Dragon War Encore: Chapter Three

  • Warning! Proceed with caution, for this chapter contains the following:

     

    • coarse language

    In a hypnopompic state, Ruunen’s eyes followed the gentle streams of blood trickling down the back-cloth of his eyelids, stark. He was not certain how he ended up in that dark, dark place, where the air was warm and stifling. He could hear blood mumbling behind his eardrums. His breaths were confusing and unmeasured and tasted of smoke on his tongue.

     

    Smoke. Fire. Flapping like flags, like birds’ wings on the wind.

     

    Yes, that was what choked him. That was what held him by the windpipe. Smoke was curling its tendrils around his throat. Its grasp was tightening. Overpowering. Shallowing every breath.

     

    Breathe. Breathe. I cannot…

     

    It took a few seconds for Ruunen to experience the excruciating pain of having his head cracked open, but when it splashed him full in the face, he broke through the twilight of arousal like a man drowning. He could not breathe! His eyes flew open and his heart stuttered with terror at what he saw. Staring down at him was an ashen face, blood smeared over his forehead, tears lining stone grey eyes.

     

    ‘Iuvenalis?’ gasped Ruunen.

     

    No. The terror passed. This man was not Imperial, but dark elf. His skin was loose with age, pale with cold, his nose sharp. Instead of Legion bronze, he was dressed in a coat of rugged twilled wool. It was only Felanyl. He was shaking his son by the shoulders.

     

    ‘You aren’t dead?’ the old man cried out, as if that was a very surprising discovery. ‘I thought you were dead!’

     

    ‘Why, er, why would I be dead?’ slurred Ruunen. ‘Are you not dead? I thought you were dead. Where, er, where did you come from?’

     

    ‘You must get up now!’ yelled Felanyl.

     

    Ruunen winced, levering himself onto his elbow. What a headache he had, and his leg felt like the sky had fallen on it. Slowly, with mist in his mind, he adjusted to the pain and gazed around. Blooms of fire lit the air like blazing rain. Just like the Siege of Fort Linchal, 4E 193. He could almost remember the blood-splashed legionaries, the shock of battle, the flash of metal tearing into his arm.

     

    But this was not the siege. This was not the doing of men. Surrounding him, engulfed in roaring flame, was a pine forest blackening. Deep, ghastly shadows lapped the ground, an ocean of ghosts. Red and white streaks fluttered up the trees. The sky was stained black by great plumes of smoke and soot, looming with menace, smothering the sun. The forest was aflicker in blinding light. Mesmerisation enfolded Ruunen.

     

    There, through the murky, convulsing darkness, drifted the dragon’s silhouette. The image was surreal, like a hallucination.

     

    ‘Come, Ruunen. Up!’

     

    Felanyl took his arm. As he was hauled to his feet, Ruunen’s stomach spun and his brain lurched with the movement. Pain shot through his leg and the side of his head. A discomforting tongue of wetness licked at his scalp. He put his fingers to it and drew them away red.

     

    ‘Er, I—Er, I’m, I’m, er, bleeding. This is blood? Where is…’

     

    He trailed off. A pale-skinned horse was sprawled in a fatal posture, neck bent. Nearby a young woman sat on the road, cradling a small boy against her body as if to keep him warm. He was dead. The kiss of death made grey his face, glazed blue eyes staring blindly at the sky. There was no sign of injury. He must have broken something.

     

    ‘Where is Polyxena?’ asked Ruunen. The horrible horse was nowhere to be found.

     

    Felanyl bent down and scooped something off the ground. Ethdal. She hung pale and still in his arms, limp as the dead boy. Was she dead too? There were no wounds on her person either. She must have been injured internally. Ruunen wondered if he should cut her open to check.

     

    No, no. That is an insensible thought. I don’t have the tools—

     

    The dragon made a strange noise from the heavens. Rather like a cry of agony. The noise woke Ruunen from his thoughts.

