her. She saw it. It began to hop out of the pond as soon as it aknowledged its mistake and she followed in persuit a very short time later. As for the outcome, lets just say that catching frogs wasn't a challenge for the little weredragon anymore.

The night followed its course and, among the running, the games and the failed attempts to fly and breath fire, it ended much sooner than our little one had expected, like all good things tended to do in life. As soon as the first sun ray peaked from the mountains she bagan to shrink. Her horns and head spines thined and began to turn to the brown tone she was used to, her claws retreated and flattened until just her normal dirty nails remained, her tail and wings disappeared to whatever place they go when she's human, her skin absorbed all the scales back, and as the face, neck, legs and arms returned to what she was used to, normality ruled over the woods once again. She picked up her things where she had lefte them and went to catch on some sleep before her father would wake up, which wouldn't happen for still some time.
{{Separator|x|Work in Progress}}

Talk:Las Rosas en la primavera

2008-01-28T05:09:38Z

Pocsock: Suggesting some proofreading

==Errores Gramaticales==
It's a really nice poem, and I agree, Spanish is a beautiful language, but I couldn't help but notice some grammar mistakes in it. It was very tempting to just correct them myself, but I thought that would be rude and you wouldn't be able to learn anything if I did it. So instead I'm just going to point them out here and try to explain why they are wrong.

<poem>

En la primavera,
las flores dulces {{replace|floresen,|florecen,}} {{note|That's the way it is conjugated, ellas ''florecen''}}
{{replace|Y|y}} se abren y llenan {{note|You cannot start with a capital letter if the sentence hasn't ended}}
el cielo con
un olor,
{{replace|una|un}} perfume de {{note|the article ''una'' refers to femenine nouns}}
{{replace|Naturaleza|naturaleza}}, la mujer. {{note|As ''naturaleza'' is not a proper name, it doesn't go with a capital letter}}
Y las abejas ofertas
flotan de tallo
a tallo,
{{replace|Cantando|cantando}} una canción de
{{replace|Su|su}} belleza.

En el invierno,
los rojos, y amarillos desteñirán
a morrón{{add|.}}
Y {{replace|la|el}} perfume {{note|''la'' refers to femenine nouns}}
morirá.
Y los tallos pequeños
caen
en blanco,
blanco {{replace|frio|frío}}. {{note|It has an accent because of super complicated rules, and it would be better if we leave it like that}}

Pero {{replace|siempre yo sé|yo sé que siempre}} {{note|It's technicaly correct, but it makes more sense like this}}
{{remove|Que}} los petálos {{note|This is just if you followed the correction above}}
{{replace|Abrirán|se abrirán}} y desplegarán de nuevo. {{note|It's a "verbo pronominal" (the English language doesn't have them, but they are also very common in French), so you must include the ''se''}}
Y calentarán el mundo
{{replace|Con|con}} rojos, amarillos, y blancos,
{{replace|Y|y}} lucirán sus caras simples
{{replace|Al|al}} sol.

</poem>
All in all, it's very good. You could work the quinks of the language in no time with more practice.

I hope to see more of these soon :) [[User:Pocsock|Pocsock]] 00:09, 28 January 2008 (EST)

Self-destruct Activated

2008-01-19T20:54:50Z

Pocsock:

I Need More Maple Syrup

2008-01-19T20:54:42Z

Pocsock:

Nahual

2008-01-19T20:53:08Z

Pocsock:

User:Pocsock

2008-01-19T20:49:02Z

Pocsock: just adding my e-mail address

I'm a very recent author who has only been posting on [http://lists.integral.org/listinfo/tsa-talk TSA-Talk], until now. Now I'm beginning to expand my horizons a little further, starting here.

If you feel the need to contact me, whether you loved my stories or just want to tell me how bad I am and that I should stop writing immediately, you can leave a comment [[User_talk:Pocsock|here]], or you can send an e-mail at [mailto:pocsock@yahoo.com pocsock@yahoo.com] and I'll try to write back at you as soon as possible (but I warn you, I don't plan on quitting anytime soon)

==Stories==

*[[All You Need to Know]]- Have you ever had that strange feeling that you don't understand the world around you?
*[[A New Beginning]]- The story I'm currently working on. A little glimpse at a not-that-far-away future, where researchers have accidentally stumbled upon a miraculous cure for most diseases, with some little side effects.
*[[Self-destruct Activated]]- Could you believe all the trouble a little fish can cause?
*[[Nahual]]- There are also tales of werecritters in Mexico, and they also have a bad reputation among normal men.
*[[I Need More Maple Syrup]]- The things some people have to do in order to have a descent breakfast.

[[Category:Author]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pocsock}}

Self-destruct Activated

2008-01-10T18:29:30Z

Pocsock:

Self-destruct Activated

2008-01-10T00:03:09Z

Pocsock: I don't really know in what category to put this in

{{title|name=Self-destruct Activated|author=Pocsock}}

Swim, swim, swim. We swim together.

Swim, swim, eat. We eat together.

Swim, swim, dodge. We swim from predator together.

Predator will take one, but won’t take us.

Hurt, I’m hurt, as well as others.

One is taken, and is no longer us. He’s dead, but we are safe.

Predator hurts and predator takes, so being taken hurts.

Swim, swim, dodge. We swim from predator together.

Predator will take one, but won’t take us.

Predator takes one, I’m one. Predator takes me. I’m hurt.

Predator takes ones from outside, I’m outside. Predator takes me. I’m hurt.

Predator doesn’t take ones from inside, I’m inside. Predator doesn’t take me. I’m not hurt.

I go inside, other ones follow. We become many ones and me. Predator catches many ones, but not me.

{{Separator|d}}

Meanwhile, above the red sea with many creatures and coral reefs, beyond the automated fishing ships that patrolled now and then, beyond the yellow sky full of energy collectors and even farther away than the artificial satellites that kept watch on the surface of the planet in the void of space, two beings know everything that’s going on down there.

“There’s an abnormality in a school of fish” the most inexperienced informed the other, who didn’t even have to view the data from the various machines to know exactly what had gone awry.

After a while of deep thought he answered “Initiate self-destruct sequence”

{{Separator|d}}

Chaos got lose back in the planet as the order was transmitted among the various devices, who, in turn, released even smaller ones out in the environment, gave them instructions and then dissolved into red dust. The little machines entered the bigger forms of life and began changing them, sometimes destroying tissue and cells that served as constructions bricks for their job, sometimes expelling all the extra material so others could use it and sometimes even destroying other life forms in the organism, like bacteria, to obtain the components necessary for their work. Many forms couldn’t be turned, however, so they either liquefied into the most basic of the organic components or they just stayed as if nothing had happened.

Those who did change didn’t know what hit them. One moment they were surging the skies, jumping on trees, running in meadows or swimming, the next moment everything changed. Birds fell to earth as their feathers were pushed out of their skin, bones began to sprout from the naked wings and the stubby feet, together with muscles to move them, and beaks melded with the skull to allow terrain for the lips to grow. Tiny mammals lost grip of branches and also fell, some of them began to lose all their hair, they began to grow in mass and size thanks to all the nutritious goo that some of the others had become, and as some of them also lost their tails, they gained hands and feet to work with. The reptiles on the ground weren’t forgotten either, they were forced to change their skin and be replaced with a softer and more sensible one, scales gave way to hair and a cold chill ran through them as their insides changed so they could have warm blood running trough their veins.

Somewhere near a coral reef in one of the many chains of islands this world offered, a little fish got away from one of the many fishing boats, and was now enjoying eating some of the smaller creatures now that the school of fished had reorganized. The moment didn’t last long after the machines got into it and the others. Many fish started to spasm in the water and some of them even exploded in an underwater cloud of white, which our little fish began to absorb in order to begin its transformation. Some fins began to creep into its skin while others began to grow away from its body. Even before the new limbs were fully developed, it was forced to begin to swim with what little tail it had left to the nearest shore some meters away. Gills were closed permanently and scales dried and fell off the moment it touched land. The skin grew softer and gained a pinkish trait to it. The tail was only a stub at the base of a bigger spine now, and was becoming even smaller. The lungs took their first breath and a nose was added. The head separated from the rest of the body as it grew a neck and hair sprouted there and in other parts. Eyelids grew with eyelashes. Lips gained color and muscles. Nails grew from the tips of the toes and fingers at the end of the hands and feet.

Where there had once been a little fish no different from a thousand others that haunted these waters and that had been part of one being called a school of fish, now stood a unique creature known by many as a human.

It, no, ''she'', stood up, took a look around her and noted something. She was no longer part of an entity; she was now an individual, a ''unique individual''. She was now different, and others were different for her and no one was the same. And, deep down, she could almost hear a voice saying, whispering to her and to many others, you’re better than ''them''.

{{Separator|d}}

While preparing to depart and leave the planet to its fate, one of the beings’ curiosity stroke and he asked the other “Won’t they be able to survive?”
“No,” the other one answered “they will end up consuming all the resources before they are aware of what’s happening. It always ends up like that, and when they are gone and the planet void of everything, we will return to build it all once again”

[[Category:Story]]
[[Category:Pocsock]]

User:Pocsock

2008-01-10T00:01:57Z

Pocsock: Add a little story

I'm a very recent author who has only been posting on [http://lists.integral.org/listinfo/tsa-talk TSA-Talk], until now. Now I'm beginning to expand my horizons a little further, starting here.

==Stories==

*[[All You Need to Know]]- Have you ever had that strange feeling that you don't understand the world around you?
*[[A New Beginning]]- The story I'm currently working on. A little glimpse at a not-that-far-away future, where researchers have accidentally stumbled upon a miraculous cure for most diseases, with some little side effects.
*[[Self-destruct Activated]]- Could you believe all the trouble a little fish can cause?
*[[Nahual]]- There are also tales of werecritters in Mexico, and they also have a bad reputation among normal men.
*[[I Need More Maple Syrup]]- The things some people have to do in order to have a descent breakfast.

[[Category:Author]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pocsock}}

Self-destruct Activated

2008-01-10T00:01:20Z

Pocsock: Don't really know in what category to put this in

{{title|name=Self-destruct Activated|author=Pocsock}}

Swim, swim, swim. We swim together.

Swim, swim, eat. We eat together.

Swim, swim, dodge. We swim from predator together.

Predator will take one, but won’t take us.

Hurt, I’m hurt, as well as others.

One is taken, and is no longer us. He’s dead, but we are safe.

Predator hurts and predator takes, so being taken hurts.

Swim, swim, dodge. We swim from predator together.

Predator will take one, but won’t take us.

Predator takes one, I’m one. Predator takes me. I’m hurt.

Predator takes ones from outside, I’m outside. Predator takes me. I’m hurt.

Predator doesn’t take ones from inside, I’m inside. Predator doesn’t take me. I’m not hurt.

I go inside, other ones follow. We become many ones and me. Predator catches many ones, but not me.

{{Separator|d}}

Meanwhile, above the red sea with many creatures and coral reefs, beyond the automated fishing ships that patrolled now and then, beyond the yellow sky full of energy collectors and even farther away than the artificial satellites that kept watch on the surface of the planet in the void of space, two beings know everything that’s going on down there.

“There’s an abnormality in a school of fish” the most inexperienced informed the other, who didn’t even have to view the data from the various machines to know exactly what had gone awry.

After a while of deep thought he answered “Initiate self-destruct sequence”

{{Separator|d}}

Chaos got lose back in the planet as the order was transmitted among the various devices, who, in turn, released even smaller ones out in the environment, gave them instructions and then dissolved into red dust. The little machines entered the bigger forms of life and began changing them, sometimes destroying tissue and cells that served as constructions bricks for their job, sometimes expelling all the extra material so others could use it and sometimes even destroying other life forms in the organism, like bacteria, to obtain the components necessary for their work. Many forms couldn’t be turned, however, so they either liquefied into the most basic of the organic components or they just stayed as if nothing had happened.

Those who did change didn’t know what hit them. One moment they were surging the skies, jumping on trees, running in meadows or swimming, the next moment everything changed. Birds fell to earth as their feathers were pushed out of their skin, bones began to sprout from the naked wings and the stubby feet, together with muscles to move them, and beaks melded with the skull to allow terrain for the lips to grow. Tiny mammals lost grip of branches and also fell, some of them began to lose all their hair, they began to grow in mass and size thanks to all the nutritious goo that some of the others had become, and as some of them also lost their tails, they gained hands and feet to work with. The reptiles on the ground weren’t forgotten either, they were forced to change their skin and be replaced with a softer and more sensible one, scales gave way to hair and a cold chill ran through them as their insides changed so they could have warm blood running trough their veins.

Somewhere near a coral reef in one of the many chains of islands this world offered, a little fish got away from one of the many fishing boats, and was now enjoying eating some of the smaller creatures now that the school of fished had reorganized. The moment didn’t last long after the machines got into it and the others. Many fish started to spasm in the water and some of them even exploded in an underwater cloud of white, which our little fish began to absorb in order to begin its transformation. Some fins began to creep into its skin while others began to grow away from its body. Even before the new limbs were fully developed, it was forced to begin to swim with what little tail it had left to the nearest shore some meters away. Gills were closed permanently and scales dried and fell off the moment it touched land. The skin grew softer and gained a pinkish trait to it. The tail was only a stub at the base of a bigger spine now, and was becoming even smaller. The lungs took their first breath and a nose was added. The head separated from the rest of the body as it grew a neck and hair sprouted there and in other parts. Eyelids grew with eyelashes. Lips gained color and muscles. Nails grew from the tips of the toes and fingers at the end of the hands and feet.

Where there had once been a little fish no different from a thousand others that haunted these waters and that had been part of one being called a school of fish, now stood a unique creature known by many as a human.

It, no, she, stood up, took a look around her and noted something. She was no longer part of an entity; she was now an individual, a unique individual. She was now different, and others were different for her and no one was the same. And, deep down, she could almost hear a voice saying, whispering to her and to many others, you’re better than them.

{{Separator|d}}

While preparing to depart and leave the planet to its fate, one of the beings’ curiosity stroke and he asked the other “Won’t they be able to survive?”
“No,” the other one answered “they will end up consuming all the resources before they are aware of what’s happening. It always ends up like that, and when they are gone and the planet void of everything, we will return to build it all once again”

[[Category:Story]]
[[Category:Pocsock]]

A New Beginning

2007-10-19T02:34:25Z

Pocsock: putting it on hiatus

{{title|name=A New Beginning|author=Pocsock}}
{{editing requested}}
{{hiatus}}
{{author's note|This story is currently on hiatus, as I'm busy for the moment in real life.
The reason I'm posting it here is mainly to get feedback. Any comment or correction (like spelling and/or grammar mistakes) will be appreciated.
}}
''New content starts from {{add|marked text}}''
{{Separator|d}}

{{dropcap|W}}''e’re entering a new age. The natural laws are blending and breaking in ways they have never done before. The pillars of knowledge shake before our very own eyes. What we once thought of only as a myth, is starting to fuse into reality itself...”''

I walked to the lady in the desk, an anthropomorphic lioness with long brown hair and bright amber fur.

“Hi. How may I help you?” she said with a younger voice than what she looked like. Not that I was especially good at calculating age, even if the person wasn’t part animal.

“Hi. I have an appointment with Alice” she then took a good look at me, seeing only a teenager that had not taken a shower in a while and with a wild hair. Nothing extraordinary at all, but she smiled at me either way as if she already new something about me that I ignored.

“She’s busy at the moment with another volunteer” she said politely “She’ll receive you the moment she’s done with him. You can make yourself comfortable while you wait”

“Thanks” I said and then continued to sit on a nearby chair.
{{Separator|d}}
As time slowly crept away, my mind began to wander into deep thoughts, as was usual for me in this kind of situations. My train of thoughts began with the scenery in front of me, a large reception desk. The curious thing about it was neither the size nor the decoration, although it was indeed big and very nicely decorated, but the people that were constantly coming in and out of the enormous double sliding doors towards all the different parts of the building. They were animals, going from the anthropomorphic ones to others with apparently no difference from what you might find in your local zoo, except they were smarter; cyborgs, as in persons with some kind of prosthesis or other mechanical enhancement; any strange combination of animals, human and robot that I could dare think of; and humans that could be counted with one hand, including me.
Not that it had always been like that, there was a time when only humans walked down the street, only humans attended to school, only humans bought on a supermarket, then IRF came.

The International Research Fund was built as a way to promote pure scientific research and development, giving top equipment, space, technology and funds to anyone with enough brains to convince the IRF board, and then patenting all the results among the researchers and the IRF itself. Basically, it was a big enterprise that gathered all the ideas that the other companies didn’t find useful for themselves and put them in good use, following a strict ethical protocol and sharing all the income among all its workers, including the broken scientists that had come up with the ideas in the first place. It had been successful almost from its beginnings with a lot of capital, its international relations, its extremely accurate talent for business and a lot of crazy ideas from all the rejected, and somewhat mad, scientists in the world.

It had been IRF the one that had come up with the Passion Process, also known as the Transformational Process and named by its creator. No one knew exactly how the process worked or why it only affected a selected number of individuals, as the IRF kept everything regarding the project in secret. All that anyone knew was that you came in as a normal human and could come out with the beginnings of a series of changes that will gradually transform you into something else in a matter of days. The transformations were completely random, or so claimed IRF, and could go from a subtle change in skin pigmentation, to making a kid walk again after everyone else said it was impossible, to gaining animalistic characteristics and parts, to even becoming an imaginary creature such as a Pegasus or mermaid; without messing with the mind and changing who you are. Some claimed it was the discovery of the century, others said it was of the millennium, and ever since it was announced it has been offered for free to anyone willing to take it, as to research the process on a deeper level in order to make a better use of it in future treatments.

Just about then, a man stepped out of the elevator. I noticed that he had an envelope on his right hand and that his pupils were slits as he passed by me. He had a gloomy air around him that sent a chill down my spine despite my best attempts to ignore him.

“You can go up to meet her now” said the lioness, and then I stepped in the elevator.
{{Separator|d}}
It was this door alright, or so said the piece of paper held in my hand. I put it away in a passing recycle bin and took a deep breath in preparation before entering through it.

The office was big compared to your standard office cubicle. Of course everything here in IRF had to be bigger than standard due to the kind of workers they had. Not that there weren’t any humans at all working in the building, but it was a well-known fact that IRF had the highest amount of transformed people in its ranks, and all its working spaces were adapted to meet all the requirements every single one of them would ever dream of, like a claw-resistant carpet, perches for the bird-types that weren’t comfortable on normal chairs, a continuous air flow for the ones with sensitive noses, windows coverings that could make the rooms as dark as night for persons with a nocturnal tendency and, of course, a large size in everything so that the big morphs could come and go without trouble.

Nevertheless, this place seemed fancier than the average I had seen on my way here. It was enveloped in the green and colors of plants and flowers that I had only seen on pictures of rainforests, and every single one of it was alive and growing in this well lit but small environment. There was even a fountain with a little marble fairy on a corner.

“You must be Spencer” a horse-lady with a rather showy gleaming crystal horn on her, I assumed, forehead said coming from my right. She was dressed in a tailored, it had to be tailored as it fitted her perfectly, black dress that was so common among working women nowadays. “I was expecting you” she said approaching me and then offering her furred hand “I’m Alice, but around here everyone calls me Gaia”

I took it “I prefer to be called S. If you don’t mind”

“Not at all,” she said and then we disengaged. “please, let’s have a seat” she said, pointing at the desk near the window.

“I take it your nickname comes from the Greek goddess of the earth,” I said as I sat on a synthetic leather chair with an orange flower growing from the armrest “and from the rather green decoration”

“You could say that,” she said sitting on the other side of the wooden and clumsily made desk, her tail swishing through a hole “I’ve always had a knack for plants”

Then silence came while Gaia took out some papers from a drawer and read them silently.

“Interesting” she finally said “Your tests show a probability of almost ninety five percent for Passion to take a positive effect on you”

I remembered that test that I had done two days before. It was designed as a means to determine more accurately in which person the Transformation Process would take effect, although it wasn’t a hundred percent failsafe. It was made as a means to reduce ‘causalities’, but mainly to cut out extra expenses to IRF. It consisted on physical, medical and psychological tests that were compared later on with others tests of individuals in which Passion had worked. It had been a surprise that I had gotten such a high probability.

“But its not a hundred percent” I said.

“Don’t worry about that,” she assured me “that five percent is a margin of error in the statistics due to the randomness of the process. I have no doubts that Passion will get to you” she smiled.

I would have laughed at the joke. After all, it’s called Passion when it only has helpful effects on someone, like taking off some age traits and curing diabetes, so she believed I wasn’t going to get changed. But nervousness had a strong grip on me. All I could do was nod at her.

“I don’t see a reason why you shouldn’t be able to take the procedure tomorrow with…”

“Couldn’t it be today?” I quickly asked.

She then looked at me, and I could see her nostrils swell just a little bit bigger. She smelled my emotions, like an open book through her ultra sensitive nose, little hormones, sweat and humidity that my body expelled and her senses could translate directly, almost like another language. People thought this was impossible or regarded is as a rumor, but I was certain she was doing it right there, before my eyes. Thankfully, I also knew that she would think I was feeling eagerness.

“I’m sorry,” she finally said to me and then activated a holographic screen. Top technology, very expensive and a little bit blurry because of all the light in the room, but it clearly showed a schedule of some sort “but all the facilities are busy until tomorrow…” my heart sank at that thought, and she noted it “I can manage to squeeze you in the first turn of the morning, if you want it”

“That would be nice” I said, still a little down by the news. She then moved some things on the projection.

“That would be all,” she said after she was done, and looked at me with friendly eyes “out of the record. I only want to ask you a rather personal question, if you don’t mind”

“Go ahead” I said.

“Why did you choose to take Passion?”

I smiled at sensing her curiosity “What better way to begin a change in my life?”
{{Separator|d}}
“How did it go?” the guy’s raspy voice came from beneath his heavy raincoat and brown hat.

“Tomorrow morning,” I said, throwing the appointment plastic card to him “She ‘squeezed’ me in”

“She must have really liked you,” the man said as he smiled beneath those dark glasses and the scar near his lips “we know that the morning turns are completely full until next month.”

We were on a nice little building, in the worst neighborhood of downtown that anyone could have imagined. Bars and all kinds of exotic night clubs ran through every block of this god forsaken place, along with the normal liquor store and homeless. Of all the places, this was the most exclusive, the most expensive and the emptiest place of them all. There was no doubt in my mind that it only served as a house for all kind of illegal activities of the highest positioned people of the city.

As for the man right in front of me, he didn’t have the need for the entire disguise he was wearing at the moment. You could kill ten persons here and they would have had it cleaned in less than a minute, and only because of the corpses’ bad smell. This only made me think he must have one of the worst tastes in fashion ever. That was evident even to me, and I don’t even care about fashion.
“Spit it out already,” I told him “what are you going to do to me?” he then took out a syringe of some sort.

