[Star Boy] Laurana's Training

Laurana stared over the edge of the cliff uncertainly, trying unsuccessfully to quell the rising queasiness in her stomach. The dragon knew in her conscious mind that it wouldn’t really be any different to diving in from mid-flight would be, but there was some small yet important part of her that felt terrified at the thought of jumping off a cliff with no intention of spreading her emerald wings for flight.

With the nearby waterfall thundering in her ears, the young dragon breathed in deeply to try and calm her nerves, but the queasiness stubbornly refused to abandon it’s post. The feeling made her hesitate for a few moments longer, her dark eyes squeezed tightly shut to block out the image of the plunge pool far below, before partially opening her oversized wings and swallowing thickly. “It’s now or never, I guess,” she muttered to herself, glancing briefly at the vast amounts of water tumbling over the edge just a few metres away from her prone form.

Bunching her muscles, Laurana leap forward and sailed over the cliff edge before angling her scaled body into a steep dive. The dragonchild used brief flicks of her half-furled wings and long tail to move herself across and aim directly into the centre of the plunge pool, where she hoped the churning water would be at it’s deepest. Wind whistled past her horned head and parted for her sleek body, streaming through the folds in her wings, while the great lake that had seemed so far away at the top of the cliff swiftly became larger and larger in her vision.

The final moment before water surrounded her lithe body felt like it lasted for an eternity. With her reactions honed to an impossibly sharp edge by the adrenaline that coursed through her young body, Laurana found impossibly small details registering on her conscious mind before speed and the rapidly approaching water washed them from her awareness.

The sudden change of moving so quickly from free-floating air to the heavier, thicker environment of the lake almost forced a gasp out of the young dragonchild, but Laurana managed to keep the oxygen in her lungs where it belonged. The initial shock was compounded by the great speed she was moving at – smacking head-first into the water was almost like trying to headbutt a mountain into submission, except the pain was delivered all at once rather than piece by piece.

Arching her back as far as it would go without making her body explode with pain for the second time in as many minutes, the emerald dragon bolted for the surface of the water. Bursting out from where her dive had placed her, Laurana gulped down as much air as her lungs could hold before allowing her aching head to submerge again and turn towards the rocky river bed below her.

Drifting along at the bottom of the deep river, it’s current tugging along at her streamlined body, Laurana was in the process of mentally berating herself for the ill-advised dive from the top of the waterfall when her attention was accosted by a cave below the water’s surface off to one side. It was unremarkable in every particular, except the flow of water seemed to completely bypass the gaping hole in the bank of the wide river. Intrigued by the strangeness of it, the young dragon promptly turned her green-scaled body and swam towards it, entirely forgetting her headache of only moments before.

Poking her head into the underwater cave mouth, which was easily large enough to accommodate her green-scaled body, Laurana glanced upwards and found herself staring out of a hole in the ground at an overcast sky. A little disappointed at the apparent lack of anything interesting, the dragonchild was about to turn back and swim away when she realised that the sky had been entirely clear all day.

Laurana froze for a moment in indecision before rising to the surface for a fresh lungful of air and turning back, half-expecting the strange hole to of vanished the moment she left it. The young dragon grinned for a moment when she saw it hadn’t, then powered her way through and up to break the surface on the other side before any pesky logic could talk her out of it.

Turning her long neck, the emerald dragon found herself surrounded by massive trees that grew high into the sky, with a low-lying fog blanketing the ground. Intrigued by the sudden change in her surroundings, Laurana took a brief moment to make sure the passage to the river and it’s accompanying waterfall hadn’t closed up suddenly as she passed through before pulling herself up and out of the water, onto the needle-strewn floor of the forest.

As soon as the tip of her tail had cleared the pool, Laurana heard a grinding sound coming from behind her. Startled, the dragonchild swung her head round to get a look at whatever was making the noise, only to see the hole somehow filling itself in – and fast. The young dragon could only stare for a few precious seconds before a wave of fear rose up in her soul at the loss of her route back.

Frantic, Laurana jammed one of her claws down the last of the hole she had emerged from, only to have it close up around the talon and turn to earth, leaving no trace of where she had come from. Whimpering quietly, she pulled her claw out and sank to the ground, closing her dark eyes and letting the fear wash over her. Where is this place? she wondered. What have I gotten myself into? And how can I find someone to help me now?

A single tear slid down her scaled cheek.

OoC: Very good! Very detailed and lush descriptions of the environment. That really adds a lot to a battle. You'll definitely go in my advanced class. There were some tiny grammatical stuff like some commas and stuff like that, but far superior than most all of the dribble in the BA nowadays. There was only one noticeable boo-boo...

Originally Posted by Me!