     

    ‘Come! Move! We have to run now!’ cried Felanyl. Then he darted away. With his brain all sideways and distorted, Ruunen ran after him. They bolted like hares from a hound, hacking up their lungs, winding as the road wound.

     

    ‘Helgen is safe, Helgen can help us,’ chanted his father. ‘Helgen is a military town. Full of soldiers. A general will be there. For the execution. We’ll be safe. We’ll be safe.’

     

    You fool, thought Ruunen wretchedly. What can soldiers do against a creature like this? We are doomed.

     

    Still, he said nothing and kept going. Without reason, without hope, he kept going. Through fire and fume he fled, moving his legs rhythmically until they ran like clockwork. Soon he was wheezing for breath and his muscles were pained, but he did not break the pattern. He could not. To scatter the target and puzzle the beast, Ruunen distanced himself from his father. Perhaps the thick smoke could conceal their minuscule forms.

     

    Of course not, stupid fool. The beast could see them. It was following them. Its wings could be heard above the snapping of boughs between the teeth of the flame. He watched it. He observed its movement. Yes, it was following them. Not only that, but carefully, deliberately, it was fanning the fire. It sucked in a deep breath.

     

    Bile crawled up Ruunen’s throat.

     

    Upon exhale, the dragon breathed the words of fire. Pines in the distance lit up with hot light, bright like torches glinting through the night, bright like the sun snarling in the swords of the enemy, bright like—

     

    ‘Too much.’

     

    Felanyl had stopped running. Ruunen looked over his shoulder and ground to a halt.

     

    ‘Papa?’ he panted.

     

    A tear rolled through the soot carpeting his father’s face. The old man shook his head miserably, failing to draw breath between coughs.

     

    ‘Can’t,’ he rasped.

     

    ‘Papa, please,’ insisted Ruunen, staggering back toward him. Over his shoulder, the dragon continued to spray fire into the forest. ‘Damn it! Come, we don’t have the time. We cannot die here like this!’

     

    ‘This is awful,’ creaked Felanyl huskily.

     

    ‘Look, look here, give me Ethdal.’

     

    Ruunen heaved the child onto his back, supporting her with his only arm. It was more difficult than he had expected. She was heavy for a scrawny little girl, and it was at times like these that missing a limb was most inconveniencing. He seethed in frustration. This was not possible; Ethdal would weigh him down and kill him.

     

    No, no! He was stronger than that. One arm was enough!

     

    A wail trembled upon the air.

     

    ‘Halloa! Help us! Wait! Wait…!’

     

    Alarm seized Ruunen. His head snapped toward the voice. Two figures were moving behind the pines, following the curl of the road, approaching slowly. Their bodies were so blackened and dishevelled he could scarcely recognise them, but the accent was unmistakable. The Imperials from Pyrrhus’ Rest had survived. It was the woman who was screaming at them, her voice inhuman with unfiltered panic as her arms flailed wildly.

     

    ‘Stop! Help! Help us! Help us! We are coming!’

     

    ‘Shit. Shit.’ Ruunen fought the urge to toss obscenities at the stupid humans. Why should they help? They were in the same bloody situation! ‘Come, Papa, we have to go. Come, now!’

     

    Felanyl gave him a look that expressed he was not quite in this world anymore. But when Ruunen began to sprint, the old man cluelessly followed him. At the very same moment, the dragon wheeled around. Its vast body floated weightlessly over their heads. A gust of icy wind showered them, ripping straight through their clothes, flooding their lungs. Quick shrieks met Ruunen over his shoulder as the tailwind struck the Imperials.

     

    Why was the dragon toying with them?

     

    Why have us suffocate when it could just pick us up and bite down? We have nowhere to go!

     

    Ah. A chill dripped down his spine as he realised his folly. It was not the beast’s intention to eat them at all. This was just sport. It was a sadist, amusing itself with mere witless ants. On and on it glided, resting its body upon the wind between wingbeats, hawk-like. The dragon was not tiring. The dragon would not leave.

     

    The game was cornered.