I yelped at the sight of it, not being the sort that stands needles very well. “This,” he said “is a bio-signs sensor. It will allow us to know exactly what happens to your body as the process progress”

“Are you sure they won’t be able to detect it?” I said, more concerned of IRF than the needle right now.

“It’s nanobotic technology,” he said after I willingly let him have my arm and he began cleaning it “we have an advantage over them in this field”

I tried to remember why I was doing this as I allowed the strange object puncture my body.

I had left home for a while now. Not that it had ever been my home, but rather a house that helped to hold me and my parents from the outside world, and what an important job that was. We couldn’t stay in the same room for more than two minutes, I once counted them myself, before a lousy argument began among the three of us. My dad couldn’t handle it and eventually divorced my mom and moved as far away as he could. Then, after a rather sour discussion, I decided to run away. I don’t think my mom even noticed the difference as I hadn’t seen any sign with my face printed on them during all this time. I used the name S just in case someone erroneously thought I had a good family and they were probably searching for me and missed me. Like that witch had ever wanted to have me in the first place.

I began to reckon how I got here as the cold liquid entered my body while I looked the other way, clenching my teeth.

It was tougher on the streets than what I had originally thought of. With no money, no house and no food, I was officially a homeless teenager. I even remember that returning home had crossed my mind on several occasions, until the hat man came.

I really don’t know his name and don’t need it anyways. He had come to me one day and offered me a diner, the best one in my whole life, and a room to stay for the night with the only condition I took the Passion test. He even forged an approval of my parents for me to take the test, this was necessary both because, along with some other papers, if I passed I would go immediately through the process and IRF would aid me in changing my identity to suit my new form (If I changed at that degree), and because I was a minor.

I saw an opportunity here. I knew that many big companies were starting to break down and even going bankrupt thanks to IRF. They were desperate to take IRF down, and saw a chance when the Passion Process came. As was normal in any kind of discovery, the Transformation Process was being heavily criticized ever since it came out by everyone, the churches, the tree-huggers, the human rights. The only thing that had saved them was IRF’s ethical code, that had reached a loop of reason that had not been broken until now; the total control they had concerning the whole project as it may not be used in any immoral way, that’s why they kept everything in secret; and the constant support of the majority of governments, as IRF has a program that has helped the education all around the globe. Knowing this, it was only logical to think that this guy was from the competence and wanted more than to help a homeless, but I wouldn’t get nothing else from him unless I passed the test, which fortunately I did, and with honors.

I became his best buddy after that. He invited me to restaurants, bought me new clothes and everything I asked for, and even got me my own place. Everything I wanted would be mine, and I only had to do one thing, go through Passion.

I knew what he wanted and he knew what I wanted, so there were no secrets between us. I took advantage of this and sucked any valuable information I could get out of him, as information is always useful, and concluded that he wanted to use me as a means to get important research data at the same time as IRF and maybe something that could be used against them in a court.

And so, I willingly obeyed everything he told me, including standing the injection that had finished by now without me ever noticing it.

“That should do it” he said as he took away the empty thing “Now you only have to follow the process exactly as they told you and you’ll live like a king for the rest of your life”

“I can hardly wait” I said, rubbing my swollen skin.
{{Separator|d}}
The next morning I came earlier to yesterday’s same building, IRF Passion center number one. Maybe that was why this city was swelling with more transformees than any other? There should be many centers like this one, with the size of IRF. Thoughts for later on when I had time to ponder on them.

“Good morning” I said to the same lioness receptionist.

“Good morning,” she said excitedly, her tail showing it, yet another disadvantage of such appendage “how may I help you?”

“I have an appointment for…” I cleared my throat. She obviously saw my nervousness “Passion.”

“Could you show me your card?” she said and then I handed it to her.

She slid it in front of a small window in her polished amethyst desk. Her eyes shot wide as she saw the information that was quickly displayed on her HUD lenses, and for a moment I thought she saw me as a rather juicy steak of the best beef in the world, but she regained her posture and simply said “please, come with me” and with that she stood up and showed me the way.

As we were traveling through the corridors I noticed that many people were seeing me as I passed. Some of them tried to be discreet, to no avail, like that elephant that saw me from that last corner; and others simply stood staring at me without any discretion at all.

I tried to think what would be so special of my procedure that would make them, the ones who work here on a daily basis and have probably seen more transformations than I trees in my whole life, keep staring at me like I was some kind of oasis in the dessert, and that even the main receptionist had to leave her highly busy post as to make sure I wouldn’t change my mind all of a sudden. But my mind was at a complete lack of ideas on this topic as we arrived to the place.

“It’s here,” she said, pointing to a white door at the end of what was probably the last corridor in the place “good luck” she added with a smirk.

“Thanks” I said, but the words fell in the air as she was already gone. Having nothing else to do I took a deep breath and entered through the door.
{{Separator|d}}
The room wasn’t as fancy as Gaia’s office. It was a stainless white and the corners and unions of walls with floor, ceiling and other walls have been concealed, leaving a room that seemed to have been made of a single piece of paper folded in an impossible way. At the end, there was a large window that was somewhat covered as to not allow too much light into the room, only the necessary one. There was a desk, a descent desk this time, near the window with an oval white chair between them both. There was someone on it, but he had his back to me so I couldn’t see him.

I was approaching closer as to try to speak to him, but then something hit the floor, rolled over to the wall and then to the floor again only to rest on my feet. It was a dark sphere with some kind of metal spaghettis on top of it, or so they had ended up looking like.

“Great,” a figure, glowing so white that it was hard and painful to even stare at, said as it approached the thing on the ground. “I still have a lot ahead of me before it works” he then picked it up and examined it a little.

“What is that thing?” I asked, curious of the little piece of now-junk.

He then noticed me and that I was trying to see the sphere while making a futile attempt at shielding my eyes of the strong light. “Oh. I’m sorry,” he apologized “internal lights” he said, and at once the window closed and the LED lights went on, that’s when I saw him clearly for the first time.

It was a dragon, no doubt about that, with his bat-like wings, his almost crystalline fangs and claws, his glimmering white scales that refracted many colors at the ends of them, his slit in an ocean of pure white eyes, his almost two-meters-long tail and a crest of a cross between scales and feathers that ran all the way from his head to the tip of his tail. I stayed there, observing him like a statue until he sat up again and spoke “this is a helicopter with a gyroscope inside as a means to guide it”

“A what?” I asked, coming out of my reverie at the sound of such complicated mess of words.

He chuckled “A helicopter with a big spinning wheel inside that was supposed to control it”

“Does it work?” I asked, not being my brightest moment as I took notice of what had just left my lips.

“Apparently not” he said as he threw it on the desk “I’ll work on it later. Please, have a seat” and we both took seats on the squeaky plastic.

“So” he said “you must be Spe… I mean, S”

“Yes, and you are…?”

“Michael” he said, opening his holographic projector. This one was brighter than Gaia’s and the hovering objects inside of it looked almost too real to be made out of energy and photons.

“Michael?” I said as the name suddenly hit a string in my head “As in ‘the’ Michael inventor of the Passion Process?”
“The one and only” he answered.

This was impossible. I was talking to one of the brightest minds on the surface of the Earth! And, as usual, my tongue slipped away just a little. “Shouldn’t you be working on a bigger project?” I asked, realizing his office wasn’t as big as any other in the building.

“What could possibly be bigger than supervising my own project?” He said and continued working on the floating symbols. He had a point after all, maybe that was why this was building number one…

“I really liked your inaugural speech when you presented Passion” I said, being honest “for a guy that came out of nowhere and is now a well-known scientist all around the world, its pretty good”

“It had to be” he said, never taking his gaze off the screen “I had to convince the whole world that I wanted to help people with this and not turn them into abominations”

“Do you honestly believe that?” I asked, more out of curiosity than to express my negative stand against all of this.

“Why would I do it to me if I didn’t, or to my friends, or to cure my sick brother?” That left me speechless, even in my head.
“Ok, I’ll explain the procedure to you now” he said clicking on a floating button.

A large chair appeared on the screen “First, is making yourself comfortable,” and the chair was filled with a dummy that reclined a little bit on the fluffed material “It is important to be completely relaxed during the whole thing” then some screens appeared with views of the sea and of snowy mountains on top of the dummy’s head, followed by music from some speakers near the head, a nice aroma that the simulation showed as a pink cloud coming from a necklace to the nose of the dummy, and slow vibrations from the chair.

“You’ll be practically cut off from the rest of the world until Passion is over. This is done in order to obey IRF laws and rules”

“To keep the process secret” I stated.

“Yes” he said. Normally, anyone would have given me an hour talk about how IRF was only trying to help organize this whole business together, or something like that. But he just dismissed it, as if it were unimportant “we’ll monitor all your vitals the whole time so we can unplug you if something goes wrong. Nothing to worry about though, we haven’t had an accident ever since the beginning of the project. But even so, there are top medical facilities on the lower floor, just in case,” he then closed the hologram “any questions?”

“A few actually” I said “Why was everyone out there looking at me a moment ago, and why did the lioness accompany me all the way here?

“Now that I think of it, maybe it was because I was seeing you” I thought out loud.

“No, it wasn’t because of me,” he said, reclining on the strong plastic “it’s actually about you”

“Me?”

“Yes. It’s not every day that we get someone with your kind of records to go through this. So, as you can see, word spread out and everyone wanted to take a good look at you. They were even betting on what you would become if you got transformed. That’s why I asked Vera to personally escort you here, so they stayed put in their places and didn’t get you even more nervous”

That hit me. I hadn’t thought a lot about what would be of me, but now, for the first time, I felt scared. What happened if I ended up like that?

“That’s also why they sent you to me” he continued reclining in the amazingly strong chair “As to be sure everything goes well and we collect all the data possible. And as a personal favor to a friend’s of mine”

So that’s how the unicorn managed it, but then something struck me.

“What can go wrong?” I asked without intending to have that hint of worry that escaped nonetheless.

“As you may already be warned, Passion is not lethal. The worse that could happen is that you get change and your modifications don’t work properly. Like my wings” he said, standing up and moving them with a lot of effort “with so much metal in my body, is like I’m trying to carry a whole bridge with the wings of a pigeon, utterly useless.

Besides, I’m also afraid of heights”

He then sat down again and waited a little bit more. As I didn’t say anything he spoke “Well, if that’s all…”

“Wait” I semi-shouted “I have…second thoughts”

“I can assure you that the procedure is completely safe and…”

“Is not that” I cut him “I feel like I’m doing something wrong… something bad. That I’ll regret this later”

He looked at me with what I guessed was concern. The next thing I knew was that he was sitting on the chair opposite of me, leveling my chin with his muzzle and looking right at my eyes.

“I know exactly how you feel” he told me with a kind voice “I felt the same when I discovered this thing, but look at me,” I did, slowly but I did “I’m a dragon, something that isn’t even supposed to exist.

“I’m supposed to only dwell in the far corners of people’s minds, terrorizing their souls and feeding their fear of the unknown until, generations later, reason and skepticism tore me down. I’m normally the symbol of death and evil that awaits the arrival of an honorable and brave knight so he can archive immortality through my destruction. I’m the twisted image of the imagination and fantasies, dreams and nightmares alike of several different generations, around all the corners of the world, throughout time.
“Maybe the legends really came from the findings of dinosaur bones…” he said, with his reptilian eyes climbing up inside its sockets at either side of its muzzle while his ideas fogged into the sea of deep thoughts for just a moment.

“But that’s not the point,” he said the moment he landed, and returned to meet my gaze “the truth is, I’m nothing like that. I’m neither a God, as I haven’t done any miracles yet; nor a nightmare, as I don’t scare my baby nephew that often; nor a myth, as I’m here talking to you. I’m just a person trying to find his way through life. How people will look at my actions, body or mind, is up to them.

“I cannot guarantee your life will remain the same if you decide to sit on that expensive chair S, but I can promise you that, whatever happens, you’ll always be able to mold your own destiny”

He then smiled, one of the only warm and honest smiles I have ever seen in my life. Strangely enough, it didn’t look quite out of place among his reptilian features, unlike all the other expressions that had come out of him “What say you?”

I thought a moment about this.

“Let’s do it” I finally said with a smile of my own caused by his infectious joy.

But as we got to our feet something suddenly crossed my mind “One more question though”

“Go ahead”

“Why did you name it the Passion Process?”

The scales on his cheeks seemed to turn red underneath before he answered “That’s my last name”

“Oh… I see…”
{{Separator|d}}
{{add|A chair had manifested itself in the middle of the room without me ever noticing it}}. The same chair that the holographic projector had showed, only bigger.

I went to examine it for a while, Michael waiting patiently all the time some distance away. It was a normal chair, no strips, no bands, nothing to pin me down, only a white chair. So I sit up on it, it was amazingly comfortable.

Michael then came by me and put a plain white necklace with some little holes all around it. “For smell” he said, and then proceeded to lowering the screens.

Half way through, the screens stopped and flickered to life.

Pines swayed and moved along as the camera went trough each pathway of the woods at an incredible speed, making the greens blur in beautiful strokes that could have only been painted by nature itself. Then the view changed to a lake so huge that the very shoreline was concealed and the trees seemed to have rooted themselves at the very surface of the water. At the center, as to defying the monstrosity of water around it, was the only piece of land in the sky blue expanse, crooked, deformed, but standing to the impossible height of seven meters, a sentinel keeping an eternal guard among these virgin lands of beauty.

Just as the camera centered on top of the rock formation, it started spinning slowly and in little time I was seeing the whole valley. It was the center of a dormant volcano with a giant lake in the middle. The camera began to travel through the three unbelievingly high peaks that hovered above it all.

“Wow” I said.

“Yeah, I know,” he said “isn’t the moon amazing?”

“Moon, what moon?” I asked. He then looked at the screens and what they were projecting.

“Ops, this was supposed to be lunar scenery. Let me fix that”

“No” I said “I like that one” he then glared at it again.

“As you wish, but I like more the lunar one”. He then put some commands on a panel that had appeared on the chair.

“Ok” he began after the thing had come to life “As soon as the monitors close around you the music will start and the chair will start shaking softly, so you won’t feel much of anything.

“Remember, this is only for you to help relax, so try to go with the flow. Tell me whenever you’re ready”

I took a big breath. ''This is it'' I told myself ''there’s no going back to me now.''

“I’m ready”

Just as I finished speaking, he pushed a button and the monitors closed up on me almost instantly, and for a moment I thought they would crash on my face, but they quickly stopped and I could see the last line of artificial light fading between the rubbery materials.

They sealed up so well, and had so good graphics, that I could have sworn I was there, in that shoreline, near the big crystal water with blue bottom. No clouds anywhere in the sky. A hole protected by mountains that no one could climb. Only I, the sounds of the nearby pines and the wind caressing the water could be heard. I felt drowsy all of a sudden. The last thing that caught my mind was the freshness of the day and the caressing of the breeze all around me…
{{Separator|d}}
''…but I couldn’t sleep anymore. I had been laying here on my haunches, bathing under the sun, all day long. I had to eat, explore for any intruders, mark my territory and then go to my cozy den on the highest peak to sleep for the night. And since I had overslept, again, I had to do everything before the sun goes down. How annoying, especially with two sore wings for having rolled over them a couple of times.''

''I got on all fours, and began my stretching exercises. It took me ten whole minutes to cure all the cramps in my body, and ten more for the ones in my feathered wings. But who could blame me for being lazy? It was in my nature after all, I was born this way.''

''I turned my head towards the direction of the wind, which I felt with the feathers on my face, and began running against it. When I felt that I had gained enough speed I expanded my wings into their full wingspan, causing that I rocketed into the sky with great force. Once in the sky, I took the uprising thermals that came from the hot rock on the ground underneath, and waited until I was far enough in the air that I no longer needed the currents lo lift me. So I directed myself to be on top of the water and began scanning for fishes. Fishes were abundant and tasty in around here. I was so lucky to have found such a nice place to live.''

''There, that one near the lonely island in the center was huge. I quickly folded my wings and began a free fall. It was a beautiful sensation, to fall freely, letting your body in the hands of gravity, only to snap it back at the right moment and laughing at its face, and that moment…was now. I deployed my wings into the ether of the air and began to glide at the same level as the water that was just inches down of me. I’m almost there… I almost got it… got it, right into my right fore-talon, and I still had enough impulse to go up to where my cave was up in the mountains so I could eat it while guarding my home at the same time. What could be more perfect than that?''
{{Separator|d}}
''It had been an exhausting day. I must have circled the lake at least ten times. With my stomach full, and my beak tucked between my wings, I began to fall rapidly into the dream’s realm. A good night’s sleep didn’t sound so bad…''
{{Separator|d}}
…but it wasn’t night yet. The morning had barely started since I entered IRF. How could I have a good night’s sleep in plain day?

I woke up with a start in the white cozy chair. All screens; necklaces and headphones were gone.

“I was just going to wake you up” Michael said next to me, a set of very sharp instruments disappearing into the ground.

“I fell asleep?” I asked, unbelievingly.

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of, almost everyone falls asleep,” he said, offering a hand “it’s completely normal”

I began to stand up, and immediately knew why he had offered me his hand. Apparently, I had lost my sense of balance while plugged in.

“Easy now,” he said, holding me firmly and taking me to one of the white chairs “your balance will return in a few moments” he told me after leaving me in a somewhat straight position. He then went to sit behind the white desk.

“In the meanwhile,” he said passing me a transparent card across the desk that I barely caught before it slipped from my shaky hands. It was graved with some dates and hours “that’s a schedule of appointments. I want you to come here on a regular basis in order to monitor all the changes…any questions?”

I didn’t answer. My thoughts too immersed in what had just happened.

“Can I ask you something personal?” he said, the sudden change in his professional mood catching my attention.

“Sure”

He leaned closer to me, as if what he was about to say was a secret “What did you dream?”

My heart sank. Did he know it?

“Of course,” he continued, reclining in his chair once again “I only ask out of personal curiosity. I find interesting what people dream during the process”.

“Actually, I didn’t dream at all” I lied “I just closed my eyes and a moment later I was falling to the ground”

“What a shame,” he said dropping his head a little “they say it’s one of the most fantastic dreams there is”

[[Category:Story]]
[[Category:Pocsock]]
[[Category:Anthropomorphic]]
[[Category:Mythical]]

User talk:Mr.Peaches/Have You Heard About the TFORs

2007-10-11T00:44:48Z

Pocsock:

Great story so far! You've got me waiting for the next installment :) — [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 19:58, 9 October 2007 (EDT)

Very nice, I especially loved the way you detailed the transformation in this one! This is my favorite PAW story so far. :D --[[User:Devin|Devin]] 20:54, 9 October 2007 (EDT)

I keep saying it. There just aren't enough mythical tf's out there. At least someone else thinks the same.--> [[User:Pocsock|Pocsock]] 20:44, 10 October 2007 (EDT)

A New Beginning

2007-10-11T00:16:41Z

Pocsock:

{{title|name=A New Beginning|author=Pocsock}}
{{editing requested}}
{{WIP}}
{{author's note|Be warned, this story is still a work in progress. Changes and updates will be at random. This means that I may post three pages one day, and delete half of the story the next one.
The reason I'm posting it here is mainly to get feedback. Any comment or correction (like spelling and/or grammar mistakes) will be appreciated.
}}
''New content starts from {{add|marked text}}''
{{Separator|d}}

{{dropcap|W}}''e’re entering a new age. The natural laws are blending and breaking in ways they have never done before. The pillars of knowledge shake before our very own eyes. What we once thought of only as a myth, is starting to fuse into reality itself...”''

I walked to the lady in the desk, an anthropomorphic lioness with long brown hair and bright amber fur.

“Hi. How may I help you?” she said with a younger voice than what she looked like. Not that I was especially good at calculating age, even if the person wasn’t part animal.

“Hi. I have an appointment with Alice” she then took a good look at me, seeing only a teenager that had not taken a shower in a while and with a wild hair. Nothing extraordinary at all, but she smiled at me either way as if she already new something about me that I ignored.

“She’s busy at the moment with another volunteer” she said politely “She’ll receive you the moment she’s done with him. You can make yourself comfortable while you wait”

“Thanks” I said and then continued to sit on a nearby chair.
{{Separator|d}}
As time slowly crept away, my mind began to wander into deep thoughts, as was usual for me in this kind of situations. My train of thoughts began with the scenery in front of me, a large reception desk. The curious thing about it was neither the size nor the decoration, although it was indeed big and very nicely decorated, but the people that were constantly coming in and out of the enormous double sliding doors towards all the different parts of the building. They were animals, going from the anthropomorphic ones to others with apparently no difference from what you might find in your local zoo, except they were smarter; cyborgs, as in persons with some kind of prosthesis or other mechanical enhancement; any strange combination of animals, human and robot that I could dare think of; and humans that could be counted with one hand, including me.
Not that it had always been like that, there was a time when only humans walked down the street, only humans attended to school, only humans bought on a supermarket, then IRF came.

The International Research Fund was built as a way to promote pure scientific research and development, giving top equipment, space, technology and funds to anyone with enough brains to convince the IRF board, and then patenting all the results among the researchers and the IRF itself. Basically, it was a big enterprise that gathered all the ideas that the other companies didn’t find useful for themselves and put them in good use, following a strict ethical protocol and sharing all the income among all its workers, including the broken scientists that had come up with the ideas in the first place. It had been successful almost from its beginnings with a lot of capital, its international relations, its extremely accurate talent for business and a lot of crazy ideas from all the rejected, and somewhat mad, scientists in the world.

It had been IRF the one that had come up with the Passion Process, also known as the Transformational Process and named by its creator. No one knew exactly how the process worked or why it only affected a selected number of individuals, as the IRF kept everything regarding the project in secret. All that anyone knew was that you came in as a normal human and could come out with the beginnings of a series of changes that will gradually transform you into something else in a matter of days. The transformations were completely random, or so claimed IRF, and could go from a subtle change in skin pigmentation, to making a kid walk again after everyone else said it was impossible, to gaining animalistic characteristics and parts, to even becoming an imaginary creature such as a Pegasus or mermaid; without messing with the mind and changing who you are. Some claimed it was the discovery of the century, others said it was of the millennium, and ever since it was announced it has been offered for free to anyone willing to take it, as to research the process on a deeper level in order to make a better use of it in future treatments.

Just about then, a man stepped out of the elevator. I noticed that he had an envelope on his right hand and that his pupils were slits as he passed by me. He had a gloomy air around him that sent a chill down my spine despite my best attempts to ignore him.

“You can go up to meet her now” said the lioness, and then I stepped in the elevator.
{{Separator|d}}
It was this door alright, or so said the piece of paper held in my hand. I put it away in a passing recycle bin and took a deep breath in preparation before entering through it.

The office was big compared to your standard office cubicle. Of course everything here in IRF had to be bigger than standard due to the kind of workers they had. Not that there weren’t any humans at all working in the building, but it was a well-known fact that IRF had the highest amount of transformed people in its ranks, and all its working spaces were adapted to meet all the requirements every single one of them would ever dream of, like a claw-resistant carpet, perches for the bird-types that weren’t comfortable on normal chairs, a continuous air flow for the ones with sensitive noses, windows coverings that could make the rooms as dark as night for persons with a nocturnal tendency and, of course, a large size in everything so that the big morphs could come and go without trouble.

