Fantasy Only Skin Deep [Suighest]

[Proficiently Awkward]

The skeletal branches of yew and silver-birch trees reached skyward - bare save for the new green buds of spring growth. Tightly coiled fiddlehead ferns and thorn apple wove a thick, spongy carpet beneath the thicket canopy - enough to hush footfalls in the eerie stillness. The first true storm of the season had silenced the songbirds and sent smaller mammals to nesting deep within their burrows. Springtime never came gently to the lowlands. Even now, patchwork skies were flecked with clouds that hinted at another galestorm; ghost grey wisps of condensation that promised to gather water as the heat of the day peaked. Still, the deep of the wood went unmolested during the sour weather. Tightly packed tree trunks and abundant foliage had masked the severity of the storm - it was secluded and safe from the worst of the winds.

And yet, the scent of brine on the wind ushered Irikan on. Find the sea...

It was instinct more than insight that drove the young stallion - these were paths through the wilds that he had never walked. Only the tales of those that came before him, and the pretense of tradition, guided him. All half-growns, before they came of age, were set on the same pilgrimage. And it had been so as long as any living unicorn could remember. Completing the trek proved a warrior’s worth. It took swift legs, intelligence, and no shortage of heart to make such a journey. And it was a burden that the young stallion shouldered with pride. Younglings always fancied adventure, but kept secluded until this dispersal period, they could only dream of such things. Valiant battles with wingcats. Narrow escapes from packs of pan or satyrs. These were the warrior’s tales they foals had been fed until they were of age. And so, Irikan had followed the traditions and eagerly set forth upon this path. Until, that is, the forest came to an abrupt end.

The scads of intertwined trees thinned - trunks becoming twisted and gnarled as the ground gave way to looser, sandy soil. In a gradual spill, the ground sloped downward toward a vast, glimmering aquamarine sea. Sunlight shattered the surface of white-capped waves and set the ocean ablaze like a faceted gemstone. Yet, for all it’s beauty, it seemed the seaside had not been spared the brutality of the storm. Here, too, gales had wreaked havoc.

Swirling eddies and cluttered tidepools pitted the coastline, revealing the strange wreckage the first storm of spring had spilled across the coast. The seaside was choked with the stench of vile things retched up from the depths, baking as the sun reached its zenith. From end to end, flotsam littered the beach. Fragments of shell and tangles of kelp were strewn across the tawny expanse. Swells of lacy seafoam left a behind a latticework of froth as the tide began to recede. Natural depressions in the exposed reef trapped a myriad of tiny, jewel-colored fish, still swimming in lopsided confusion after being spilled onto the beach.

[Just setting the scene! Apologies, I'm super rusty!]

 

[Suighest]

Large bodies of weakened oaks and their splintered kin littered the shore, waterlogged and rotting amongst the bodies of displaced fish and small animals powerless against the nights twisting gale, the sour smell lifted so far along the shoreline that the sky was almost blackened with opportunistic birds. A towering maelstrom of excitement and feathers whipped around in the clear sky, spiraling down toward one area in particular like a living beacon. Despite the jeering cries and obvious excitement, the birds retained some distance from their target.

Over the crest of a few soggy dunes, the shadow of a large body was half sunk into the sand, almost as if the tiny granules had come together and formed a great maw underneath the body that slowly sought to devour it whole. A few braver birds dove in to nip at the bladed hump but whatever it, was did not stir, causing an eruption of noise in the sky above as the information was relayed back and forth. Looking up at them, it was as if the world had inverted and instead of birds, they moved more like a school of fish, twisting and warping into all manner of forms, still not yet brave enough to descend on their potential meal.

Even the sea seemed intent to devour the body, slapping into its side and sloshing between the narrow segments as if trying to take a bite, instead merely filling the divot of sand around its body with copious amounts of frothing seawater and the occasional crab, displaced from gnawing uselessly at any softer hide it could find. How frustrating it must be for all involved, to have come across a gift they lacked the means to unwrap. It looked more like a great obsidian rock jutting out of the sand, with jagged spikes and a rough uneven surface. Weeds, plants, twigs, and sand muddied its entire form but in the sunlight, there was just the smallest hint of iridescence underneath the grime. Greens, blues, pinks, golds, flickering through a liquid-like swirl of blacks and greys, with hints of blues and greens streaked faintly through the dark as if they were the deepest of waters made flesh.