     

    Ruunen could not carry on for much longer. His heart was palpitating madly, each pulse slapping his throat, and his strength was leaving him. In a lucid moment, his mind lit up. Felanyl had been right. They could not run anymore. Why would they want to? They were just three small bundles of flesh and emotion fleeing from an end, a relentless end. Their lives were full of pain, devoid of meaning. Was there a reason to survive if death was a force unconquerable? Ever stalking, patient as a saint, until it was ready for the pounce. None could escape. All would be killed in time.

     

    Ruunen feared what lay beyond, but would it truly be as frightening as this plane on which men can suffer?

     

    His legs burning, Ruunen began to stumble on the road that seemed only to grow. His eyes were darkening. Stop. Why are you still going? he wondered as he crawled forward on his knees. He did not even feel himself fall. Stop and surrender peacefully. I am going to die. I don’t want to die. But I will die.

     

    Ethdal slipped off his back. She screeched.

     

    ‘Everything is on fire!’

     

    ‘You woke?’ gasped Ruunen breathlessly. ‘You live? You… you live.’

     

    Ethdal wheezed, panicking, clutching her chest. Ruunen took her in his arm and embraced her. He wanted to cry. Like a tiny child.

     

    ‘Something hurts,’ whimpered Ethdal. She buried her grimacing face into Ruunen’s neck. ‘Ah… Breathing hurts. Can you feel my heart? ‘Tis running so fast it might explode. Can you feel it?’

     

    He could feel it in her temples, tapping phrenetically against his neck as it forced blood through her arteries. Those tense young limbs of hers were ready to uncoil at a moment’s notice and launch her away. But something was wrong. There was a bloom of warmth expanding in her chest. Cracked ribs. Ruunen had done that with his elbow as they fell from Polyxena. Crushed her sternum and bent her ribcage. She would hardly be able to move.

     

    ‘Well,’ Ruunen grunted. ‘I suppose I can’t die in peace now, can I?’

     

    Ethdal gave him a pained look. ‘Did Papa die?’

     

    Confused, Ruunen turned his head.

     

    ‘Oh, Gods.’

     

    Felanyl lay curled on the road, unmoving. Ruunen found him unconscious. He shook him desperately, patted his face. ‘Papa. Papa. Wake up. Papa.’

     

    He could leave him behind. He could get up and run and leave them both behind. They probably could not survive anyway if he tried to carry them both. They would weigh him down and kill them all. Nuisances, they were nuisances! He had survived for so long. Why should he have to die for them?

     

    ‘Papa. Wake up,’ he continued to say, even after he was so exhausted he needed to lie down and rest his heavy head. ‘Papa. Papa. Papa. Wake up.’

     

    ‘Oh, Ruunen. Are we going to die?’ whispered Ethdal.

     

    Ruunen paused to breathe. There were no tears with the question. Just wide eyes and sad innocence smothered beneath a mask of soot. The young man took her hand and kissed it, ugly grief and cowardice crumpling his face.

     

    ‘It is easier,’ he half-said, half-sobbed. They could lie there tranquilly, all three of them together, watching the fire dance, watching the dragon fly, breathless, as they slid into Aetherius.

     

    ‘I don’t want to die,’ said Ethdal. There was such firm decision in her voice. Did she know the power of her determination? Ruunen felt cold at the memory of how often he had chosen life over death. How poorly it had served him. And yet he still made the same choice. He still feared a lack of pain. What a ridiculous thing to fear.

     

    ‘No, I don’t want to die either,’ he whispered. He stood. His mind numbed with the effort. It was like hauling anchors with his bare hands. ‘If you can carry on, I must. Stand up, girl. I can’t carry two.’

     

    He pulled her to her feet and held her as she screamed the pain silent. He blinked hard. Not only were his eyes watering against the itch and the sting, but his sight had gone dark at the edges. The legs beneath him were senseless, as if he was hanging in the air by strands of wind. They needed to escape the smoke soon.

     

    No, not soon. Now.

