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A Shattered Realms story

Kraelia restlessly stirred herself awake, growling as the throbbing soreness in her wings ached in protest to the sudden movement. Like a nimble feline, she stretched her fore and hind legs, purring as a cold wave of relief washed over her tender limbs. She blinked away the bothersome sleep still blurring her vision, and noticed that night had risen outside the mouth of the cave, blanketing the sky in pure midnight velvet. Her calm, cerulean-blue eyes then lazily drifted towards the cave's other occupant. He was a man, clad head to toe in layers of dark cloth and black leather armor. His face, utterly obscured underneath a black ornamental mask with a face wrought in a white-painted skull, lifted to meet her gaze from his slouched, meditated position.

"Shadow," she warmly greeted, to which he silently nodded in return.

Kraelia mentally reviewed the events that had transpired over the past two years. Ever since the night he stumbled into her cave, seeking shelter from the turmoil of a roaring storm, they had paired up and ventured many leagues across the Sun Lands. In that time, Kraelia had garnered very limited information regarding her enigmatic friend. She quickly learned that he never spoke a word, preferring the quiet gestures of sign language over vocals, and even then, he never signed more then three words at any given time.

Upon introductions, he had greeted her, signing, I am Shen.

She recollected that 'Shen' was not a singular name, rather the name encompassing an infamous and occult faction of assassins that were spread all across the the world. Divulging secrets of the Shen was deemed a lethal infraction, and so from the scant information Shadow was willing to share, the Shen were a cult surrounded by obfuscation, their ways a secret to anyone but themselves. He revealed to Kraelia that he was on a quest of vengeance, that he insatiably thirsted for the death of the esteemed and tenacious Ismadian general Sukaina al-Nasr. Sukaina had invaded her friend's sanctuary, and put all his brothers and sisters to the sword.

Kraelia exhibited no love for the Ismadian Empire herself, who's soldiers were equally responsible for the murder of her brood many years ago. They were conquerors, claiming the nations and people of the Sun Lands through political annexation, or military occupation. And so she agreed to accompany her newfound companion throughout the Empire, across the tall grass of the upland prairies and through the palm fields with meandering streams, to the very arid and sun-blasted desert of the Withered Badlands.

Kraelia didn't need to see her friend's face in order to be made aware of the satisfied grin he undoubtedly bore. Their two years of tracking and information gathering, admittedly through mutual usage of kidnapping, torture, and murder, had lead them to the city of Akmadet, where Sukaina al-Nasr, now retired from military service, lived luxuriously among the city's pampered and privileged elite.

Kraelia watched with a captivated gleam in her eyes as tendrils of darkness began snaking around her friend's open palms, like a serpent coiling around the arm of its master. She had heard of magic, but its practice is such a rarity that most brazenly scoff at its very existence.

Her friend always habitually meditated before he exacted a murder, herding and bending the very shadows to him as easily as a shepherd would to his flock. Kraelia watched with bewilderment as the writhing shades contoured his arms, coiling up to his shoulders, and then dissipating into the air just past his head. Out of the mustard seed of information the assassin disclosed to her, the nature of his ability to bend the shadows was not one of them. Kraelia resigned herself to his judgment, and instead affectionately began calling him Shadow, a name that he himself seemed to grow rather fond of.

Clenching his hands, Shadow banished the very darkness about him, and rose steadily to his feet. Kraelia regarded him proudly as he strode to the mouth of the cave, gazing out into the naked sand before him. Night had fallen fast upon the land. No more than an hour ago the sky was painted with hues of red, orange and pink, but all color had faded leaving an unclouded black canvas with only the stars to be looked upon. The landscape appeared as if a monster from legend had stripped everything away from the earth except for dirt, leaving behind a labyrinthine of long talon-like scars of arroyos and gullies. The cave's entrance was at the base of the canyon face, with a winding gorge about two hundred feet down a steady slope of jagged rock. Most of the gorge was dried up, leaving behind just a sliver of water still trickling through the gravel.

Other than the darkness, Kraelia, and himself, all that seemed to exist was the chilly wind that’s harsh bite could be felt through his leathers. He could feel the hairs on his arms raising underneath his attire, the bite of the wind leaving its mark on him in the form of small bumps that were tingling across his body. Seemingly satisfied, the assassin returned to the cave, to where Kraelia lay, halting next to her right forearm. Her now glowing cerulean blue eyes watched him with keen interest, sitting within a thorny, scaled skull which, admittedly, gave her a terrifying appearance. A crown of horns adorned her head, with spikes running down the center of her strong neck and across a serpentine body that could move with unsettling grace. Glimmering like gemstones, her skin of overlapping, armor-like scales were the color of the desert sky on a cloudless midday.

