The Sea of Sand [completed]

[Bethsyliss]

Day 45 of Winter, 512 AV. The opposite side of the dune was rockier than the side where Ronin and the cow waited for Bethsyliss to return with firewood. Bethsyliss squinted in the prevailing darkness to scan the area for irregularities that might suggest an acacia tree. All she saw was sand, rock and blackness. She sighed. She started to descend the slope when an idea struck her. He isssn't around anymore, she thought, a wry smile creeping up on her face. Why in Sssiku's name am I waltzing about the freezing sandsss in human form? All I have to do is ssshift. If there are any trees around here, I'm sssure to pick up the smell of honey. She shifted into her snake form and let out a little yelp of joy as her limbs fused into her body and her hair retracted into her scalp. With an exhilarating purr she caused her now-scaly body to elongate and she retrieved the shape of a serpent she so loved. She hoped very hard that Ronin hadn't heard the noises she made during her transformation, for sounds carried in the still, chilly desert air nearly as far as smells did. She flickered her tongue, trying to pick up scents, and she the smell of dead meat assaulted her from behind, mingled with another, softer -- though tainted by days of unwashed sweat --, that could only be Ronin's. She concentrated. The smell of honey, if there was any, was sure to have dissipated by winter. The current time of year was possibly the furthest it could have been from the period the flowers that produced honey bloomed. She cursed herself for having set out to travel the desert during winter. Besides, she absolutely hated the cold. Tree bark! she said to herself excitedly when something excited her sharp sense of smell as she flickered her forked tongue. There it is! I sssmell it! Even in the winter, potent sssap courses through the tree's veins and pulsesss the bark with sssilent life. Bethsyliss bolted toward the scent. She did not have to go far. Tree bark did not give off that strong a smell, and she needed to be quite close in order to even pick it up. Had it not been winter, she would probably not even have noticed it -- then again, there would be flowers or leaves to smell, and the matter would have been a lot easier. She was actually ashamed that she couldn't spot the acacia tree with plain eyesight. She shifted into Dhani form. She was stronger and taller in that hybrid form than in human form, so it would help her break off the dry limbs of the acacia tree. Nevertheless, she was still at least three times shorter than the lowest branch. She climbed the tree with her hands, clawing into the bark and finding places where the trunk was gnarled enough to provide protrusions on which to hold while she slowly ascended. She had nearly reached a branch when a gust of wind put her off balance and knocked her to the ground. She swore. She tried it again, and fell lamentably after only several feet. Then she had an idea. This time, she wrapped her tail around the base of the tree before going up. It took her a couple of attempts to get the hang of it, but she finally managed to climb the tree while rotating around its axis, letting her tail wrap firmly around the trunk for support. It was when she reached the first branch that she realized he hadn't the faintest clue how she was going to break it off. She tried using one hand while clinging to the bark with the other and her tail preventing her fall, but she wasn't strong enough. Then an idea struck her. She carefully flipped her body around so that her head was facing downwards, using her tail as support. She then swung her tail over the branch until it was firmly locked around it, and let herself go with her hands. She hung for a while suspended upside down to the branch of the acacia until she thought she needed extra force to make it break. Using the muscles of her tail, she swung back and forth for a bit until it broke. She plummeted to the ground with it and flipped herself mid-air just in time to land safely on her tail. Panting, she hauled herself up proudly and marveled at her own ingenuity. She repeated the process several times until she had broken off as much wood as she could carry in one armload. She gathered the scattered limbs and made her way back up the steep, rocky slope to the place where her meal waited to be cooked and her unexpected acquaintance waited to share it with her, pausing occasionally to pick up wood that sometimes dropped. The sun had only begun to rise when she reached the top of the dune. She spotted Ronin and the carcass some distance down below and was about to slither her way back to them when she remembered she couldn't be seen by him in Dhani form -- not yet, anyway. Bethsyliss then considered the inevitable situation when he would find out she wasn't entirely human. She didn't suppose he suspected anything, even with the two holes she had made in the cow's neck -- no, he wasn't smart enough to notice those. But she didn't really know what to expect when he would eventually find out. She set the wood on the sand, shifted into human form while trying to repress the shrieks of delight that attempted to make its way through her naked throat, picked the wood back up and descended to Ronin and the cow. "Here we go," she said, dropping the whole batch to her feet near the cow with a sigh of relief. Then she realized they might have a problem. "We're going to need flint and sssteel," she said, crossing her fingers for Ronin to be carrying one in his backpack. Seeing he did not move so much as an inch, she added sarcastically: "Please, don't get up, let me do the honors." She went to his backpack and rummaged through, digging through the gold mizas that tinkled in her hands. No flint and steel. "Isssn't there anything of use in that bag of yoursss?" she muttered. He cut her finger on something and quickly jerked her arm out, licking the injured finger. And then she understood what it was. "I hope you don't mind, but we'll use your razor to get sssparks," she informed him, then bit her lip and frowned. Why do I keep being ssso polite? she blamed herself silently. It's not like he's going to get offended and argue. He's not in a posssition to do so and he probably doesn't even have the ssstrength. She resumed her work and snatched a pebble that had broken off the rock Ronin was leaning against. She rubbed razor and stone against each other with sharp movements repeatedly, sending out several sparks every time she did. But the wood, dry though it was, did not catch fire. "I need charcloth, but I don't sssuppose you're carrying anything flammable with you," she said to Ronin. Then she narrowed her eyes shrewdly. "Oh, but you are, aren't you," she corrected, smiling. For some reason, the thought amused her, but she quickly repressed that emotion. She walked up to Ronin and commanded: "Don't move." She grabbed his tan-colored shirt at the waist and tore a rather large part of it away with the razor. She quickly glanced at the skin she had made bare, frowned and looked away, returning to her fire. The fabric caught sparks almost immediately as a steady blaze spread to the wood, and she recoiled from the fire, slightly surprised at her success. Using the sharp end of the razor, she cut out large chunks of flesh from the carcass and set them along the edges of the fire. "Dig in," she said, grabbing herself a piece of the meat and voraciously threshing it as she satisfied her tremendous hunger.