It seemed to be partially curled but any evidence of how it had arrived there had long since swallowed by the waves and the sand as if they might be covering up for their crime. Despite their diligent efforts the sand on either side of the creature seemed oddly displaced and from a wider view of the scene, it appeared that quite a lot of the body really had been consumed by the beach itself. From what could be seen the creature had a severely curved back breaching out of the sand like whale breeches the sea, though in this creature’s case the curve seemed permanent and severe carrying the heaviest and most severely bladed scales. Perhaps a weak point that had been long since evolved away. Dense muscle structure was piled around its legs, which didn’t seem long enough to support the hulking form they were connected to, at least not in any way that was easy to imagine and there were only two, above the sand at least. Strands of kelp whipped around, impaled on the tips of tall arcing spines, clumps of earth and roots were lodged between delicately intersecting plates and leathery webbing that flapped around limply in the ocean breeze. It was somehow both slender and hulking at the same time, its midsection was rather long, barely the width of aspen trunk however and its hips were small and its feet thin and tipped with monstrously oversized talons, not unlike the cloud of raptors above. A long dark shape stretched out into the water behind it, probably a tail, lined with further webbing that jutted out of the glittering water, moving slightly with the drag and pull of the waves as if it were merely sleeping.

A larger wave sloshed over the exaggerated hump of its back and cascaded all the way down its long serpent-like neck, darkening the dried filthy scales in an almost maternal gesture.

Thunder and lightning were the total of his dreams, a huge shadow in the maelstrom, rain, wind, ripping, pain and then silence, silence, and darkness. Suddenly, it moved, that hulking obsidian spire shifted as much as if could in the sand as if the ocean had breathed life back into it in that one gesture, the large beast’s scales rolled in the light, the muscles under its skin shifting and bunching, pulling taut. The flock of birds above lamented as they sighted this movement, though the crustaceans remained diligent, picking away at bruises and damaged flesh they had found. As much as the great form heaved disturbing the sand even quite a ways away from it down the beach, it seemed unable to move much more than that, it’s body relaxing again in defeat. From its struggles, it had managed to reveal a portion of a set of truly enormous wings, pinned under the sand. Their sheer size made the creature’s body seem small in comparison and though it wasn’t monstrously huge it was still a few feet taller than a young unicorn if you measured it by its hunched back.

 

[Proficiently Awkward]

Curiosity spurred the stallion forward. A rancorous flock of sea-birds were wheeling and plunging in fevered excitement. The piercing squalls were deafening, raising in pitch and fervor as each moment passed. What it was that had frothed the birds up so - certainly - was worth a look. With an air of stoic poise, Irikan navigated through the storm littered sands.

Those slender, akimbo limbs each ended in a delicate cloven hoof - split and soft-padded as a common goat. Sharp as flint and colored with the brittle darkness of cold-cast iron not a step stirred sound. Generous, charcoal furred fetlocks near covered the petite hooves and created the illusion of bulk about the pastern. And the tail, curling and swaying with the curious near-prehensile of a feline’s, ended in a single, silken tuft.

The stallion’s pelt was dappled in patterns of swirling pewter hoarfrost. Scattered with crystalline rosettes in dusky silvers and heathers, beneath there was an underpinning of pale oystershell . It shone with the brilliance of water catching starlight - muted and cast in iron and cream. Darker, inky mottling pooled about his fetlocks - not true black, but the hue of shadows laid across an evening dark; overlapping and erratic. A wild, bramble-tousled mane tumbled untidily on either side of the unicorns slender, arched neck. It grew in patches of sterling and pastel cream tinsel, indistinctly dusky.

There was no enchanting brightness to the stallion. At least not in the manner fables might have boasted. Only the spiraling alicorn branching from the unicorn’s brow offered any otherworldly implication. Mother-of-pearl casts of obsidian and ivory and every hue in between slithered across the rapier-straight spire. It was an inconsistent shimmer, like dying waves of heat slicking a desert dune - nearly imperceptible unless the angle was just so. And long, impossibly long for a creature of such a seemingly delicate constitution. The pointed tip of the alicorn bore jagged score marks - evidence of the youth’s unpracticed sharpening skills.

A stone? No, for why would that draw such a clamor? Too inquisitive to exercise caution, the young stallion moved closer still. The bloated carcass of some ocean-dweller, perhaps? The overall shape of the beast was difficult to discern, twisted into the putrid quagmire. Already the beach-combing scavengers had set in to their feast - the greedy arms of crustaceans nipping flesh and waving their prizes high before setting the wicked, minuscule mandibles to work. The half-grown snorted distastefully, shying and side-stepping delicately away from the hulking mass. But a sudden movement spurred that haughty disdain into real terror. The damp, muted squelching as flesh began to peel from the mire - the unexpected rise and fall of the animal’s bulk - frayed the stallion’s nerve.