Staring up at her, he rested his hand atop one of her claws, canting his head slightly to the side in a gesture that almost seemed child-like and innocent. Kraelia and Shadow were not the mystical Bonded pairs that inhabited the Order of Dragon Riders, she could not feel his thoughts as if they were her own, nor tap into the interwoven spiritual connection the Bonded claimed they possessed. Being a quick learner, Kraelia had fortunately memorized most of her silent friend's alien mannerisms, relying on trial and error to hone her responses into a sharp edge like a whetstone to a sword.

She knew full well that to the ignorant eye, Shadow's current demeanor would easily be misconstrued as affectionate, when, in truth, he was taking stock of her as a shopkeeper would to his inventory. Granted, having spent two years in each other's company, a bond had formed amongst them of their own making, not spiritual or mystical like the legendary Bonded riders, but through the spilling of blood, of their unbroken hatred towards a common enemy. Together they had waged a shadowed war against the Ismadians, kidnapping and murdering their political and military officials with secret poisons, with the sudden arrow, and the artful dagger.

Kraelia steeled herself under Shadow's intense scrutiny, straightening her posture, and looming her massive head over him, her terrible visage dominating the claustrophobic confines of the cave.

"Two years and you still doubt me?" She asked. "I loathe the Ismadians just as you, for they killed my brood just as they did yours. We have never faltered and will not now, not when we are so close to our prize."

Shadow studied her for a moment longer, seemingly contemplative of her declaration, then nodded, and retrieved a waterskin nestled next to his gear. Lifting his mask just enough for his mouth to be visible, he brought the receptacle to his lips and drank. In their travels, Kraelia also took a mental note on the puzzling fact that she had never seen her friend unmasked. When they dined, he would lift his mask just enough to be necessary to eat, revealing strong lower cheekbones and skin that was unusually pale, possibly earned from his lack of exposure to the sun. Whenever he bathed, he would do so far away from Kraelia. She respected his privacy enough not to pry, but curiosity always nagged at her like an itch she couldn't scratch.

Finishing his water, Shadow fitted his mask back to his face and retrieved his gear. His assortment of weapons included two fairly small, serrated curved daggers of tempered steel. A recurve bow, delicately designed from albino rosewood, with a string crafted from exceptional wolf sinew. His quiver of simple rough leather, containing twenty-four ebony flight arrows. And a belt holstering a lethal combination of poisons, explosives, and various other gadgets. Shadow sheathed the daggers to his front, his bow and quiver to his back, and his belt about the waist. Kraelia watched as Shadow outfitted himself with almost ceremonial care, treating each tool of murder with the same delicate and paternal affection a father would give to a newborn.

Fully outfitted, Shadow gestured for Kraelia to accompany him out of the cave. The dragoness diligently followed her friend down the haphazard slope of jagged rocks and coarse sand, down to the gorge where Kraelia sated her thirst with the minuscule flow of water trickling through the gravel. The dragoness purred in delight, savoring the frigid water as it chilled her parched throat. Kraelia caught glimpse of Shadow pointing up at the sky, and so she followed the invisible line he drew with his finger, realizing he was pointing at the cluster of stars known as the Northern Torch.

The constellation winked at them from the endless arch of void-black beyond the moon’s corona. The dazzling layout of other stars sparkled and flickered polar-white, like scattered moondust in the sky. The Northern Torch gleamed and burned brighter then them all, like a beacon of hope for all lost souls in the world. Or rather, in their particular case, a blazing signal kindling the road of depraved indifference, of the commencement of evoked retribution.

"She'll be leaving the Parlay soon," Kraelia noted, "with her husband and children."

Shadow nodded.

Both he and Kraelia had spent the whole of a week covertly shadowing the retired general, learning her habits, her hobbies, when she retired from her volunteer services at the athenaeum in the evening. Shadow had infiltrated Sukaina's home a couple days before while she was away and discovered a reservation message in her study. The missive detailed the allowed time Sukaina had recently purchased in Akmadet's most prominent eatery, the Parlay. According to the current stride of the moon in relation to the Northern Torch, Sukaina had approximately half-an-hour left on her reservation.

Kraelia lowered her long, serpentine body to the earth. "Let us not delay, Shadow."

Her companion hoisted himself onto the small break at the base of her neck, situated securely between a neck spike and her shoulder blades, the former of which he gripped tightly. Kraelia straightened her fore and hind limbs, the latter dug into the parched earth to better propel herself for the upcoming ascent. Her giant, spear-like wings extended, catching the wind like a net with its midnight blue bat-like membranes. Kraelia momentarily halted her departure when she felt Shadow's hand gently stroke her across her neck three times, eliciting a warm grin that tugged at the edges of her squamous lips.

Now that was affection, she realized.

Then with a mighty kick of her hind legs, Kraelia was airborne, flying hard west where only a scant five miles of bare dunes is all that separated her and Shadow from their prey.