[Ronin Invictus]

The mysterious woman seemed to have been gone for quite a while now, Ronin had started to worry if she had abandoned him. After a few moments Ronin had cast away such thoughts although, if she was going to leave him she wouldn't leave being the cow. Now that he thought of it, she didn't even have to deceive him if she wanted to leave him, there was nothing he would be able to do about it.

The thought of the cow then had brought his muddled mind to the attention of another detailed he had seemed to miss previously. It was the two peculiar wounds that were in the neck of the animal that she had hunted. The woman was completely without clothes, so he knew she probably didn't have any weapons, so how did she inflict those wounds on the animal? Ronin highly doubted she had done that with her bare hands. A wave of dizziness had washed over Ronin then, causing him to have to brace himself by putting out one of his arms beside him to steady himself. Ronin frowned slightly as the dizziness dissipated before resolving to inquire about the wounds later.

Just then, the woman appeared over the dune again, now with a arm full of wood. Ronin began to wonder now how she would light the fire, but she soon was digging around in his pack again, finding his razor and using it to start a fire. Ronin slowly inched his way torwards the fire now to warm himself, even though it would be day time soon enough. Once she had finished cooking the meat he had dug into the meat voraciously, just as she did, and in that moment he had completely forgotten about his longer than normal canines he should be trying to hide.

ooc: sorry about short post D: I had a much longer better one almost done when I accidentally refreshed the page losing all my stuff. This will have to do I guess

[Bethsyliss]

