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Ashan 118th
The young Dreamers, they often wondered in their wanderings: what would become of Padfoot? The youth he’d saved and rescued spun their imaginations wild, tale nor tail left untwirled into a myriad of creativity and wishful thinking. He’d captured their imaginations, and though his own was skewed and rent by the Etheric corruption of his soul he could not cease the joy he felt being shown dream after dream, night after night, staving off the nightmares of those who thought him a protector.
They were few, they who dreamed of Mal, but the number was growing, and his influence was undeniable. However, the Becomer thought of himself a nightmare, a monster, and though he might try to stay positive his own dreams often brought him to loss, to the outright horror of those he felt he didn’t deserve to know. After all, what good would he bring to a life, if he stayed? Pain, misery, manipulation and horrors of the worst, vilest kind.
And so, with his heart heavy, he drifted into the jaws of Emea, eyes wide open in search of whatever it was that called to him. At first he was the Obsidian Panther, bounding endlessly through the jungle, and then a Hyx parting the tall reeds with his nose. Before long everything melted away in a blip and his mind had brought him to a great, dark chasm,where his ears picked up a heart-wrenching noise.
The most forlorn wails of terror one ever did hear.
A sense of urgency followed, and his heart thrummed a familiar beat. His stomach rose into his chest as he dove off into the abyss, wings of glimmering metal feathers splaying out with his eyes somehow failing to adjust to the darkness despite their superiority. It was pitch black down here, but he followed the noises reverberating. The large bird traced the narrow underdark, becoming smaller as the world around demanded.
“Mmmnnhhhhaaaaa!” the voice screeched as his talons swooshed above.
Mal’s body swished from one form to another in mere moments, and he hit the cold stone with an echoing tap of his four paws. Turning around he growled faintly, his thoughts incoherent but knowing whomever it may be needed him. There was a certain sense of implication though he lost all ability to manifest language, so he could reason, and draw upon his morals.
But now he was more instinctual, and with that drive guiding him he approached through the darkness, his body beginning to glow with the faint flicker of firelight upon metallic, reflective fur. It was soft, and his body dwarfed her petite little frame dozens of times over, but he lay inches away and set his chin down against a rise in the stone where he nudged into her foot as she stared, startled and pulling away.
”P-Padfoot?” sniffled the young girl.
Mal’s heart was instantly cornered and captured, and he elected to stay with her for as long as necessary. When she called his name again, he scooted his chin along the ground, bearing his neck to her in submissiveness. A little hand moved forward to grip him there by the neck fur, at first taking a fistful but gradually slipping into a mellow petting, her little body huddling close to his in the darkness.
”Padfoot, I heard a story,” she shivered against him.
”Is it true you saved Mike from a dozen Etzori soldiers when he stole cookies?”
It wasn’t. Every child had their own story to tell about Mal these days, ‘Padfoot’ taking off as a creature to ward against the horrors of living an impoverished life. He didn’t mind, and in fact he welcomed it. They admired him in a way the ‘learned’ adults could not, and they lacked the innate, wisdom-borne fear
To her he simply rolled his head against her side, allowing her to come to her own conclusion. A question without words hung around in his mind, and he feared what lurked beyond the veil of what was seen might try to wrench her away, to render him the achiever of yet another failure. He knew their faces, the people he cherished, and the faces of those who would seek to destroy him and all that mattered in this life.
The young Dreamers, they often wondered in their wanderings: what would become of Padfoot? The youth he’d saved and rescued spun their imaginations wild, tale nor tail left untwirled into a myriad of creativity and wishful thinking. He’d captured their imaginations, and though his own was skewed and rent by the Etheric corruption of his soul he could not cease the joy he felt being shown dream after dream, night after night, staving off the nightmares of those who thought him a protector.
They were few, they who dreamed of Mal, but the number was growing, and his influence was undeniable. However, the Becomer thought of himself a nightmare, a monster, and though he might try to stay positive his own dreams often brought him to loss, to the outright horror of those he felt he didn’t deserve to know. After all, what good would he bring to a life, if he stayed? Pain, misery, manipulation and horrors of the worst, vilest kind.
And so, with his heart heavy, he drifted into the jaws of Emea, eyes wide open in search of whatever it was that called to him. At first he was the Obsidian Panther, bounding endlessly through the jungle, and then a Hyx parting the tall reeds with his nose. Before long everything melted away in a blip and his mind had brought him to a great, dark chasm,where his ears picked up a heart-wrenching noise.
The most forlorn wails of terror one ever did hear.
A sense of urgency followed, and his heart thrummed a familiar beat. His stomach rose into his chest as he dove off into the abyss, wings of glimmering metal feathers splaying out with his eyes somehow failing to adjust to the darkness despite their superiority. It was pitch black down here, but he followed the noises reverberating. The large bird traced the narrow underdark, becoming smaller as the world around demanded.
“Mmmnnhhhhaaaaa!” the voice screeched as his talons swooshed above.
Mal’s body swished from one form to another in mere moments, and he hit the cold stone with an echoing tap of his four paws. Turning around he growled faintly, his thoughts incoherent but knowing whomever it may be needed him. There was a certain sense of implication though he lost all ability to manifest language, so he could reason, and draw upon his morals.
But now he was more instinctual, and with that drive guiding him he approached through the darkness, his body beginning to glow with the faint flicker of firelight upon metallic, reflective fur. It was soft, and his body dwarfed her petite little frame dozens of times over, but he lay inches away and set his chin down against a rise in the stone where he nudged into her foot as she stared, startled and pulling away.
”P-Padfoot?” sniffled the young girl.
Mal’s heart was instantly cornered and captured, and he elected to stay with her for as long as necessary. When she called his name again, he scooted his chin along the ground, bearing his neck to her in submissiveness. A little hand moved forward to grip him there by the neck fur, at first taking a fistful but gradually slipping into a mellow petting, her little body huddling close to his in the darkness.
”Padfoot, I heard a story,” she shivered against him.
”Is it true you saved Mike from a dozen Etzori soldiers when he stole cookies?”
It wasn’t. Every child had their own story to tell about Mal these days, ‘Padfoot’ taking off as a creature to ward against the horrors of living an impoverished life. He didn’t mind, and in fact he welcomed it. They admired him in a way the ‘learned’ adults could not, and they lacked the innate, wisdom-borne fear
To her he simply rolled his head against her side, allowing her to come to her own conclusion. A question without words hung around in his mind, and he feared what lurked beyond the veil of what was seen might try to wrench her away, to render him the achiever of yet another failure. He knew their faces, the people he cherished, and the faces of those who would seek to destroy him and all that mattered in this life.