OTHER WORLDS THAN THESE!
Kin Name: Strange Creature
Preference List: Lion, Cheetah, Lynx
RP Link or Story:
She was walking through an edifice of crumbling stone, knowing somehow that
it belonged to her and she did
not belong to it. And that was all she could really remember, although it felt like information was coming back to her. She looked up to find a ceiling swallowed by the darkness. Everything here felt old and claustrophobic, heavy stone draped in heavy tapestries. She wrinkled her nose as she climbed the stairs to a tower, the dank smell of wet wool hounding her every step. She wasn't... precisely the lady of this castle. She was supposed to be, but something else called her, something far more important. Up the spiral stairs she went, knowing that there was something awaiting her- but what?
She passed a wavering mirror, glass slumped and silver beginning to tarnish, and she looked herself up and down. A plain-faced girl stared back at her, ears slightly too big, eyes huge and round. Her skin was tanned with darker freckles all up and down her arms, and she was wearing clothes- clothes she knew that somebody didn't approve of. She got the feeling that somebody, somewhere thought she
ought to be wearing silks and brocades, heavy gowns that swept the floor and trailed out behind her- elegant things that displayed the power she held. But she also knew instinctively that something
else showed her power- she just wasn't sure what. It certainly wasn't her soft leather boots, with the slight heel that clicked into a stirrup. Nor was it her linen shirt, although she did take some pleasure in the way the bell sleeves moved when she twisted her arms. And it certainly wasn't her pants, with their odd leather patches sewn into the seat and inner thigh. She wore no jewelry, although the vibrant vermillion cape was pretty impressive, with its velvet texture and daring notched cut. It was narrow, following her like a streamer or pennant; not a display of power, then, but a display of flash.
She
was powerful, but why? Something told her the answer was at the top of the tower, so up, up she went, carefully navigating the narrow spiral staircase. The stone steps were slippery, and lichen grew in the corners; this castle was older than she could fathom, built on a primordial swamp where the water could seep in, even all the way up here.
At the top of the tower was a small room, with hooks for clothing. A table, a chair. Stiff-bristled brushes, a barrel of a sweet-smelling oil that made her think of biting into a soft tropical fruit and letting the juice dribble down her chin. Another barrel, this one full of dried fish. A ladder on the far wall, reaching up to a trap door in the roof. But what made the room special was the window. Stained glass, finer than anything downstairs. Dust motes danced in its colored light. She waved a hand through it, watching it turn colors- but it was the window's subject matter that made her blood run hot, because she
knew now where her force lay, what the power was she wielded. For there she was, depicted in glass, forehead and lips pressed to the snout of a mighty beast, cradling its face in a gentle embrace. The strange creature, all horns and scales, pressed gently into her, signifying an unbreakable bond. Her power was
love, and also an
enormous fire breathing dragon, which- well, really, the two were one and the same, weren't they? And if she wasn't mistaken, the reason she was up here was that it was time for their morning flight.
A mighty
whumph of beating wings, the soft shh-shh-shh sounds of straw and leaf litter and other detritus being blown off the top of the tower by a powerful wind, and the unmistakeable scratching of reptilian claws. Smiling, she climbed the ladder, pushing aside the trap door, ready to greet the sun- and her very best friend.