Bethsyliss methodically devoured the chunks of meat as soon as she deemed they looked cooked enough for Ronin not to suspect she actually didn't need them to be cooked and went back to hack off more pieces of flesh from the carcass lying behind them. About two thirds through the animal, she began to slow down, her stomach filling up sufficiently to stop growling. She threw a quick glance at Ronin while he wolfed down yet another chunk of meat. Something flashed in her field of vision, and she blinked, thinking it was the rising sun that struck at her eyes. There it was again: a quick glint of something catching the sunlight between her and Ronin. But there was nothing between her and Ronin. She narrowed her eyes as he reached out for a piece of meat that seemed too raw for a regular human's taste. Well, she noted suspiciously. It just so seemsss that my new companion hasn't told me everything, now. He might be hungry, but I'm not buying it. No one fools Sylisss, and especially not in the Burning Lands. If it has to come down to a fight, then let it be. I'll wring the truth from his entrailsss if I have to. Bethsyliss tensed herself before speaking. She did not know whether Ronin -- if that was his real name -- would be cooperative or if she'd have to react fast. Being a viper with a now full stomach, she was not worried. Ronin was ripping apart the uncooked piece of meat with teeth which were much too long for her liking. She cleared her throat. "Ronin," she called in a voice that clearly indicated she was suspicious. "Tell me what you are and what you can do right now and don't ssso much as move an inch or I'll have you lying on the sssand the way that cow is." She spoke very quickly, urging him to answer immediately so that he wouldn't have time to think up a lie or determine a course of action. Before Ronin spoke, she realized that was a mistake. If she needed to pursue or fight him, she'd need to be in viper or Dhani form, and right now she was as vulnerable as any naked human would be, with only a blunt razor for a weapon. She certainly didn't want to get hurt, but neither did she want to hurt him -- though she was too proud a serpent to accept that about herself. She prayed with every fiber of her being that the young man she had so generously shared her meal with would comply.

[Ronin Invictus]

Ronin continued to eat the cow, one piece after the other. At first his dry throat hurt with every bite he swallowed, but that didn't slow him down and soon he could already feel his strength returning. As he continued to eat he didn't notice the woman had begun to stare at him as he kept on eating as if nothing was wrong, tearing a rather large chunk of meat now. Once he had finished his last piece of meat, his body now satisfied he looked up only to be meant with the woman's eyes now drilling into him. Just a few moments later, she began speaking.

As she spoke Ronin soon found out his error just before she finished speaking, quickly closing his agape mouth, remembering the fang-like teeth that replaced a normal human's canines. Ronin was in quite a panic, but he remained frozen, staring wide-eyed back at the woman. Without even thinking Ronin blurted out an answer, "W-what?!"

Of course Ronin knew what she meant but he became so panicked he just blurted the first thing that came to his mind as he remembered the last time he had surprised someone with the fact that he was a kelvic, and that was his parents. Ronin knew people didn't like surprises, that was probably why his own mother cast him away, selling him to slavers. As Ronin thought about his answer over now his muscles had tightened now. Ronin was in fight or flight mode, he knew the woman was probably much more capable than she looked, remembering the two neat holes in the cow's neck that had been enough to kill it. Unkown to Ronin although, was that he had now given her ample time to morph into a stronger, faster form in his panic. Glancing back at what was left of the cow, he figured she did not like his answer, with the two wounds on the cow's neck still fresh in his mind Ronin quickly turned and ran as fast as he could, grabbing his backpack barely slowing down.

Ooc: Bethsyliss should be quick enough to catch him in his human form, just please don't kill have her kill him when she does catch up with him

[Bethsyliss]

That's his explanation? she thought, slightly infuriated because of his evasive response. Nothing elssse? He gives me no choice. Faster than she had ever done before, enhanced by the tension her animal instincts imbued her body with, Bethsyliss morphed into Dhani form before Ronin's very eyes. His panic seemed to have paralyzed him, and he watched in horror as Bethsyliss's human skin shimmered into a complex network of interwoven scales, shifting under the pressure of the millions of tiny muscles which were reorganizing her body. Her legs fused and grew into the five-foot tail of a viper. Triumphantly, she shrieked a hiss of jubilation when the transformation was over. But Ronin had already grabbed his backpack and bolted away. "Freeze!" she yelled. Seeing that he did not halt, she coiled her tail up into a spring in order to gain fast momentum and launched herself towards him. It only required a small amount of sliding on the sand before she caught up with him. She spun round and placed her tail in front of him, tripping him, then proceeded to wrap her slender tail around his body. He lay on the ground with her tail tightly bound around him while she flared her hood on top of him, blotting out the sun from his eyes. She slowly approached her head to his and flicked her forked tongue at his bare, vulnerable neck, delicately purring. But she did not bite. Instead, she whispered: "Do not move, and I will ssspare your life." In the back of her mind, she knew that she had spared his life too many times to ignore her strange compulsion to keep him alive, and, before she could repress her thoughts, she grew painfully aware of her indecipherable fondness for the man. She stared at him for a lingering moment, more out of sheer incomprehension than out of a desire to sting him whenever she got the chance, trying to find the answer in his eyes of her mysterious drive toward him. Then she lowered her head in resignation and sighed, nonetheless not letting go of the grip she had on him with her tail securely fastened about his body. She stayed thus for a moment, clinging to his tense body. Then she said: "Now I've revealed I'm a Dhani, you might as well tell me what the deal isss with you. I hope you haven't got any prejudices againssst sssnakesss. But pleassse do realize you're not in a position to argue anymore, before I decide to ssstick my fangs in your throat. I am ssstill hungry, you know."

