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Out in the World... (Dragonsong)

Started by Wrathwyrm, December 10, 2017, 07:09:28 PM

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Wrathwyrm

He chose no roads to take, no direction but the first whim came to mind.  Crossing those hills, he felt that should just go forwards and worry about the terrain as it came to him.  Serendipity was a beautiful land.  He always loved that he'd been born here.  And even though he hadn't traveled before now, he admired it all, everything he heard about it and always wanted to go, at some point, even though his life had really been to become Hylop's best blacksmith, after his dad.

Michelo's ears fell, thinking of his father for the moment.

It...had all been a lie, though.  They were loving parents, but according to them, they had been concealing the whole time that his real parents were...well...they didn't know.  A stranger had chosen them to raise him because his own parents were unavailable.  Unavailable...  What did that even mean?  According to his step-parents, the man had been rather specific in saying they weren't dead.  And now, with his change, he had to wonder a great deal more on just what was being said...and what wasn't.

You see, Michelo isn't a Serenian.  He's a fox, a kitsune, and he didn't know that until now.

It'd been building up, apparently, from his repeated exposure to Hylop's yearly Midnight Harvest.  He was a fox who'd been cleverly hidden away, living an ordinary life, but that the magic that occurred within that harvest had finally undone whatever sealed him.  He didn't want to go after all this happened, but...all the townspeople started looking at him differently.  They thought he'd been cursed, so...here he was.  He was on his way to see Altas Verde now, because he'd met someone from there, and he wondered if all the real foxes were white like Beryl said.

Maybe some of them were actually like him.  After all, he could transform.  Why not them?

DragonSong

Magic has a scent, one impossible to mistake. It varied from person to person, mage to fae to demon to...whatever. But always it had the tingling tinge of the arcane that tickled the back of his nose and made his ears prick up- sometimes metaphorically, sometimes literally.

So when the scent touched his nose as he lay in the grass of the little grove just off the main rode, eyes closed while he enjoyed the sun on his face, Puck twisted slightly toward the smell and grumbled to himself. Cracking one eye open, he propped himself up on an elbow and tilted his head to the side.

A boy. Young, even for a human, he thought. Hm. Definitely a foreign magic- not Serenian in origin, at least.

How intriguing.

With a grin to himself, Puck shifted into the form of a brindle tomcat and bounded away from his napping place, toward the boy. "Mrrow?" He sprang out of the grass as though hunting a mouse, darting between the human's legs before twining around in front of him and taking a seat, cocking his head from side to side to get a better look at him.

Wrathwyrm

Michelo wasn't on the main road.  He was just sort of letting his sense of direction take him, which may or may not be the best plan in the world.  Nevertheless, this was how things were for now: You've got your young man with white hair, fox ears, and tail.  He's in normal clothes, he's wearing sandals, of all things, and he's got a sword at his side because he knows how to use them and his stepfather wasn't going to just let him go into the world unprepared with a largely-untested lifestyle.

So, there was this rustling, then...

It was easily heard.  Michelo's ears angled to the source and he stopped.  His eyes darted in the right direction.  He didn't feel threatened because the source was small, like...well...like a cat.  A tabby-ish-looking cat sprang out for...whatever reasons cats do that, and then meowed as though questioning his presence in this hilly field before darting between his legs and looking at him from a different vantage point.

At no time did Michelo even begin to lose balance.

It was actually quite impressive.  His feet shifted out of the cat's way to take a new balanced stance, just by instinct, before returning to normal.  There was a definite sense that he wasn't human, and frankly yon Puck would detect that while this boy was not fae, he had had fairly-recent exposure to far magic.  Morphic magic, even, which he was naturally familiar.  Michelo, smiling at the feline antics, actually reached down to pet him.

"Can't forget that there's still normal animals to contend with."

Then, as soon as he said it and his hand came near, he...felt that something was actually off with this cat, that it wasn't a vanilla cat at all.  Either that, or ALL CATS would feel that way to him now.  Of that, he was uncertain, but Puck would notice that he noticed something.

DragonSong

Puck began purring the moment the boy's hand reached toward him, and he butted his head against his palm. Many of his kind would have been quite scandalized at the way Tarren Puck interacted with humans, allowing them to coddle and pet him as though he truly was some common animal.

But honestly Puck didn't care. He liked getting scratches, particularly as a cat, and would be damned if "propriety" denied him the simple pleasure.

With a friendly, "Mrrp!" he stretched up onto his hind legs and batted at the boy's hip, demanding to be picked up.

He truly was an interesting little thing. Mortal, though not precisely...human. Hmm...perhaps not even truly mortal, if it came down to it. That foreign magic almost had the feel of silvery fae to it.

Wrathwyrm

He decided that, given the cat's friendly persuasion, that it wasn't wrong to pet the thing.  Maybe he was a familiar.  There was talk of this wizard from a town called Claris that use to create and sell familiars for people.  Michelo had heard about it, but then he also heard that that town had been destroyed, years ago.  Still, a friendly cat was here, aaand he couldn't have been feral.  They don't generally ask to be picked up.

