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| The Seal Breaker; by Garou | |
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| Topic Started: May 30 2009, 01:27 PM (116 Views) | |
| BarkAtTheMoon | May 30 2009, 01:27 PM Post #1 |
Your Friendly Neighborhood Wolf
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Patter patter patter… Paws hitting the ground and the accompanying rhythmic inhale and exhale of a wild animal were the only sounds that echoed above the clattering drum roll of the pouring rain. The forest was dead tonight; nothing stirred save the one in his lupine guise, primal senses up and scanning… searching… something… or nothing. He didn’t know for sure. The reason he did this nearly every night was his own. There was no rhyme, no logic in it. It was simply something he did… every night: to don the furry guise and dash out. Perhaps it was to feel the wind or the rain in his fur, that rush of excitement and freedom. Perhaps it was his animal instincts kicking in from staying dormant all those years, or perhaps it was nothing at all. Dodging pine after pine, the green landscape seemed to dash past him. Rain bombarded its way through the openings in the trees, soaking his gray fur. Occasionally, he would catch a water droplet on his tongue, tasting the pure liquid as it trickled down. What little light illuminated the dark wood from the full moon tonight was just enough for him; his eyes did the rest for him. The air at this hour would be chilling for a human, but not so for him. His thick coat of fur insulated him from the frigid open. This was his home: the mysterious, frozen northern woods. Miles and miles of conifer forests covered the landscape like hair, mingling amongst the mountains and the occasional fresh water lake. Snow was a constant this far up, and there was only one time of the year in which it did not snow. The cold sunny days and the frigid cloudy nights were characteristic of this region, situated a long ways off from the normal, industrialized life in the Jaridian South. But Garou was not much for technology however low grade it appeared to be though it was the best in the world. The Izakian North was his sanctuary, his solitude, free from the people who had destroyed his home… Garou’s energy waned in about the third hour of his exercise. He slowed his pace and began to simply explore the area around him. He did not yet know the reason, but something was making him anxious tonight. It didn’t matter how heavy his eyelids became, some voice inside him was forcing him to trek on until he was satisfied. Shortly, he stopped mid-step and looked about him, trying to get a sense for where he was. Of all the vastness of this region, there was very little of it that he had not explored. But he could tell for certain that this particular area was new to him. But that was all well and good. Certainly finding a new area of the region to look into wasn’t a bad thing. New territory, new land to walk on. Maybe here he’d find some new landmark, a waterfall or something that he could return to at his leisure. Maybe he’d even find some new prey in the wild animals here. He remembered how once he had found some different species of deer in one region that did not appear in any other. Oh how juicy their meat had been in his mouth. A large animal, big enough to keep his belly full for three entire days despite his virtually bottomless appetite. Suddenly, something caught his nose. A new scent. He stopped and sniffed the air and the ground alike, trying to find the source of this new smell. His keen sense of smell was a good accessory for life in these woods. Fate had certainly dealt him an interesting and useful card with his lycanthropy. The scent was unfamiliar but he could tell it was some animal. It was dead, but it was fresh. Garou had prided himself on being able to piece apart different smells, and further analysis revealed that it was more than just one scent. Three scents had entwined themselves, but the most prominent one was that of the kill. The scent was enthralling and exciting. He absolutely had to get a taste of it. He turned to his right from where he was and dashed off into the depths toward wherever the kill was. Forget about exploring this new area, smelling that smell in the distance had reawakened his same insatiable hunger despite the large dinner he had had that evening. As he ran, the forest ended and what came into sight was a steep mountain wall that not even a mountain goat could climb up. As he had suspected, the kill was some new animal he was not familiar with in this region. As it happened, the animal that lay gutted on the ground was a moose and the other animals feasting on the animal were a couple of brown bears that Garou could tell were mates and a solitary raven that simply nipped and picked at tiny pieces of the dead moose’s carcass. Animal language was a fascinating thing. The