Nevertheless, this place seemed fancier than the average I had seen on my way here. It was enveloped in the green and colors of plants and flowers that I had only seen on pictures of rainforests, and every single one of it was alive and growing in this well lit but small environment. There was even a fountain with a little marble fairy on a corner.

“You must be Spencer” a horse-lady with a rather showy gleaming crystal horn on her, I assumed, forehead said coming from my right. She was dressed in a tailored, it had to be tailored as it fitted her perfectly, black dress that was so common among working women nowadays. “I was expecting you” she said approaching me and then offering her furred hand “I’m Alice, but around here everyone calls me Gaia”

I took it “I prefer to be called S. If you don’t mind”

“Not at all,” she said and then we disengaged. “please, let’s have a seat” she said, pointing at the desk near the window.

“I take it your nickname comes from the Greek goddess of the earth,” I said as I sat on a synthetic leather chair with an orange flower growing from the armrest “and from the rather green decoration”

“You could say that,” she said sitting on the other side of the wooden and clumsily made desk, her tail swishing through a hole “I’ve always had a knack for plants”

Then silence came while Gaia took out some papers from a drawer and read them silently.

“Interesting” she finally said “Your tests show a probability of almost ninety five percent for Passion to take a positive effect on you”

I remembered that test that I had done two days before. It was designed as a means to determine more accurately in which person the Transformation Process would take effect, although it wasn’t a hundred percent failsafe. It was made as a means to reduce ‘causalities’, but mainly to cut out extra expenses to IRF. It consisted on physical, medical and psychological tests that were compared later on with others tests of individuals in which Passion had worked. It had been a surprise that I had gotten such a high probability.

“But its not a hundred percent” I said.

“Don’t worry about that,” she assured me “that five percent is a margin of error in the statistics due to the randomness of the process. I have no doubts that Passion will get to you” she smiled.

I would have laughed at the joke. After all, it’s called Passion when it only has helpful effects on someone, like taking off some age traits and curing diabetes, so she believed I wasn’t going to get changed. But nervousness had a strong grip on me. All I could do was nod at her.

“I don’t see a reason why you shouldn’t be able to take the procedure tomorrow with…”

“Couldn’t it be today?” I quickly asked.

She then looked at me, and I could see her nostrils swell just a little bit bigger. She smelled my emotions, like an open book through her ultra sensitive nose, little hormones, sweat and humidity that my body expelled and her senses could translate directly, almost like another language. People thought this was impossible or regarded is as a rumor, but I was certain she was doing it right there, before my eyes. Thankfully, I also knew that she would think I was feeling eagerness.

“I’m sorry,” she finally said to me and then activated a holographic screen. Top technology, very expensive and a little bit blurry because of all the light in the room, but it clearly showed a schedule of some sort “but all the facilities are busy until tomorrow…” my heart sank at that thought, and she noted it “I can manage to squeeze you in the first turn of the morning, if you want it”

“That would be nice” I said, still a little down by the news. She then moved some things on the projection.

“That would be all,” she said after she was done, and looked at me with friendly eyes “out of the record. I only want to ask you a rather personal question, if you don’t mind”

“Go ahead” I said.

“Why did you choose to take Passion?”

I smiled at sensing her curiosity “What better way to begin a change in my life?”
{{Separator|d}}
“How did it go?” the guy’s raspy voice came from beneath his heavy raincoat and brown hat.

“Tomorrow morning,” I said, throwing the appointment plastic card to him “She ‘squeezed’ me in”

“She must have really liked you,” the man said as he smiled beneath those dark glasses and the scar near his lips “we know that the morning turns are completely full until next month.”

We were on a nice little building, in the worst neighborhood of downtown that anyone could have imagined. Bars and all kinds of exotic night clubs ran through every block of this god forsaken place, along with the normal liquor store and homeless. Of all the places, this was the most exclusive, the most expensive and the emptiest place of them all. There was no doubt in my mind that it only served as a house for all kind of illegal activities of the highest positioned people of the city.

As for the man right in front of me, he didn’t have the need for the entire disguise he was wearing at the moment. You could kill ten persons here and they would have had it cleaned in less than a minute, and only because of the corpses’ bad smell. This only made me think he must have one of the worst tastes in fashion ever. That was evident even to me, and I don’t even care about fashion.
“Spit it out already,” I told him “what are you going to do to me?” he then took out a syringe of some sort.

I yelped at the sight of it, not being the sort that stands needles very well. “This,” he said “is a bio-signs sensor. It will allow us to know exactly what happens to your body as the process progress”

“Are you sure they won’t be able to detect it?” I said, more concerned of IRF than the needle right now.

“It’s nanobotic technology,” he said after I willingly let him have my arm and he began cleaning it “we have an advantage over them in this field”

I tried to remember why I was doing this as I allowed the strange object puncture my body.

I had left home for a while now. Not that it had ever been my home, but rather a house that helped to hold me and my parents from the outside world, and what an important job that was. We couldn’t stay in the same room for more than two minutes, I once counted them myself, before a lousy argument began among the three of us. My dad couldn’t handle it and eventually divorced my mom and moved as far away as he could. Then, after a rather sour discussion, I decided to run away. I don’t think my mom even noticed the difference as I hadn’t seen any sign with my face printed on them during all this time. I used the name S just in case someone erroneously thought I had a good family and they were probably searching for me and missed me. Like that witch had ever wanted to have me in the first place.

I began to reckon how I got here as the cold liquid entered my body while I looked the other way, clenching my teeth.

It was tougher on the streets than what I had originally thought of. With no money, no house and no food, I was officially a homeless teenager. I even remember that returning home had crossed my mind on several occasions, until the hat man came.

I really don’t know his name and don’t need it anyways. He had come to me one day and offered me a diner, the best one in my whole life, and a room to stay for the night with the only condition I took the Passion test. He even forged an approval of my parents for me to take the test, this was necessary both because, along with some other papers, if I passed I would go immediately through the process and IRF would aid me in changing my identity to suit my new form (If I changed at that degree), and because I was a minor.

I saw an opportunity here. I knew that many big companies were starting to break down and even going bankrupt thanks to IRF. They were desperate to take IRF down, and saw a chance when the Passion Process came. As was normal in any kind of discovery, the Transformation Process was being heavily criticized ever since it came out by everyone, the churches, the tree-huggers, the human rights. The only thing that had saved them was IRF’s ethical code, that had reached a loop of reason that had not been broken until now; the total control they had concerning the whole project as it may not be used in any immoral way, that’s why they kept everything in secret; and the constant support of the majority of governments, as IRF has a program that has helped the education all around the globe. Knowing this, it was only logical to think that this guy was from the competence and wanted more than to help a homeless, but I wouldn’t get nothing else from him unless I passed the test, which fortunately I did, and with honors.

I became his best buddy after that. He invited me to restaurants, bought me new clothes and everything I asked for, and even got me my own place. Everything I wanted would be mine, and I only had to do one thing, go through Passion.

I knew what he wanted and he knew what I wanted, so there were no secrets between us. I took advantage of this and sucked any valuable information I could get out of him, as information is always useful, and concluded that he wanted to use me as a means to get important research data at the same time as IRF and maybe something that could be used against them in a court.

And so, I willingly obeyed everything he told me, including standing the injection that had finished by now without me ever noticing it.

“That should do it” he said as he took away the empty thing “Now you only have to follow the process exactly as they told you and you’ll live like a king for the rest of your life”

“I can hardly wait” I said, rubbing my swollen skin.
{{Separator|d}}
The next morning I came earlier to yesterday’s same building, IRF Passion center number one. Maybe that was why this city was swelling with more transformees than any other? There should be many centers like this one, with the size of IRF. Thoughts for later on when I had time to ponder on them.

“Good morning” I said to the same lioness receptionist.

“Good morning,” she said excitedly, her tail showing it, yet another disadvantage of such appendage “how may I help you?”

“I have an appointment for…” I cleared my throat. She obviously saw my nervousness “Passion.”

“Could you show me your card?” she said and then I handed it to her.

She slid it in front of a small window in her polished amethyst desk. Her eyes shot wide as she saw the information that was quickly displayed on her HUD lenses, and for a moment I thought she saw me as a rather juicy steak of the best beef in the world, but she regained her posture and simply said “please, come with me” and with that she stood up and showed me the way.

As we were traveling through the corridors I noticed that many people were seeing me as I passed. Some of them tried to be discreet, to no avail, like that elephant that saw me from that last corner; and others simply stood staring at me without any discretion at all.

I tried to think what would be so special of my procedure that would make them, the ones who work here on a daily basis and have probably seen more transformations than I trees in my whole life, keep staring at me like I was some kind of oasis in the dessert, and that even the main receptionist had to leave her highly busy post as to make sure I wouldn’t change my mind all of a sudden. But my mind was at a complete lack of ideas on this topic as we arrived to the place.

“It’s here,” she said, pointing to a white door at the end of what was probably the last corridor in the place “good luck” she added with a smirk.

“Thanks” I said, but the words fell in the air as she was already gone. Having nothing else to do I took a deep breath and entered through the door.
{{Separator|d}}
The room wasn’t as fancy as Gaia’s office. It was a stainless white and the corners and unions of walls with floor, ceiling and other walls have been concealed, leaving a room that seemed to have been made of a single piece of paper folded in an impossible way. At the end, there was a large window that was somewhat covered as to not allow too much light into the room, only the necessary one. There was a desk, a descent desk this time, near the window with an oval white chair between them both. There was someone on it, but he had his back to me so I couldn’t see him.

I was approaching closer as to try to speak to him, but then something hit the floor, rolled over to the wall and then to the floor again only to rest on my feet. It was a dark sphere with some kind of metal spaghettis on top of it, or so they had ended up looking like.

“Great,” a figure, glowing so white that it was hard and painful to even stare at, said as it approached the thing on the ground. “I still have a lot ahead of me before it works” he then picked it up and examined it a little.

“What is that thing?” I asked, curious of the little piece of now-junk.

He then noticed me and that I was trying to see the sphere while making a futile attempt at shielding my eyes of the strong light. “Oh. I’m sorry,” he apologized “internal lights” he said, and at once the window closed and the LED lights went on, that’s when I saw him clearly for the first time.

It was a dragon, no doubt about that, with his bat-like wings, his almost crystalline fangs and claws, his glimmering white scales that refracted many colors at the ends of them, his slit in an ocean of pure white eyes, his almost two-meters-long tail and a crest of a cross between scales and feathers that ran all the way from his head to the tip of his tail. I stayed there, observing him like a statue until he sat up again and spoke “this is a helicopter with a gyroscope inside as a means to guide it”

“A what?” I asked, coming out of my reverie at the sound of such complicated mess of words.

He chuckled “A helicopter with a big spinning wheel inside that was supposed to control it”

“Does it work?” I asked, not being my brightest moment as I took notice of what had just left my lips.

“Apparently not” he said as he threw it on the desk “I’ll work on it later. Please, have a seat” and we both took seats on the squeaky plastic.

“So” he said “you must be Spe… I mean, S”

“Yes, and you are…?”

“Michael” he said, opening his holographic projector. This one was brighter than Gaia’s and the hovering objects inside of it looked almost too real to be made out of energy and photons.

“Michael?” I said as the name suddenly hit a string in my head “As in ‘the’ Michael inventor of the Passion Process?”
“The one and only” he answered.

This was impossible. I was talking to one of the brightest minds on the surface of the Earth! And, as usual, my tongue slipped away just a little. “Shouldn’t you be working on a bigger project?” I asked, realizing his office wasn’t as big as any other in the building.

“What could possibly be bigger than supervising my own project?” He said and continued working on the floating symbols. He had a point after all, maybe that was why this was building number one…

“I really liked your inaugural speech when you presented Passion” I said, being honest “for a guy that came out of nowhere and is now a well-known scientist all around the world, its pretty good”

“It had to be” he said, never taking his gaze off the screen “I had to convince the whole world that I wanted to help people with this and not turn them into abominations”

“Do you honestly believe that?” I asked, more out of curiosity than to express my negative stand against all of this.

“Why would I do it to me if I didn’t, or to my friends, or to cure my sick brother?” That left me speechless, even in my head.
“Ok, I’ll explain the procedure to you now” he said clicking on a floating button.

A large chair appeared on the screen “First, is making yourself comfortable,” and the chair was filled with a dummy that reclined a little bit on the fluffed material “It is important to be completely relaxed during the whole thing” then some screens appeared with views of the sea and of snowy mountains on top of the dummy’s head, followed by music from some speakers near the head, a nice aroma that the simulation showed as a pink cloud coming from a necklace to the nose of the dummy, and slow vibrations from the chair.

“You’ll be practically cut off from the rest of the world until Passion is over. This is done in order to obey IRF laws and rules”

“To keep the process secret” I stated.

“Yes” he said. Normally, anyone would have given me an hour talk about how IRF was only trying to help organize this whole business together, or something like that. But he just dismissed it, as if it were unimportant “we’ll monitor all your vitals the whole time so we can unplug you if something goes wrong. Nothing to worry about though, we haven’t had an accident ever since the beginning of the project. But even so, there are top medical facilities on the lower floor, just in case,” he then closed the hologram “any questions?”

“A few actually” I said “Why was everyone out there looking at me a moment ago, and why did the lioness accompany me all the way here?

“Now that I think of it, maybe it was because I was seeing you” I thought out loud.

“No, it wasn’t because of me,” he said, reclining on the strong plastic “it’s actually about you”

“Me?”

“Yes. It’s not every day that we get someone with your kind of records to go through this. So, as you can see, word spread out and everyone wanted to take a good look at you. They were even betting on what you would become if you got transformed. That’s why I asked Vera to personally escort you here, so they stayed put in their places and didn’t get you even more nervous”

That hit me. I hadn’t thought a lot about what would be of me, but now, for the first time, I felt scared. What happened if I ended up like that?

“That’s also why they sent you to me” he continued reclining in the amazingly strong chair “As to be sure everything goes well and we collect all the data possible. And as a personal favor to a friend’s of mine”

So that’s how the unicorn managed it, but then something struck me.

“What can go wrong?” I asked without intending to have that hint of worry that escaped nonetheless.

“As you may already be warned, Passion is not lethal. The worse that could happen is that you get change and your modifications don’t work properly. Like my wings” he said, standing up and moving them with a lot of effort “with so much metal in my body, is like I’m trying to carry a whole bridge with the wings of a pigeon, utterly useless.

Besides, I’m also afraid of heights”

He then sat down again and waited a little bit more. As I didn’t say anything he spoke “Well, if that’s all…”

“Wait” I semi-shouted “I have…second thoughts”

“I can assure you that the procedure is completely safe and…”

“Is not that” I cut him “I feel like I’m doing something wrong… something bad. That I’ll regret this later”

He looked at me with what I guessed was concern. The next thing I knew was that he was sitting on the chair opposite of me, leveling my chin with his muzzle and looking right at my eyes.

“I know exactly how you feel” he told me with a kind voice “I felt the same when I discovered this thing, but look at me,” I did, slowly but I did “I’m a dragon, something that isn’t even supposed to exist.

“I’m supposed to only dwell in the far corners of people’s minds, terrorizing their souls and feeding their fear of the unknown until, generations later, reason and skepticism tore me down. I’m normally the symbol of death and evil that awaits the arrival of an honorable and brave knight so he can archive immortality through my destruction. I’m the twisted image of the imagination and fantasies, dreams and nightmares alike of several different generations, around all the corners of the world, throughout time.
“Maybe the legends really came from the findings of dinosaur bones…” he said, with his reptilian eyes climbing up inside its sockets at either side of its muzzle while his ideas fogged into the sea of deep thoughts for just a moment.

“But that’s not the point,” he said the moment he landed, and returned to meet my gaze “the truth is, I’m nothing like that. I’m neither a God, as I haven’t done any miracles yet; nor a nightmare, as I don’t scare my baby nephew that often; nor a myth, as I’m here talking to you. I’m just a person trying to find his way through life. How people will look at my actions, body or mind, is up to them.

“I cannot guarantee your life will remain the same if you decide to sit on that expensive chair S, but I can promise you that, whatever happens, you’ll always be able to mold your own destiny”

He then smiled, one of the only warm and honest smiles I have ever seen in my life. Strangely enough, it didn’t look quite out of place among his reptilian features, unlike all the other expressions that had come out of him “What say you?”

I thought a moment about this.

“Let’s do it” I finally said with a smile of my own caused by his infectious joy.

But as we got to our feet something suddenly crossed my mind “One more question though”

“Go ahead”

“Why did you name it the Passion Process?”

The scales on his cheeks seemed to turn red underneath before he answered “That’s my last name”

“Oh… I see…”
{{Separator|d}}
{{add|A chair had manifested itself in the middle of the room without me ever noticing it}}. The same chair that the holographic projector had showed, only bigger.

I went to examine it for a while, Michael waiting patiently all the time some distance away. It was a normal chair, no strips, no bands, nothing to pin me down, only a white chair. So I sit up on it, it was amazingly comfortable.

Michael then came by me and put a plain white necklace with some little holes all around it. “For smell” he said, and then proceeded to lowering the screens.

Half way through, the screens stopped and flickered to life.

Pines swayed and moved along as the camera went trough each pathway of the woods at an incredible speed, making the greens blur in beautiful strokes that could have only been painted by nature itself. Then the view changed to a lake so huge that the very shoreline was concealed and the trees seemed to have rooted themselves at the very surface of the water. At the center, as to defying the monstrosity of water around it, was the only piece of land in the sky blue expanse, crooked, deformed, but standing to the impossible height of seven meters, a sentinel keeping an eternal guard among these virgin lands of beauty.

Just as the camera centered on top of the rock formation, it started spinning slowly and in little time I was seeing the whole valley. It was the center of a dormant volcano with a giant lake in the middle. The camera began to travel through the three unbelievingly high peaks that hovered above it all.

“Wow” I said.

“Yeah, I know,” he said “isn’t the moon amazing?”

“Moon, what moon?” I asked. He then looked at the screens and what they were projecting.

“Ops, this was supposed to be lunar scenery. Let me fix that”

“No” I said “I like that one” he then glared at it again.

“As you wish, but I like more the lunar one”. He then put some commands on a panel that had appeared on the chair.

“Ok” he began after the thing had come to life “As soon as the monitors close around you the music will start and the chair will start shaking softly, so you won’t feel much of anything.

“Remember, this is only for you to help relax, so try to go with the flow. Tell me whenever you’re ready”

I took a big breath. ''This is it'' I told myself ''there’s no going back to me now.''

“I’m ready”

Just as I finished speaking, he pushed a button and the monitors closed up on me almost instantly, and for a moment I thought they would crash on my face, but they quickly stopped and I could see the last line of artificial light fading between the rubbery materials.

They sealed up so well, and had so good graphics, that I could have sworn I was there, in that shoreline, near the big crystal water with blue bottom. No clouds anywhere in the sky. A hole protected by mountains that no one could climb. Only I, the sounds of the nearby pines and the wind caressing the water could be heard. I felt drowsy all of a sudden. The last thing that caught my mind was the freshness of the day and the caressing of the breeze all around me…
{{Separator|d}}
''…but I couldn’t sleep anymore. I had been laying here on my haunches, bathing under the sun, all day long. I had to eat, explore for any intruders, mark my territory and then go to my cozy den on the highest peak to sleep for the night. And since I had overslept, again, I had to do everything before the sun goes down. How annoying, especially with two sore wings for having rolled over them a couple of times.''

''I got on all fours, and began my stretching exercises. It took me ten whole minutes to cure all the cramps in my body, and ten more for the ones in my feathered wings. But who could blame me for being lazy? It was in my nature after all, I was born this way.''

''I turned my head towards the direction of the wind, which I felt with the feathers on my face, and began running against it. When I felt that I had gained enough speed I expanded my wings into their full wingspan, causing that I rocketed into the sky with great force. Once in the sky, I took the uprising thermals that came from the hot rock on the ground underneath, and waited until I was far enough in the air that I no longer needed the currents lo lift me. So I directed myself to be on top of the water and began scanning for fishes. Fishes were abundant and tasty in around here. I was so lucky to have found such a nice place to live.''

''There, that one near the lonely island in the center was huge. I quickly folded my wings and began a free fall. It was a beautiful sensation, to fall freely, letting your body in the hands of gravity, only to snap it back at the right moment and laughing at its face, and that moment…was now. I deployed my wings into the ether of the air and began to glide at the same level as the water that was just inches down of me. I’m almost there… I almost got it… got it, right into my right fore-talon, and I still had enough impulse to go up to where my cave was up in the mountains so I could eat it while guarding my home at the same time. What could be more perfect than that?''
{{Separator|d}}
''It had been an exhausting day. I must have circled the lake at least ten times. With my stomach full, and my beak tucked between my wings, I began to fall rapidly into the dream’s realm. A good night’s sleep didn’t sound so bad…''
{{Separator|d}}
…but it wasn’t night yet. The morning had barely started since I entered IRF. How could I have a good night’s sleep in plain day?

I woke up with a start in the white cozy chair. All screens; necklaces and headphones were gone.

“I was just going to wake you up” Michael said next to me, a set of very sharp instruments disappearing into the ground.

“I fell asleep?” I asked, unbelievingly.

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of, almost everyone falls asleep,” he said, offering a hand “it’s completely normal”

I began to stand up, and immediately knew why he had offered me his hand. Apparently, I had lost my sense of balance while plugged in.

“Easy now,” he said, holding me firmly and taking me to one of the white chairs “your balance will return in a few moments” he told me after leaving me in a somewhat straight position. He then went to sit behind the white desk.

“In the meanwhile,” he said passing me a transparent card across the desk that I barely caught before it slipped from my shaky hands. It was graved with some dates and hours “that’s a schedule of appointments. I want you to come here on a regular basis in order to monitor all the changes…any questions?”

I didn’t answer. My thoughts too immersed in what had just happened.

“Can I ask you something personal?” he said, the sudden change in his professional mood catching my attention.

“Sure”

He leaned closer to me, as if what he was about to say was a secret “What did you dream?”

My heart sank. Did he know it?

“Of course,” he continued, reclining in his chair once again “I only ask out of personal curiosity. I find interesting what people dream during the process”.

“Actually, I didn’t dream at all” I lied “I just closed my eyes and a moment later I was falling to the ground”

“What a shame,” he said dropping his head a little “they say it’s one of the most fantastic dreams there is”

[[Category:Story]]
[[Category:Pocsock]]
[[Category:Anthropomorphic]]
[[Category:Mythical]]

A New Beginning

2007-10-08T01:54:41Z

Pocsock:

{{title|name=A New Beginning|author=Pocsock}}
{{editing requested}}
{{WIP}}
{{author's note|Be warned, this story is still a work in progress. Changes and updates will be at random. This means that I may post three pages one day, and delete half of the story the next one.
The reason I'm posting it here is mainly to get feedback. Any comment or correction (like spelling and/or grammar mistakes) will be appreciated.
}}
''New content starts from {{add|marked text}}''
{{Separator|d}}

{{dropcap|W}}''e’re entering a new age. The natural laws are blending and breaking in ways they have never done before. The pillars of knowledge shake before our very own eyes. What we once thought of only as a myth, is starting to fuse into reality itself...”''

