in the face of danger

<span style='width:100%;font-weight:bold; font-size:10px'>Out of Character</span>
<table class=ooc><tr><td>No sweat, babe. ;] </td></tr></table>


Penumbra's eyes widen as his 'wife' turned out to not be who he thought she was. His last thoughts were of his wife and they days they had spent. There was no way she could have lied to him this long, she was true, and this stranger was lying.

He felt sad he was not capable of protecting his family. His punctured lung was collapsing, and a paw flies to his chest to cover the white fur turned blood red. The ruby liquid flows from between his furred fingers, as much as he tries to stop it.

His death was inevitable now. But he was still a male, not matter how aggressive this female was. She was in his home, and gods be damned, with his dying breath he would try to do something.

Penumbra swings an arm forward, claws unsheathed, aiming blindly, as his vision was starting the blur. Whether he connected, he would never know, his senses were already failing. But he put all his strength into this last swing.

His final thought before darkness encompassed him and he fell to the ground was of his son. Bael. What would the child do without them?

~ * ~

Tryphaena busts through the door with such vigor it slams against the wall ninety degrees from it's home plane with a loud crack. This crack, however, sounded nothing different from the storm outside to any passersby. The pink and creamy white pendragon streams into the room dripping wet from the thunderstorm outside.

Quick with her decision to run in her home, but late to save her family. Her husband at least. She watches in horror at her blood soaked husband, his eyes rolled up into his head in the final throws of his death swing aimed at the woman she'd been kissing moments before.

She had never meant for this to happen! Her husband whom she loved, dead on the floor, blood still pouring freely from his chest wound. And her newfound lover with blood soaked fingers, standing there, watching.

Tears fill her eyes for the situation left unresolved. Would he ever knew how she felt? Did he know? Did he think her a traitor? She would find him in Fronima. She would explain it. Someday.

Someday was sooner to come than she thought, however.

In a tear-streaked rage, the mourning femme flings herself, tooth and claw, wailing thought hardly loud enough to pierce the storm raging outside, at the one she thought herself to love just moments ago. She aimed her fitfull attacks at Kyofu, her ruby eyes closed and rimmed red through her sorrow and anger.

Her thoughts were settled on her husband whom she had just lost. She watched as his lively tail flame flickered out and a new cry releases itself as the situation sets in her mind - she had indeed lost her true love, and now she was attacking her new lover.

~ * ~

Bael was fascinated by the storm. He crawls to his window, watching the lightning and the thunder as the storm instigates itself into a blur is pelting rain. As quickly as this new breath into the storm had come, so would it leave. It would not be long before the rain was pattering gently again.

But for now the child was content to peer out his tall window clinging tightly to his dark toy, Shade, completely unawares of the goings on just yards from his shut door.

 

It was a lie. It had to be. Penumbra would never attack anyone, he was a jovial and loving male, who was always quick to laugh and assist. But now his flame had gone out, and his spirit hopefully found peace in Fronima.

Tryphaena's sobbing starts anew. Her heart was torn she was broken, and now she was confused. Her selfish thoughts rumbled over that of Pen, of Kyofu, of times, touches, embraces, discussions, and moments of silence when feelings went without needing words to guide them.

She felt... lost. Alone and broken. She wanted no longer to live, and yet for Bael she would have to. She would run, then. Take her child and run away. Never look back, not to her deceased husband, not to her would-be lover, to nothing.

The pink hued pendragon rolls to her feet, choking on the sobs that ravage her chest and throat sore from exertion. <span style='color:#A41547'>"I will leave this place..."</span> she begins mumbling to herself. The horned widow looks at Kyofu, and whispers, perhaps to her, perhaps to herself, <span style='color:#A41547'>"You will not have me... I will run. I will take my child, and I will escape everything... my past, my husband..."</span> The ending was left unspoken, but nevertheless easy enough to guess: 'you.'

Sobered and blinded by tears, she hardens her heart. Crying would have to come later. She was a woman, and she had responsibilities. She needed to take Bael away from here. That was her first duty. She would retrun and bury her husband later. She stumbles forward, heading for the door at the end of the hall, unwisely leaving her back to Kyofu.

On her way toward her son's door, she noticed the knife she had used to slice their meal from before. Glittering and clean from when she and Kyofu had done the dishes.

Thoughts of inadequacy filled her. She was not fit to be a wife, she had proven that this night. Was she fit to be a mother?

The strain and stress of the recent occurances blotted her rationality, and the resounding answer came back: no. She was not fit. Bael would do best without her. He would thrive without such a murderous slut to raise him. Her cousins were coming. They would protect him. She didn't deserve so good a son as she had.

She would remedy this. Yes, she would.

With a sorrowful glance toward Kyofu, and another at the closed door where her son was, completely unaware of the unspeakable tragedies that had gone on, Tryphaena finds strength in her legs as she dashes into the kitchen, snatching the knife from it's resting place in the strainer.

The pink hued pendragon wastes no time - she would not allow herself to be stopped nor saved in such a condition as her mental state currently was. The silver plated knife, used to butcher several animal carcasses for their meals was now to be used for a much more dastardly plan. Her fingers wrap hurriedly around the handle, point directed at her chest. She fails to hesitate, as hesitating just perhaps might have saved her life, had she thought it through, had she re-reasoned this action. The knife in plunged with sheer dumb luck as accuracy directly into her heart. Having plunged the knife into her chest, she tears it back out again, and a painful sob fills the silence. Surprisingly, this wound hurt far less than the emotional pain she was suffering.