It is to be 500 words. Be sure and tell why your character is going to the Dome along with a plethora of detail.

We've got the detail, but not the why. That's okay though. It was still very good.

For your next assignment, I would like you to follow Edward to the Dome and along the way describe your surroundings and have a conversation with him. I want you to talk with him about your past and your aspirations for the future. When you arrive at the Dome, find yourself a room and settle in! Remember, your room and such can appear any way you want it. We'll have a 600 word minimum on this, but that should be very easy for you.

Off you go!

BiC: A deadly silence hung in the air. The low-lying fog intensified the ominous feel of the area. There was no chirping crickets or any other signs of life. The croak of a frog or even the howl of a wolf would be a welcomed sound. The young dragon sat huddled on the ground with her eyes closed. A lone tear ran down her cheek.

“There’s no use in crying,” a mysterious voice said breaking the silence. Laurana jumped up to her feet. Her wide black eyes were open and shimmered with tears.

“Who is there?” she cried aloud. She could hear the faint sounds of footsteps. Slowly, a figure started taking shape as it approached through the fog.

“It’s very peculiar how much more terrifying an experience can be when you lose a sense,” the antique voice lamented, “I felt the same myself when I was just a young man.”

“Who-who are you?” the young dragon stammered as the figure became more visible in the fog. Then to her bewilderment, a short, bespectacled, elderly man emerged from the thick fog. He wasn’t even able to walk on his own. He had an oak walking stick that he leaned heavily on. The old man stopped and pushed his black glasses up to the top of his nose.

“You never even stopped to really take in the advantage of the dead silence. You could hear nothing, yet everything at the same time. But rather, you cowered in your own fear at the temporary loss of your senses,” the man said. He lifted his stick up and then stamped the ground. Suddenly the forest sounded like it was teeming with life. Birds chirped loudly and squirrels could be heard foraging through the forest floor looking for fallen nuts. Laurana looked around at the area as though she had been transported somewhere new entirely. When she looked back toward the elderly man, he had disappeared.

“What’s going on?” she asked aloud with a puzzled expression. Suddenly she felt a sliver of something cold resting against her throat. Her eyes shifted down to see a shimmering katana there. The young dragon’s eyes opened wide in terror. The man stood beside her, grasping the blade in his outstretched hand.

“Even when you think you can hear, you are not truly hearing,” the man said. He pulled the blade away from the trembling dragon. “When you think you can see, you are not really seeing.” He sheathed his katana and pulled his glasses to the end of his nose. His ghostly eyes gazed into Laurana’s dark eyes. She stepped away with a slight gasp.

“You’re blind!” she remarked staring at his pale eyes. The man smiled and shook his head.

“No,” he said laughingly, “My eyes do not work anymore, but I can see. No matter though. Forget that for now. For the time being, you should follow me. You and I will be spending much time together from this point forward.”

The elderly man turned and started to walk away. The young dragon stood frozen where she stood.

“Don’t be shy,” he said over his shoulder, “There’s no where else you can go anyway.” He stopped for a moment and turned around revealing his ghostly eyes once again.

“So rude of me, child!” he exclaimed, “I didn’t even introduce myself. I’m Edward. Edward Kitsuo. I’ll be your sensei.” With that said, he pushed his black glasses back up to the top of his nose, turned and began walking away.

OoC: I'm sorry this took me as long as it did; I have no real excuse for it. I'm also sorry for how long it's turned out to be, because I...er...kinda went overboard a little. Maybe you should set me a maximum word limit instead of a minimum next time?

Anyway. A full month late, but here it is. Sorry if I went wrong anywhere.

BiC: Laurana stared after the strange, blind human for a moment before pulling herself to her feet and moving after him. The forest, which had been completely silent only a few moments earlier, sang with all the voices of life around her, apparently called forth from the silence by this human that could move with no sound and hide from the keen senses of a dragon. The voices echoing through the tall trees around the young dragon were a comforting presence in this place she had inadvertently stumbled upon, but she knew instinctively that no forest on the world of her birth could ever produce quite the same symphony as this one.

That thought, perhaps, scared the emerald dragonchild more than anything else.

Drawing level with the old human, Laurana felt a small shiver run down her spine, shooting from the base of her horned head to the whip-thin tip of her emerald-scaled tail in an instant. The young dragon couldn’t help thinking that her life had somehow just gone from bad to worse, but she comforted herself by glancing across at this Edward Kitsuo, her self-proclaimed sensei, and reminding herself that she was not entirely alone anymore, even if she knew less about her companion than she did about her past.

After a few minutes of walking through the forest in silence, the emerald dragonchild’s innate curiosity and bouncy nature overcame her apprehension and the lingering traces of her earlier fear, and she began to question the more mature human.