Coltish limbs faltered and a sudden pang of fear jolted the young unicorn to one side. High-prancing hoof-steps carried Irikan into shallow, white frothed waves - away from the now very much alive-looking creature. A high-pitched whinney burst from his throat and belied his sudden panic. Tufted tail lashing, head tossed high into the brisk wind, only a stern sense of pride (which was now rather sore) stayed the stallion’s confidence. Irikan stamped, sending a spatter of brackish brine across his forelimbs - a stout refusal to flee.

 

[Suighest]

The hulking shape again burst into movement at the shrill sound of alarm, the panic catching like a desert fire. Its long serpentine head snapped around low to the sand, drawing a deep groove in the fetid muck with the angular points that protruded from its wide blunt head. Unlike a dragon it seemed to possess no magnificent crown of horns -incomparable to a great proud dragon as it seemed, tangled as it was in seaweed, crusted with sand and grime like a long-discarded draconic link to the primordial past. Sharp spiraling scales of tarnished volcanic glass erected after a disturbing quiver, making the otherwise smooth serpentine neck puff out into a threatening mane of brittle knives. Still hung low toward the sand with an inelegant curl, its maw leveled toward the startled young stallion. It was caught somewhere between the maw of a python and a bunt nosed shark, even more so when it curled back it’s dark lips and exposed a terrifying portal gilded with serrated ivory shards decorated with strings of viscous saliva. The back of its throat the top of its mouth, the teeth weren’t confined merely to its gums and as the muscles pulled, its jaw seemed to give way under some strange weight within its complex cranium. Very much like a shark, its gums slid out of place, dislocating and extending the reach of its bite far beyond that of any normal reptile

The creature ensnared the unicorn in a set of vorpal crimson eyes and without any hesitation, it began to stretch its mouth open even wider until it was all the stallion could see. The taught wet flesh holding the creatures head together was pulled so taut it seemed like it might give way at any moment and rend that serpentine head into two perfect halves. As if all the teeth weren’t enough, a strange disturbing heat began to wash over the Unicorn, the stench of death followed in the flow of searing breath and an unsettling glow curled up that strained jiggling throat as the noise of the world fell away as if pulled in toward that hellish void.

What more could be done?

Just as quickly as the aggression had come about, it vanished, chased away by a shadow overhead.

That horrendous maw clamped shut. Whatever it was was something large enough to blot out the sun for a few moments on its approach. The body of the creature heaved against the sand in urgency, but it was no use its legs weren’t designed to be able to help it muscle its own way out of such an unusual predicament. The maelstrom of birds had urgently dispersed at the first sign of a sky-bound predator, pretending to lose interest as they scattered all across the beach to pick at the scores of easier and as it turned out, far more dead prey.

The sound of the waves slapping into the creature's obsidian side seemed enough encouragement for it to turn its ugly crimson gaze back toward the unicorn. Its scales once again shuddered but aside from a little puffing, like a gigantic disgruntled bird, it seemed to make an effort to relax, flattening the membrane of its many torn sails and spines in a rather unconvincingly fast manner. One eyeball, in particular, took to scrutinizing the young stallion but it was careful not to make any sudden movements as not to scatter this opportunity across the beach.

Loathe as he was to do it, the rather unfriendly looking creature tried to heave its form out of the sand, making its problem more obvious to the unusual onlooker before it was forced to slump back down in a wave of filthy seawater. Its chin dropped down to the sand heavily in exhaustion but it’s gaze remained sharp, focused, set onto its target like a patient viper.

A malodorous foul temper, an inelegant visage, a crownless head and a twisted nature as black as its scales, this foul beast was certainly no dragon. It was a wyvern. If dragons were the pinnacle of power and glory, in whatever form that might take then the wyvern was considered evil and treacherous, belly dragging monsters that sought the death of all good things. Terrors in the skies, even capable of felling dragons in aerial battles, Wyverns weren’t usually the problem of low landers; they lived along the rocky coasts or up far into the mountains where, if the rumors were to believed, they spent their time disemboweling their neighbors, or each other.

The wyvern snaked its long tail around behind the young unicorn, keeping the bladed appendage hidden in the disturbed shallows, to head off any escape. It would use whatever means necessary to ensure its own survival and that reflected in the burning embers of its harsh gaze and tightly slit pupils. “ Oh? … Such a brave Unicorn.” A most unnaturally deep sound slithered out of the creature’s maw, the perpetual serpentine smile that appeared on its face from the front seeming pointedly mocking, manipulative. “You’ve made a grave error, my little morsel…” Its voice made the very flesh under even the toughest hide squirm in discomfort, a low whispering rattle that felt like it was speaking from not from its warped form but from deep within the listener's belly, trying to crawl its way free.