I walked to the lady in the desk, an anthropomorphic lioness with long brown hair and bright amber fur.

“Hi. How may I help you?” she said with a younger voice than what she looked like. Not that I was especially good at calculating age, even if the person wasn’t part animal.

“Hi. I have an appointment with Alice” she then took a good look at me, seeing only a teenager that had not taken a shower in a while and with a wild hair. Nothing extraordinary at all, but she smiled at me either way as if she already new something about me that I ignored.

“She’s busy at the moment with another volunteer” she said politely “She’ll receive you the moment she’s done with him. You can make yourself comfortable while you wait”

“Thanks” I said and then continued to sit on a nearby chair.
{{Separator|d}}
As time slowly crept away, my mind began to wander into deep thoughts, as was usual for me in this kind of situations. My train of thoughts began with the scenery in front of me, a large reception desk. The curious thing about it was neither the size nor the decoration, although it was indeed big and very nicely decorated, but the people that were constantly coming in and out of the enormous double sliding doors towards all the different parts of the building. They were animals, going from the anthropomorphic ones to others with apparently no difference from what you might find in your local zoo, except they were smarter; cyborgs, as in persons with some kind of prosthesis or other mechanical enhancement; any strange combination of animals, human and robot that I could dare think of; and humans that could be counted with one hand, including me.
Not that it had always been like that, there was a time when only humans walked down the street, only humans attended to school, only humans bought on a supermarket, then IRF came.

The International Research Fund was built as a way to promote pure scientific research and development, giving top equipment, space, technology and funds to anyone with enough brains to convince the IRF board, and then patenting all the results among the researchers and the IRF itself. Basically, it was a big enterprise that gathered all the ideas that the other companies didn’t find useful for themselves and put them in good use, following a strict ethical protocol and sharing all the income among all its workers, including the broken scientists that had come up with the ideas in the first place. It had been successful almost from its beginnings with a lot of capital, its international relations, its extremely accurate talent for business and a lot of crazy ideas from all the rejected, and somewhat mad, scientists in the world.

It had been IRF the one that had come up with the Passion Process, also known as the Transformational Process and named by its creator. No one knew exactly how the process worked or why it only affected a selected number of individuals, as the IRF kept everything regarding the project in secret. All that anyone knew was that you came in as a normal human and could come out with the beginnings of a series of changes that will gradually transform you into something else in a matter of days. The transformations were completely random, or so claimed IRF, and could go from a subtle change in skin pigmentation, to making a kid walk again after everyone else said it was impossible, to gaining animalistic characteristics and parts, to even becoming an imaginary creature such as a Pegasus or mermaid; without messing with the mind and changing who you are. Some claimed it was the discovery of the century, others said it was of the millennium, and ever since it was announced it has been offered for free to anyone willing to take it, as to research the process on a deeper level in order to make a better use of it in future treatments.

Just about then, a man stepped out of the elevator. I noticed that he had an envelope on his right hand and that his pupils were slits as he passed by me. He had a gloomy air around him that sent a chill down my spine despite my best attempts to ignore him.

“You can go up to meet her now” said the lioness, and then I stepped in the elevator.
{{Separator|d}}
It was this door alright, or so said the piece of paper held in my hand. I put it away in a passing recycle bin and took a deep breath in preparation before entering through it.

The office was big compared to your standard office cubicle. Of course everything here in IRF had to be bigger than standard due to the kind of workers they had. Not that there weren’t any humans at all working in the building, but it was a well-known fact that IRF had the highest amount of transformed people in its ranks, and all its working spaces were adapted to meet all the requirements every single one of them would ever dream of, like a claw-resistant carpet, perches for the bird-types that weren’t comfortable on normal chairs, a continuous air flow for the ones with sensitive noses, windows coverings that could make the rooms as dark as night for persons with a nocturnal tendency and, of course, a large size in everything so that the big morphs could come and go without trouble.

Nevertheless, this place seemed fancier than the average I had seen on my way here. It was enveloped in the green and colors of plants and flowers that I had only seen on pictures of rainforests, and every single one of it was alive and growing in this well lit but small environment. There was even a fountain with a little marble fairy on a corner.

“You must be Spencer” a horse-lady with a rather showy gleaming crystal horn on her, I assumed, forehead said coming from my right. She was dressed in a tailored, it had to be tailored as it fitted her perfectly, black dress that was so common among working women nowadays. “I was expecting you” she said approaching me and then offering her furred hand “I’m Alice, but around here everyone calls me Gaia”

I took it “I prefer to be called S. If you don’t mind”

“Not at all,” she said and then we disengaged. “please, let’s have a seat” she said, pointing at the desk near the window.

“I take it your nickname comes from the Greek goddess of the earth,” I said as I sat on a synthetic leather chair with an orange flower growing from the armrest “and from the rather green decoration”

“You could say that,” she said sitting on the other side of the wooden and clumsily made desk, her tail swishing through a hole “I’ve always had a knack for plants”

Then silence came while Gaia took out some papers from a drawer and read them silently.

“Interesting” she finally said “Your tests show a probability of almost ninety five percent for Passion to take a positive effect on you”

I remembered that test that I had done two days before. It was designed as a means to determine more accurately in which person the Transformation Process would take effect, although it wasn’t a hundred percent failsafe. It was made as a means to reduce ‘causalities’, but mainly to cut out extra expenses to IRF. It consisted on physical, medical and psychological tests that were compared later on with others tests of individuals in which Passion had worked. It had been a surprise that I had gotten such a high probability.

“But its not a hundred percent” I said.

“Don’t worry about that,” she assured me “that five percent is a margin of error in the statistics due to the randomness of the process. I have no doubts that Passion will get to you” she smiled.

I would have laughed at the joke. After all, it’s called Passion when it only has helpful effects on someone, like taking off some age traits and curing diabetes, so she believed I wasn’t going to get changed. But nervousness had a strong grip on me. All I could do was nod at her.

“I don’t see a reason why you shouldn’t be able to take the procedure tomorrow with…”

“Couldn’t it be today?” I quickly asked.

She then looked at me, and I could see her nostrils swell just a little bit bigger. She smelled my emotions, like an open book through her ultra sensitive nose, little hormones, sweat and humidity that my body expelled and her senses could translate directly, almost like another language. People thought this was impossible or regarded is as a rumor, but I was certain she was doing it right there, before my eyes. Thankfully, I also knew that she would think I was feeling eagerness.

“I’m sorry,” she finally said to me and then activated a holographic screen. Top technology, very expensive and a little bit blurry because of all the light in the room, but it clearly showed a schedule of some sort “but all the facilities are busy until tomorrow…” my heart sank at that thought, and she noted it “I can manage to squeeze you in the first turn of the morning, if you want it”

“That would be nice” I said, still a little down by the news. She then moved some things on the projection.

“That would be all,” she said after she was done, and looked at me with friendly eyes “out of the record. I only want to ask you a rather personal question, if you don’t mind”

“Go ahead” I said.

“Why did you choose to take Passion?”

I smiled at sensing her curiosity “What better way to begin a change in my life?”
{{Separator|d}}
“How did it go?” the guy’s raspy voice came from beneath his heavy raincoat and brown hat.

“Tomorrow morning,” I said, throwing the appointment plastic card to him “She ‘squeezed’ me in”

“She must have really liked you,” the man said as he smiled beneath those dark glasses and the scar near his lips “we know that the morning turns are completely full until next month.”

We were on a nice little building, in the worst neighborhood of downtown that anyone could have imagined. Bars and all kinds of exotic night clubs ran through every block of this god forsaken place, along with the normal liquor store and homeless. Of all the places, this was the most exclusive, the most expensive and the emptiest place of them all. There was no doubt in my mind that it only served as a house for all kind of illegal activities of the highest positioned people of the city.

As for the man right in front of me, he didn’t have the need for the entire disguise he was wearing at the moment. You could kill ten persons here and they would have had it cleaned in less than a minute, and only because of the corpses’ bad smell. This only made me think he must have one of the worst tastes in fashion ever. That was evident even to me, and I don’t even care about fashion.
“Spit it out already,” I told him “what are you going to do to me?” he then took out a syringe of some sort.

I yelped at the sight of it, not being the sort that stands needles very well. “This,” he said “is a bio-signs sensor. It will allow us to know exactly what happens to your body as the process progress”

“Are you sure they won’t be able to detect it?” I said, more concerned of IRF than the needle right now.

“It’s nanobotic technology,” he said after I willingly let him have my arm and he began cleaning it “we have an advantage over them in this field”

I tried to remember why I was doing this as I allowed the strange object puncture my body.

I had left home for a while now. Not that it had ever been my home, but rather a house that helped to hold me and my parents from the outside world, and what an important job that was. We couldn’t stay in the same room for more than two minutes, I once counted them myself, before a lousy argument began among the three of us. My dad couldn’t handle it and eventually divorced my mom and moved as far away as he could. Then, after a rather sour discussion, I decided to run away. I don’t think my mom even noticed the difference as I hadn’t seen any sign with my face printed on them during all this time. I used the name S just in case someone erroneously thought I had a good family and they were probably searching for me and missed me. Like that witch had ever wanted to have me in the first place.

I began to reckon how I got here as the cold liquid entered my body while I looked the other way, clenching my teeth.

It was tougher on the streets than what I had originally thought of. With no money, no house and no food, I was officially a homeless teenager. I even remember that returning home had crossed my mind on several occasions, until the hat man came.

I really don’t know his name and don’t need it anyways. He had come to me one day and offered me a diner, the best one in my whole life, and a room to stay for the night with the only condition I took the Passion test. He even forged an approval of my parents for me to take the test, this was necessary both because, along with some other papers, if I passed I would go immediately through the process and IRF would aid me in changing my identity to suit my new form (If I changed at that degree), and because I was a minor.

I saw an opportunity here. I knew that many big companies were starting to break down and even going bankrupt thanks to IRF. They were desperate to take IRF down, and saw a chance when the Passion Process came. As was normal in any kind of discovery, the Transformation Process was being heavily criticized ever since it came out by everyone, the churches, the tree-huggers, the human rights. The only thing that had saved them was IRF’s ethical code, that had reached a loop of reason that had not been broken until now; the total control they had concerning the whole project as it may not be used in any immoral way, that’s why they kept everything in secret; and the constant support of the majority of governments, as IRF has a program that has helped the education all around the globe. Knowing this, it was only logical to think that this guy was from the competence and wanted more than to help a homeless, but I wouldn’t get nothing else from him unless I passed the test, which fortunately I did, and with honors.

I became his best buddy after that. He invited me to restaurants, bought me new clothes and everything I asked for, and even got me my own place. Everything I wanted would be mine, and I only had to do one thing, go through Passion.

I knew what he wanted and he knew what I wanted, so there were no secrets between us. I took advantage of this and sucked any valuable information I could get out of him, as information is always useful, and concluded that he wanted to use me as a means to get important research data at the same time as IRF and maybe something that could be used against them in a court.

And so, I willingly obeyed everything he told me, including standing the injection that had finished by now without me ever noticing it.

“That should do it” he said as he took away the empty thing “Now you only have to follow the process exactly as they told you and you’ll live like a king for the rest of your life”

“I can hardly wait” I said, rubbing my swollen skin.
{{Separator|d}}
{{add|The next morning I came earlier to yesterday’s same building}}, IRF Passion center number one. Maybe that was why this city was swelling with more transformees than any other? There should be many centers like this one, with the size of IRF. Thoughts for later on when I had time to ponder on them.

“Good morning” I said to the same lioness receptionist.

“Good morning,” she said excitedly, her tail showing it, yet another disadvantage of such appendage “how may I help you?”

“I have an appointment for…” I cleared my throat. She obviously saw my nervousness “Passion.”

“Could you show me your card?” she said and then I handed it to her.

She slid it in front of a small window in her polished amethyst desk. Her eyes shot wide as she saw the information that was quickly displayed on her HUD lenses, and for a moment I thought she saw me as a rather juicy steak of the best beef in the world, but she regained her posture and simply said “please, come with me” and with that she stood up and showed me the way.

As we were traveling through the corridors I noticed that many people were seeing me as I passed. Some of them tried to be discreet, to no avail, like that elephant that saw me from that last corner; and others simply stood staring at me without any discretion at all.

I tried to think what would be so special of my procedure that would make them, the ones who work here on a daily basis and have probably seen more transformations than I trees in my whole life, keep staring at me like I was some kind of oasis in the dessert, and that even the main receptionist had to leave her highly busy post as to make sure I wouldn’t change my mind all of a sudden. But my mind was at a complete lack of ideas on this topic as we arrived to the place.

“It’s here,” she said, pointing to a white door at the end of what was probably the last corridor in the place “good luck” she added with a smirk.

“Thanks” I said, but the words fell in the air as she was already gone. Having nothing else to do I took a deep breath and entered through the door.
{{Separator|d}}
The room wasn’t as fancy as Gaia’s office. It was a stainless white and the corners and unions of walls with floor, ceiling and other walls have been concealed, leaving a room that seemed to have been made of a single piece of paper folded in an impossible way. At the end, there was a large window that was somewhat covered as to not allow too much light into the room, only the necessary one. There was a desk, a descent desk this time, near the window with an oval white chair between them both. There was someone on it, but he had his back to me so I couldn’t see him.

I was approaching closer as to try to speak to him, but then something hit the floor, rolled over to the wall and then to the floor again only to rest on my feet. It was a dark sphere with some kind of metal spaghettis on top of it, or so they had ended up looking like.

“Great,” a figure, glowing so white that it was hard and painful to even stare at, said as it approached the thing on the ground. “I still have a lot ahead of me before it works” he then picked it up and examined it a little.

“What is that thing?” I asked, curious of the little piece of now-junk.

He then noticed me and that I was trying to see the sphere while making a futile attempt at shielding my eyes of the strong light. “Oh. I’m sorry,” he apologized “internal lights” he said, and at once the window closed and the LED lights went on, that’s when I saw him clearly for the first time.

It was a dragon, no doubt about that, with his bat-like wings, his almost crystalline fangs and claws, his glimmering white scales that refracted many colors at the ends of them, his slit in an ocean of pure white eyes, his almost two-meters-long tail and a crest of a cross between scales and feathers that ran all the way from his head to the tip of his tail. I stayed there, observing him like a statue until he sat up again and spoke “this is a helicopter with a gyroscope inside as a means to guide it”

“A what?” I asked, coming out of my reverie at the sound of such complicated mess of words.

He chuckled “A helicopter with a big spinning wheel inside that was supposed to control it”

“Does it work?” I asked, not being my brightest moment as I took notice of what had just left my lips.

“Apparently not” he said as he threw it on the desk “I’ll work on it later. Please, have a seat” and we both took seats on the squeaky plastic.

“So” he said “you must be Spe… I mean, S”

“Yes, and you are…?”

“Michael” he said, opening his holographic projector. This one was brighter than Gaia’s and the hovering objects inside of it looked almost too real to be made out of energy and photons.

“Michael?” I said as the name suddenly hit a string in my head “As in ‘the’ Michael inventor of the Passion Process?”
“The one and only” he answered.

This was impossible. I was talking to one of the brightest minds on the surface of the Earth! And, as usual, my tongue slipped away just a little. “Shouldn’t you be working on a bigger project?” I asked, realizing his office wasn’t as big as any other in the building.

“What could possibly be bigger than supervising my own project?” He said and continued working on the floating symbols. He had a point after all, maybe that was why this was building number one…

“I really liked your inaugural speech when you presented Passion” I said, being honest “for a guy that came out of nowhere and is now a well-known scientist all around the world, its pretty good”

“It had to be” he said, never taking his gaze off the screen “I had to convince the whole world that I wanted to help people with this and not turn them into abominations”

“Do you honestly believe that?” I asked, more out of curiosity than to express my negative stand against all of this.

“Why would I do it to me if I didn’t, or to my friends, or to cure my sick brother?” That left me speechless, even in my head.
“Ok, I’ll explain the procedure to you now” he said clicking on a floating button.

A large chair appeared on the screen “First, is making yourself comfortable,” and the chair was filled with a dummy that reclined a little bit on the fluffed material “It is important to be completely relaxed during the whole thing” then some screens appeared with views of the sea and of snowy mountains on top of the dummy’s head, followed by music from some speakers near the head, a nice aroma that the simulation showed as a pink cloud coming from a necklace to the nose of the dummy, and slow vibrations from the chair.

“You’ll be practically cut off from the rest of the world until Passion is over. This is done in order to obey IRF laws and rules”

“To keep the process secret” I stated.

“Yes” he said. Normally, anyone would have given me an hour talk about how IRF was only trying to help organize this whole business together, or something like that. But he just dismissed it, as if it were unimportant “we’ll monitor all your vitals the whole time so we can unplug you if something goes wrong. Nothing to worry about though, we haven’t had an accident ever since the beginning of the project. But even so, there are top medical facilities on the lower floor, just in case,” he then closed the hologram “any questions?”

“A few actually” I said “Why was everyone out there looking at me a moment ago, and why did the lioness accompany me all the way here?

“Now that I think of it, maybe it was because I was seeing you” I thought out loud.

“No, it wasn’t because of me,” he said, reclining on the strong plastic “it’s actually about you”

“Me?”

“Yes. It’s not every day that we get someone with your kind of records to go through this. So, as you can see, word spread out and everyone wanted to take a good look at you. They were even betting on what you would become if you got transformed. That’s why I asked Vera to personally escort you here, so they stayed put in their places and didn’t get you even more nervous”

That hit me. I hadn’t thought a lot about what would be of me, but now, for the first time, I felt scared. What happened if I ended up like that?

“That’s also why they sent you to me” he continued reclining in the amazingly strong chair “As to be sure everything goes well and we collect all the data possible. And as a personal favor to a friend’s of mine”

So that’s how the unicorn managed it, but then something struck me.

“What can go wrong?” I asked without intending to have that hint of worry that escaped nonetheless.

“As you may already be warned, Passion is not lethal. The worse that could happen is that you get change and your modifications don’t work properly. Like my wings” he said, standing up and moving them with a lot of effort “with so much metal in my body, is like I’m trying to carry a whole bridge with the wings of a pigeon, utterly useless.

Besides, I’m also afraid of heights”

He then sat down again and waited a little bit more. As I didn’t say anything he spoke “Well, if that’s all…”

“Wait” I semi-shouted “I have…second thoughts”

“I can assure you that the procedure is completely safe and…”

“Is not that” I cut him “I feel like I’m doing something wrong… something bad. That I’ll regret this later”

He looked at me with what I guessed was concern. The next thing I knew was that he was sitting on the chair opposite of me, leveling my chin with his muzzle and looking right at my eyes.

“I know exactly how you feel” he told me with a kind voice “I felt the same when I discovered this thing, but look at me,” I did, slowly but I did “I’m a dragon, something that isn’t even supposed to exist.

“I’m supposed to only dwell in the far corners of people’s minds, terrorizing their souls and feeding their fear of the unknown until, generations later, reason and skepticism tore me down. I’m normally the symbol of death and evil that awaits the arrival of an honorable and brave knight so he can archive immortality through my destruction. I’m the twisted image of the imagination and fantasies, dreams and nightmares alike of several different generations, around all the corners of the world, throughout time.
“Maybe the legends really came from the findings of dinosaur bones…” he said, with his reptilian eyes climbing up inside its sockets at either side of its muzzle while his ideas fogged into the sea of deep thoughts for just a moment.

“But that’s not the point,” he said the moment he landed, and returned to meet my gaze “the truth is, I’m nothing like that. I’m neither a God, as I haven’t done any miracles yet; nor a nightmare, as I don’t scare my baby nephew that often; nor a myth, as I’m here talking to you. I’m just a person trying to find his way through life. How people will look at my actions, body or mind, is up to them.

“I cannot guarantee your life will remain the same if you decide to sit on that expensive chair S, but I can promise you that, whatever happens, you’ll always be able to mold your own destiny”

He then smiled, one of the only warm and honest smiles I have ever seen in my life. Strangely enough, it didn’t look quite out of place among his reptilian features, unlike all the other expressions that had come out of him “What say you?”

I thought a moment about this.

“Let’s do it” I finally said with a smile of my own caused by his infectious joy.

But as we got to our feet something suddenly crossed my mind “One more question though”

“Go ahead”

“Why did you name it the Passion Process?”

The scales on his cheeks seemed to turn red underneath before he answered “That’s my last name”

“Oh… I see…”

[[Category:Story]]
[[Category:Pocsock]]
[[Category:Anthropomorphic]]
[[Category:Mythical]]

A New Beginning

2007-10-03T04:38:16Z

Pocsock: New story. There just aren't enough mythical tf's around...

User:Pocsock

2007-10-03T04:36:04Z

Pocsock:

I'm a very recent author who has only been posting on [http://lists.integral.org/listinfo/tsa-talk TSA-Talk], until now. Now I'm beginning to expand my horizons a little further, starting here.

==Stories==

*[[All You Need to Know]]- Have you ever had that strange feeling that you don't understand the world around you?
*[[A New Beginning]]- The story I'm currently working on. A little glimpse at a not-that-far-away future, where researchers have accidentally stumbled upon a miraculous cure for most diseases, with some little side effects.
*[[Nahual]]- There are also tales of werecritters in Mexico, and they also have a bad reputation among normal men.
*[[I Need More Maple Syrup]]- The things some people have to do in order to have a descent breakfast.

[[Category:Author]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pocsock}}

Talk:All You Need to Know

2007-09-24T01:58:46Z

Pocsock:

Interesting story. I was tempted to do some editing for the format, as it seems you are somewhat unfamiliar with the markup used by MediaWiki. (actually, about all I was tempted to change was the paragraph splits. To start a new paragraph you need to have two newlines, not one. See [[Help:Editing]] for some basic information on the markup. More advanced forms of the commonly used markup can be found at [http://meta.wikimedia.org/Help:Advanced_Editing MetaWiki].) Anyway, keep up the good work! [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 21:09, 20 July 2007 (EDT)

:It's actually my first time using this kind of system, but I'm sure I'll learn quick. Thanks for stopping by. [[User:Pocsock|Pocsock]] 21:50, 21 July 2007 (EDT)

::A change to make this more readable would be to replace the with blank lines. That would help a bit by creating breaks between the different paragraphs and keep the readers eyes from bugging out when trying to follow the proper flow. There is a template [[Template:Title|"title"]] that was created to help provide a more standard formatting for the title of a page. To use it just add <nowiki>{{title|name=Page Name|author=Your Name}}</nowiki> to the page. Usage information can be found on the [[Template:Title]] page. [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 22:10, 21 July 2007 (EDT)
== Alex Warlorn said ... ==

<div class='commentBlock'>
Geez. Poor kid/guy/whatever he/she/it started out as.