Description
body div#devskin0 hr { }

A Shattered Realms story

Kraelia restlessly stirred herself awake, growling as the throbbing soreness in her wings ached in protest to the sudden movement. Like a nimble feline, she stretched her fore and hind legs, purring as a cold wave of relief washed over her tender limbs. She blinked away the bothersome sleep still blurring her vision, and noticed that night had risen outside the mouth of the cave, blanketing the sky in pure midnight velvet. Her calm, cerulean-blue eyes then lazily drifted towards the cave's other occupant. He was a man, clad head to toe in layers of dark cloth and black leather armor. His face, utterly obscured underneath a black ornamental mask with a face wrought in a white-painted skull, lifted to meet her gaze from his slouched, meditated position.

"Shadow," she warmly greeted, to which he silently nodded in return.

Kraelia mentally reviewed the events that had transpired over the past two years. Ever since the night he stumbled into her cave, seeking shelter from the turmoil of a roaring storm, they had paired up and ventured many leagues across the Sun Lands. In that time, Kraelia had garnered very limited information regarding her enigmatic friend. She quickly learned that he never spoke a word, preferring the quiet gestures of sign language over vocals, and even then, he never signed more then three words at any given time.

Upon introductions, he had greeted her, signing, I am Shen.

She recollected that 'Shen' was not a singular name, rather the name encompassing an infamous and occult faction of assassins that were spread all across the the world. Divulging secrets of the Shen was deemed a lethal infraction, and so from the scant information Shadow was willing to share, the Shen were a cult surrounded by obfuscation, their ways a secret to anyone but themselves. He revealed to Kraelia that he was on a quest of vengeance, that he insatiably thirsted for the death of the esteemed and tenacious Ismadian general Sukaina al-Nasr. Sukaina had invaded her friend's sanctuary, and put all his brothers and sisters to the sword.

Kraelia exhibited no love for the Ismadian Empire herself, who's soldiers were equally responsible for the murder of her brood many years ago. They were conquerors, claiming the nations and people of the Sun Lands through political annexation, or military occupation. And so she agreed to accompany her newfound companion throughout the Empire, across the tall grass of the upland prairies and through the palm fields with meandering streams, to the very arid and sun-blasted desert of the Withered Badlands.

Kraelia didn't need to see her friend's face in order to be made aware of the satisfied grin he undoubtedly bore. Their two years of tracking and information gathering, admittedly through mutual usage of kidnapping, torture, and murder, had lead them to the city of Akmadet, where Sukaina al-Nasr, now retired from military service, lived luxuriously among the city's pampered and privileged elite.

Kraelia watched with a captivated gleam in her eyes as tendrils of darkness began snaking around her friend's open palms, like a serpent coiling around the arm of its master. She had heard of magic, but its practice is such a rarity that most brazenly scoff at its very existence.

Her friend always habitually meditated before he exacted a murder, herding and bending the very shadows to him as easily as a shepherd would to his flock. Kraelia watched with bewilderment as the writhing shades contoured his arms, coiling up to his shoulders, and then dissipating into the air just past his head. Out of the mustard seed of information the assassin disclosed to her, the nature of his ability to bend the shadows was not one of them. Kraelia resigned herself to his judgment, and instead affectionately began calling him Shadow, a name that he himself seemed to grow rather fond of.

Clenching his hands, Shadow banished the very darkness about him, and rose steadily to his feet. Kraelia regarded him proudly as he strode to the mouth of the cave, gazing out into the naked sand before him. Night had fallen fast upon the land. No more than an hour ago the sky was painted with hues of red, orange and pink, but all color had faded leaving an unclouded black canvas with only the stars to be looked upon. The landscape appeared as if a monster from legend had stripped everything away from the earth except for dirt, leaving behind a labyrinthine of long talon-like scars of arroyos and gullies. The cave's entrance was at the base of the canyon face, with a winding gorge about two hundred feet down a steady slope of jagged rock. Most of the gorge was dried up, leaving behind just a sliver of water still trickling through the gravel.

Other than the darkness, Kraelia, and himself, all that seemed to exist was the chilly wind that’s harsh bite could be felt through his leathers. He could feel the hairs on his arms raising underneath his attire, the bite of the wind leaving its mark on him in the form of small bumps that were tingling across his body. Seemingly satisfied, the assassin returned to the cave, to where Kraelia lay, halting next to her right forearm. Her now glowing cerulean blue eyes watched him with keen interest, sitting within a thorny, scaled skull which, admittedly, gave her a terrifying appearance. A crown of horns adorned her head, with spikes running down the center of her strong neck and across a serpentine body that could move with unsettling grace. Glimmering like gemstones, her skin of overlapping, armor-like scales were the color of the desert sky on a cloudless midday.