“So,” she asked, “does this place have a name?”

“The forest we stand in has none that I know of,” said Edward, “but it is one small part of the Dome. You will be seeing more of it later.”

“’The Dome’?” she asked, puzzled. “That sounds more like an Yngir building than a world.”

Edward laughed lightly. “The Dome is not a world as you would think of it, child.” The blind human sounded more amused than anything else. “It is more of a gateway dimension that touches on all other times and places.”

“A gateway?” Laurana asked, eagerly. “You mean I can get back to where I came from?”

“If and when the Dome allows it, you may,” he replied, smiling. “Are you so eager to return there?”

The dragonchild paused for a moment before answering. She wasn’t altogether certain that she should talk about this with someone she had only just met and knew so little about, but if she followed that rule, she couldn’t even think about it in the privacy of her own mind.

Laurana turned her head to stare through the trees as she spoke. “I kinda need to get back, sometime. See, I can’t really remember anything longer than a few weeks back, and I’m hoping I can find someone to help…” The green’s voice trailed off, and she turned back to the human walking next to her. “It’s not something I really advertise,” she said quietly.

Edward nodded. “So this is your sole goal in life?” he asked.

“Other than surviving, I guess so,” the dragonchild replied. “It’s a bit hard to plan for future when I don’t even know who I am.”

“On the contrary, child – few people know who they really are,” the old man said, smiling briefly, “yet most have some idea of their direction.”

Laurana considered this for a moment in silence before coming to a conclusion. “You’re strange,” she declared brightly.

Edward smiled, and walked on.

* * *

By the time the two of them reached a door built into one of the great trees of the forest, Laurana’s naturally bouncy temperament had completely replaced the feelings that had rushed through her when she initially found herself stuck amongst the trees. She had even begun to enjoy the trek through the forest, stopping occasionally to look over some particularly interesting spot and then catching up to her companion with her longer strides. The young dragon considered the strange door to be one such area of interest, but to her surprise, Edward stopped right in front of it himself.

“This door leads back into the rest of the Dome,” he said, turning round to face the young dragon. “For the time being, at least, one of it’s many chambers shall be your home.”

Laurana looked between her new sensei and the door. “Are you sure I’ll fit through there?” she asked. “It doesn’t look like a very large portal to me.”

“You will fit,” came the reply. “Just follow me through.”

Pushing the wooden door open, Edward stepped into the tree and almost immediately vanished from the emerald dragon’s view. Startled, the dragonchild poked her emerald neck through the hole and looked around at the corridor beyond, confused by how such a thing could be possible. Any further examination of the strange contraption was forestalled when the elderly human beckoned sharply from the bottom of the slope for her to follow, which Laurana did reluctantly. She was shocked to find that her body easily fit through the portal cut into the tree, despite it appearing to be far too small for even a dragon as young as her to pass through.

Joining her sensei further down the corridor, Laurana stared around herself, her dark eyes opened wide. “How…”

“The Dome is very accommodating towards those it gathers,” said Edward, anticipating what the dragonchild’s question would be.

Laurana brushed one emerald wing against the nearest wall in wonder. “Those it gathers? You mean the Dome is conscious? Sentient?”

“If that is how you choose to think of it, then yes.”

It took a while for the dragonchild to digest what she had been told, thinking about it for several long minutes as they walked side-by-side through the passage, which had barely seemed wide enough to accommodate Laurana at all when she had first entered the place. She was still considering it when her elderly companion stopped in front of another portal. This one, unlike the first, was entirely round and didn’t appear to have any hinges on it at all, and only a small recessed spot in the centre in place of a handle. The stone-like material seemed almost warm to the young dragon when she prodded it gently with her lower jaw.

“Stand back a moment, please.”

The blind human reached out with one aged hand and brushed his fingers against he bottom of the centre depression in the portal. At his touch, the solid door fragmented, the pieces spinning away into the distance and out of sight. The space beyond the frame left by the portal was filled by an inky blackness, with specks of white showing in the distance – almost like the night sky when there were no clouds to be seen.

Moving tentatively forward, Laurana stared into the darkness in fascination for a moment before yelping in surprise when Edward Kitsuo calmly stepped through and out into nothingness. The young dragon snapped her body forwards, trying frantically to somehow catch the elderly human before he fell to his death or an eternal drop through nothingness, but she was surprised again when he just hovered in the air before her, a small smile on his weathered face.

“The Dome caters to it’s own, child,” he said gently. “Now, come with me, and I’ll show you to your new home.”