Does he at least keep the love of his life each reality shift? Is reality altering or is his soul just being displaced?

--Alex Warlorn 04:04, 23 September 2007 (EDT)

:I don't think he minds swapping universes every once in a while, I even dare to say he has come to accept them in his life and enjoys some of them (like his new girlfriend) . As for what form he started out with in the first place, I don't think even he remembers it anymore.
:I'll just leave the two questions to your imagination... for now.

:[[User:Pocsock|Pocsock]] 21:58, 23 September 2007 (EDT)
</div>

User talk:JonBuck

2007-08-28T00:10:19Z

Pocsock: New page: Thank you for the notes at my story. They not only helped to make it easier to read, but have also helped me to improve my writing. Again, thanks for the help and for having stopped by. ~~...

Thank you for the notes at my story. They not only helped to make it easier to read, but have also helped me to improve my writing.
Again, thanks for the help and for having stopped by. [[User:Pocsock|Pocsock]] 20:10, 27 August 2007 (EDT)

I Need More Maple Syrup

2007-08-27T23:50:16Z

Pocsock: Correcting the story following Jon's notes.

{{title|name=I Need More Maple Syrup|author=Pocsock}}
{{editing requested}}

“Crap” I cursed. The empty bottle made a loud hollow sound when it landed in the garbage bin. “I need more maple syrup.”

I headed over to the lonely table sitting in the four-by-four meter-square box someone dared to call a dining room, once. It didn’t have to be fancy, it only had to stand my three daily meals , and right now there were a pair of round waffles ready for me to eat.

Without maple syrup they would taste plain and dry. I didn’t even have a glass of milk to wash them down.

The computer was on, and a soft bell sounded indicating I had received a new e-mail. I sighed and threw both pieces of conglomerated flour into my mouth and quickly made my way to the seat in front of the screen.

As usual, the thing didn’t respond to my commands.

''“Work!”'' I yelled at it and hit the keyboard. It hummed and the message came into view.

I read through it. I had been assigned a new job. If everything turned out as planned, I would be having breakfast tomorrow with a stomach full of maple syrup.

I was about to leave when a familiar feeling came to me all of a sudden. I couldn’t leave yet, not without empty hands at least. So I opened the only window in my room, with only a little complaint from the wood.

“Carl, I know you’re here Carl. I need some provisions,” I said with a clear and audible voice. A light breeze came by and the beginnings of rush hour could be heard in the distance.

“I know I haven’t paid you back, but this is really an emergency.” I continued after some minutes. “I got a job just now and I promise I’ll make it up to you.” The air remained silent.

As I waited at the decaying frame of the window, the city around me continued to move. The lights on skycrapers and apartment buildings began to fade one by one as the sun made its entrance from the concrete horizon. I just stood there as the intense sunrays cast away the darkness and replaced it with light.

Until a bag of gummy bears suddenly fell from the sky.

“This is the last one I’ve got left,” a raspy voice came from the same direction of the bag. A gray figure landed with a loud noise on the window frame next to the multicolored retainer of sweets. If you ever combined the body of a one-meter-long lizard with the head of a wild boar and the wings of a bat into one whole flexible stone being, the result would be the living gargoyle that had just come out in front of me.

“You’re lucky your neighbors haven’t noticed that I’ve been stealing from them,” he scolded me, moving a menacing finger in my direction. A rough screech always seemed to scape from his joints every time he moved them.

“You’re the best!” I said, grabbing the bag and starting to open it on my way to the door. “I swear I’ll pay you back!”

“Just don’t forget it,” he said.

I knew he muttered something about me and my manners as I closed the door and made my way down the stairs.

{{Separator|j}}

Damned mini-stores, the only thing they got in there were those new soured candies. What has become of the world? What happened to the old-fashioned candies that rot your teeth and left you an enjoyable feeling in the mouth? Fortunately for me, chocolates haven’t fallen to another victim of fashion yet, and I was even able to find these wonderful round ones that came in various colors.

I was opening the package of these, that I held in my left arm, when my objective came down the corner inside a limousine. I immediately knew it was him because the mail had said he would be taking this route and because he was the only millionaire that lived around this part of the city. It would be very easy to follow the black car on foot as all the traffic made him go very slow, and then delivering the ultimatum would be a piece of cake.

Just as I thought this was going to be a good day after all a yellow-scaled hand grabbed my bag of chocolates.

“Hi there,” the cloaked figure said with the taint of a growl “It’s been a while since we last saw each other.” I recognized the voice, and reluctantly turned to face the creature.

A beak the size of a hand was poking from under the violet robes of silk that he wore. The only other visible parts were a golden tail with a black tuff of shiny hair that swayed from a hole in the back of the fine clothes and a pair of paws the size of four fists bulged together that held claws that could easily torn through the strongest bones in the animal kingdom.

''He was touching my candies!'' “You’re touching my candies.” I said, trying to control my temper.

“I’ve heard that they have finally assigned you a mission.” he said, revealing his white feathered face with his left claw. He had eyes that could freeze of terror any living being, or so I was told. I had actually seen more frightening eyes than just the cold stare of a completely round pupil surrounded by another circle of yellow. “How long has it been from the last one eh?”

''He was still touching my candies!'' “You’re still touching my candies!” I said in a higher tone than what I had intended.

“Why, here I am, an old friend of yours trying to start a nice conversation after a long time, and you can only think of these sugar-saturated human food.” He waggled his head from side to side. “I thought you had gotten over them by now?”

''I had had enough of him!'' “If you don’t remove your foul self off my chocolates I’ll rip off your magic disguise right here and now, on this crowded street!” I warned him, my eyes looking down and never leaving the shrinking gryphon in front of me.

He didn’t hesitate for long as he already knew I had done something similar once. So he freed his grasp from my munchies. “As you wish,” he said as he headed down the street once again. “Never really liked them that much.”

I began to relax when he was finally gone. Some people were staring, but eventually continued with their own business. It could have been worse if I had dropped the hallucination covering Alex.

The guy believed he was the center of the universe just because he had came up with the pose most of the gryphons are portrayed in most coats of arms. He was pompous and arrogant and his goal was to make miserable as much people as he could. It would have served him right if the human police captured him and conducted some painful experiments in some far away dessert, but I would have been the one that would eventually have to clean up the whole mess, and HQ would probably cut my supplies for some months, something I didn’t want to happen, so I just let him get away with it this time.

“Crap!” I cursed as the traffic had miraculously sped up and my target had moved far away by now. The bird’s brains had distracted me and allowed traffic to flow quickly with a spell so I would lose the target.

Now I had to turn for plan B, something I didn’t want to do but I had no choice now. So I reluctantly turned to go to the rendezvous point that was some blocks away from here.

I had a craving for roasted chicken all of a sudden.
{{Separator|j}}
“He’s late,” I muttered as I entered one of the many similar dark, humid and lonely alleys of the city. The contact was supposed to meet me here if, by some reason, I wasn’t able to find the secret hideout of the target.

I usually did everything on my own, too many chances that something might go wrong, especially on stealth missions like this one. The bigger the number, the easier it is to get detected by human means. Not that I couldn’t handle some dangerous situations myself, but HQ had ordered me to stick with normal protocols as much as I could, or something like that.

I then heard a loud screech. I looked up and saw a brown figure circling above, a small peregrine falcon by the looks of it. It started a stoop towards me and for a moment it was hard to see it. At the last moment he tried to slow down, only to discover he had too much momentum. It stumbled in the air for a moment and managed to land in a nearby dumpster.

I rolled my eyes as I made my way to help him. They had to send me a rookie, a showoff rookie at that. It was evident he had planned the entrance as he had come from the opposite side that the target had taken, and even more obvious that he was still getting used to his new body.

“Ouch!” I heard him say when he stumbled out of the container and hit the pavement with his human body, which was much older than the one I had. He had some egg shells on his brown curly hair and his jeans and white shirt stank of sour milk and some rotten fruits.

“I think you’re lucky you survived something like that,” I said as I offered him my hand and put him back to his feet “Next time you try to brag about your flight capabilities, make sure you do it right ok?”

“I didn’t ask for your opinion kid,” he said as he cleaned a little bit. “I’m waiting for someone to show up at any time now and was just making my way down here so we could meet.”

“Sure, whatever you say,” I said in the most sarcastic tone I could muster. "Now, just hang over the package and we can get on with the mission.”

He then began to acknowledge my presence and began to examine me thoroughly with his gaze. I didn’t blame him; everyone that didn’t know me assumed I was just another twelve-years-old boy on the street. “You got to be kidding me.”

I sighed, closed my eyes and thought of the package. It immediately appeared from the void between us and I grabbed it before gravity took grip of it.

“How did you..?” he stammered.

“Trans-dimensional spells for object are among the easiest ones to counter-spell, as even an amateur like you can do it in order to transport things,” I said opening the package and revealing some cookies filled with taffy. “Excellent,” I muttered as I began munching on them.

“You’re a sorcerer?!” he asked incredulous and oblivious that he had protected a package that contained candies all this time.

“I have an innate magic ability if that’s what you mean,” I said, spilling some crumbs from my mouth. “Now let’s continue. In which direction is the lab?”

“Over there,” he said, pointing somewhere opposite from were he had come from. “at about a mile. But I think it would be better if we just transported inside the place,” he added quickly.

I wasn’t a fool by any means. He just wanted to see a little magic in action. Most new recruits were eager to learn all about this new world they discover and do almost anything, even offer to be the pet of someone HQ had had an eye for some time or to help ‘repopulate’ the world by transforming into animals and be freed in the wild until balance was restored.

Come to think of it, a transportation spell didn’t sound that bad after all. It would help me get over with this faster.
“As you wish” I said, a grin creeping on his face “Hold this.” and I handed the box over. “And don’t even think about stealing one. I already counted all of them” I warned him.

“Don’t you need a chalk or something to draw a pentagram on the floor?” he asked as I was turning around towards the direction he pointed at.

“That’s only for the mages at HQ.” I said without turning. “They always like to complicate matters with words in forgotten languages or amulets made of expensive materials. You should never forget,” I turned around and faced him for a moment “that the best magic is the simple magic”

“Yeah right.” he said, but I had more important matters to attend than scold him. I began to feel the threads of space all around me, until I found the one. I began to fold it over until a connection was made, then I just had to open the way wide enough so we could pass through it.

“Open sesame.” I muttered, and an ethereal door manifested itself in front of me.

“You got to…” he began when he saw the air change with his very own eyes.

“It worked, didn’t it?” I said to him. I recovered my cookies from his perplexed self and pushed both of us towards the portal “Come on. I want to get this over with.”
{{Separator|j}}
“So what’s your name?” Matt asked after explaining almost half of his life to me. Not that it had been boring, but I was just too busy making our way through the complex.

The genius had pointed to the right place alright. He had just missed the fact that the target’s office was some stories higher than where we appeared. I think I made myself clear when I asked him to point out the place.

Either way, it could have been worse. At least he had had the distance right and we were now slowly approaching the top floor by complicated routes as to not touch anyone. After all, being invisible didn’t mean that people couldn’t stumble on you.

But all in all, we were doing a good progress so far, so a little chat wouldn’t hurt anyone. “Sirrehll.”

“Sir Ehl?” He asked, pronouncing it bad. “Man, everyone in the Alliance has strange unpronounceable names.” he said as we approached the stairwell.

“They just sound strange to you because most of them were first used millennia before your tongue was invented.” I said, pushing the door open and going through. “Alliance eh? They changed the names again. Last time I heard it, it was a coalition.”

“They change names?” he asked, moving behind me as we climbed yet another floor. “Why can’t they just stick to one?”

I shrugged “Political affairs. You know, the dwarves claim the elves have too much power, the elves say centaurs always hunt in their sacred secret forests, etc. They always come to an agreement and a new pact is formed and the only difference in the organization is the name.” We exited on this floor. “It also changes according to the place and country you’re in. But every change is linked to the unicorns one way or another, that’s for sure.”

“It makes sense” he said. “After all, the unicorns are the most powerful of all races as they were the ones who practically won the war against the dragons.”

This guy was promising after all. “Who told you about the great war?” I turned and asked him.

He shrugged. “I found out about it on my own in the great Elven library. They have some of the most amazing paintings of it in there. It still sends a chill down my spine when I see all the three main races fighting against swarms of dragons.”

“The paintings are good. Better than any human one” I said, continuing towards another set of stairs “but they always exaggerate in the account of numbers.”

“What do you mean?” he asked. His curiosity was clearly visible.

“Although there are persons that know the truth, almost everyone believes or tell that the dragons were the ones who started the war in order to rule over all the other races. The reality is that the war started by a conflict between the elves and the unicorns.

“The elves dominated the smiths and were beginning to span their crafts further with magic, which they had only discovered recently back at that time. They were developing a vast industry and needed more and more the resources of the earth.

“The unicorns, on the other hand, had always known magic. It was a natural part in them that came with the force of life itself, which is why they are considered the guardians of the world. With time, they began to develop a strong hate towards the machinery of the elves.

“As you may already be thinking, a war started between them. Most of the other races took sides so their power could grow with the victory of whoever won. Of course, the unicorns managed to eventually drag almost everyone to their side through blackmail, as they have total control over earth’s resources” we stepped through another door and walked down another hall.

“The elves had been left alone and heavy outnumbered. As a desperate move, they turned to the dragons. Are you following me?” I asked as I have just been hearing the occasional agreement from him all this time.

“Yes, the unicorns were winning against the elves and the elves asked help from the dragons.” he answered.

“Yes. Now, you need to know some things about dragons” I said as we dodged a crowd. “They are classified as one of the most powerful races that have ever existed. Their immense physical power overwhelms almost anything at its pace with thick skin reinforced with metal scales and enough force to hold back even the most terrible beasts of the deep. Their natural magic, which is passed from generation to generation, is a mystery to most races but it is often compared to the one unicorns wield. And their astuteness and eloquent speak is a very feared and dangerous weapon in the field of negotiation.

“But unlike most of the other races, Dragons are simple creatures that prefer to live simple lives. They enjoy simple pleasures like eating, sleeping or making hordes, and they do it a lot, and avoid conflicts at all costs, unless it is utterly necessary.

“The elves in their arrogance thought of them as simple talking animals at first, but when the situation came that they couldn’t rely on anyone else they were force to seek their help.

“As their was no central dragon government, as all dragons were independent from one another and only communicated if necessity aroused, the elves had to search for all over the world what dragons they could find, which were no more than half a hundredth…”

“Are you telling me that the dragon army was only of fifty creatures?!” Matt cut me. “I don’t believe it.”

“Believe it or not it’s true,” I continued as we approached an open empty elevator. “Dragons rarely mate and some don’t even bother to do it at all. Add to that the predators that eat the eggs and the hatchlings, the diseases, the occasional fight among them, and you have a population of some hundreds all around the world.”

“Ok, I get the picture,” he said as he pushed the button up some stories. “But how did the elves convince them to fight?”

“Gold.” I stated. “The elves are the best craftsmen in the world, and in exchange of help in their war they offered the scaly beasts tons of jewels. Of course they only had a limited quantity of these, that’s why they could only afford half a hundredth warriors.”

“So the elves joined forces with the dragons.” Matt stated when the bell announced we had arrived.

“Not exactly,” I said, getting out of the steel box. “The elves had originally planned to put them as a front against the other armies. That way they would gain some time for planning a solid strategy and find weak points in the enemy’s defenses. But their plan backfired when the dragons showed what they were really capable of. Oh! A bending machine!” I called out and headed to it.

“Can you please continue with the story?” Matt pleaded me.

“Patience is a virtue young fellow.” I replied as the machine gave me a bag of marshmallows. I took them and began to tear at them with gusto. “Where were we?” I asked with my mouth full.

“The elves’ plan for the dragons.” Matt said, a vein poking from his brow.

“Oh yeah!” I said, swallowing the puffy candy. “In only one year of fight they managed more than all the elves in two centuries of war. They not only held back the continuous invasions to the Elven country, they even began to make the enemy withdraw back to their territory and were starting to claim it for the elves.

“When the world began to take notice that the dragons were a practically unstoppable force it was already too late, they were already knocking at the doors of the sacred forests and woods of the immortal, so the unicorns immediately began to take actions. They quickly restarted negotiations with the elves and offered a deal they wouldn’t resist. They would share their knowledge with them, complete control over nature, beauty beyond anything terrestrial and touching divinity and immortality, in exchange for the destruction of the dragons.

“So they double-crossed the dragons, tricking them so they couldn’t use their magical abilities and lurking the warriors to a trap.”

“The battle of the Seven Empires,” Matt whispered. “the one portrayed in the library.”

“Precisely, but even then it took armies to finish them… Matt are you ok?” I asked when he stopped moving behind me. When I turned around a thin layer of brown was slowly consuming him.

His body was starting to distort. Feathers were growing all over his bare skin. Hands and arms were becoming stiff and began to position themselves at his sides. The bones on his feet were snapping as they rearranged themselves in new positions, the skin there spurting little yellow scales and his nails lengthen into razor sharp black claws. He couldn’t speak as a beak had begun to grow from inside his mouth and was almost done.

Something was definitely not right, as his eyes showed total panic just the moment before they turned amber and he began to shrink.
“Matt!” I screamed and tried to run to him. But the walls of the corridor began to spin all around the two of us, a sign that transportation was taking place in most cases.
{{Separator|j}}
But it didn’t feel like transportation at all. Then I knew that the place had been rearranged by magic, the same magic that had transformed the companion next to me.

“Matt are you alright?” I asked him. For a moment I was afraid his mind had slipped away as he was just staring at random directions all around, but I eventually recognized a nod.

“Don’t worry, I promise I’ll turn you back.” I said, kneeling down so I could stare at the now peregrine falcon in the eye.

“And I wonder,” a very deep voice said from my left. “How do you plan to do that?”

“Norman I presume?” I said standing up and facing the darkness from where the voice had come.

“The one and only.” he answered. Why did all the eccentric, crazy and evil millionaires have to hide in the dark? It was probably the fashion of this century.

“In the name of the Alliance, nature… and all that other stuff,” I began. “I hereby give you a last chance to stop doing… whatever it was that you were doing and summit yourself to the justice of the Seven Empires. And that includes turning Matt here back to his original form” I said, eyeing him. Matt contributed with a screech of his own.

The bass voice just laughed, starling Matt a little. But I kept calm, eating my bag of marshmallows.

“I must admit he has served me well, both as a pet and as an informer,” the voice continued. “It was thanks to him that I discovered your secret society, was able to get a hold of many powerful magical items and could track you down with magic ever since you departed from that alley”

“Really?” I asked, skeptically. I was sure we couldn’t have been located by any magical means, unless…

I turned to see Matt again; a faint blue glowed in the back of his wings, unnoticeable under a shirt in human form. “Oh yeah, there it is. I wonder why I didn’t see it before?” I said. “I must be getting a little rusty”

“And your friend will be the one who pays for your incompetence.” the voice boomed.

Then a series of lights came to life all around us except for where the voice sounded. They revealed a completely flat room the size of a football stadium with a big dome serving as ceiling.

All around us, animals of every kind and species were running, jumping, flying, eating, fighting… it was a complete jungle in here.
“As you can see, I’ve been quite busy with my magic.” the voice said in a lower volume. “All the animals around you were people once. It only took me one spell to turn them all completely into wild beasts. I can see from the looks of your friend that he’s starting to lose his mind as well”

He was right; Matt was starting to show symptoms of a full change. He was shaking his head now and then and I could feel him struggling to maintain control, but he’ll eventually lose it and be at the mercy of the primal instincts of the prey bird in a little while, trapped forever in that feathered body without any control over it.

But as much as I hated the situation Matt was in, there was still something not quite right in all of this. How could a simple beginner have done all of this with just one spell?

That was when I decided to check the currents of energy, and found my answer. This very building was the intersection of two powerful energy lines, increasing the effects of magic, including wizard spells. This could be a very dangerous thing if placed in the wrong hands, like the ones it was in right now.

“Stop this at once!” I said, my voice echoing from the walls.

“And who’s going to stop me, you?” he laughed maliciously. “A twelve years old boy who’s not even big enough to be affected by magic and whose weapons are thumb-sized marshmallows?” and he laughed some more.

“You don’t know who you’re messing with.” I replied, taking another bite.

“No, it is you who doesn’t know who you’re messing with”. The last light then turned on above him.

I was so shocked at the sight in front of me that I dropped the bag of candies.

“A dragon…” I muttered. “it can’t be…”

“Oh, but it is.” it said.

''This guy was pushing me to my limits…''

He managed to get his four meters tall ass up and stood an all fours. He was covered in scales so black, so opaque that even the light refused to touch them, making the figure have a complete cover of darkness all around him. His hide smelled of corruption and ambition and looked rotten in some places. Bare bones served him as spines from his muzzle, elongated and twisted into a distorted evil grin that showed fangs that couldn’t fit inside it, all the way through his hideous back and ended with a black blade in an unbelievable thin and long tail.

''His mere presence was drawing me insane…''

“You just wouldn’t believe how wonderful it feels to have so much power” the creature hissed, a slimy bifurcated tongue escaping the dry lips. He then lowered himself from behind a desk that had once belonged to a human and slowly made his way towards me. “I can feel things that no man will ever know. I can sense magic currents like this one in many other places. Their energy calls to me, and tempts me to use it to feed upon the entire world!”

“That’s your own ambition and tainted nature,” I told him, my hands turning into fists and my head low. “The same one that has consumed your body and left a demon in its place.”

''He was filling me with more anger by the second…''

“Fool little human” he said. His blood red gaze never leaving me “You know nothing. My race will take its rightful place on top of the world, enslaving the Seven Empires and destroying anyone who opposes us with my guide.”

''I couldn’t control myself anymore…''

“The dragons shall rise once again!” he boomed, extending the holed leather of his wings at his full length and sending a crimson flame on my way.

''…and I didn’t want to.''

The scorching flames burned at flesh in less than a second, releasing my coppery hide from its confinement. My scales glittered in different shades of orange and dark amber as the fire passed next to them without doing harm.

I stretched the strong muscles on my thick and powerful tail as it grew from the end of my spine. The soft leathery plates on my stomach touched the floor for a moment as my posture changed with the growth of claws on what were once my hands and feet. My skull snapped as my muzzle grew outward, dissolving my nose into only two lines on its front, pushing my eyes, which were the purest amber and with a slit instead of round pupils, a little to the sides so that I could have a wider view range, and my fins finally opening after being hidden all this time and overwhelming with sounds once again. My neck lengthened to be almost as long as my increasingly bulking body, its flexibility, dexterity and power allowed me to use it similarly to a hand. I spread my wings that easily doubled the distance from my nostrils to the end of my white tail-blade, my chest easily lifting all the extra mass thanks to uncountable hours of flying throughout the world.

The ashes of my human body rested on the ground around me, making the air reek of burnt flesh and hair. And as the air cleared of the smoke, I could see the small figure in front back a little at the sight of a real dragon that could easily been mistaken for a two stories rock of fine metal.