     

    When Ethdal could stand without support, Ruunen draped Felanyl’s arm around his shoulders and heaved him up. Like a dummy for blade-practice stuffed full of straw, the old man hung limp in his grasp.

     

    Ethdal froze by his side. ‘Look! Through the smoke! A tower!’

     

    Far yet tall it stood, tiny windows blinking in its curved face. From the distance it watched them above a broad double-doored gate set into a stone wall, capped with a parapet. As Ruunen pulled himself closer, Felanyl hanging from his shoulders, Ethdal’s nails latched in the folds of his coat, he began to see little fireflies hopping atop the roofs. Quickly they grew. They grew until they were as orange flowers blossoming in the eve of Sun’s Dawn, flecking the buildings and their straw-thatched heads, tameable now but spreading fast like weeds.

     

    And also were strange sounds; the hiss of steel and tremulous cries, distorted, twisted, frantic. Battle was being done behind the wall. Battle, amidst all this chaos?

     

    Felanyl took up his dragging feet and started to walk. ‘Oh, Helgen!’ he said weakly.

     

    Ruunen felt himself going faint. For a few horrible seconds he feared he would drop right there, mere yards from the gates. His head filled with a warm, watery sensation. The dragon crooned mournfully somewhere high above. Then the yards contracted and became feet. Five feet. Two feet. One foot. Inches. Together, hefting their weight into their shoulders, father and son crashed into the gates.

     

    They splintered in protest but did not open.

     

    ‘Hey! For Gods’ sakes! Let us in!’ Ruunen kicked the stubborn wood. ‘Bitches and bastards!’ His voice was hardly a wheeze, ragged as the grind of stone on stone. He groaned deploringly. ‘Oh, Lord of Time…’

     

    A sudden gale ripped at his char-blackened hair and blew it into his eyes as the dragon burst out of the forest smoke, painting the sky with long dark wings. Ruunen stared until it vanished beyond the eaves of the parapet. The screams behind the wall increased tenfold, swordplay faltering. Ethdal stabbed her claws into Ruunen’s skin.

     

    Ruunen and Felanyl exchanged glances that said the same thing.

     

    We have made a sacrifice of this town.

     

    They could hear the dragon unleash its unseen bludgeons upon the townspeople. Those poor souls could find no words for their terror, but they found their voices and used them, squalling like pigs under the knife, like cats flayed alive, like lost children. It made Ruunen feel ill.

     

    Felanyl pointed to the gates. ‘In,’ he said simply, and made a gesture with his hand. Down.

     

    Wisely Ethdal hobbled a safe distance away as Ruunen got down on one knee before the wall, cupping his hand in front of him. He nodded. The moment Felanyl stepped into his hand, Ruunen hoisted him up so he was almost sitting on his shoulder. With a hand on Ruunen’s head, the old man dug one boot into the cracks of the wall. A quick, scrambling movement brought him dangling from the edge of the parapet, Ruunen pushing him up by the feet, cursing nervously. Just as suddenly, he disappeared over the edge of the wall. Ruunen listened to the scrape of his body across the wooden boards and the painful thump as he slid off the other side.

     

    ‘Lord of—! Mercy of—!’

     

    ‘What? What happened?’ demanded Ruunen, pressing an eye to the crack in the gates.

     

    ‘Yes, yes,’ returned Felanyl.

     

    There was a sharp metallic sigh. The gates swung outward, striking Ruunen viciously in the eye.

     

    ‘Ark!’ he cawed.

     

    ‘You! You!’

     

    Ruunen startled, spun and stepped in front of Ethdal all in one second. A blur of movement, the Imperial woman lunged forward like a wild feline, her gaze aglow with venom. She shoved Ruunen so hard he staggered back.

     

    ‘You! You! You horrible rat of a man!’ she breathed hoarsely, barely comprehensible.

     

    ‘No no!’ Felanyl came forward to stand timidly next to his son. ‘Please, you—’

     

    ‘And you! And you!’

     

    Now Felanyl had his turn to be shoved. With a look of misery, he shrank into himself.