Trembling slightly, the emerald dragon extended one foreleg out through the rim of the portal slowly transferred some of her weight to it. Instead of sinking all way down like she expected, though, the dragonchild found that she couldn’t force it down at all with just her weight – her leg just seemed to hover. Emboldened by this, she stepped out with her other foreleg, automatically spreading her wings enough to brush the sides of the portal with their tips so she could balance properly. The instinctive effort proved pointless when the apparent weightlessness that affected her body on the other side of the portal instantly compensated for any shift in her balance.

It was then that Laurana realise she couldn’t move her rear legs without falling over.

“Just think about moving yourself forward, young one, and let the Dome do the rest.”

“Okay…” she said slowly. Closing her eyes, Laurana took in a deep breath and imagined herself just floating out into the great expanse of nothingness and hanging there, beside the elderly human. The young dragon felt her body move forwards slightly in response to it, making a brief smile flash across her face as she tried to reinforce the idea in her mind.

Slowly turning her neck so she could look back at the open portal, the green carefully tried lifting one hind leg and sliding herself forward at he same time. The resulting lurch almost made her panic, and did make her reflexively slam her leg back down onto the ground. She stayed still for a moment before trying again, this time pushing off with both of her clawed feet before sliding her body forwards.

The feeling of complete weightlessness that descended on Laurana’s body when she crossed the threshold of the portal almost threw the young green into total panic. It wasn’t the weightlessness of free-fall, where she could feel the wind rushing past and control her descent with brief flicks of an emerald wing or whip-thin tail, but an alien sensation where she simply hung suspended in the void and drifted against her will.

Before the feelings could overwhelm her, Edward Kitsuo was hovering next to the dragon, one hand resting on her flank. The contact somehow broke through Laurana’s fear and banished it to the back of her mind, where the worst it could was make her limbs tremble as she hung in the void beyond the portal.

“Just think about moving,” the elderly human said softly, repeating his earlier advice, “and let the Dome do the rest.”

Still trembling, Laurana focussed her mind on moving away from the portal, which she was startled to see had closed in the brief moment since she had passed through it. She couldn’t feel the motion at all – had the dragonchild not been staring around herself with wide eyes, she would have thought she was simply anchored to the one spot.

“Think about moving,” she whispered shakily. “Right…”

Had it not been for Edward’s presence by her side, Laurana would have panicked the moment she realised she was moving. The sensation of complete weightlessness that afflicted her in this void was absolutely terrifying to the young dragon, making her want to sink her claws into the ground and never, ever let go.

Except right here, right now, there was no ground.

Travelling through the void to the portal that her sensei had picked out, the dragonchild had time enough to rise above her terror and take in more of her surroundings. The small points of light that she had first thought to be the stars above the world of her birth or something similar turned out to be portals like the one she and Edward had passed through to enter the void, and had small specks moving between them that the green guessed must be more of the strange world’s inhabitants. Focussing on them for more than a moment drove Laurana close to panicking again, though, so she restrained herself to swift glances every now and then.

When the elderly human finally led her through one of the many portals, Laurana was so overjoyed at finding herself on sturdy ground again that she dropped to her belly for a moment and just stretched out full-length along the corridor. A few tears escaped her tightly closed eyes as the great stone portal closed behind them, before the young dragon reluctantly stood and tried to relax. “I don’t have to do that again, do I?” she whispered.

“Only if the Dome requires it, child. The passages and chambers change constantly.” Turning to face down the corridor, Edward added, “Just a little further now, and you can rest.”

Sighing deeply, Laurana followed after the old scholar.

* * *

Edward Kitsuo rested his hand on the dark wood of a great oval door set deep into the wall, absently stroking the old timbers for a moment before turning to his young student. “Here is your new home, child. I trust the Dome has made it to your liking.”

Curiously prodding the door with the tip of her snout, the emerald dragon almost didn’t notice when her sensei turned and began to walk away. “Where are you going?” she asked loudly.

“To give you time to settle in, of course,” he called back. “Goodbye for now, Laurana of the emerald scales.”

The dragonchild watched for a few moments as the human moved away from her before turning back to the unopened door. The, reaching out towards what appeared to be the handle, she nudged it gently with one claw. A faint snick echoed down the passage, and the door swung open on silent hinges.

Remembering the void she had passed through earlier, Laurana poked her head through the opening and took a look around herself before leaping in and sailing through emptiness for the rest of her life. What she saw from the brief glance around her new surroundings was…nothing.

Stepping though the door carefully, allowing it to close behind her, the young green stood still for a few minutes to allow her eyes to adjust fully to the darkness. When she did move, her claws scraped against a stone floor, the sound echoing off the vaulted ceiling lost in the darkness high above.

Smiling to herself, Laurana sank gratefully to the stone floor of the cave and curled around herself, head meeting tail and wings blanketing all. She was asleep in moments.

OoC: ...and there you have it - all 2,300(ish) words of it.