[Ronin Invictus]

Ronin ran surprisingly fast considering he had so recently recovered from his earlier condition, but as he quickly glanced back to see if the woman, who was now some sort of cross between a snake and a woman had many any progress he was startled to see she was closing on him, fast. This only caused Ronin to run faster, he was pretty sure he had moved more than an inch already and he did not want to end up like that cow. Just when he thought he put some distance between them, something suddenly tripped him, it seemed to come out of no where, and before he even hit the ground the strong tail had started to wrap around him. Ronin tried to push away the tail with all his might before her tail pinned his arms to his side and his legs together. She was wrapped tight enough to completely restrain him just loose enough to allow him to breath slightly. Ronin closed his eyes then, she had caught him, and there was almost no doubt she would kill him, and when everything went dark he could have sworn he was dead.

After a few moments although, Ronin could still feel the tight coils of muscles around him, and the now warming air of the desert. Ronin opened his eyes slowly then and found his face only inches from the woman's maybe she was just toying with him before she killed him. Ronin's neck tensed as she flicked her forked tongue towards his neck. Ronin had no problem complying with not moving though. He stared back into her eyes for a few long moments, both of them not moving. Ronin's wide-eyed panic had soon turned into a slightly puzzled look as he wondered why she did not kill him, whatever it was that had prevented it, he didn't want to question it.

She sighed then slightly lowering her head now, Ronin's quick shallow breaths from his run now dissipated, although he was still slightly overwhelmed with everything that had just happened, between the woman turning into a sort of snake and him running for his life, so he remained silent as she spoke.

As she explained what she was Ronin was still slightly puzzled, he had never heard of the Dhani before, but he had just seen first hand what they were and what they were capable of, so he did not feel the need to ask any questions. He quickly shook his head when she asked if he had any prejudices against snakes. Ronin sighed then quietly, he only saw if fair he explained himself now, and he now knew she would accept him, she was much like him as far as morphing into animals went. "If you would let me go I could show you." he said rather carefully as if not to anger her.

Once the woman had let Ronin go he sat up for a few moments rolling his now sore shoulders before glancing at the woman once more, fear had been mostly replaced with a sort of curiousness for the form she had taken, but there was still a hint of fear. Without another word Ronin stood up then and began stripping himself of all his clothes, after all he didn't want to ruin his clothing when he shifted into his animal form. Once he had shed the last article of clothing he began to shift.

In just a few moments swirls of light enveloped Ronin, his human body dissolving into tiny particles of light and reforming into the shape of the sleek spotted big cat at the same time. The whole process seemed to take place in just a few seconds, but it was truly a spectacle.

Once Ronin was fully in his animal form, he felt oddly content. It had been the first time in quite a while that he had shifted into his animal form. This form seemed to always give him a strange feeling of freedom, even during the few times he shifted while he was a slave. Ronin in his animal form was a sleek cheetah with long legs and a long tail that allowed him to turn on a dime even at high speeds, along with a body covered in sleek muscles built for sprinting. His whole body was covered in a thick array of black spots, so thick they seemed to form solid black lines that went from the base if his skull just half way down his tail. The rest of his body was covered in the same black spots, some occasionally seemed to have been fused together in odd shapes. Ronin purred softly then, before sitting down and looking the woman in the eye now.



ooc: picture from my cs :3 enjoy.