“We are both in the snare of another hunter.” Its voice was crooning, both disturbing and seductive. It took it’s time with its words, rolling the 's'es, laying the groundwork of confidence and calm ill-fitting with its current situation. Clever half-truths. “It would take some time to get through my hide and you have unwittingly offered yourself as a snack in your curiosity…” A horrible rolling chuckle rippled through the winged serpent’s throat and it lifted its pointed jaw from the sand, silt drooling from its chin as it surveyed the effect these manipulative words might have on its target.

“My presence makes it weary. Assist me …and I will assist you.” The Wyvern’s tail was poised in the water if the stallion remained unmotivated, there were more extreme ways to fix that but for now, the unsightly beast attempted to seem amicable, even if no stories about making deals with Wyverns ever ended well. There was no way to tell if whatever looking down on the situation had even spotted the young unicorn but if the potential was there, then the fear of it could be used.

“All I need are my wings…” The wyvern slowly turned its snake-like head toward the slight impressions of crumpled membrane locked tight underneath the sand. It was such an unnatural sensation to have them trapped so, numb to any sensation but cold biting pressure. “And we….may survive.”

 

[Proficiently Awkward]

It was the impetuousness and inexperience of youth that stayed the stallion’s nerve. After all, foolishness was often mistaken as bravery. As the wyverns maw gaped, dripping ichor and viscous spittle from every ivory point - in that putrid breath, the unicorn scented death - the acird sourness of brimstone and flesh left lodged too long between pearlescent molars. To say the sight of it instilled fear fell short, drastically short, of true. To flee would have been in the unicorn’s best interest, yet sheer, fascinated terror kept his cloven hooves rooted. Miniscule ears pinned back, the stallion could do little more than aim the rapier-tip of his alicorn at the creature’s gaping gullet - keeping the sharpened spire between his sweat-flecked body and the belly of the wyvern.

The reputation of the wyverns, indeed, preceded them. No more vile a creature slithered the earth nor soared above it - and rare as they were - cultivated more hatred. Unicorns held a long standing prejudice against anything cold-blooded and swathed in scales, wyverns most of all. Tales were sung of the wyverns’ treacherousness - of their nefarious nature. Lore notwithstanding, by their very nature they were vile. It was said that no sooner than a female wyvern’s belly bulged with the weight of her unlaid clutch, she turned on her mate - the sire of her get sacrificed to her gluttonous gut. More abhorrent still, when the first prits pipped through their eggshells, en masse they set to squabbling and feasting on their dam - squirming into existence with a violent hunger, gorging always, yet never sated. And when there was nothing more than moldering bones to pick clean, the prits turned insatiable appetites and tempers on one another until only the most savage of the clutch remained. This, it was rumored, why none of his kin had set eyes on a wyvern - not in seasons beyond counting. It was their own venomous savagery that caused their scarcity.

“I’ll make no pact with a wyrm!” Conviction steadied Irikan’s bell-like tone.

The stallion snorted, attempting to rid his nostrils of the cloying scent of decay that roiled upward from the wyvern’s abyssal belly. However, despite the unprecedented strength to his words, he made no motion to either advance nor retreat. Pawing in agitation, Irikan stirred up a briny trough in the sand between them. It was an impasse. And now, fear descended upon the half-grown on all sides. The fleeting shadow cast from above dredged up terrors coded deep within his marrow. Seasons beyond seasons, it was a fear instilled in all his kind. Too often, the inaudible wing-beats of a gryphon was the last shadow to fall upon a unicorn. Each year in early spring the wingcats rode the swift sea winds from far across the sea and came to feast on the season’s new colts and fillies. A full grown tercel, the female gryphon, could even make quick work of an unpracticed warrior were they caught unaware.
There were few options to consider.

Fear flecked the stallion’s hoarfrost speckled hide, moisture blotting that grey pelt darker and the scent of his obvious unease sweet on the stale air. In exasperation, the young male reared, his tangled mane spilling about the arch of his neck. There was no way forward, and though he was swift, there was no way back. Now Irikan could see the sunken trough in the beach where the wyvern had wound his tail beneath the sand - effectively blocking any chance of escape.

“And what is it you would have me do?” It was not a patient question. The stallion champed his teeth irritably and swung his tufted tail as if to put emphasis on his futile situation. “You invite me to walk willingly into your jaws!”