The monster snapped into reality again quickly, and began to attack me with everything he had in despair. He threw fire at me again, but the heat couldn’t do anything against my scales. He tried to tackle me, only to find out he was too weak. He launched at me with his claws directed to my neck, only to find them cut with my own. He attempted to use his tail as a whip against me, only to find it cut with my blade before he even blinked. He flapped his barely usable wings and was able to get off the ground, only to fall to it with the wing one beat of mines made.

As his last resource he crawled to his desk and drew out of a drawer a book enveloped in leather, a wizard’s spell book by the useless runes engraved in it, and recited the last enchantment in it. The waves of the magic lines began to vibrate, until I reached them and calmed them with my spirit. The most powerful spell the humans had been able to muster had been to change the position of natural magic currents and, with it, a little bit of reality. But he was so weak and had so limited magic knowledge that the only thing that he did was to disrupt a little the surface of magic’s calmed waters. Even if what he did wasn’t of great relevance, it was better to restore balance quickly before someone got hurt.

Realizing his spell hadn’t work and that he couldn’t wield magic anymore, he took shelter under the fine wooden furniture he had gone to. All this time I had been harvesting energy from the lines in here and now was the moment to use their full power.

''“I am Sirrehll!”'' I roared into the room. ''“Son of Sarrhall and descendant of Ardera, who slaughtered the great Eslathian sea snake in the name of Gaia herself!”'' I pushed the currents from their course so they could feed a deed that the human age hasn’t seen.

''“The purest dragon blood runs within my veins, ever since I was born in the molten center of the earth!”'' The energy began to canalize through me, the light emitted so intense that no dark corner was left.

''“And you!”'' I said, pointing at where the coward laid. “You have dared to insult my kin and my ancestors by comparing us to the insolent stereotypes in other races’ stories! You even thought we were animals that you could have easily manipulated to achieve your material goals! And you also made me drop a bag of my favorite food, ''candies!''”

I released the power and watched the world change. “And now you’re going to pay for it.”
{{Separator|j}}
All the material objects began to distort in random and chaotic forms as the dimension shifted around them. Patches of the floor took different shapes; sand, vegetation, rocks, magma, plasma, water, all were scattered as far as the sight could see and were turning into other shapes as time passed. The dark brown desk joined the water that touched it from below and the curling and shaking ball was revealed.

All this time I’ve been the one manipulating the forces so that a dimension fusion wouldn’t happen. And as I was the one with complete control here I forced the giant lizard to uncurl, turn around and face me, just when the floor on his claws turned to a sandy little hill. So I began the process.

His body dried up and began to take a brighter color as silicates began to substitute living tissue. He just stood there the whole time, his body not twitching at all but his eyes were consumed by growing fear.

Finally, his body was completely consumed by the process and he was now a sand statue that resembled just a little a reptile with wings. Without any real support, and with the increasing wind, the sculpture quickly collapsed on itself and joined the other sand in the pile below.

As that had been taken cared of, I focused on another matter. The temporal fusion had affected the whole room, and with it the rest of the people that had been forced into animals. They were hovering all over the place, their animal forms slowly returning to normal humans with every passing second.

That’s when I took a good look at someone. It was Matt, but his form wasn’t changing. He was still a peregrine falcon, which shouldn’t have been surprising at all. We were in Chaos after all, one of the few realms where dreams and thoughts have strong power over other universes. It was only logical to assume that the kid truly wanted to be a bird.

As much as I liked to fly in a zero gravity ambient, the more time we spend here, the bigger the chances that a fusion would happen. So I focused again on the original currents of magic that had brought us here and were feeding the connection to this place and moved them until they were in their original state.
{{Separator|j}}
Everyone was still unconscious when the reinforcements came in. Two unicorns, five elf mages and a number of phoenixes went to see that the entire human’s memories were erased, the magical items were dealt with accordingly and all evidence was removed from normal human’s hands, all normal procedure.

Matt had woken up shortly after we returned and was being thoroughly questioned now. I don’t think he minded that much that he couldn’t turn back to human form and would remain forever a bird of prey. Of course, it had been his choice after all.

“This was supposed to be a simple message delivery mission!” the white equine figure yelled at me in the neighs and whinnies of the language of their kin. “And imagine my surprise when I find out you sent the last three floors of a skyscraper in a trip across universes!”

My human hair had just finished growing and I looked the same way I had when I took the first step in here. “We delivered the ultimatum. The other stuff was in self defense.”

“What could he have possibly done that you needed to use a trans-dimensional enchantment?!”

“He dropped my marshmallows” I stated. He couldn’t argue against that, and he knew it.

“This isn’t over yet!” the unicorn snorted. “I’ll keep a close eye on you” and he then turned to open a portal back to their kin’s woods.

Everyone parted from my way as I headed to the still intact bookshelves and stands. They were afraid of me and what I’ve done, but I didn’t care as it would be easier to find what I wanted if no one disturbed me.

As I was searching shelves located behind were the desk should have been, I saw Matt land on one of the highest ones. He must have been done with debriefing.

''Why didn’t you tell me?'' he told through telepathy, yet another gift from his stay in Chaos.

“Would you have still gone with me if you knew?” I answered. My now human hands opened little doors, and revealed some scotch behind them. I close them again and kept looking. “Besides, HQ doesn’t like that much when I go around yelling I’m a dragon when they take pride in their great battle.”

''Then why do you work for them? It’s obvious even to me that they don’t like you and would rather see you dead.''

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” I said as I revised between some books. “They need me and, as you can see, it would be very hard for any of them to kill me.”

''It still doesn’t make any sense. Don’t you hate to think they killed your own kind and take joy in it?''

I sighed “Yes, I don’t like the idea.” I the turned to him. “But my brothers also deserved it. They allowed their greed to control their minds and made the fatal mistake to enter a war, and I don’t plan on doing the same thing by fighting everyone whose ignorance doesn’t allow him to see wider.

“Besides, who cares what ''they'' think!” I said and waved at all the busy people around, who turned and stared at me. “I’m a dragon. I have a simple life, simple needs and simple joys. I only hope that some day the other races will open their eyes and begin to see the wonders in these things before you all end up ''destroying'' everything.” and I continued my search.

A moment of silence followed and then they continued cleaning the place. I felt that something disturbed Matt.

''I kind of feel sorry for the poor guy'' he said eyeing the empty space some feet away. ''I don’t think he deserved to die like that after all.''

“You shouldn’t worry about those things Matt. It’s Chaos justice after all. Oh, so here they are!” I said, opening what must have been the final drawer of the room and taking out a fine wooden box with chocolates. I tasted one; they were filled with honey! “Do you want one?” I offered Matt.

''I think I’ll pass.'' he said and flew away.

“You’re the one who misses it.” I said just as he was out a window.

“I would offer one to you Norman, but I don’t think you can eat anymore.” I whispered to the amethyst geode that had rolled somewhere next to this furniture after we returned. “Don’t worry, it’s not permanent. I believe some thousands of years will be enough for you to think about what you did.” and with that I was out of there.
{{Separator|j}}
The bell on the computer rang again and I went to see it. As always, I still hadn’t got a clue as to how to operate the damn thing, so I used a little bit of magic.

''“Work!”'' I yelled at it and hit the keyboard. It hummed and the message was displayed.

It was another job, one of some lake contamination industry. But what caught my attention was that a side note said that Matt had offered to be my partner on this one.

I liked the kid. He was still a rock-head but had a rather insatiable thirst of knowledge that will eventually correct that. I was even feeling some kind of connection with him. Dragons don’t mate that often, and even if the season came I still hadn’t found a likely dragoness of my likes. But even if I didn’t bear hatchlings, at least I won’t be forgotten by the sands of time with Matt as my pupil.

I suddenly felt a spell taking place, and went immediately to check out the source of it.

I opened my fridge, and found that it was stoked with all kinds of sweets and things that would make any dentist faint.

“Thank you.” I said to the air. I then grabbed the maple syrup and proceeded where my waffles were waiting to be bathed with it.
[[Category:Story]]
[[Category:Pocsock]]
[[Category:Animal]]
[[Category:Mythical]]

I Need More Maple Syrup

2007-08-26T02:24:16Z

Pocsock: Forgot to put it in the right categories

{{title|name=I Need More Maple Syrup|author=Pocsock}}
{{editing requested}}

“Crap” I cursed. The empty bottle making a loud hollow sound when it landed in the garbage bin “I need more maple syrup”

I headed over to the lonely table sitting in the four by four meters box someone had dared to call a dinning room once. It didn’t have to be fancy, it only had to stand my three daily meals a day, and right now there were a pair of round waffles ready for me to eat them on it.

Without maple syrup they would taste plain and dry. I didn’t even have a glass of milk to swallow them easily.

A soft bell made me turn my attention towards my room. The computer was on and was calling me. I sighed and threw both pieces of conglomerated flour in my mouth and quickly made my way to the seat in front of the screen.

As usual, the thing didn’t respond to my commands.

''“Work!”'' I yelled at it and hit the keyboard. It hummed and the message came into view.

I read through it, I had been assigned a new job. If everything turned out as planned, I will be having breakfast tomorrow with a stomach full of maple syrup.

I was about to leave when a familiar feeling came to me all of a sudden. I couldn’t leave yet, not without empty hands at least.
So I went to the only window in my room and opened it, with only a little complain from the wood.

“Carl, I know you’re here Carl. I need some provisions” I said with a clear and audible voice. A light breeze came by and the beginnings of rush hour could be heard in the distance.

“I know I haven’t paid you back, but this is really an emergency” I continued after some minutes “I got a job just now and I promise I’ll make it up to you”. The air remained silent for a while, the world continued to spin below me in the skyscrapers and apartment buildings all around.

Until a bag of gummy bears suddenly fell from the sky.

“This is the last one I’ve got left” a raspy voice came from the same direction of the bag. A gray figure landed with a loud noise on the window frame next to the multicolored retainer of sweets.

If you ever combined the body of a one-meter-long lizard with the head of a wild boar and the wings of a bat into one whole flexible stone being, the result would be the living gargoyle in front of me.

“You’re lucky your neighbors haven’t noticed that I’ve been stealing from them” he scolded me, moving a menacing finger in my direction with a rough screech from his joints.

“You’re the best!” I said, grabbing the bag and starting to open it on my way to the door “I swear I’ll pay you back!”

“Just don’t forget it” he said.

I knew he muttered something about me and my manners as I closed the door and made my way down the stairs.
{{Separator|j}}
Damned mini-stores, the only thing they got in there were those new soured candies. What has become of the world? What happened to the old-fashioned candies that rot your teeth and left you an enjoyable feeling in the mouth? Fortunately for me, chocolates haven’t fallen to another victim of fashion yet, and I was even able to find these wonderful round ones that came in various colors.

I was opening the package of these, that I held in my left arm, when my objective came down the corner inside a limousine. I immediately knew it was him because the mail had said he would be taking this route and because he was the only millionaire that lived around this part of the city. It would be very easy to follow the black car on foot as all the traffic made him go very slow, and then delivering the ultimatum would be a piece of cake.

Just as I thought this was going to be a good day after all a yellow-scaled hand grabbed my bag of chocolates.
“Hi there” the cloaked figure said with the taint of a growl “It’s been a while since we last saw each other”. I recognized the voice, and reluctantly turned to face the creature.

A beak the size of a hand was poking from under the violet robes of silk that he wore. The only other visible parts were a golden tail with a black tuff of shiny hair that swayed from a hole in the back of the fine clothes and a pair of paws the size of four fists bulged together that held claws that could easily torn through the strongest bones in the animal kingdom.

He was touching my candies! “You’re touching my candies” I said, trying to control my temper.

“I’ve heard that they have finally assigned you a mission” he said, revealing his white feathered face with his left claw. He had eyes that could freeze of terror any living being, or so I was told. I had actually seen more frightening eyes than just the cold stare of a completely round pupil surrounded by another circle of yellow. “How long has it been from the last one eh?”

He was still touching my candies! “You’re still touching my candies!” I said in a higher tone than what I had intended.

“Why, here I am, an old friend of yours trying to start a nice conversation after a long time, and you can only think of these sugar-saturated human food” he waggled his head from side to side “I thought you had gotten over them by now”

I had had enough of him! “If you don’t remove your foul self off my chocolates I’ll rip off your magic disguise right here and now, on this crowded street” I warned him, my eyes looking down and never leaving the shrinking gryphon in front of me.

He didn’t hesitate for long as he already knew I had done something similar once. So he freed his grasp from my munchies. “As you wish” he said as he headed down the street once again “never really liked them that much”.

I began to relax when he was finally gone. Some people were staring, but eventually continued with their own business. It could have been worse if I had dropped the hallucination covering Alex.

The guy believed he was the center of the universe just because he had came up with the pose most of the gryphons are portrayed in most coats of arms. He was pompous and arrogant and his goal was to make miserable as much people as he could. It would have served him right if the human police captured him and conducted some painful experiments in some far away dessert, but I would have been the one that would eventually have to clean up the whole mess, and HQ would probably cut my supplies for some months, something I didn’t want to happen, so I just let him get away with it this time.

“Crap” I cursed as the traffic had miraculously sped up and my target had moved far away by now. The bird’s brains had distracted me and allowed traffic to flow quickly with a spell so I would lose the target.

Now I had to turn for plan B, something I didn’t want to do but I had no choice now. So I reluctantly turned to go to the rendezvous point that was some blocks away from here.

I had a craving for roasted chicken all of a sudden.
{{Separator|j}}
“He’s late” I muttered as I entered one of the many similar dark, humid and lonely alleys of the city. The contact was supposed to meet me here if, by some reason, I wasn’t able to find the secret hideout of the target.

I usually did everything on my own, too many chances that something might go wrong, especially on stealth missions like this one. The bigger the number, the easier it is to get detected by human means. Not that I couldn’t handle some dangerous situations myself, but HQ had ordered me to stick with normal protocols as much as I could, or something like that.

I then heard a loud screech. I looked up and saw a brown figure circling above, a small peregrine falcon by the looks of it. It started a stoop towards me and for a moment it was hard to see it. At the last moment he tried to slow down, only to discover he had too much momentum. It stumbled in the air for a moment and managed to land in a nearby dumpster.

I rolled my eyes as I made my way to help him. They had to send me a rookie, a showoff rookie at that. It was evident he had planned the entrance as he had come from the opposite side that the target had taken, and even more obvious that he was still getting used to his new body.

“Ouch!” I heard him say when he stumbled out of the container and hit the pavement with his human body, which was much older than the one I had. He had some egg shells on his brown curly hair and his jeans and white shirt stank of sour milk and some rotten fruits.
“I think you’re lucky you survived something like that” I said as I offered him my hand and put him back to his feet “Next time you try to brag about your flight capabilities, make sure you do it right ok?”

“I didn’t ask for your opinion kid” he said as he cleaned a little bit “I’m waiting for someone to show up at any time now and was just making my way down here so we could meet”

“Sure, whatever you say” I said in the most sarcastic tone I could muster “now just hang over the package and we can get on with the mission”

He then began to acknowledge my presence and began to examine me thoroughly with his gaze. I didn’t blame him; everyone that didn’t know me assumed I was just another twelve-years-old boy on the street “You got to be kidding me”

I sighed, closed my eyes and thought of the package. It immediately appeared from the void between us and I grabbed it before gravity took grip of it.

“How did you…?” he stammered.

“Trans-dimensional spells for object are among the easiest ones to counter-spell, as even an amateur like you can do it in order to transport things” I said opening the package and revealing some cookies filled with taffy. “Excellent” I muttered as I began munching on them.

“You’re a sorcerer?!” he asked incredulous and oblivious that he had protected a package that contained candies all this time.

“I have an innate magic ability if that’s what you mean” I said, spilling some crumbs from my mouth. “Now let’s continue. In which direction is the lab?”

“Over there” he said, pointing somewhere opposite from were he had come from “at about a mile. But I think it would be better if we just transported inside the place” he added quickly.

I wasn’t a fool by any means. He just wanted to see a little magic in action. Most new recruits were eager to learn all about this new world they discover and do almost anything, even offer to be the pet of someone HQ had had an eye for some time or to help ‘repopulate’ the world by transforming into animals and be freed in the wild until balance was restored.

Come to think of it, a transportation spell didn’t sound that bad after all. It would help me get over with this faster.
“As you wish” I said, a grin creeping on his face “Hold this” and I handed the box over “And don’t even think about stealing one. I already counted all of them” I warned him.

“Don’t you need a chalk or something to draw a pentagram on the floor?” he asked as I was turning around towards the direction he pointed at.

“That’s only for the mages at HQ” I said without turning “They always like to complicate matters with words in forgotten languages or amulets made of expensive materials. You should never forget” I turned around and faced him for a moment “that the best magic is the simple magic”

“Yeah right” he said, but I had more important matters to attend than scold him. I began to feel the threads of space all around me, until I found the one. I began to fold it over until a connection was made, then I just had to open the way wide enough so we could pass through it.

“Open sesame” I muttered, and an ethereal door manifested itself in front of me.

“You got to…” he began when he saw the air change with his very own eyes.

“It worked, didn’t it?” I said to him. I recovered my cookies from his perplexed self and pushed both of us towards the portal “Come on. I want to get this over with”
{{Separator|j}}
“So what’s your name?” Matt asked after explaining almost half of his life to me. Not that it had been boring, but I was just too busy making our way through the complex.

The genius had pointed to the right place alright. He had just missed the fact that the target’s office was some stories higher than where we appeared. I think I made myself clear when I asked him to point out the place.

Either way, it could have been worse. At least he had had the distance right and we were now slowly approaching the top floor by complicated routes as to not touch anyone. After all, being invisible didn’t mean that people couldn’t stumble on you.

But all in all, we were doing a good progress so far, so a little chat wouldn’t hurt anyone. “Sirrehll”

“Sir Ehl?” He asked, pronouncing it bad “Man, everyone in the Alliance has strange unpronounceable names” he said as we approached the stairwell.

“They just sound strange to you because most of them were first used millennia before your tongue was invented” I said, pushing the door open and going through “Alliance eh? They changed the names again. Last time I heard it, it was a coalition”

“They change names?” he asked, moving behind me as we climbed yet another floor “Why can’t they just stick to one?”

I shrugged “Political affairs. You know, the dwarves claim the elves have too much power, the elves say centaurs always hunt in their sacred secret forests, etc. They always come to an agreement and a new pact is formed and the only difference in the organization is the name” we exited on this floor “It also changes according to the place and country you’re in. But every change is linked to the unicorns one way or another, that’s for sure”

“It makes sense” he said “After all the unicorns are the most powerful of all races as they were the ones who practically won the war against the dragons”.

This guy was promising after all “Who told you about the great war?” I turned and asked him.

He shrugged “I found out about it on my own in the great Elven library. They have some of the most amazing paintings of it in there. It still sends a chill down my spine when I see all the three main races fighting against swarms of dragons”

“The paintings are good. Better than any human one” I said, continuing towards another set of stairs “but they always exaggerate in the account of numbers”

“What do you mean?” he asked. His curiosity was clearly visible.

“Although there are persons that know the truth, almost everyone believes or tell that the dragons were the ones who started the war in order to rule over all the other races. The reality is that the war started by a conflict between the elves and the unicorns.
“The elves dominated the smiths and were beginning to span their crafts further with magic, which they had only discovered recently back at that time. They were developing a vast industry and needed more and more the resources of the earth.

“The unicorns, on the other hand, had always known magic. It was a natural part in them that came with the force of life itself, which is why they are considered the guardians of the world. With time, they began to develop a strong hate towards the machinery of the elves.

“As you may already be thinking, a war started between them. Most of the other races took sides so their power could grow with the victory of whoever won. Of course, the unicorns managed to eventually drag almost everyone to their side through blackmail, as they have total control over earth’s resources” we stepped through another door and walked down another hall. “The elves had been left alone and heavy outnumbered. As a desperate move, they turned to the dragons. Are you following me?” I asked as I have just been hearing the occasional agreement from him all this time.

“Yes, the unicorns were winning against the elves and the elves asked help from the dragons” he answered.

“Yes. Now, you need to know some things about dragons” I said as we dodge a crowd “They are classified as one of the most powerful races that have ever existed. Their immense physical power overwhelms almost anything at its pace with thick skin reinforced with metal scales and enough force to hold back even the most terrible beasts of the deep. Their natural magic, which is passed from generation to generation, is a mystery to most races but it is often compared to the one unicorns wield. And their astuteness and eloquent speak is a very feared and dangerous weapon in the field of negotiation.

“But unlike most of the other races, Dragons are simple creatures that prefer to live simple lives. They enjoy simple pleasures like eating, sleeping or making hordes, and they do it a lot, and avoid conflicts at all costs, unless it is utterly necessary.
“The elves in their arrogance thought of them as simple talking animals at first, but when the situation came that they couldn’t rely on anyone else they were force to seek their help.

“As their was no central dragon government, as all dragons were independent from one another and only communicated if necessity aroused, the elves had to search for all over the world what dragons they could find, which were no more than half a hundredth…”
“Are you telling me that the dragon army was only of fifty creatures?!” Matt cut me “I don’t believe it”

“Believe it or not it’s true” I continued as we approached an open empty elevator “Dragons rarely mate and some don’t even bother to do it at all. Add to that the predators that eat the eggs and the hatchlings, the diseases, the occasional fight among them, and you have a population of some hundreds all around the world”

“Ok, I get the picture” he said as he pushed the button up some stories “But how did the elves convince them to fight?”

“Gold” I stated “The elves are the best craftsmen in the world, and in exchange of help in their war they offered the scaly beasts tons of jewels. Of course they only had a limited quantity of these, that’s why they could only afford half a hundredth warriors”
“So the elves joined forces with the dragons” Matt stated when the bell announced we had arrived.

“Not exactly” I said, getting out of the steel box “The elves had originally planned to put them as a front against the other armies. That way they would gain some time for planning a solid strategy and find weak points in the enemy’s defenses. But their plan backfired when the dragons showed what they were really capable of. Oh! A bending machine!” I called out and headed to it.

“Can you please continue with the story?” Matt pleaded me.

“Patience is a virtue young fellow” I replied as the machine gave me a bag of marshmallows. I took them and began to tear at them with gusto. “Where were we?” I asked with my mouth full.

“The elves’ plan for the dragons” Matt said, a vein poking from his brow.

“Oh yeah!” I said, swallowing the puffy candy “In only one year of fight they managed more than all the elves in two centuries of war. They not only held back the continuous invasions to the Elven country, they even began to make the enemy withdraw back to their territory and were starting to claim it for the elves.

“When the world began to take notice that the dragons were a practically unstoppable force it was already too late, they were already knocking at the doors of the sacred forests and woods of the immortal, so the unicorns immediately began to take actions. They quickly restarted negotiations with the elves and offered a deal they wouldn’t resist. They would share their knowledge with them, complete control over nature, beauty beyond anything terrestrial and touching divinity and immortality, in exchange for the destruction of the dragons.