[Bethsyliss]

Convinced that he wouldn't attempt another flight, Bethsyliss regretfully loosened her grip around the man who called himself Ronin. Her eyes did not leave his as he slowly slipped away from the scaly bonds she had entrapped him in. Her mind and animal instincts told her that she mustn't let go of her prey, while her heart and female emotions assured her that everything was going as it should. Her conflicting feelings put her in a passive stance; she retracted her hood and observed. Ronin started to remove his clothes before the captivated eye of the viper. A sudden warmth boiled in her lower belly, a pleasant heat she had never experienced in the ninety-six years of her life. He dropped his torn linen shirt onto the ground. She marveled, wide-eyed, at his lean, muscular build. He unlaced his knee-high boots and stepped out of them. She watched his feet bury into the sand. He removed his loose breeches. She marveled at his powerful legs. And then he slipped out of his plain undergarments. She was utterly fascinated. Her belly was now burning. While she stared, her mouth agape, at the man who had entirely stripped before her in the middle of the desert, his body surrounded itself with a translucent nimbus of bright light. At first, she thought it was her imagination, but then Ronin dissolved into tiny glowing particles. Her head recoiled abruptly, and her perplex eyes scanned the spot where the naked man was standing a second before, desperately trying to make sense of the unseen phenomenon that was taking place before her. Has he essscaped? she thought at first. I knew I ssshouldn't have let him go. This is magic. He's probably teleported now to Sssiku knows which location miles from here and left me with his clothesss and money. All of it... It's worthlesss without him. Syliss's eyes blazed and she hissed in frustration, cursing herself for her gullibility. Just as she was about to get closer to the shapeless, shining mass to poke around in hopes of discovering something, the cluster of light particles locked. She curiously cocked her head to one side and looked at the glowing outline. It was shaped oddly like a golden wolf, but with a smaller head. The light suddenly disappeared and Syliss shielded her unprotected eyes with her hands. When she looked again, an animal with a bright blond coat covered in black spots stood in its place. Black marks ran from the corners of his eyes to his snout, shaped like tears and conferring a kind, soft expression to his slender face. Syliss had never seen an animal like him. The animal purred softly, then dropped down on his haunches and looked Syliss straight in the eye. The gaze he gave her caused her to understand. The animal was Ronin. Syliss had heard stories of races other than the Dhani that had the ability to change their shapes to those of different animals -- excluding snakes, of course, the superior species, which was only granted to the Dhani --, however she had always dismissed those as tales invented to teach young Dhani some humility. But now, an actual shift to an unknown creature had happened right before her. She was stricken with admiration. Without a word, she slowly morphed into her full snake form, letting out hisses of joy as she retrieved her original shape. She slithered up to Ronin and lifted her head to his neck. She nuzzled the soft fur, her tongue flickering. Then she retreated, looked at Ronin, and a message passed from her to him in that peculiar way different animals were in the habit of silently communicating: Let's finish eating. She sled her way along the sand back to the dead cow and gulped in huge chunks of the meat that remained to be sheared from the fresh carcass.

[Ronin Invictus]

Ronin remained seated, although his head tilted slightly as the woman shifted fully into a snake now, so her previous form was a cross between her human and snake form? Ronin himself didn't have an in between, it was either fully human or cheetah, the thought of shifting into a middle ground intrigued him. Ronin eyed the dark serpent as it approached him, but he was oddly not afraid. Ronin had come to the conclusion that she was trying to avoid killing him for whatever reason. In fact, if she was bent on killing him she would have done it when he made a break for it. Ronin even didn't mind when the snake that was the woman nuzzled the soft fur under his neck, although he didn't really think much of the gesture, communications between many animals mostly involved body language and posture, along with some vocalization.

Ronin followed the snake now back down the hill at her beckoning then, Ronin was actually quite eager to satisfy the rest of his hunger in his animal form. If he hadn't been trying to hide the fact that he was a kelvic before he would of ate the cow raw in his animal form. Now he could enjoy the meal a little bit better with that off his chest. Ronin watched the black snake that was the woman he had met recently tear into the meat, swallowing huge gulps, some seemed to big for her jaws but she somehow managed to swallow them. As Ronin watched her eat he just realized he had never asked her name, and had just been refferring to her as 'women'. Ronin resolved to ask her eventually, he would have to live with her for who knows how long after all, Ronin could at least try to get along, even with the slightly rocky meeting they had. And with that Ronin turned towards the cow and picked one specific flank to start ripping into it. Ronin didn't have any table manners when he was eating in his human form, let alone his animal form. The fur on and around his snout was tinged crimson by the time he was finished.

Ooc: glad your enjoying it lol. I could probably pop into a thread in ahnatep after this thread or we could make another thread. I already have some ideas for that.

[Bethsyliss]

When the cow had been reduced to a pile of bones and other inedible parts, Bethsyliss produced a sound halfway between a hiss and a purr. She intended it as a laugh, but snakes' throats were not made for laughing, and the noise came out oddly like a choking jackal gasping for air. It was not so much the bright red splatter of blood covering Ronin's muzzle that amused her such, but the look of complete ingenuousness on his innocent face combined with the fact that he had just rapaciously gorged himself with fresh meat. Even more delightful was the fact that he'd have no way to clean off the blood from his face, animal and human alike, before they came across a source of water to wash it off, and his face would be stained for most of the remainder of the voyage. Simple ideas that corresponded to basic needs could be expressed with animal communication, but more complex notions involving projecting oneself into the future -- an act of thought which most creatures were not granted to be able to carry out because of their reduced cognitive capacity -- required the intricacies of the human language. Since she and Ronin were embarking on a journey that was likely to drag on for several weeks, she thought it best to switch back to human form and sort the finer details out. She shifted without rushing, her satisfied belly enhancing the weariness that she started to feel from her sleepless night hunting and dealing with the stranger. "I don't know that you're much of a hunter, ssso I'll be the one feeding us for the most part. As a sssnake I can pick up smells better than any living creature ssso I'll spend most of the time in that form. Sssomeone's going to have to carry the bag, and that will be you. I could probably have gone a lot fassster without you, being a viper and all the advantages that comesss with that, but a deal is a deal, and I won't leave you to die alone if it comesss down to that." Then an idea struck her. Her serious face turned into a slightly vicious grin, and she said: "Actually, maybe there isss a way we can make better time. How fassst can you run with someone mounted on your back?" For some reason, the idea appealed incredibly to her. She looked at Ronin expectantly, waiting for him to shift back to human form while she watched.

[Ronin Invictus]

Once both of them had finished their meal the woman made a sort of strange noise, causing Ronin to tilt his head slightly at her, was she choking? After a few moments Ronin found she was laughing at him, in only a way snakes could. Ronin snorted softly at this flicking his long tail. The woman then began to shift back into human form, the snake growing legs and arms and scales turning into skin, the Dhani morphing still didn't get old to Ronin, it was still as fascinating to watch as the first time. He had never known there were other races that could shape shift, and the Dhani seemed to do it in a much more different way. Once she finished morphing and began speaking he knew he would have to go back to human form again, which did not please him. He was much more content at the moment in his animal form.

Ronin's ears seemed to perk up then, pointing towards the woman as she came up with an idea. Ronin snorted softly again then, licking his snout to get some of the blood off before he started to shift again. In a few seconds he was in his human form once more, although without clothes. He turned towards the woman now, who seemed to be staring. Ronin didn't mind though, after all he didn't wear clothes in his animal form, so he sort of felt the same way in his alternate form. He had to wear clothes though if he were to blend in as a normal human, and right now to protect his human form's skin from the powerful rays of sun that would soon start cooking the desert. Ronin pondered for a moment then before shaking his head slightly, "I cannot carry you for very long or go fast. It would probably be better if we walked." And it was the truth, his animal form was built for speed and nothing else, he could not carry too much weight if any, and to have someone mounted on his back would make him too slow and he would tire fast.