 

[Suighest]

The miasma of stress prickled and appealed to the most primordial of instincts and a tension balled in the layers of intricate muscle, rolling under its dense scale structure, the wyvern’s mane of obsidian daggers rattled against his hide, clapping in twisted excitement or in terse warning like a concealed rattle-snake. The beast seemed to remain otherwise still and calm, a thin film rolled over its gaze when the young stallion nickered and writhed in his unfortunate forced role but other than that it was as still as stone, letting the foam, sand and stirred silt drool over its blunt head, undisturbed by the grime.

A decidedly stubborn and stupid creature was the unicorn, small-minded and unforgiving. They strode across the land inciting battle and savaging even the earth with their ‘fangs’. They were strange deeply magical creatures, containing unimaginable and disturbing magics. How else would they contain so much power within legs to small and such savagery in a single swing of the head? The great Saavir even told stories to this day, of her great battle with the ancient unicorns and how their fangs reached up into the very clouds, prying great beams of pain and light from the sun, casting her out to the sea where she now remained.

It was said that a Unicorn’s fang could flay anything living, never mind how scaled it appeared or how much war it had seen.

“I think I have a few more pressing problems than an empty stomach, stubborn a meal as you would be.” The wyrm’s lips pulled back a fraction as if it was perhaps displeased with the idea that it was so stupid. “Kick up the sand and push the worst of the debris from my wings, far away from my maw little morsel, if it makes you quiver so.” A few spines jutted and pulled the webbing taught over the back of its head and along the sides of its throat, as it rumbled in terse challenge to the stallion even going as far as arcing it’s serpent-like head up toward the other creature’s horn, flicking out a thick black tongue and drawing the slippery appendage across that mythical coil as if it could do no harm.

If this was a game of bluff, then he was going to win.

“ A pact to live, little morsel is better than a pact to die.” The serpent slowly lowered its great head back to the inelegant slope it naturally fell into, looking up toward the equines soaked hide, toward the twitching of frightened muscles under its neck. “If I cannot live, then neither can you. There is no more romantic a gesture.” Movement tore through the muscular shoulders of the obsidian nightmare, the sound of dark guttural laughter ripping through the air suddenly like blows to the mind, all tense but gentle reason gone from the disturbing sound. As its body quaked with laughter, the muddied water burped and squelched up other rotting carcasses in this impromptu watery grave.

No matter how trapped the Unicorn was, it was still going to be a matter of trust if the fanged herbivore would actually comply as the wyvern’s wings reached much further than his tail. The rolling sound of laughter faded and the serpent’s exhausted head dipped into the acrid slurry, painting its chin with mud, even as a few creases began to form across its bunt nose. Its crimson gaze settled on the twisted body of gull being pulled inch by inch toward the ever-hungry maw of the ocean with every clumsy impact.

He would do anything to ensure his survival. It was hardcoded into him as much as any other creature, as much as the unicorn beside him, as much as it had been in the dead littering these shores. One tense slit pupil twitched back toward the form of the Unicorn, trailing across the signs of weakness, tasting the sweet thrill of fear as he drew air into the dark pits lining his mouth, more akin to a python than any reptile.

After a moment of simply surveying the other creature, with all the patience only an apex predator could exercise, the wyvern began to squirm a little, confined though it was, caked in on every side by sand-weighted with water and pressure. The agony of keeping its neck above the pool despite its ill-designed length forced the creature underwater for a time. A strange light emitted from the filthy mire, a ghostly green and blue, swallowed into the slovenly brown. Its tail remained lifted and guarded to prevent the Unicorn from bolting while it was otherwise occupied but an uncomfortable feeling came from the grime as if those ugly crimson orbs were still locked onto their catch, even unseeing as they were, submerged in the muck.

Strained though it was, the wyvern lifted its head eventually, craning in toward the unicorn slowly as not to startle the paranoid prey, pausing whenever that fang pointed too close. It didn’t flinch back, standing its ground, its eyes set unblinking on the stallion’s elegantly sloped head. When it came close enough it parted its lips, paused as not to incite panic and then opened his maw more, until it was presenting the Unicorn with an oddly shaped jewel, swirled with emerald and silver and gold and a strange mystical corruption of various ores, it was imperfect and raw and small but it was most certainly a wyvern ‘thyst’.

As the stories would tell it, wyverns have no hearts. Instead, a jewel grows inside them; evil and power crushed together to form a very special gem. They’re unique to every hideous wyrm, no two look alike and even to this day, thysts the size of great boulders could be found, coated in rock and grime, forgotten in giant cages of bone where their owner had once fallen, blooming and corrupting with their dark tempting nature.

A thyst from a living wyvern was a great and terrible gift, leaving the beast at the command of whomever is brave and pure enough to consume it.

Stories of ancient warriors and dark evils, surely can’t be believed, can they?

“If you take this, I can no more harm you than I might myself.”