first time he had transformed into a wolf, speaking with other animals came as a natural instinct. It was a complex tongue that consisted more of something similar to sign language accompanied by a few indistinct grunts and noises that could mean anything but interpretation of it was instinctual to him and the other animals. How exactly it was they did that was beyond explanation even for them. “Mind if I join?” Garou asked to no one in particular in the group. “Go ahead,” replied the male bear, monstrous in size compared to Garou. “It’s not like we’re gonna run out.” Without even adding anything, Garou simply tilted his lupine mouth down and took a bite of the meat. Not quite as juicy as that of a doe he had had not to long ago farther to the east, yet it was satisfying. It had a distinct flavor to it that Garou very much enjoyed. It was unique at best, but he found it not quite as enjoyable as some others he had sampled over the years. He took another couple of bites, devouring more and more of the dead animal, revealing bones and organs. Exposed already were the heart and lungs of the animal. Curiosity begged Garou to take a bite of them as well, and he did. If there was anything he had learned over the years of hunting and killing his own prey, it was that organs and meat tasted very different though they were very similar. Deciding that he preferred the meat over the tissue, he returned his hungry incisors to the animal’s meat, gobbling it up, cleaning each bone white before going on to the next. Not surprisingly, the animal was quickly finished off, and only the bones soon remained. The two mated brown bears had already eaten considerable chunks out of it before Garou and the raven had even arrived. It wasn’t surprising. These were no ordinary brown bears, they were monstrous; big enough to swallow Garou whole if they tried hard enough. It was an adaptation for these animals. What could only be described as monsters roamed these woods, so some of the slower animals had adapted by growing to monstrous sizes themselves to avoid being prey. Monsters were interesting, Garou had noted. Their language was different from beast language though it seemed to be structured the same way. Their manner was the same, but they would tear apart others of even their own kind to get a meal. They weren’t stupid, but Garou would rather not associate with them because of their tendency to hunt regular beasts. A few animals could even speak both languages, but these were mostly carrion birds and the occasional crossbreeds, though these were extremely rare. The two mated brown bears stood there for a few moments, examining what had been their meal, making sure there was indeed nothing left. Garou simply sat near to it, resting. Curiously, the raven still had not flown away and was instead watching both of them, waiting for something though Garou did not know what. “What do you call yourself?” the female bear asked Garou. Her manner was gentle and felt soothing to him. “The name I give myself cannot be pronounced in this language. It is a human name.” “A human name?” squawked the raven confusedly. “Why in the hell d’you have a human name? Were y’raised by humans or somethin’?” “No… I am human…” Garou looked up and could feel the puzzlement of the other animals. “It’s complicated… I have this power—” “Shapeshifter are we?” the male bear said. “Something like that,” Garou replied. “Well, if you ain’t got a name, I guess we’ll just have to give ya one,” the raven exclaimed. “Yes indeed!” concurred the female. The beasts then proceeded to give out their names. At least, they were names to them. To an ordinary human, these would simply sound like grunts, barks, roars, and other animal noises, but they were the way in which they identified themselves among their own kind. Halfway in, the bears and the raven seemed to be arguing over exactly what to call Garou. “How about…” “That’ll never do. Maybe…” “Nah, that doesn’t sound right.” “That’s because I’m the one saying it. I’m not one of your kind, remember?” Garou managed a laugh. They were different species and yet they were trying to come up with the same name to call him. That almost never worked out. Usually, a beast of one particular species would have to call one of another a name that either sounds equivalent or that he or she just comes up with on a whim. Finally they settled on a name. The bears called him one thing while the raven referred to him by another. An ordinary human would find this quite confusing, but it made perfect sense to them. Garou as well had his own names for each of them (except the male bear, who he had just managed to pronounce the name of). Garou at the same time had come up with human names he would call each of them. He decided that he would associate the male bear with the name “Jim,” the female’s with “Marble,” and the raven’s name with “Sven.” “Well, Garou,” Jim began (they were not