     

    ‘We needed help!’ screeched the Imperial woman. ‘My husband fell because you ran from us! Why! Why!’

     

    Ruunen tried to speak. ‘If—’

     

    The feral woman gave him another shove to silence him. ‘You are terrible, heartless wretches! Stay here and let the beast eat you! Let it eat you!’ An outrageously incoherent statement followed this. Ruunen felt anger cloud his eyes.

     

    ‘We—’

     

    Shove!

     

    ‘Don’t you speak! Stay here!’

     

    ‘No!’ roared Ruunen. Blind rage boiled in his brain. As if with a mind of its own, his hand became a fist and raised itself.

     

    ‘What? What?’

     

    Felanyl caught him just in time.

     

    ‘Don’t fight!’ he pleaded, nearly sobbing in hysteria. ‘Don’t fight! Don’t fight!’

     

    ‘What in all Gods’ names is happening?’ shouted Ethdal.

     

    ‘You need to die!’ screamed the Imperial woman, pointing at them each in turn. ‘You need to die! To die! To die! Die!’ Madness shone in her face, corrosive poisonous madness.

     

    Glowering at them all the while, she slunk through the gates. Then she broke into a run, crying for help, and was gone like a ghost.

     

    ‘Are you all right, Ruunen?’ asked Felanyl quietly, still looking scared and distraught.

     

    Ruunen could not respond. As the rage left him, he felt his limbs going shaky, the heat draining from his body. He had been ready to bash out her brains. A soldier’s instinct.

     

    His father shook him out of reverie. ‘We really must get out of here.’

     

    ‘Yes.’

     

    And with the voice of the dragon booming as thunder from the whirling storm, smoke rising from rooftops afire, Ruunen finally stepped into Helgen under circumstances he could never have imagined. Bloody bits of body spattered the streets. Walls were crumbling. The sky was falling.

     

    To Ruunen’s astonishment, an Imperial soldier sprang out of a street, hand on his helm and neck-scarf flying, and behind him trailed a long, long rope of stunned-faced peasants and uncertain legionaries.

     

    ‘Sir!’ shouted Ruunen. This could not be true.

     

    The leading soldier fixed him with an alarmed stare. ‘Vad?’

     

    ‘Help us?’ suggested Ruunen.

     

    ‘You wants help?’ asked the soldier, hurrying over with his gathering close at hand. Two black feathers stuck out of his helmet – the mark of a decanus, leader of ten. ‘You wants Jor Santron Gatti?’

     

    ‘What?’

     

    ‘You wants Jor Santron Gatti.’

     

    ‘I—I want help for—for my fam—’

     

    There was a shout.

     

    Before he knew what was happening, Ruunen found himself pinned to the ground by the weight of the thickly-muscled decanus as a blast shook the air and rocked the earth. When the decanus pulled him to his feet again, Ruunen’s insides dissolved in a whirlpool of dizziness. Two seconds later his stomach was everywhere and a terrible taste was in his mouth.

     

    ‘Ruunen! Are you all right?’ Felanyl was over in a moment, rubbing Ruunen’s back.

     

    ‘I’m sorry,’ gasped Ruunen. ‘I’m sorry. I uh.’

     

    ‘You’re all right. Gods have mercy on us.’

     

    ‘You knows what is,’ said the decanus, pointing up at the symmetrically-splayed monster. ‘It’s dragon.’

     

    Ruunen tried not to shriek. ‘I know it’s a dragon. Will you help us get away from it?’

     

    ‘Ya,’ returned the decanus, turning to his flock. ‘Follow. We, uh… Ya.’

     

    They followed. Through the narrow nooks between buildings they weaved, darting from the shade of one wall to the next. Ruunen quickly found himself lost in a jungle of stubborn elbows and inconsiderate feet. Stragglers flitted over the streets like spooked birds without aim or straight mind. The legionaries stopped to rescue as many as they could, but some were beyond help. Some had spent their breath on screaming and now could only crawl. Wheezing. Weeping. Hopeless. For every blow from the dragon’s mouth the ground shook nervously and everyone stumbled as one.