“So they double-crossed the dragons, tricking them so they couldn’t use their magical abilities and lurking the warriors to a trap”
“The battle of the Seven Empires” Matt whispered “the one portrayed in the library”

“Precisely, but even then it took armies to finish them… Matt are you ok?” I asked when he stopped moving behind me. When I turned around a thin layer of brown was slowly consuming him.

His body was starting to distort. Feathers were growing all over his bare skin. Hands and arms were becoming stiff and began to position themselves at his sides. The bones on his feet were snapping as they rearranged themselves in new positions, the skin there spurting little yellow scales and his nails lengthen into razor sharp black claws. He couldn’t speak as a beak had begun to grow from inside his mouth and was almost done.

Something was definitely not right, as his eyes showed total panic just the moment before they turned amber and he began to shrink.
“Matt!” I screamed and tried to run to him. But the walls of the corridor began to spin all around the two of us, a sign that transportation was taking place in most cases.
{{Separator|j}}
But it didn’t feel like transportation at all. Then I knew that the place had been rearranged by magic, the same magic that had transformed the companion next to me.

“Matt are you alright?” I asked him. For a moment I was afraid his mind had slipped away as he was just staring at random directions all around, but I eventually recognized a nod.

“Don’t worry, I promise I’ll turn you back” I said, kneeling down so I could stare at the now peregrine falcon in the eye.

“And I wonder” a very deep voice said from my left “how do you plan to do that?”

“Norman I presume?” I said standing up and facing the darkness from where the voice had come.

“The one and only” he answered. Why did all the eccentric, crazy and evil millionaires have to hide in the dark? It was probably the fashion of this century.

“In the name of the Alliance, nature… and all that other stuff” I began “I hereby give you a last chance to stop doing… whatever it was that you were doing and summit yourself to the justice of the Seven Empires. And that includes turning Matt here back to his original form” I said, eyeing him. Matt contributed with a screech of his own.

The bass voice just laughed, starling Matt a little. But I kept calm, eating my bag of marshmallows.

“I must admit he has served me well, both as a pet and as an informer” the voice continued “It was thanks to him that I discovered your secret society, was able to get a hold of many powerful magical items and could track you down with magic ever since you departed from that alley”

“Really?” I asked, skeptically. I was sure we couldn’t have been located by any magical means, unless…

I turned to see Matt again; a faint blue glowed in the back of his wings, unnoticeable under a shirt in human form. “Oh yeah, there it is. I wonder why I didn’t see it before” I said “I must be getting a little rusty”

“And your friend will be the one who pays for your incompetence” the voice boomed.

Then a series of lights came to life all around us except for where the voice sounded. They revealed a completely flat room the size of a football stadium with a big dome serving as ceiling.

All around us, animals of every kind and species were running, jumping, flying, eating, fighting… it was a complete jungle in here.
“As you can see, I’ve been quite busy with my magic” the voice said in a lower volume “All the animals around you were people once. It only took me one spell to turn them all completely into wild beasts. I can see from the looks of your friend that he’s starting to lose his mind as well”

He was right; Matt was starting to show symptoms of a full change. He was shaking his head now and then and I could feel him struggling to maintain control, but he’ll eventually lose it and be at the mercy of the primal instincts of the prey bird in a little while, trapped forever in that feathered body without any control over it.

But as much as I hated the situation Matt was in, there was still something not quite right in all of this. How could a simple beginner have done all of this with just one spell?

That was when I decided to check the currents of energy, and found my answer. This very building was the intersection of two powerful energy lines, increasing the effects of magic, including wizard spells. This could be a very dangerous thing if placed in the wrong hands, like the ones it was in right now.

“Stop this at once” I said, my voice echoing from the walls.

“And who’s going to stop me, you?” he laughed maliciously “A twelve years old boy who’s not even big enough to be affected by magic and whose weapons are thumb-sized marshmallows” and he laughed some more.

“You don’t know who you’re messing with” I replied, taking another bite.

“No, it is you who doesn’t know who you’re messing with”. The last light then turned on above him.

I was so shocked at the sight in front of me that I dropped the bag of candies.

“A dragon…” I muttered “it can’t be…”

“Oh, but it is” it said.

''This guy was pushing me to my limits…''

He managed to get his four meters tall ass up and stood an all fours. He was covered in scales so black, so opaque that even the light refused to touch them, making the figure have a complete cover of darkness all around him. His hide smelled of corruption and ambition and looked rotten in some places. Bare bones served him as spines from his muzzle, elongated and twisted into a distorted evil grin that showed fangs that couldn’t fit inside it, all the way through his hideous back and ended with a black blade in an unbelievable thin and long tail.

''His mere presence was drawing me insane…''

“You just wouldn’t believe how wonderful it feels to have so much power” the creature hissed, a slimy bifurcated tongue escaping the dry lips. He then lowered himself from behind a desk that had once belonged to a human and slowly made his way towards me. “I can feel things that no man will ever know. I can sense magic currents like this one in many other places. Their energy calls to me, and tempts me to use it to feed upon the entire world”

“That’s your own ambition and tainted nature” I told him, my hands turning into fists and my head low “The same one that has consumed your body and left a demon in its place”

''He was filling me with more anger by the second…''

“Fool little human” he said. His blood red gaze never leaving me “You know nothing. My race will take its rightful place on top of the world, enslaving the Seven Empires and destroying anyone who opposes us with my guide”

''I couldn’t control myself anymore…''

“The dragons shall rise once again!” he boomed, extending the holed leather of his wings at his full length and sending a crimson flame on my way.
''…and I didn’t want to.''

The scorching flames burned at flesh in less than a second, releasing my coppery hide from its confinement. My scales glittered in different shades of orange and dark amber as the fire passed next to them without doing harm.

I stretched the strong muscles on my thick and powerful tail as it grew from the end of my spine. The soft leathery plates on my stomach touched the floor for a moment as my posture changed with the growth of claws on what were once my hands and feet. My skull snapped as my muzzle grew outward, dissolving my nose into only two lines on its front, pushing my eyes, which were the purest amber and with a slit instead of round pupils, a little to the sides so that I could have a wider view range, and my fins finally opening after being hidden all this time and overwhelming with sounds once again. My neck lengthened to be almost as long as my increasingly bulking body, its flexibility, dexterity and power allowed me to use it similarly to a hand. I spread my wings that easily doubled the distance from my nostrils to the end of my white tail-blade, my chest easily lifting all the extra mass thanks to uncountable hours of flying throughout the world.

The ashes of my human body rested on the ground around me, making the air reek of burnt flesh and hair. And as the air cleared of the smoke, I could see the small figure in front back a little at the sight of a real dragon that could easily been mistaken for a two stories rock of fine metal.

The monster snapped into reality again quickly, and began to attack me with everything he had in despair. He threw fire at me again, but the heat couldn’t do anything against my scales. He tried to tackle me, only to find out he was too weak. He launched at me with his claws directed to my neck, only to find them cut with my own. He attempted to use his tail as a whip against me, only to find it cut with my blade before he even blinked. He flapped his barely usable wings and was able to get off the ground, only to fall to it with the wing one beat of mines made.

As his last resource he crawled to his desk and drew out of a drawer a book enveloped in leather, a wizard’s spell book by the useless runes engraved in it, and recited the last enchantment in it. The waves of the magic lines began to vibrate, until I reached them and calmed them with my spirit. The most powerful spell the humans had been able to muster had been to change the position of natural magic currents and, with it, a little bit of reality. But he was so weak and had so limited magic knowledge that the only thing that he did was to disrupt a little the surface of magic’s calmed waters. Even if what he did wasn’t of great relevance, it was better to restore balance quickly before someone got hurt.

Realizing his spell hadn’t work and that he couldn’t wield magic anymore, he took shelter under the fine wooden furniture he had gone to. All this time I had been harvesting energy from the lines in here and now was the moment to use their full power.

''“I am Sirrehll!”'' I roared into the room ''“Son of Sarrhall and descendant of Ardera, who slaughtered the great Eslathian sea snake in the name of Gaia herself!”'' I pushed the currents from their course so they could feed a deed that the human age hasn’t seen.

''“The purest dragon blood runs within my veins, ever since I was born in the molten center of the earth!”'' The energy began to canalize through me, the light emitted so intense that no dark corner was left.

''“And you!”'' I said, pointing at where the coward laid “You have dared to insult my kin and my ancestors by comparing us to the insolent stereotypes in other races’ stories! You even thought we were animals that you could have easily manipulated to achieve your material goals! And you also made me drop a bag of my favorite food, ''candies!''”

I released the power and watched the world change “And now you’re going to pay for it”
{{Separator|j}}
All the material objects began to distort in random and chaotic forms as the dimension shifted around them. Patches of the floor took different shapes; sand, vegetation, rocks, magma, plasma, water, all were scattered as far as the sight could see and were turning into other shapes as time passed. The dark brown desk joined the water that touched it from below and the curling and shaking ball was revealed.

All this time I’ve been the one manipulating the forces so that a dimension fusion wouldn’t happen. And as I was the one with complete control here I forced the giant lizard to uncurl, turn around and face me, just when the floor on his claws turned to a sandy little hill. So I began the process.

His body dried up and began to take a brighter color as silicates began to substitute living tissue. He just stood there the whole time, his body not twitching at all but his eyes were consumed by growing fear.

Finally, his body was completely consumed by the process and he was now a sand statue that resembled just a little a reptile with wings. Without any real support, and with the increasing wind, the sculpture quickly collapsed on itself and joined the other sand in the pile below.

As that had been taken cared of, I focused on another matter. The temporal fusion had affected the whole room, and with it the rest of the people that had been forced into animals. They were hovering all over the place, their animal forms slowly returning to normal humans with every passing second.

That’s when I took a good look at someone. It was Matt, but his form wasn’t changing. He was still a peregrine falcon, which shouldn’t have been surprising at all. We were in Chaos after all, one of the few realms where dreams and thoughts have strong power over other universes. It was only logical to assume that the kid truly wanted to be a bird.

As much as I liked to fly in a zero gravity ambient, the more time we spend here, the bigger the chances that a fusion would happen. So I focused again on the original currents of magic that had brought us here and were feeding the connection to this place and moved them until they were in their original state.
{{Separator|j}}
Everyone was still unconscious when the reinforcements came in. Two unicorns, five elf mages and a number of phoenixes went to see that the entire human’s memories were erased, the magical items were dealt with accordingly and all evidence was removed from normal human’s hands, all normal procedure.

Matt had woken up shortly after we returned and was being thoroughly questioned now. I don’t think he minded that much that he couldn’t turn back to human form and would remain forever a bird of prey. Of course, it had been his choice after all.

“This was supposed to be a simple message delivery mission!” the white equine figure yelled at me in the neighs and whinnies of the language of their kin “And imagine my surprise when I find out you sent the last three floors of a skyscraper in a trip across universes!”

My human hair had just finished growing and I looked the same way I had when I took the first step in here “We delivered the ultimatum. The other stuff was in self defense”

“What could he have possibly done that you needed to use a trans-dimensional enchantment?!”

“He dropped my marshmallows” I stated. He couldn’t argue against that, and he knew it.

“This isn’t over yet!” the unicorn snorted “I’ll keep a close eye on you” and he then turned to open a portal back to their kin’s woods.

Everyone parted from my way as I headed to the still intact bookshelves and stands. They were afraid of me and what I’ve done, but I didn’t care as it would be easier to find what I wanted if no one disturbed me.

As I was searching shelves located behind were the desk should have been, I saw Matt land on one of the highest ones. He must have been done with debriefing.

''Why didn’t you tell me?'' he told through telepathy, yet another gift from his stay in Chaos.

“Would you have still gone with me if you knew?” I answered. My now human hands opened little doors, and revealed some scotch behind them. I close them again and kept looking “Besides, HQ doesn’t like that much when I go around yelling I’m a dragon when they take pride in their great battle”

''Then why do you work for them? It’s obvious even to me that they don’t like you and would rather see you dead''

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic” I said as I revised between some books “They need me and, as you can see, it would be very hard for any of them to kill me”

'It still doesn’t make any sense. Don’t you hate to think they killed your own kind and take joy in it?'

I sighed “Yes, I don’t like the idea” I the turned to him “But my brothers also deserved it. They allowed their greed to control their minds and made the fatal mistake to enter a war, and I don’t plan on doing the same thing by fighting everyone whose ignorance doesn’t allow him to see wider.

“Besides, who cares what ''they'' think!” I said and waved at all the busy people around, who turned and stared at me “I’m a dragon. I have a simple life, simple needs and simple joys. I only hope that some day the other races will open their eyes and begin to see the wonders in these things before you all end up ''destroying'' everything” and I continued my search.

A moment of silence followed and then they continued cleaning the place. I felt that something disturbed Matt.

''I kind of feel sorry for the poor guy'' he said eyeing the empty space some feet away ''I don’t think he deserved to die like that after all''

“You shouldn’t worry about those things Matt. It’s Chaos justice after all. Oh, so here they are!” I said, opening what must have been the final drawer of the room and taking out a fine wooden box with chocolates. I tasted one; they were filled with honey! “Do you want one?” I offered Matt.

''I think I’ll pass'' he said and flew away.

“You’re the one who misses it” I said just as he was out a window

“I would offer one to you Norman, but I don’t think you can eat anymore” I whispered to the amethyst geode that had rolled somewhere next to this furniture after we returned “Don’t worry, it’s not permanent. I believe some thousands of years will be enough for you to think about what you did” and with that I was out of there.
{{Separator|j}}
The bell on the computer rang again and I went to see it. As always, I still hadn’t got a clue as to how to operate the damn thing, so I used a little bit of magic.

''“Work!”'' I yelled at it and hit the keyboard. It hummed and the message was displayed.

It was another job, one of some lake contamination industry. But what caught my attention was that a side note said that Matt had offered to be my partner on this one.

I liked the kid. He was still a rock-head but had a rather insatiable thirst of knowledge that will eventually correct that. I was even feeling some kind of connection with him. Dragons don’t mate that often, and even if the season came I still hadn’t found a likely dragoness of my likes. But even if I didn’t bear hatchlings, at least I won’t be forgotten by the sands of time with Matt as my pupil.

I suddenly felt a spell taking place, and went immediately to check out the source of it.

I opened my fridge, and found that it was stoked with all kinds of sweets and things that would make any dentist faint.

“Thank you” I said to the air and then grabbed the maple syrup and proceeded where my waffles were waiting to be bathed with it.
[[Category:Story]]
[[Category:Pocsock]]
[[Category:Animal]]
[[Category:Mythical]]

I Need More Maple Syrup

2007-08-26T02:19:33Z

Pocsock: New page: {{title|name=I Need More Maple Syrup|author=Pocsock}} {{editing requested}} “Crap” I cursed. The empty bottle making a loud hollow sound when it landed in the garbage bin “I need mo...

User:Pocsock

2007-08-26T02:19:16Z

Pocsock: just adding another story

I'm a very recent author who has only been posting on [http://lists.integral.org/listinfo/tsa-talk TSA-Talk], until now. Now I'm beginning to expand my horizons a little further, starting here.

==Stories==

*[[All You Need to Know]]- Have you ever had that strange feeling that you don't understand the world around you?
*[[Nahual]]- There are also tales of werecritters in Mexico, and they also have a bad reputation among normal men.
*[[I Need More Maple Syrup]]- The things some people have to do in order to have a descent breakfast.

[[Category:Author]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pocsock}}

User:Pocsock

2007-08-22T21:31:03Z

Pocsock: Just putting a little comment on what my stories are about

I'm a very recent author who has only been posting on [http://lists.integral.org/listinfo/tsa-talk TSA-Talk], until now. Now I'm beginning to expand my horizons a little further, starting here.

==Stories==

*[[All You Need to Know]]- Have you ever had that strange feeling that you don't understand the world around you?
*[[Nahual]]- There are also tales of werecritters in Mexico, and they also have a bad reputation among normal men.

[[Category:Author]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pocsock}}

All You Need to Know

2007-08-07T16:56:15Z

Pocsock:

{{title|name=All You Kneed To Know|author=Pocsock}}

Everyone had been quite nervous for today’s test, but not me. I knew everything that might come in an exam like this one, even more, so I wasn’t nervous at all, until I saw a green scale growing on the back of my hand. I got startled by this and dropped my pencil to the ground.
I could see and feel my new claw when I lowered myself to recover my pencil. That was when I saw a pair of black shoes with a red-scaled tail behind. I looked up at the human face.
“Hi” I said, trying not to say too much in a delicate situation like this one.
“What are you doing down there, trying to copy your classmate?” she said in a stern tone.
“No Miss, I just dropped this” I said, showing her the feather with the black ink at the end of it.
Her eyes shot wide and she began to take a big breath. I didn’t have to hear what she was about to shout to me to know I was in a deep trouble.

“You said ''Miss'' to a teacher?!” my friend said while we waited for the bus home. He was standing on lion’s paws and feathers were growing all the way from his big yellow beak to his elbows and belly, he wasn’t wearing any shirt, and they were still spurting out from under his skin.
“Yes” I said through my new light-green muzzle “And she sent me to the principal’s office”.
“I’m not surprised. It was the least she would do, having insulted all her family. Good thing you’re a good student and your family has prestige” he said with, what I guessed was, a smile.
“Yeah, could have been worse” and added ‘much worse’ to my insides.
He then looked at the sky and said “The hour is growing late” he then looked at me “I must head back to my house now” and with that started walking to the sidewalk.
“Aren’t you going to wait for the bus?” I asked him.
He pierced at me with those yellow eyes the next second. “''Are you crazy?'' Those are only for stinking humans” he said, pointing at the crowd behind me “Besides, we don’t need those when we can fly” and he opened his wings and shot to the sky.

“I heard about what happened at the academy” a four-meters-tall anthro dragoness told me as I was exploring the maze of the cave that should be my home with my new enhanced vision “and I already told your parents and grand parents. We’ll talk about your attitude after dinner hatchling, when the baron goes away” and with that she disappeared.
“You’re in trouble!” a squeaky voice said behind me. I spun around and saw a little anthro dragon “Gran-gran wouldn’t have told you that if you weren’t. I’m going to tell the others!” and he also disappeared in a little tunnel on the silvery surface of the wall.

I threw my backpack to the other side of my cave-room and began to search for that book.
“Here it is” I whispered as I extracted it from beneath the mattress of my bed.
It was thick, with a leather cover with an elaborate silver and golden design all over it. The letters were also very detailed and read '''All You Need to Know''', underneath a small sentence stated ''by Jeremiah''. I released my breath as my name hadn’t changed that much in this universe. 
I hated shifts. They were unpredictable and always put me in troubles. At least this one had been slow and given me time to at least get to the book before anything serious happened.
Thank god I came up with the idea of writing this thing! Ever since the reality changes started to happen to me, and it seems I’m one of the only ones that senses them, I have had difficulties trying to figure out the new worlds I’ve been visiting with all their different laws and ways of living, just like this one. The book had all I needed to know, autobiography, brief universal history, knacks and abilities I have, language (in case it also changed), etc. and, fortunately for me, it adjusted to the new universe every time it shifted. 
It told me that polymers had been discovered some decades ago, but the economical system had been a feudal one for over two thousand years and remained like that, that my family owned all the land around this mountain-castle, and that I had twenty five annoying little brothers like the one I saw on my way here and another thirty that were older than me. Oh yeah, and that the humans were seen as inferiors by all the other anthropomorphic creatures. 
“Great” I said, threw the book aside and lay on my bed, being careful not to land painfully over my wings. Yes, I didn’t like the thought of living here when I believed in concepts like equality of rights and had seen what energy-based materials could do, but it could have been worse. 
That was when I saw a photograph near a bookshelf. It was a beautiful turquoise dragoness posing in front of a fountain. It read ‘To my handsome boyfriend. Happy two weeks!’ in the down right corner. 
This wouldn’t be that bad after all.

<comments />
[[Category:Story]]
[[Category:Pocsock]]
[[Category:Mythical]]
[[Category:Anthropomorphic]]

Nahual

2007-08-07T16:51:44Z

Pocsock:

{{title|name=Nahual (''na'wal'')|author=Pocsock}}
{{editing requested}}

{{note|''Nahual'' is singular. ''Nahuales'' is plural}}

“…and I never saw my friend again” the professor said, everyone perched at the edge of their seats listening to the end of the story intently, except for me. “That’s why you have to stay away from animals who seem to have a hidden intelligence behind their eyes, because they must be a nahual.”

Yeah right, like they really existed. Evil sorcerers that turned into animals just to hurt people was probably the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard, but the professor was older and wiser so I didn’t argue with him about that.

Besides, it’s just a night story.

“Ok, time to go to bed” he said as he raised from the log he was sitting at, the fire making his wrinkles stand out more in the darkness and his face gained ten more years. Everyone began to protest. “We have to get up early tomorrow to continue our journey to the abandoned mine" he cut them off. "Now go, to your tents!”

{{Separator|f}}

All the history class had come to the expedition. In our case that would mean twelve people in total, not including the professor, going for a four days camping trip through some mountains.

We were looking for a town near this zone that had been a very important mining camp in the early stages of the colony, but, like many other towns, was abandoned when the mine was drained of the last piece of gold that the Spanish could find in it. The roads that led there had been destroyed by the lack of maintenance and the only way to get to the place was by hiking.

The professor had discovered it, and organized a journey every year with his history students so they could look at the still intact homes, instruments, garments and way of living in the pre-independence times.

It had been very exiting. Just the idea of going into the wood sent a chill of excitement down my spine. It would be four days with my best friends and getting a chance to annoy the girls a little bit on the way. I believe I was the first one to sign in for the trip. The day's walk had been long, however, so I could only think of sleeping for a very long time after attending some other business outside. I bedded down and dozed off quickly, but my rest was cut short only minutes later by Luke.

“Wake up,” he whispered, moving my shoulder vigorously

“I’m up” I said, raising my head from the pillow and sitting on my sleeping bag. “What is it?” I asked the duo in front of me.

Alan was the sort of guy that couldn’t stand still for more than three seconds, and it usually took him less than that to get into trouble. Luke, on the other hand, could stand unnoticed in any crowd, moving silently through it, hearing everything and planning ahead what kind of pranks would be funnier to pull with Alan. Although it annoys me that I’m the one that always talks them out of everything, it’s really entertaining to hang out with them.

They showed me a video camera.

“Oh no” I muttered. An animal association had offered a reward to anyone that showed proof of the continued existence of a presumed extinct species of wolf that was last seen around this area. Luke and Alan had brought the camera only because they wanted to catch it on tape so they could claim the reward. But they didn’t know anything about the Mexican wolf, or what it looked like. That’s why they always showed me if what they caught on tape really looked like one.

“You know you’ll never find him. Everyone had been looking for one for more than thirty years.”

“This time is different,” Alan whispered. “Just take a look at it”

I reluctantly took the camera and turned it on. When it came to life it showed a black screen with some branches and leaves.

“You fell asleep in the middle of the woods and left the camera on?!” I scolded them. The image was upside down and it had been recording the same things for the last ten minutes of filming.