actually calling him by that name, but that is how it would be interpreted into human speech), “we’ve got our own place to return to. It was good meeting you.” “Yes,” Garou replied. “Good night.” Jim and Marble began to make there ways away from the remaining bones of what once was a moose. After they had just disappeared into the distance, the only ones left at the scene of the crime were Garou and Sven. “Well, I’m flyin’, Garou,” Sven said. “See ya ’round.” “Maybe,” Garou added as the black bird took flight off into the open night air. After staring at the sky for a minute watching Sven fly off, Garou stood up and shook his body. It was late, and his belly was heavy from the moose meat inside it, but the anxiety was still there, pricking at the back of his neck and making his fur stand straight up. Something was still out there and it was calling. What was it? He did not yet know. But he had to or it would bother him all night and he’d never get to sleep. Something seemed to draw Garou’s attention down the path next to the mountain wall opposite the direction Jim and Marble had left. Whatever it was, it was surely that way. Following his gut instinct as always, Garou walked down the path, slowed by the heavy meal in his stomach. The moonlight did wonders for the mountains, making their limestone faces almost seem to glow and give off an eerie aura that for Garou epitomized the mysterious and fascinating world of the Izakian North. Even without his improved eyes and their ability to help him see in nigh pitch darkness, the moonbeams reflecting off of the face of the mountain was enough to light his path. After about an hour of walking, something caught Garou’s eye. One part of the wall of the mountain looked like it had something carved into it. From what little education he had had as a youth, Garou could only speak one human language. His mother had never gotten the chance to teach him his second before their village was burned to the ground… The carvings were written in Garou’s own alphabet. Humans in the south would refer to it as Cyrillic, but Garou simply knew of it as the alphabet he had been taught to read in. The words were written in an old dialect that Garou had trouble reading at first. It was very archaic and almost sounded like someone addressing a god. It was hard to read in his head, especially in his lupine form where he was too used to speaking in animal language. Garou decided he would transform out of his wolf guise and back into his human form that he might read the inscription out loud. Garou closed his eyes, and then drawing upon his inner human soul, he attempted to open his human eyes. This was the way a transformation was triggered for him. He still remembered the first time it had happened that fateful night when all was in flames… At first all Garou saw out of his human eyes was flesh colored. The human side of his soul was stowed away deep inside his body while he assumed the guise of a wolf. Now, as he continued to stare into the fleshy surroundings, his human soul rose to the surface. His vision faded into his regular sight, where his physical eyelids were already still closed. Slowly he opened them and his vision blurred and then came into focus. To creature observing this transformation, it would appear as if Garou’s wolf body had contorted and shifted into a new, biped form complete with clothes and a head of unruly blond hair that had been tied back into a jagged looking ponytail behind his head. His attire consisted of a green tunic with not so much a design sown into it. It was very plain looking. Hanging on his shoulders and tied by a fastener around his neck was a cloak of dark blue with a hood that hung behind him head into which his ponytail fell into. On his legs, he wore a pair of brown and white pants made out of some kind of animal skin. Kept and gentlemanly Garou was certainly not. One looking at him might think him a ruffian or a barbarian; uncivilized and unsophisticated; unfit to exist in modern society. Garou directed his attention to the inscription on the mountain face. It was difficult at first, but he managed to read it. “You whose soul is rent in two, whose blood runs deep in devils, four unholy demons slew, a power to bind the world in shackles.” What the verse meant, Garou did not know. But he needn’t know shortly. Taking one innocent step forward, Garou stopped as he saw what came next. As he approached the face of the mountain, the letters began to glow green. The mountain began to shake, one shock nearly making Garou stumble. The letters in the inscription suddenly began to disintegrate off the wall, breaking down into tiny green dust particles and disappearing into the sky. The shaking stopped as soon as the last particle had vanished into the moonlight. Garou’s attention was then drawn to the wall directly in front of him. An opening in the mountain side seemed to fade in. Inside, all