"Alright, sure, but if you belong to someone and they miss you, it's not my fault."

So, he picked the cat up and even let him ride shoulder if he wanted to.  Nice guy.  Think is, though, Puck would feel that the posibility for static charge around him was higher than normal.  He seemed to be in control of that, as though the various forms of lightning were his thing, but if he were to get excited...  Well, that would easily be alot of little sparks raised.

DragonSong

Hmmm...

Definitely interesting.

Purring rather distractedly, Puck let himself drape around the boy's shoulders and even rubbed his head against his cheek in a companionable manner, absently letting his magic explore the area around him as he did.

I'm gonna keep him, he decided, and his purring redoubled. "And where exactly are you off to all on your lonesome, lad?" he asked brightly. His mouth didn't move- for a cat's mouth can't exactly make human words- but the voice wasn't quite telepathic either. It was just sort of...there. A faerie trick that Puck had found useful on more than one occasion.

Wrathwyrm

The boy's mood had been kind of hovering, between so-so and in awonder to see what was going on next in his life.  However, the addition of the cat had brightened his mood, somewhat.  He actually laughed a bit when he got nuzzled.  The young teen wasn't keen on downer moods.  It's just that he'd had a pretty sad moment, one that drove his current circumstances.  Still, as of right now, because of his improved mood and the thought that he might be a familiar, he wasn't overly-surprised or shocked at the cat's speech.  There was maybe a blink and an attempt to discern if the voice originated from the cat or from everywhere, but he was able to readily accept that a cat had talked.

"Well, if you really must know, I'm off to explore Altas Verde to see if any of the foxes are actually like me, but in disguise.  A thing happened.  It's kind of a long story."

DragonSong

Puck snorted ad rolled slightly to he could bat absently at the boy's collar with one paw. "Child, I know stories longer than your family tree. Try me."

Wrathwyrm

"Well, that might not be true, but we'll see."

You might ask, at this point, why Michelo was telling this to a cat who talked.  And really, the reason was simple: It's a long walk.  What else are you going to do?  So, he began.

"So, it all started a long time ago when a fae by the name of Duke Blackthorn decided that, in return for a yearly tribute, he would give the town of Hylop a great and bountiful harvest.  It was a ritual known as the Midnight Harvest.  Every year, he'd transform willing kids - not too young and not much older than me - into...well...monsters.  All kinds, really.  They'd be part-kid and part say, dragon or phoenix or werewolf.  You'd have goblins, hydras, demons, satyrs, and so on.  All kinds, just anything under the moon."

Puck would, of course, recognize the name.  Duke Blackthorn's harvest might have different connotations from the fae point-of-view, but it would line up with his activities.  He did, indeed, venture to a Serenian town and do what Michelo described.

"But one year, a strange thing happens.  A boy who'd gone to several of these...didn't become a dragon or a demon or a goblin.  He became a fox, a kitsune.  Only...he didn't do that either.  After some stuff involving a goblin who was a real goblin, robbing the town, he comes back to the Duke...and he learns that he was never a normal boy.  He's been a fox all along, quietly hidden away under everyone's noses."

Michelo's voice had changed as the story progressed.  It'd started from a storyteller voice, and then transitioned into kind of a saddened voice.

"Everyone who participates in the ritual and brings the Duke proper tribute always changes back, guaranteed, but the young man who'd been a fox could never go back.  Whatever spell that'd been in place to make him look human had weakened and broke with repeated exposure to the Duke's magic.  There was nothing that could be done.  And because of the way people were looking at him after that, he couldn't stay anymore.  He wasn't simply cursed.  He was always that way, living a lie."

He managed to get a grip on his emotions, but he had to stop for a moment to do so, otherwise there might be static bolts like crazy, and Puck would know it first.

"They weren't my real parents, but they took care of me anyway.  They raised me as their son, taught me a trade, and even gave me one of the good swords when I had to go.  I don't have much to go on about my real parents.  They...must be foxes."

DragonSong

Yeah.

He was definitely keeping this one.

"Kitsune, huh?" Puck licked at the fluff of fur on his chest. "That would explain it, I guess... And you're heading to Altas Verde?" He snorted quietly. "Slim chance of finding fox spirits there, lad. Really, your best bet would be Thanatos. Got money for a boat?"

It was a rhetorical question. Of course the boy wouldn't have enough coin for crossing passage.

Wrathwyrm

Well, look, he didn't have any ideas that made any more sense than 'Well, why not do it?', but he at least had something better than aimlessly wandering.  That said, though, the cat's words made him stop, and he looked at him now.

"Thanatos?  Why Thanatos?  Aren't they a bunch of island people who hate foreigners and magic?"