Staring up at her, he rested his hand atop one of her claws, canting his head slightly to the side in a gesture that almost seemed child-like and innocent. Kraelia and Shadow were not the mystical Bonded pairs that inhabited the Order of Dragon Riders, she could not feel his thoughts as if they were her own, nor tap into the interwoven spiritual connection the Bonded claimed they possessed. Being a quick learner, Kraelia had fortunately memorized most of her silent friend's alien mannerisms, relying on trial and error to hone her responses into a sharp edge like a whetstone to a sword.

She knew full well that to the ignorant eye, Shadow's current demeanor would easily be misconstrued as affectionate, when, in truth, he was taking stock of her as a shopkeeper would to his inventory. Granted, having spent two years in each other's company, a bond had formed amongst them of their own making, not spiritual or mystical like the legendary Bonded riders, but through the spilling of blood, of their unbroken hatred towards a common enemy. Together they had waged a shadowed war against the Ismadians, kidnapping and murdering their political and military officials with secret poisons, with the sudden arrow, and the artful dagger.

Kraelia steeled herself under Shadow's intense scrutiny, straightening her posture, and looming her massive head over him, her terrible visage dominating the claustrophobic confines of the cave.

"Two years and you still doubt me?" She asked. "I loathe the Ismadians just as you, for they killed my brood just as they did yours. We have never faltered and will not now, not when we are so close to our prize."

Shadow studied her for a moment longer, seemingly contemplative of her declaration, then nodded, and retrieved a waterskin nestled next to his gear. Lifting his mask just enough for his mouth to be visible, he brought the receptacle to his lips and drank. In their travels, Kraelia also took a mental note on the puzzling fact that she had never seen her friend unmasked. When they dined, he would lift his mask just enough to be necessary to eat, revealing strong lower cheekbones and skin that was unusually pale, possibly earned from his lack of exposure to the sun. Whenever he bathed, he would do so far away from Kraelia. She respected his privacy enough not to pry, but curiosity always nagged at her like an itch she couldn't scratch.

Finishing his water, Shadow fitted his mask back to his face and retrieved his gear. His assortment of weapons included two fairly small, serrated curved daggers of tempered steel. A recurve bow, delicately designed from albino rosewood, with a string crafted from exceptional wolf sinew. His quiver of simple rough leather, containing twenty-four ebony flight arrows. And a belt holstering a lethal combination of poisons, explosives, and various other gadgets. Shadow sheathed the daggers to his front, his bow and quiver to his back, and his belt about the waist. Kraelia watched as Shadow outfitted himself with almost ceremonial care, treating each tool of murder with the same delicate and paternal affection a father would give to a newborn.

Fully outfitted, Shadow gestured for Kraelia to accompany him out of the cave. The dragoness diligently followed her friend down the haphazard slope of jagged rocks and coarse sand, down to the gorge where Kraelia sated her thirst with the minuscule flow of water trickling through the gravel. The dragoness purred in delight, savoring the frigid water as it chilled her parched throat. Kraelia caught glimpse of Shadow pointing up at the sky, and so she followed the invisible line he drew with his finger, realizing he was pointing at the cluster of stars known as the Northern Torch.

The constellation winked at them from the endless arch of void-black beyond the moon’s corona. The dazzling layout of other stars sparkled and flickered polar-white, like scattered moondust in the sky. The Northern Torch gleamed and burned brighter then them all, like a beacon of hope for all lost souls in the world. Or rather, in their particular case, a blazing signal kindling the road of depraved indifference, of the commencement of evoked retribution.

"She'll be leaving the Parlay soon," Kraelia noted, "with her husband and children."

Shadow nodded.

Both he and Kraelia had spent the whole of a week covertly shadowing the retired general, learning her habits, her hobbies, when she retired from her volunteer services at the athenaeum in the evening. Shadow had infiltrated Sukaina's home a couple days before while she was away and discovered a reservation message in her study. The missive detailed the allowed time Sukaina had recently purchased in Akmadet's most prominent eatery, the Parlay. According to the current stride of the moon in relation to the Northern Torch, Sukaina had approximately half-an-hour left on her reservation.

Kraelia lowered her long, serpentine body to the earth. "Let us not delay, Shadow."

Her companion hoisted himself onto the small break at the base of her neck, situated securely between a neck spike and her shoulder blades, the former of which he gripped tightly. Kraelia straightened her fore and hind limbs, the latter dug into the parched earth to better propel herself for the upcoming ascent. Her giant, spear-like wings extended, catching the wind like a net with its midnight blue bat-like membranes. Kraelia momentarily halted her departure when she felt Shadow's hand gently stroke her across her neck three times, eliciting a warm grin that tugged at the edges of her squamous lips.

Now that was affection, she realized.

Then with a mighty kick of her hind legs, Kraelia was airborne, flying hard west where only a scant five miles of bare dunes is all that separated her and Shadow from their prey.