Garou could see was a faint red glow. “Curious…” Garou whispered to himself. Garou started walking slowly toward and into the mouth of the cave. A little ways off from the entrance, Garou found the source of the eerie red glow that had so drawn him to the cave. Cast in what appeared to be a sepulcher was a long, single edged, curved sword with a blade almost as wide as the cross guard. The entirety of the sword was longer than Garou was tall and the handle was long enough to be grasped by five hands of equal size to Garou’s. There was a design carved into the blade: four tear shaped indentations in rows of two and two were closest to the cross guard. Above them (though from how it was struck into the sepulcher, it appeared to be below them) was an inscription in big letters that read “DRAGON”. Garou could see that there were also inscriptions carved into the tear drop-shaped indentations, but they were written in a language Garou could not read much less understand. Garou approached the glowing sword and saw that on the sepulcher itself was an inscription in tiny print. Bending down on his knees, Garou put his fingers to the tomb and wiped away dust had formed a single layer over the inscription. “You who was chosen by darkness, behold the Soul Cleaver, the sword of the same, the last defense. Power it shall grant you and strength multiply. You shall be unmatched, but…” The rest of the inscription was two faded to read. “Unmatched…” Garou whispered out loud. Maybe powerful enough to finally get my revenge… Garou put both hands on the long hilt and pulled the sword up and out of its resting place. Garou expected the sword to be heavy, but to his surprise it was light enough for him to swing it at speeds he could barely see. He began to practice swinging it in different directions, getting a feel for the weight and balance of the sword in each hand then in both. He much liked the way it felt, but there was a problem. It was light and easy to use, but he had no way to store it. It was huge, and no sheath or scabbard or roundabout sword-holder in the world could hold it. Turning the sword so that the flat side of the blade with the indentations was facing him, he wished there was some way in which he could just send it away and then call it back when he wanted it to. As if on cue, the sword flashed white for a split second before disintegrating into wisps that disappeared instantly. Garou nearly jumped back with surprise. What had happened to the sword?! One moment it was in his hand and the next moment it had… orbed away or something! He looked down at his hand; flexed it. Though the sword was no longer in his hand, he could still faintly feel the brush of the hilt in the palm of his hand. It was like it was still there the entire time. He had wished it away and it awayed. Logically, that meant that if he did the opposite and willed it to come, it would come. Garou focused his mind on the sword and called it into his hands again. It worked: in a burst of the same wisps that seemed to come from nowhere, the sword was back in his hand once more. “Fascinating…” Garou whispered to himself. He practiced summoning it and sending it away for a good five minutes until he had got it down to a split second’s timing. He found it very similar to shapeshifting in and out of wolf form in its own regard. It was as if the sword itself had become a part of him at this point. This would be useful. Sending the sword away, Garou turned and began to walk his way back to the entrance of the cave. However, halfway back in mid-step, Garou felt a rush of pain in his chest such that he’d never felt before. The pain was excruciating, and it forced him onto his hands and knees. The pain began to radiate outward, spreading out from his chest and into his entire body. For a long moment, the only sounds Garou could discern were his own agonized grunts. Then, a voice spoke ominously in his head. “Human, heed my voice!” it echoed in a commanding voice. “The Blood Reaper has awakened; we don’t have much time! You must hurry and release me!” “Who… are you…?” Garou grunted back at the voice. “There isn’t much time left; you have to hurry! Release the seal or we’re all doomed!!” With that, the voice was silent once more. With its silence, the pain in Garou’s body subsided and he was able to push himself up off the hard limestone floor. He was so tired… He needed sleep… somewhere. Opening his wolf eyes, Garou transformed back into his lupine guise. This mysterious cave was an odd place to sleep, but it was free from problems that might arise such as an angry tenant. Settling down onto the gray and white floor, Garou found that sleep took him into her embrace rather smoothly tonight, and within mere seconds, he was out like a light, dreaming of the day when he would use that great sword to exact his vengeance… |
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4:18 AM Jul 31