“Just keep looking” Luke said.

As I was about to tell them to go and leave me alone, a green object (actually, everything was green because the night vision was on) moved to the middle of the screen, turned around and two fluorescent green circles appeared on it. It moved a little bit closer to the camera and soon the silhouette of a wolf showed. It sniffed the air once and then stood only on its hind legs and disappeared behind a tree.

“Shit” I said, dropping the camera.

“Yeah,” Alan said. “It scared the shit out of me too when I first saw it just a few minutes ago.”

“We need to tell the professor that we have a nahual around,” Luke suggested. “He’ll know what to do.” He started heading towards the exit of the tent.

“No!” I half screamed. We waited for a moment to see if I woke anyone up, but the quiet remained. “That thing could still be out there. It should be better if we all sleep here tonight and tomorrow I’ll take the video to him.”

They both agreed with me and slept the rest of the night in my tent.

{{Separator|f}}

“What did he said?” Alan asked when I was done talking to the professor.

“He thought it was a very elaborate prank, and said that he would flunk us if we talk about it again,” I said, walking between the two of them.

“But we have a video of it!” Luke objected, taking out the camera.

“Yeah, but you two have a reputation for doing this kind of stuff. I told you it was a bad idea to glue his pants to the chair.”

They both smiled at that memory. Luke then snapped out of his reverie and said “What are we going to do then? We can’t allow that thing to eat us while we sleep.”

“I know!” Alan said “The three of us could take shifts to guard the camp at night. That way, we’ll be able to wake everyone up if it shows up.”

“I don’t like that idea” I said.

“Do you have a better one?” he asked, and sadly, I didn’t.

{{Separator|f}}

“Here we are!” The professor shouted to everyone when we got to the arch that marked the beginning of the town.

It was literally a ghost town. No one had lived here for over four hundred years, and the state of its decay showed it. All the buildings and roads have been slowly claimed by the vegetation of the wilderness. Tuffs of grass and moss were scattered on every rock of the pavement and of the main plaza.

All the wood roofs and structures, like warehouses, were missing and many of the buildings were even collapsed under trees that had grown up through them.

The only habitable building that had a roof, and would hold us for the night, was what used to be the mayor’s house.

It was a large complex of solid rock, one floor and many rooms to spare at the center of the town. Some of the external covering of the walls had been peeled by the pass of time, but there was no sign of any major structural damage as the vegetation have barely reached these parts of the town. It would be nice to not waste time mounting and dismounting the tent for tonight.

Luke picked one of the only rooms with a door so that we would be safe of any critter that would want to eat us, but was having a hard time opening it. It took the strength of the three of us to push the old waxed wood, probably the only reason it still stood, full of holes and gaps of the door so we could open it. Its rusty hinges didn’t help either in the task, but they finally gave in with a loud squeak and we managed to make a crack wide enough for our heads to squeeze inside and take a look. We were shocked by the contents of the room.

It held the carcasses, raw meat and blood of various deer and rabbits that had been torn apart and scattered everywhere. For a very long moment our gazes were fixed on the brown stains and corpses in front of us.

“What’s going on there?” the professor asked from the other side of the hallway. He must have heard the metal squeak and was on his way to see what we were up to.

“Professor” Alan started “we found…” but I cut him off with a little punch on his stomach from my elbow. “He can’t see this” I said softly to him “He will believe this is all part of the video prank and flunk us”

“And how do you plan to hide all this mess?” Luke asked. Not thinking, I grabbed the cold knob of the door, concentrated my energy and pulled with everything I had.

The door felt to its original place and sealed. “Easy for you to move it now that the three of us made it soft” Luke said.
As the professor approached I twisted the knob until it broke from the wood. “What were you doing?” he asked.

“We were trying to see if we could use this place” I said panting a little and pointed where the handle used to be “but we accidentally broke it and jammed the door”.

“What a shame” he said “this was the dinning room and had some very beautiful silver decorations” and with that he went to attend some complaint of a girl.

{{Separator|f}}

“Do you believe that mess could have been done by an animal?” Luke asked me while he prepared for the first turn on guard.

“I don’t think so. Animals wouldn’t just go around killing everything on their way and leaving it to rot” I said while unrolling my sleeping bag “Besides, there aren’t any predators around here that are big enough to carry something that heavy through a window, even if it’s only some inches from the ground”

“So it could be the nahual?” Alan asked

“Yeah, that would explain some of the stains in the room…” my thoughts wandered for a while from there, analyzing the strangeness of the situation until I fell asleep.

{{Separator|f}}

“What am I going to do now with a crazy shaman on the loose?” I asked the air in front of me during my night shift. There was no doubt in my mind now that we were facing a nahual sorcerer, but I didn’t want to startle my friends too much, much less the professor and the others.

Then I caught a very faint sound, as if someone was pouring sand on top of a drum. Something was slowly crawling through the stairs. I turned the corner, and my flashlight revealed the silky body of a snake slowly approaching. It was brownish, so it got confused with the dirt walls, and there was a strange gleam in its eyes, a sparkle of intelligence.

“Back off,” I said. It coiled and began to ready itself to jump on me and use the deathly fangs. I took out my pocket knife, which always took on trips like this one, and swung it around in front of me so it could see what it was.

“I said, back off!” It stopped, preparing to attack. Knowing I had the advantage, as I would probably kill it even if it managed to bite me with my knife, and that there was no other way to go except for the stairs behind, it retreated to the dark beyond.

I sighed in relief when it was gone.

{{Separator|f}}

“Here it is,” the professor said after two hours of walking north of the town. We reached a place where a huge hole had been dug on the floor very close to a natural rock wall about ten meters tall. Some very old-looking and rusty gear lay spread all over the place, most probably the machine used to take in and out the miners when the place was fully operational. “We will descend with the rappel and then continue on foot inside the caves. I want everybody to stay with their group at all times.” One by one we went down.

Our group, Luke, Alan and I, had been the last one to climb down and I the first of the three of us to go through the humid darkness of the fissure.

“Luke, you are next!” I yelled before he would be out of earshot. “Luke!” I yelled again, but there was no answer. I began to get worried. “I’m coming back up!”

Some time later I managed to get out and into flat ground once again, but there was no sign of Luke or Alan anywhere. “Guys, this isn’t funny at all!” I yelled, but then I heard a scream from some distance away and recognized it as Luke. “Shit” I swore. I grabbed the rope I used to get back up and pulled it until I had it all next to my feet. There was no need to expose everyone to this.

{{Separator|f}}

“What is it?!” I asked after locating them.

They were utterly paralyzed and didn’t answer. I got close to them from behind to try and see what was going on, and saw the same brown snake coiled and preparing to attack some meters away. It knew it had an advantage over my terrified friends, and was planning on using it.

Just when I turned to try to run out of its way and drag my friends along, a small wolf appeared out of nowhere in that direction. Its eyes gleamed with the wisdom and knowledge of a millennial lifetime. That was when I understood what I had to do.

The wolf ran at full speed towards me, faster than anything material could be capable of. I turned just in time to see the snake jumping, heading to Alan’s neck were his venom was most effective, when everything suddenly froze in its place and I felt something at my back.

I experienced the familiar warmness all over me as fur spread across my skin. I knew the pattern by heart; black at the tip of the tail, which fused to the brownish-red to make a gray effect at my back, head and neck; it then divided again when reaching the sides of my body, arms and legs; and the color continued to erase until it was completely white at my chest. My mouth and nose started to elongate, slowly merging into one and molding my teeth to small knifes in my mouth, until a large and solid muzzle formed, and I felt my ears begin to grow and move to the top of my head. My neck began to lengthen as well, so my head would be able to move better and a small mane began to grow from the sides of my cheeks until the base of the neck. My fingers became stiff and began to shorten and grow black claws from the tips of the nails at the moment they were void of motion. My hands and feet became big paws and my heels stood from the ground by a series of new and powerful muscles, making me drop to all fours. My tail had grown along the whole process and was reaching its final size by now. At the end, I passed from being a normal human to become one of the last Mexican wolves that had walked here.

When the transformation was over, time began to take its normal course. The snake was only a meter away from Alan. I didn’t have much time to react. So I took impulse, jumped and sank my fangs at the foul animal’s tail before it got to its target. I took advantage of my jumping momentum to swing the snake and hit it with the ground when I landed. The impact was enough to send sounds of broken bones to my very sensitive ears. I saw one last gleam of intelligence behind those split pupils before they became black as night as the body died.

It had to be done. He had spent too much time as an animal. His human intelligence had been abandoning him little by little, until he became a being that was ruled by mere instincts, grunting and growling instead of speaking, and wandered mountains in solitude, avoiding other humans at all costs. He probably had killed wild animals easily with the deathly venom of the snake and then dragged them to the town and ate their meat off of the bone while in his human form.

I knew that everyone is born accompanied by an animal spirit that serves as guidance and protection throughout life, which are called nahuales. Sometimes the bond between them is so strong that the person can take some traits of the animal the spirit represents, like the sight of a hawk or the ears of a jaguar, and even become the animal itself, like me. These persons are called nahuales in honor to the spirits from which they get their powers. These powers are very strong, and their main purpose is to serve as a means to aid people in finding answers through introspection, although many people believe we only use them for evil purposes. It is easy to get corrupted by them though, that’s why I rarely use them and kept them secret, even if it had meant to have lied to Luke and Alan about talking to the professor.

I turned and looked at both of them. As I was still fused with my nahual, I could clearly see Alan’s, a red bird that was holding strongly on his shoulder, an obvious symptom that both of them were scared. Luke’s was a different story, it was an ocelot and was slowly approaching me with a curiosity that only cats could bear, showing that both were more intrigued of me than scared, but cautious nevertheless.

I stood on my hind legs. My paws returning to hands and feet, my tail growing back into my spine, my fur sucked by my pink skin and my face returned to normality. I was myself again, as if nothing had ever happened, and a familiar spirit was standing beside me.

Now I wondered which should be the best way to explain all of this to them…
[[Category:Story]]
[[Category:Pocsock]]
[[Category:Animal]]

Nahual

2007-07-28T06:10:21Z

Pocsock: Just doing some of the editing that Bryan suggested

Talk:Nahual

2007-07-28T06:09:40Z

Pocsock: Answering Bryan

Nice little story! I hope my various suggestions and comments weren't out of line, I figured I'd give input both on minor issues of grammar or wording as well as a few bits of story logic I felt might use a little refining. If I went too far or otherwise made a mess of things feel free to revert my changes. [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] 21:48, 27 July 2007 (EDT)

:Not at all; I actually feel kind of stupid when I see all of the preposition mistakes I made, especially after spending a whole month studying them in the past year (we only have eighteen prepositions in Spanish, so I have never really got the hang of them in English).
:I’m going to rewrite the whole part of when they enter the town. You are right about the dried blood and the skepticism some of the students should have with the professor’s answer.
:As for the mayor’s house, I still believe it might be possible to find a building in that state because of many factors, but specially the materials used around that time. Solid rocks tend to last a long time, even at the edge of a wood or jungle and after four hundred years, take as an example the Mayan ruins and some of their still well preserved paintings.
:I’m also going to include some information and little changes.
:Thanks for stopping by. [[User:Pocsock|Pocsock]] 02:09, 28 July 2007 (EDT)

Nahual

2007-07-26T04:56:12Z

Pocsock: New page: {{title|name=Nahual (''na'wal'')|author=Pocsock}} {{editing requested}} {{note|''Nahual'' is singular. ''Nahuales'' is plural}} “…and I never saw my friend again” the professor sai...

{{title|name=Nahual (''na'wal'')|author=Pocsock}}
{{editing requested}}

{{note|''Nahual'' is singular. ''Nahuales'' is plural}}

“…and I never saw my friend again” the professor said, everyone clenched at the edge of their seats hearing the end of the story intently, except for me “that’s why you have to stay away from animals who seem to have a hidden intelligence behind their eyes, because they must be a nahual”

Yeah right, like they really existed evil sorcerers that turned into animals just to hurt people. It had been the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard, but the professor was older and wiser so I didn’t argue with him about that.

Besides, it’s just a night story.

“Ok, time to go to bed” he said as he raised from the log he was sitting at, the fire making his wrinkles stand out more in the darkness and his face gained ten more years. Everyone began to protest “we have to get up early tomorrow to continue our journey to the abandoned mine. Now go, to your tents!”

All the history class had come to the expedition, in our case that would mean twelve people in total, not including the professor, going for a four days camping trip through some mountains.

We were looking for a town near this zone that had been a very important mining camp in the early stages of the colony, but, like many other towns, was abandoned when the mine was drained from the last piece of gold that the Spanish could finding it. The roads that led there had been destroyed due to the lack of maintenance and the only way to get to the place was by hiking.

The professor had discovered it, and organized a journey every year with his history students so they could look at the still intact homes, instruments, garments and way of living in the pre-independence times.

It had been very exiting. Just the idea of going into the wood sent a chill of excitement down my spine. It would be four days with my best friends and getting a chance to annoy the girls a little bit on the way. I believe I was the first one to sign in for the trip.

Anyway, it had been a long walk in the day so, after attending some business outside the main camp area, I could only think of sleeping for a very long time, which was cut to only about one minute by Luke.

“Wake up” he whispered, moving my shoulder vigorously

“I’m up” I said, and then raised my head from the pillow and sat on my sleeping bag “What is it?” I asked the duo in front of me.

Alan was the sort of guy that couldn’t stand still for more than three seconds, and usually got him less than that to get into trouble. Luke, on the other hand, could stand unnoticed in any crowd, moving silently through it, hearing everything and planning ahead what kind of pranks would be funnier doing with Alan. Although it annoys me that I’m the one that always talks them out of everything, it’s really entertaining to hang out with them. They showed me a video camera.

“Oh no” I muttered. An animal association offered a reward to anyone that showed proofs and location of an, presumably, extinct species of wolf that was last seen around this area. Luke and Alan had brought the thing only because they wanted to catch it on tape so they could claim the reward. But they didn’t know anything about the Mexican wolf, or how he looked, that’s why they always showed me if what they caught on tape really looked like one.

“You know you’ll never find him. Everyone had been looking for one for more than thirty years”

“This time is different” Alan whispered “Just take a look at it”

I reluctantly took the camera and turned it on. When it came to life it showed a black screen with some branches and leaves.

“You fell asleep in the middle of the woods and left the camera on?!” I silently scolded them. The image was upside down and it had been recording the same things for the last ten minutes of filming.

“Just keep looking” Luke said

As I was about to tell them to go and leave me alone, a green object (actually, everything was green because the night vision was on) moved to the middle of the screen, it turned around and two fluorescent green circles appeared on it. It moved a little bit closer to the camera and soon the silhouette of a wolf showed. It sniffed the air once and then stood only on its hind legs and disappeared behind a tree.

“Shit” I said, dropping the camera

“Yeah” Alan said “It scared the shit out of me too when I first saw it just a few minutes ago”

“We need to tell the professor that we have a nahual around” Luke suggested “He’ll know what to do” and he started heading towards the exist of the tent

“No!” I half screamed. We waited for a moment to see if I woke anyone up, but the quiet remained. “That thing could still be out there. It should be better if we all sleep here tonight and tomorrow I’ll take the video to him”.

They both agreed with me and slept the rest of the night in my tent.

“What did he said?” Alan asked when I was done talking to the professor.

“He thought it was a very elaborate prank, and said that he would flunk us if we talk about it again” I said, walking between the two of them

“But we have a video of it!” Luke said, taking out the camera

“Yeah, but you two have a reputation for doing this kind of stuff. I told you it was a bad idea to glue his pants to the chair”

They both smiled at that memory. Luke then snapped out of his reverie and said “What are we going to do then? We can’t allow that thing to eat us while we sleep”

“I know!” Alan said “The three of us could take shifts to guard the camp at night. That way, we’ll be able to wake everyone up if it shows up”

“I don’t like that idea” I said.

“Do you have a better one?” he said, and sadly, I didn’t.

“Here we are!” the professor shouted to everyone when we got to the arch that marked the beginning of the town.

It was literally a ghost town. No one had lived here for over four hundred years, and it noted because of it state of decay. All the buildings lacked of roof and have been slowly claimed by the vegetation of the wilderness, many were even collapsed with a tree growing from its center. The only habitable building, that had a roof, would hold us for the night, and that used to be the mayor of the town’s house. It was large complex with two floors, stables, kitchen and many rooms to spare. It would be nice to not waste time mounting and dismounting the tent for tonight.

“Professor!” one of the girls shouted when we were picking the rooms that would host us for two nights. Everyone headed to where she was and got shocked at what was inside that particular room.

It held the carcasses, raw meat and blood of various deer and rabbits that had been torn apart and scattered everywhere. For a very long moment everyone’s gaze was fixed on the red stains and corpses.

“Ok” the professor quickly said as he closed the heavy wooden doors as to isolate their contents and smell inside “Nothing to worry about. This room must have served for the lair of a big predator around here, but I would say he hasn’t come around for some time. Either way, the rooms upstairs are all clean and each one of them is guarded by thick wooden doors and the doors from the stairs themselves. Now go and pick one up and sleep for tonight, tomorrow morning we’re going to see the mine” and with that we scattered to the rooms

“Do you believe that mess could have been done by an animal?” Luke asked me while he prepared for the first turn on guard.
“I don’t think so. Animals wouldn’t just go around killing everything on their way and leaving it to rot. Besides, there aren’t any big predators around”

“So it could be the nahual?” Alan said

“Yeah, that would explain some of the stains in the room…” my thoughts wandered for a while from there, analyzing the strangeness of the situation until I fell asleep.

“What am I going to do now with a crazy shaman on the loose?” I said to the air in front of me during my night shift. There was no doubt in my mind now that we were facing a nahual sorcerer, but I didn’t want to startle my friends too much, much less the professor and the others.

Then I caught a very faint sound, as if someone was pouring sand on top of a drum. Something was slowly crawling through the stairs. I turned the corner, and my flashlight revealed the silk body of a snake slowly approaching. It was brownish, so it got confused with the dirt walls, and there was a strange gleam in its eyes, a sparkle of intelligence.

“Back off” I said. It coiled and began to ready itself to jump on me and use the deathly fangs. I took out my pocket knife, which always took on trips like this one, and swung it around in front of me so it could see what it was.

“I said, back off!” and then it stopped preparing to attack. Knowing I had the advantage, as I would probably kill it even if it managed to bite me with my knife, and that there was no other way to go except for the stairs behind, it retreated to the dark beyond.

I sighed in relief when it was gone.

“Here it is” the professor said after two hours of walking north of the town. We reached a place where a huge hole had been dug on the floor very close to a natural rock wall of about ten meters high. Some very old-looking and rusty gear laid spread all over the place, most probably the machine used to take in and out the miners when the place was fully operational. “We will descend with the rappel and then continue on foot inside the caves. I want everybody to stay with their group at all times” and one by one we went down.

Our group, Luke, Alan and I, had been the last one to climb down and I the first of the three of us to go through the humid darkness of the fissure.

“Luke, you are next!” I yelled before he would be out of earshot. “Luke!” I yelled again, but there was no answer. I began to get worried. “I’m coming back up!”

Some time later, I managed to get out and into flat ground once again, but there was no sign of Luke or Alan anywhere. “Guys, this isn’t funny at all!” I yelled, but then I heard a scream from some distance away, and recognized it as Luke. “Shit” I swore. I grabbed the rope I used to get back up and pulled it until I had it all next to my feet. There was no need to expose everyone to this.

“What is it?!” I asked after locating them.

They were utterly paralyzed and didn’t answer. I got close to them from behind to try and see what was going on, and saw the same brown snake coiled and preparing to attack some meters away. It knew it had an advantage over my terrified friends, and was planning on using it.

Just when I turned to try to run out of its way and drag my friends along, a small wolf appeared out of nowhere in that direction. Its eyes gleamed with wisdom and knowledge worth of a millennial lifetime. That was when I understood what I had to do.
The wolf ran at full speed towards me, faster than anything material could be capable of. I turned just in time to see the snake jumping, heading to Alan’s neck, were his venom was most effective, when everything suddenly froze in its place and I felt something at my back.

I experienced the familiar warmness all over me as fur spread across my skin. I knew the pattern by heart; black at the tip of the tail, which fused to the brownish-red to make a gray effect at my back, head and neck; it then divided again when reaching the sides of my body, arms and legs; and the color continued to erase until it was completely white at my chest. My mouth and nose started to elongate, slowly merging into one and molding my teeth to small knifes in my mouth, until a large and solid muzzle formed, and I felt my ears begin to grow and move to the top of my head. My neck began to lengthen as well, so my head would be able to move better and a small mane began to grow from the sides of my cheeks until the base of the neck. My fingers became stiff and began to shorten and grow black claws from the tips of the nails at the moment they were void of motion. My hands and feet became big paws and my heels stood from the ground by a series of new and powerful muscles, making me drop to all four. My tail had grown along the whole process and was reaching its final size by now. At the end, I passed from being a normal human to become one of the last Mexican wolves that had walked here.

When the transformation was over, time began to take its normal cause. The snake was only a meter away from Alan. I didn’t have much time to react. So I took impulse, jumped and sank my fangs at the foul animal’s tail before it got to its target. I took advantage of my jumping momentum to swing the snake and hit it with the ground when I landed. The impact was enough to send sounds of broken bones on its skull to my very sensitive ears. I saw one last gleam of intelligence behind those split pupils before they became black as night as the body died.

It had to be done. He had spent too much time as an animal. His human intelligence had been abandoning him little by little, until he became a being that was ruled by mere instincts, eating raw meat out of the bones, grunting and growling instead of speaking, and wandered mountains in solitude, avoiding other humans at all costs.

I knew that everyone is born accompanied by an animal spirit that serves as guidance and protection throughout life, which are called nahuales. Sometimes the bond between them is so strong that the person can take some traits of the animal the spirit represents, like the sight of a hawk or the ears of a jaguar, and even become the animal itself, like me. These persons are called nahuales in honor to the spirits from which they get their powers. These powers are very strong, and their main purpose is to serve as a means to aid people in finding answers thru introspection, although many people believe we only use them for evil purposes. It is easy to get corrupted by them sometimes though, that’s why I rarely use them and kept them secret, even if it had meant to have lied to Luke and Alan about talking to the professor.

I turned and looked at both of them. As I was still fused with my nahual, I could clearly see Alan’s, a red bird that was holding strongly on his shoulder, an obvious symptom that both of them were scared. Luke’s was a different story, it was an ocelot and was slowly approaching me with a curiosity that only cats could bear, showing that both were more intrigued of me than scared, but cautious nevertheless.

I stood on my hind legs. My paws returning to hands and feet, my tail growing back into my spine, my fur sucked by my pink skin and my face returned to normality. I was myself again, as if nothing had ever happened, and a familiar spirit was standing beside me.

Now I wondered which should be the best way to explain all of this to them…
[[Category:Story]]

User:Pocsock

2007-07-26T04:25:05Z

Pocsock: