OOC: tl;dr ahoy!
unh...
All was black.
Philemon woke up to a high pitched shrieking yell that just would not cease. It echoed on inside his head, and he somehow felt the shriek had marred the better part of the dream he was having. What was it about? Philemon tried to remember the dream while he still could. The whole dream seemed to have revolved about tormented shrieking, like there was nothing else. Maybe it was a warning?
It should have served as a warning to the ignorant sap who uttered that pitiful shriek, and lay in a room above Philemon, crumpled in a puddle of blood, and either mutilated or slain, so he figured. The fool probably crossed someone high, or failed to pay debts he got himself into. Philemon had no pity for the creature who failed to manage to elude such trouble. He must've deserved it if he had this happen to him in the first place...
hmmm.....
The ringing stopped.
Everything pointed to Philemon himself lying safe, sheltered in the Demios inn. He had done no wrong, noone would just hurt him, especially thanks to his fine elven features. People had a tendency to sink into a cooing puddle in the presence of these creatures of the fey twilight, whose looks he shared. He gathered the evening class in Mysticism had come to a close and he had managed to drag himself to the Leap of Faith. He must've been really tired to have forgotten what happened between his unbinding dream, and him laying himself to bed in the inn. Wow...
It was dark where Philemon lied. Outside of the inn, his bed must've been close to the outer wall, he heard something flapping, maybe it was the inn's sign being blown to and fro in the wind... He felt something soft and fluffy press him in the back, gentle yet unrelenting. Must be the bed. Or rather softness and fluffiness pressed him in the back as this softness proved rather massive. So did the fluffiness. He tried to grasp both hands beneath the pillow that lied beneath his head, y'know this being an inn an'all...
He couldn't get his hands around it. Why couldn't he get his hands around it? That is one BIG pillow. Philemon tried to at least grope the outlines of the pillow. He felt kinda curious to know where it ended. No outlines. Figures. It just felt more ..resistant when he moved his hands lower.
Philemon did not have a blanket laying on him. That's just crazy, with the draught the ..elf felt. He probed beneath him for the blanket to pull it back up over himself. No blanket. Just a fluffy sturdy mattress beneath him and the bed. Strange how something still felt crumpled underneath him, though. He tried to raise himself up to find a blanket, but his body felt unresponsive and Philemon figured he was still so woozy that he needed to use his hands to support himself. He firmly tried to plant his hands in the mattress.
...?!!
Philemon's attempt at gaining leverage over himself backfired as the long slender ..elf flipped over his back and the flip, EACH flip, much to his own amazement, actually amplified the speed at which the elf rolled and tumbled over his own back.
Make it stop... Philemon, powerless but not willing to go out without a fight, busily fumbled to prevent who or whatever made him roll like this leaving without a black eye. Finally Philemon succumbed to the hopelessness of the situation and let rip a shriek of terror of his own.
Weird, it seemed uncannily similar, even identical, to what woke him up... Though he was too busy writhing in agony of the trap he fell into, in one of the environments at which he would admit being truly helpless in, the bed in which he slept, to give it much more thought.
As Philemon slowly ceased tumbling, he had the giveaway thrown into his lap, as suddenly a shape over his head grew in size, and parroted the shriek of Philemon, laying the missing link between that, and the shriek that awoke him, the volume of noise overpowering, up to the point it would nearly induce deafness.
Slowly it grew. Fascinated by the blob revealing itself to Philemon, he chose to study it, fighting the urge to close his eyes in pain over the noise which seemed to make his eardrums buckle, soon to be ripped apart. It was humanoid and quite long, svelte as it's limbs wildly flailed, coming Philemon's way. It must be elfin, yes, yes it was, he could see now, it was dashing and sprightly, and it seemed to him that the poor soul would be a nice enough sort of person to occasionally go on a pub crawl with, chasing skirt and whatnot. He looked familiar, like an old friend, but who was it?
Those smaller but still characteristically elfin ears... the puffy golden blond hair at halflength, brushing his shoulders... that salty skin tanned so brown it nearly went grey... That subtle yet distinct oily fragrance, recognizable from some yards distance...
At this point Philemon was just kicking himself over not recognizing someone so obviously close to him, whom had now ceased shrieking. He could see the white of his eyes, his hazel eyes, jittering as they studied Philemon. Something dawned on the elf, Philemon could see it. It yelled at him:
"No...no...I'M Philemon.. curse you! how dare you take the form _I_ try to hide?!!"
The cursing elf stultified ..his mirror..mirrorman.
I'm here, yet I'm there, those features are mine, what is this?!! He would have spat on the insolent impostor/impostee, had he not have to turn himself over and initiate another spinning/flipping antic, as the impostor had already dropped past Philemon, dropped with a faint swoosh.
And with a faint swoosh everything brightened...
The pitch-black ceiling quickly turned blue with puffs of white, like clouds, only the ceiling had a strange emerald glow. He'd believe he was outside if he wasn't inside like he was, only, it was so _real_, bar the emerald-green of course ... Just like the snout he had. He had his snout! Quickly he groped his snout with his scaly hands. Yes, it was real. When had he changed back?! Then the sky is real too... However, "Why is everything green though?!" and "What magic was this?!" took a backseat to "If the sky is real then where the heck am I?!!" Risking the flipping again, he slowly tried to turn himself on his stomach. What he saw nearly turned his stomach.
Land. Yellow cornfields lay, with farmers working them, too small for Philemon to see yet, outside a sizable city wedged between the fields and a stiflingly huge forest that had thick clouds of mist floating by and through it. And it was all so little. The impostor that fell by him was only an ant now, and quickly shrinking even smaller as he dropped into the city. Philemon wouldn't want to be him when he landed...eugh. He would be if he didn't act soon though, he had to think fast to not turn into a puddle.
He had been suspended in mid-air the whole time. The flapping noise, the crumpled something under him were his tiny Moraden wings furiously pinned to his back by the resisting wind, the mattress, were and now being beaten about. He had to be grateful to this blessed emerald green light for illuminating him on the situation. Else the soft matress would've turned hard on Philemon. Really. Really. Hard. Where did the light come from? Philemon looked to his side; two emerald suns stood on the horizon over an ocean miles away...
Well, back to not dying: Philemon was in a pickle. He had been blessed with wings, but they weren't much for wings, as far as wings go. Still, to Philemon they seemed like the only way out of the predicament. It wasn't like another option presented itself to the dracon. Funny how in his life he mostly had relied on _not_ being a dracon for his survival. He'd rather smirk 'bout it with his feet on solid ground. Furiously his diminutive wings beat against the firmly resisting downforce, and finally, when the shapes of the buildings in the beige-grey that was the city, deep down were starting to form in the dracon's eyesight, the speed of his downfall lessened. He counted on it proving enough for the dracon to safely land, just hoping wasn't going to do, he knew fate had to be bent to his will, therefore he would do so.
That left him with where to land... He couldn't just land on the town square and walk away alive. They'd try and lynch the dracon
en masse. Sure, he'd put up a good, dirty, messy fight, but still: Ten thousand, with the little skills that he had? Ten thousand was only a feasible amount to take out when slowly picked off one or two at a time. It would take so long too, he'd rather not get HIS hands dirty with such a savage task. Philemon oftentimes entertained himself with the thought of being his own man, but that was a bit TOO much.
Field or forest. The fields had men in them; he could soon see them, but also vice versa, they'd have a welcoming committee there too, albeit smaller. Then there was the forest, good for an outcast to take refuge into, but surely with inhabitants of its own.
Philemon then got even more reason to be grateful as the green light intensified on a spot within the thick mists of the forest. Not quick to question it, he followed suit that which had saved him from a crashing death earlier, it was, as of yet, a friend.
Through the mist the intense green light, that he was sensible enough to not directly look into now that he fluttered and glided in it, pointed out a clearing in the forest at the base of a stone ziggurat, hidden under the really thick mist. Philemon felt a slight bit humbled that the green light allowed him alone to experience the majesty of such a mighty, albeit ruinous, building of old. Although he did have the power in his short wings to save him from a crashing death. Eh, it was teamwork.
The landing was harsh; nothing broke, miraculously, but Meephos was sure to again rekindle Philemon's anguish as his legs hurt immensely like he, and they, never had hurt before. Still he was now on
terra firma, and overcome by a sense of bliss he rested in the idyllic wild forest.