     

    Ruunen felt like a child, his experience of battle and Legion forgotten. Follow the soldier, trust the soldier, his instincts told him. The soldier knows what to do. The soldier knows where he’s going.

     

    Ethdal’s pain soon crippled her, so the decanus stoically lifted her in his arms and continued onward. The town seemed a maze of thick bricks broken and gaps between the fallen beams; a strait canyon which, when one peered up at the sliver of sky, felt so endlessly deep, so endlessly long. Through the bend of a street, Ruunen stopped to watch as the dragon rested its legs upon a tower. In an instant, its weight brought the whole thing down. Dust and smoke and sharp debris struck Ruunen from yards away. He ran coughing into the next alley, following the soldier, trusting the soldier, cursing himself for stupidity.

     

    Finally, after passing under a crumbling archway they emerged into a courtyard, pocked with destruction and smouldering. Here were legionaries in abundance, splattered across the space. Bows were sighted upon the sky. Robed mages paced the grounds, rubbing their hands together. Ruunen stared at them in wonder. He had never seen a destructionist before, never mind an actual Imperial battlemage. All dressed in gowns, sashes, belts and bandoliers of rich Imperial red they were, gleaming of wealth and education – but they were drenched in sweat and soot like everyone else.

     

    Above them stood their sanctuary, a grand citadel built of the black rock of the mountains. This was the tower Ethdal saw from afar. It was like a grim guardian looming through the mist of panic, its left arm wrapped defensively around the courtyard.

     

    Near a gaping set of doors, a small old man stood scowling. Against his armoured breast he cradled a mess of blood Ruunen could only assume was a hand. Though lined with deep crevices, his face was well-baked by the glare of the sun and his spine was unbent by age. Thick legs could be seen beneath his pteruges, bulging with muscles and fat veins. Perched on that old man’s head was the extravagantly plumed helm of a general.

     

    The decanus approached him as humbly as he could with Ethdal in his arms and they exchanged hasty words. The general looked over at the shivering townspeople. Ruunen lowered his eyes reflexively. Then in a soft word and a tilt of the head, the general bade them enter, and they stepped through the doors on the heels of their guide.

     

    Dimness swallowed them. Three legionaries hovered in a vast, featureless chamber. Candles in their fists flicked little tongues as they tasted the air. A black hall yawned on every wall. Without word, a candle-bearer turned and glided calmly down the right-hand hall. The refugees followed. Moths groping for light. Large, flapping shadows slunk in silent pursuit. The fear rippling through Ruunen’s spine felt like the trail of an icy finger. Every so often there was a loud groan and the building would quiver and the people would gasp as dust blew out of cracks in the bricks.

     

    When the hallway came to an end, Ruunen felt the procession take smaller steps until they were moving in centimetres. He found himself going down a wide, black stairwell. This was where life led him when he survived. Endless journeys. He was tired. And he wondered.

     

    If I fall, will they carry me?

     

    He tripped on the air as the stairs trailed off, but caught himself by using two men in front of him as crutches. The walls opened out. The ceiling lifted. Candles and torches illuminated a colossal underground room, packed to the brim with citizens and soldiers.

     

    ‘Jor Santron Gatti!’ came the echoing voice of the decanus from the head of the crowd.

     

    ‘Dakanos Hadvar.’

     

    This voice was husky and unfamiliar, laced with Colovian inflection. Over the sea of heads Ruunen could make out a figure glittering in a legionary’s metal jacket, spauldered and braced, his helm a crown wreathed in feathery shadows.

     

    ‘Jo borda gunt,’ said the decanus loudly.

     

    ‘Ke gunjar, da! Agh.’ There was a long pause, punctuated by a sigh of submission. The figure wiped his eyes. ‘No; forgive me, my friends. I am tired. As are we all. Today has tried not only our lives, but our sanity, and our very humanity. Helgenfolk, I, Senior Centurion Berengar Gatti, have seen many men of stout heart flee before the monstrosity we have seen today. I knew those men as fearless. But… But indeed, it is in times truly uncertain, truly beyond prediction, that those who would waver are eliminated.