Actually, it was only certain kinds of magic, but using elemental power didn't jive with them, and neither did dark magic.  The out-and-out necromancers hid from the public eye.  Even after that, they were xenophobic.  Michelo didn't want to go to a place like that.  His dad had heard these things from traders.  It didn't sound good.

"And, of course I can't afford it.  I'm a fox and you're a cat.  Between us, we've got only a small bunch of coppers to live on, and I'm the one that brought 'em."

DragonSong

"Well, that seems to be oversimplifying things." Puck jumped down from Michelo's shoulder and arched his back in a long stretch. "But...yes, essentially. There's a bit more to Thanatos than that, but I think you've hit the basics."

Another stretch, and when he stood up straight he sort of unfolded upright into his humanoid form. "But if it was really something you wanted to do, finding the coin isn't all that hard."

Wrathwyrm

It's a good thing that Puck had gotten off his shoulder, because when he transformed, Michelo had jumped back - a bit wary - and sparks had come off of him wildly, leaving his hair a bit on end and his tail sticking out more too.  He recovered quickly enough when he saw that there was no danger, but that moment had uhh...shocked him a bit.

...I'll go see myself out.

"Who are you?"

Oops!  I'm needed.  Ahem...  Michelo was curious, and just slightly suspicious, of the man-who-had-been-cat now.  He'd said that getting money to go to Thanatos was easy, and that somehow...he could be expected to find kitsune there.  How did he know that was the case?  He wasn't a fox himself, was he?  No...somehow, that would've been a bit more clear.  This sense that Michelo had of him...held a familiar ring, but not like 'one of him'.

DragonSong

Puck smirked. "Who? Now that's a rather loaded question, lad. If you meant what..." He shrugged and his smirk widened. "A bit easier to answer, in a way. I'm fae. Your cousin from the mainland, I suppose you might say."

He dipped into an exaggerated bow at the waist, eyes glinting playfully.

Wrathwyrm

While we can't say for sure if 'who' is anymore complicated than 'what', the answer which Michelo received did seem to reassure him.  And it wasn't so much because of the Serenian descent from fae beings that did that, so much as his previous experience with them.  To wit, even as a kid, his experience with Duke Blackthorn had been on the level.  Hylop had only benefitted from his kindly interventions, and what was one night of tribute and transformation compared to that?

It hadn't been the Duke who got him into this situation, but himself.  He didn't know that he was a supernatural in hiding, that he'd been carefully sealed away, so that he looked and felt completely human.  His parents - whoever they were - could not know that he was going to subject himself to morphic transformations, straining the spell to its limits before finally breaking.  That was why the Duke could do nothing for him.  He didn't really even owe Michelo anything, since he was returned to his true form.

But this turn of events had him looking hopeful now.

"Did the Duke send you to help me?  There's so much I don't know about myself now."

DragonSong

Puck shook his head and gave the child a sympathetic look. "Sorry, lad. Blackthorn and I don't exactly travel in the same circles. Not anymore. But..." He cocked his head to the side. "I might be able to help you. A bit. Even if you didn't want to go to Thanatos, I might know some things that could put you on the right track."

He held out a hand. "Name's Puck. Tarren Puck, but folks just call me Puck."

Wrathwyrm

The fox-boy's face fell and his ears dipped when Puck said that this wasn't help from Blackthorn, but...at least he said that he could help at all.  That was alright, wasn't it?  He wasn't just leaving him high and dry.  The question was...what kind of help he had in mind and...what it had to do with Thanatos.  He introduced himself and, after a minor hesitation, Michelo shook his hand.

"Michelo Malloy, or...just Michelo.  I guess I'm not really Malloy anymore."

At least his mood was improving a little.

"So, what're we going to do?"

DragonSong

Puck shrugged, still grinning. In this form, he really didn't look all that much older than Michelo- if one ignored his eyes. They were positively ancient.

"Sorta depends on you, m'lad. How committed are you about getting to Altas Verde?"

Wrathwyrm

"Uhh...it was just sort of an idea to keep me motivated to do something instead of being in a slump."

Yeah, it wasn't much of a plan, but it was better than nothing.  Suddenly, his ears perked up as he remember something, a rather important something.

"One thing: Don't touch my sword.  It's not silver, but based in iron.  Hylop had a supply of iron because the ritual called for protecting homes and private places with an iron horseshoe over the door, so the kids stay out 'till they're normal again.  I'm not fae-touched and I'm not even Serenian now, so I can't be affected by it.  But I guess you can, so be careful, alright?"

DragonSong

Puck's expression softened a bit. Sweet kid. "I appreciate the warning, lad." No need to tell him that he could sense the iron in the blade a mile off and certainly knew better than to touch it.

With a wink and a nod, he took the shape of a songbird- a swallow. Hopping onto the boy's shoulder, he chirped, "Don't mind me, just along for the ride and to give advice. Or directions, should you want them."

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