As time passed the ziggurat executed an intoxicating pull on the dracon and had him fueled by a mad obsession to mount it, to take the spot he believed his. This might be the precipice he spoke of earlier. Filled with a incensed joy he mounted step after step, the forests again shrank to him, shrank to insignificance if only he would look back, but his view was fixed on the top like it alone mattered. Finally, after an exasperating climb, Philemon, giddy with pleasure, reached the top. He looked out over his surroundings, there was the forests, but he grew tired of them; they were safe, relatively, but without glory. The green light allowed him to see the city whereas it's inhabitants could not look back.
There on the town square was a stain, a gruesome sight as an unfortunate elf lay crushed, thick black fluid splattered around him. Children prodded his remains with a long stick, sadistically chuckling. Throngs of people, interspersed with various armed folk from around the county, stood huddled around it as a pox-scarred preacher ranted against the cursèd vile scalefolk, disguised as normal folk to corrupt the easily tempted from within. A stake too had hastily been erected; it had a plump woman tied to it, her dress stained black as she had walked into the muck to tend to the corpse by covering it up with her apron. She was now corrupted and had to be burnt to prevent corruption from spreading, or so the preacher proudly boasted. With a flicker in their eyes the townsfolk agreed, standing by docile, eager to have the craven cow wiped from the ground she once walked on.
Elsewhere with the militia posts unattended, Brigands took to their jobs and robbed and ravished innocent folk, either blissfully unaware of the savagery elsewhere, or too civilised to witness it. The town's gentleman militia, having turned up in droves, away from their posts, took the honours: After straws were drawn and practically fought over, a greasy pignosed muscular sort, "winner", who shared more with pigs than just his nose, ran up to the stake, with saliva running down his neck and lit it with his torch, jumping like a child seeing the flame spread. Sadly he was dragged away to safe distance, before the flame could take him too.
The magnificent, yet terrible view was not only had by Philemon, with his precipice underneath him: The great estate that looked out over the town too had an excellent view over the town square, and it was there that the vaunted champions, adventurers, mercenaries and journeymen of the land had a feast, as they did frequently between stripping coin off the defenseless dead in the mausolea of the noble and embezzling from the State, if it for once did _not_ curry to their favour, which was hard with the many government officials they counted among their number.
Erudite folk as they were, they were above burnings and chose to have the boorish incident drowned out with sublime music performed by a multitude of finer artists, who were glad to not have to resort to cutting purses thís month ( Conveniently the burning chubby lady cried out in waltz-time. ) There, as the town folk grew sotted with death, the heroes grew sotted with wine and ambrosia, the cream of the crop fed each other grapes, smiling affably and admiring one anothers delicate features.
And as the aforementioned hastily built stake proved to be built too hastily; uncarefully close to a nearby alchemists' tower, - the fire jumped over to wooden shutters and floors, inflammable tomes, then volatile chemicals and reagents - as the flame consumed the pillar of civilization, the civilized folk partied on; gasps from the enthralled townsfolk were met with laughter, the hustle and bustle of people trampling each other in flight were met with romantic embraces, and the deafening explosions of chemicals, rendering that spot uninhabitable for the next hundred patterns, were met with the muted throes of enamoured couples' hearts, popping open to Carmelya's arrows being fired upon them; all coming from the tastily decorated interiors of the estate most plain commoners will never see in their entire insignificant life.
Later, the town guard present on the square - they'd be darned if _they_ ever came close to that exploding deathtrap with buckets, heard the music overpowering the mourning of those few left on the square who weren't trampled underfoot, smiled merrily, fell into each others' arms and danced...
Philemon however felt disgusted by the goings-on and turned away from the town and turned to the forest; Philemon felt bored again with the forest and turned to his ziggurat, Philemon felt alone on the ziggurat and felt mocked by the two emerald suns which started on slipping past the horizon but were still entirely visible. How could the green suns witness this and not flinch?! Maybe they were powerless too, just like Philemon.
He would not prove powerful enough to stop it all, he gathered, he gathered that for all his life. All _he_ could do was stay on top of it. He clenched his fist intending to nonetheless utter a curse at the two emerald suns for being too weak to interfere, and therefore looked directly into the two suns, thereby breaking the rule he set for himself, prior to the dream, and with one last yelp he stood back in front of Laria again, looking flushed with anger, despair, and a thirst for power.
OOC2: I'm really sorry
. Also I decided to edit the post a bit for a shred more readability.
Initiate Mysticism - Philemon Ki'neiw
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