     

    ‘See now the true heroes among us, Helgenfolk, standing by your side; these are men who would throw themselves into the deadly throng to protect their people and their country. They would dive into the waves of terror that have drowned so many others, even if they cannot swim, even if they know they will die. These are the fearless ones. Show your thanks to these men.’

     

    Berengar Gatti’s isolated applause burst through the darkness. He donned a smile that seemed to glow like a sun, withered with exhaustion though it was. No one dared to speak. How was this possible? How could this man smile? This human gesture was the most alien thing Ruunen had seen all day. The very air fell stunned.

     

    Then, abrupt, an eruption. All hands became a blur of enthusiasm. Emotion flooded the room. A kaleidoscope of grief and relief and hysteria painted every man’s heart. It was as if the people were breaking out of a shell, melting like snow in the warmth of the senior centurion’s smile. Decanus Hadvar collapsed to his knees and held Ethdal close and heaved gruesome sobs. Tears fell like rain.

     

    Ruunen heard a small voice by his ear.

     

    ‘This…’

     

    Felanyl seemed to choke for a moment, his lips working as if to form words. Then, without further notice, the old man dropped forward in a dead faint. Several people went down with him. The clapping stopped. Senior Centurion Berengar Gatti turned quizzically to the source of commotion and found Ruunen standing there dumbly, a small and very confused red-eyed boy hidden amongst the humans. Berengar frowned.

     

    ‘Who are you?’

    The credit for all dialogue in Nordic goes to Hrafnir II of the Imperial Library.

     

                                                                                                                                                                                                     

     

Comments

17 Comments
  • The Wing
    The Wing   ·  January 28, 2016
    Do what fits your stage, that's for certain. Every person's experience is different! But I am sad about those emoticons and I would very much like them back. :( I hope we catch the pesky face-stealers!
  • Idesto
    Idesto   ·  January 28, 2016
    Deep! I'm at a stage at the moment where it's probably helpful for me to not overthink things, which I'm prone to do. But that's a really good question, & when I have more time I'll try to give you a good answer. And who stole our emojis?!
  • The Wing
    The Wing   ·  January 28, 2016
    FTD, thank you! Four years ago I was also writing Skyrim fanfiction and I documented most quests and dialogue verbatim - a short appearance on fanfiction.net quickly put a stop to that! I was terribly disheartened at the time, but as a sixteen-year-old I ...  more
  • Idesto
    Idesto   ·  January 28, 2016
    Brutal! I like your tying in your story with Skyrim's, but in a sort of sideways way. I can't get over the quality of your writing, it's amazing especially as you're so young. Quality: keep it up!
  • The Wing
    The Wing   ·  January 18, 2016
    Ah that's great, Exuro! I appreciate you guys telling me how you think I'm doing. It's extremely helpful! (Though for certain The Unhelpful does not deserve such a helpful crowd)
    Perhaps Ruunen should, but he would need a bit more than just a hand. 
  • Exuro
    Exuro   ·  January 17, 2016
    Also, Ruunen should talk to Trebonde about hand attachments
  • Exuro
    Exuro   ·  January 17, 2016
      "Haha, I'm not so cruel as to kill off spotlight characters in the first four posts! No, no, I'll let you get to know them better. >:D"

    That's even more cruel! I like it.
    I felt connected with your characters in the previous chapte...  more
  • The Wing
    The Wing   ·  January 9, 2016
    Teekus, that means a hell of a lot to me.  Thank you.
  • Teekus
    Teekus   ·  January 8, 2016
    Great story, very emotional and like your writing style. Nice one.
  • The Wing
    The Wing   ·  January 7, 2016
    Thank you Sotek.  I'm always amazed at the sympathy amongst writers. It relieves me deeply!