She sinks to her knees and her body quickly starts to go numb. As her body collapses to the floor of the kitchen, and her now numb body goes limp, the last thought to flicker across her mind is, <span style='color:#A41547'>{Ull ni lyba... Pen... Bael...}</span> A soft sigh marks the end of her breathing, and effectively, the end of this would-be traitor and supposedly unfit mother.

 

Woken from a sound sleep, the aging pendragon crept to her feet. Her scaled fur was greying in her age, where once it was silver in her youth. Nevertheless the door was being pounded upon and someone was shouting. With squinted eyes and a wide-toothed yawn, the kiom walks toward the door, muttering to herself, "Crazy 'dragons in the world, can't be nice enough to let a soul sleep..."

After peering through the peep hole to the outside, and seeing a femme pendragon on the other side looking both irritated and shaken, holding some foreign bundle, the elder opens the door a crack, her eye and half of her muzzle seen in the otherwise shadowy darkness of her unlit home.

"Yes? What is it now?" A bit hard of hearing, but the thunder of the storm seemed to be taking on something of light and a bit more crackling than she was used to...

 

The aging pendragon femme glares at the impudence of this stranger, smashing into her home as if she owned it. She purses her lips, about to complain about her kicked in door, and the fact she may just end up with some bruising from being shoved so harshly from the opening, but stops as she hears the words 'fire' and 'dead'.

Looking to the child on the couch she sighs softly, saddened by the news - she knew Bael, knew his parents. Knew what they were, too. Never told anyone, though. Never even spoke to the parents about it. But she knew it had to be murder - it was the only way any anti-graders died these days.

Keeping her thoughts to herself she returns a bobbling nod and a sour face to the stranger who had brought her Bael.

As the four armed 'dragon leaves, she returns to the front and shuts her door, even though she would have to get the lock fixed. Raising a palm the elder 'dragon uses her strong magic to light a fire in her small hearth, the black cauldron still inside it. She would make soup for the child.

But first, damn what the stranger told her - the Grader's lackey's would do no good here. She would out the fire herself. She was old enough to know better than that child anyhow. She had to be a third her age!

Walking out of her now unlockable door, she walks toward Tryphaena and Penumbra's home, built into the mountainside all the houses in Watani were, the front parts were made of wood, the remainder was stone - seeing as that's what the mountain was made of. If their home kept burning, chances of it catching other homes or vegetation on fire was highly likely.

As she holds up her palms to the blaze, putting both spells of retraction on the fire, and dissipation with the smoke, she watches as the stranger drags the limp bodies of the cub's parents out into the open. She was tempted to make a rude remark, but her age and knowledge held her tongue. She continued concentrating on the blaze until most of it was gone, then she allowed her consiousness to drift back to reality, to silently observe what the four armed stranger did with the bodies.

 

Snorting her contempt for the 'dragon as she walks away, she considers setting this one's hands ablaze. It would be terribly entertaining...

But no, she would not get into a battle with this one. She intended to live a bit longer. Even if she succeeded in showing this one some manners, the Graders would send someone else more capable of taking out an elder mage.

The fire in the home was now smoldering, and there was little of it left, really. Black charred husks of the former walls and roof were now letting rain in. Sighing from sadness, she walks over to the shrouded bodies of the fallen. At least the disrespectful stranger had a bit of good in her.

Looking over her shoulder once more in the direction the four armed 'dragon had gone, she looks back to the neatly arranged corpses. What should she do with them? She stands there, contemplating a moment, before using her telekinesis inherent in all females to move some of the more useful peices of wood. She would prepare a pyre for them.

But first, the rain was beginning to get on her nerves. With a wave of her hand she creates a bubble around herself and the bodies, to block out the rain. With her other hand she hardens the muddy ground, and dries the bodies of excess moisture.

Sighing once more, her hands become clenched as if gripping something that would not allow her hands to close. The ground around her shook as the rocks of the earth were called up to the surface, providing a small bed of stone for the bodies to be propped up on. The house no longer needed it's timber, and therefore bits and peices of the house were called to the pyre, such that the peices of wood were dried instantly as they entered the bubble, and then were lain ceremonally around the bodies.

This accomplished, the elder 'dragon bows her head, {Ut iyoj tyolt uljaupi djuka Fronima, nui iyoj rypeat vaap sha aujsh.}

No hand motions were required this time. Her green eyes flash with a red, orange, and yellow gleam, and the pyre alights, setting the dried wood and bodies alight in this dreary weather. The bubble keeps the rain off the pyre until fire is going strong and the bodies are nigh impossible to tell from the charred wood around them.

Nodding with solemn satsfaction, the elder turns back inside to care for her new charge, whom she had silently promised fresh soup for when he woke.


<span style='width:100%;font-weight:bold; font-size:10px'>Out of Character</span>
<table class=ooc><tr><td>squee! 'tis done! =D Did you have a plan regarding the mysterious 'dragon in the shadows? If so, I'd be glad to continue. Elsewise, you're free. ;] </td></tr></table>