An Unlikely Revelation

[Dawn Shadowsbane]

(( April 9, 2011. ))

It had been several hours since the Dragonelf had committed an unprovoked attack upon Cor in the Inn; earlier she'd teleported to the Estate in anticipation of retaliation. The rage at her predicament had remained unabated within the protective confines, though, and she eventually found herself in the woods, hunting. Smoky leathers caressed her form, protecting her from the elements and serving as a reservoir for her weapons. She crouched, nostrils flaring as she sighted and spied upon a short, young buck.

The buck was grazing, lazily, in the fading evening light. It seemed to have almost no care for the surrounding environment. It could even have been considered oblivious, to some. Its hunger and the tiresome state it was in was only likely obvious to a hunter.

The buck was almost too perfect of a target; any prey that was oblivious to the environment was sick, either mentally or physically. Her need for destruction, however, made her uncaring of the potentially troublesome signals emanating from the animal. She suddenly sprang, lunging forward upon the buck, aiming for his sweet, tempting rear end.

At the last possible moment the buck jerked around and looked, not at Dawn, but away from and above her. The huntress hadn’t heard the sound only moments after the buck had seen what was coming. Rather, she saw the light. A high-pitched whining in the air cut through the forest, the sound when two gasses that shouldn't be forced together were just that, and then the hellish peal of the combustion of those elements all around a fuel source thick enough to cause the flames to reach their destination. The fire was bright, purplish, and horrendously fast-coming.

She didn't have time to turn and peer closely at the incoming attack, even though the shift of glance upward had given her at least a minute warning as to what was coming. Her forward momentum denied her the opportunity to twist and face the fire, so to speak. In the end, it likely ended in her salvation. Wings were spread wide in the pounce, a dark wall between her and the sky as she moved through the air. The fiery rain struck, and then lingered, upon leathery membranes. She crashed, rolled, and set the forest alight in puddles of flame with the tumble. Rising to her feet, the thick jelly fuel sloughed off her wings, dropping in a pile below her that licked feet in a dark caress. She actually yelped and hop-skipped forward, turning those red-gold eyes toward the perpetrator.

Only after the scream of the fire had ended could the wing beats be heard. The Daemon hung from them limply, while the mask knitted itself shut over his face. Aside from the wings, and the forced width they added to his shoulders and chest, his form was rather stock. When at last they stopped, he dropped to the ground while they went lax in the air, tightening and spindling together into the two great spears of bone and sinew that he occasionally used them for and slamming into the ground before him, then lowering him gently down before gathering up behind him. His voice was full of disappointment. "Only I don't burn in these flames." A moment, as he stalked nearer. "What have you done?"

A sibilant sounding of his name rolled off the tip of her tongue as the identity of her attacker became more and more apparent. The hiss gave way to a growl, and she mantled those suddenly powerful appendages and took a few more precautionary steps away from the flicking behind her. Leathery membranes glowed light blue with the fires illuminating her from behind. "It is more accurate to query what you have done." While she was surprised at the effectiveness of her wings, she did her best to mask that.

[Dawn Shadowsbane]

He continued to move closer in counterpoint to her retreat, stepping in, on, and through the napalm-like substance as he moved. Even as it clung to him, the flames licking at the lower half of his legs, he gave no reaction to it or indication that he even knew it was there. "You're acting strangely, Dawn." The backs of his hands slowly began to catch with those bluish flames, so much brighter than the ones surrounding them. Yet only in those small patches on the backs of his palms. "Hallucinating, stabbing people again, not burning when I try to light you on fire… Is something wrong?" His tail arced over his head, and the three plates of hardened scales 'bloomed' to reveal the bone-stinger.

She held her ground as much as she dared, knowing the flames were still lying in wait behind her; she wasn't about to test her new-found good fortune. "I am heartened to know you care for my well-being, my dear." The mocking drawl from earlier in the day returned. "There is something wrong. You have ruined me."

"Oh, my dearest, wilting flower, do tell me how I’ve done something so satisfying to you." He drew to nearly within striking distance.

The Dragonelf smiled, slightly, though the cold fury had returned to her eyes. "Kill me." As close as he was, she did not move. She waited a long, taut beat, and then continued. "You can do nothing worse. You have planted yourself inside me." As if he didn't understand, she elaborated. "I carry your child."

He paused, tail pulled back for an optimal strike, and his eye widened, "Liar."

"Test me; my womb is hard with the growing egg." She sneered openly. "I can feel it now; soon I will shift to lay." Her chin tilted up. "Your mother told me so; you threw me into heat even as I did to you in our mating!" She had had a day or two to admit that was what it had become.

"No." He continued to stare at her. "That's… That’s Preposterous." He took another step toward her, almost a stagger. "No." His eye had grown unstable in its focus, darting around and unable to stick to one point. "That doesn't..." But it made sense. And he knew it better the longer he thought on it.

She stood her ground, for a moment longer. "It is truth," she hissed. A hand snaked out, darting in the direction of his to draw his touch upon her. He would be able to feel, through her muscle and sinew, a hardness that was born not of physical fitness but of the unnatural formation inside her. She would prove it to him, as surely as she knew how, with that single point of connection.

Skid almost recoiled at her reach, but something inside of him had to know and he intently pressed his hand onto her midsection. And it was so, just as she'd said. The breath that escaped him was rickety, and he was impossible to read. "Wux tepoha sventa’ve, conros." He pulled his hand back, and stared at her.

"We are equal." For the first time since learning of the child, she touched her hand to her stomach - a light, barely there fluttering touch. The hand dropped swiftly and then, without another word, she stepped to the side for several feet before turning her back on him and departing his immediate presence.

He didn't try to stop her. He didn't do anything. He just watched her walk away.

She walked without a backward glance until she was just out of sight. Then, the shadows swallowed her and she was gone.