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Chapter 6- Black Wings, Bloody Hands
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Kalanna Rai



Joined: 21 Jan 2006
Posts: 3102
Location: The Frozen North

Posted: Sun Jan 21, 2007 1:28 pm    Post subject:  

Right, new chappy, sorry for those who wanted me to wait this was the only time I could post. Enjoy.
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Chapter Six: Black Wings, Bloody Hands pt 1

The various forms of surface dwelling plant-life on UnderDark all fall under the 'hostile' catagory. The worst of these are, perhaps, the Strangler Trees which dot the land. Three varieties have been known to be possed of a low grade intelligence and are, therefor, the most dangerous. These are the Tentacle Strangler, the Poisonbloom Strangler, and the Maiden Strangler.
-The Chronicles of UnderDark vol. 2
-Unknown

Fallon took another step and found himself within the spirit-space that loomed before him. Whomever it was obviously did not want intruders, for all that the space had thin walls, since there were innumerable barriers erected within. Fallon walked through them without a second thought and they brushed out of his way like sheets of silken guaze. Whomever this was had never delt with someone like Fallon before.

Through the down-soft barriers a shadowy shape could be discerned. Parting the last of the fine veils Fallon came face to face with a very familiar woman. "It seems that it is I who invade your dreams now." Her form had changed, once again, but Fallon knew for certain that this form was 'true'. She could not beguile him here not now that he was using his true eyes to see.

Her hair remained pale but it wasn't white, more of a shimmering cream color. Her eyes were as pale as glass with a milky sheen, wide and luminous as they reflected his image back at him, almost mockingly. Her skin was a warm grey color with what could only be described as a dark pewter smoke that drifted across it, the patter and shadow changing by the minute. She wore a gown of raw linen that seemed like a liquid poured over her form and, from the open back, protruded her pesudo wings.

They looked like the fan shaped orniments courtly ladys might have worn back on Terrinia but these were real. They twitched a bit as he emerged and spoke, their white hue tinged with a hint of storm grey. Her whole figure trembled at bit as they stared at one another, neither moving, as the silence stretched. Finally she blinked and stepped back, giving him room to step fully free of the gauze that still clung to him. "You've accepted your powers lord."

Her joyful words turned into a gasp, one hand raising to cover her mouth, as he came fully into her sight. Her eyes slid up one side of his wings and down the other and she took three steps back. "It might have been better for all concerned if my blade had been planted through my heart at birth instead of pressed into my hand." He watched as her horror faded to be replaced by a numbness tinged with anger and dispair.

"How...how could the gods be so cruel. I asked for a saviour and they sent me you." Fallon's gaze wandered...he'd never met another of Gallaen blood before, not counting Ceddon or those with so little they might as well not claim it at all. Her movements were like his, graceful and liquid, her aura that of a surreal creature not much unlike himself. Yet he could smell the human side in her, sense every flaw and crack inherant in her half mortal blood.

She rounded on him. "And you led me on! You came to my aid despite knowing you'd bring me nothing but heartache! You should have left me there to die, to rot! Death and dishonor at the hands of my brother would have been a far greater comfort to me than knowing that I have called you from your hell to this helpless world! Begone Black Wings, do what you must but I warn you," she pressed her face close. "I will do all I can to stop you."

Fallon opened his mouth to reply when something caught his attention. Whirling on his toes he ran the way he had come, the barriers springing out of his way of their own accord. Before the creature crouchin on the edge of the space knew what was going on Fallon was there. He had no sword but that didn't stop him, he thrust his hand forward.

The creature gave a jerk and reached out with grasping hands, blood foaming around it's jaws filled with needle-like teeth. Fallon's fingers hand sunk deep into it's abdomen and, curiously, four bloody points had appeared sticking out of it's back. With a twist that began at the shoulder and ended in the wrist, Fallon wrenched his fingers around, the points protruding from the creature's back following the movement.

Pulling his hand back Fallon watched blood and viscera pour from the creature, blood limning four graceful arcs as his long trenchant claws retracted back into normal fingers. The creature gave a last feeble gasp before it expired and Fallon knelt next to it. "It's alright, you can quit hiding now." The girl slowly came out from behind the last barrier.

"How did you know that was there?" Fallon did not answer. "Why did you kill it? Isn't it a minion of the Gods you serve?" Standing and turning Fallon gave her a look that could have sundered stone and certainly struck the maid to the core.

"I serve no gods." Not wanting to stay any longer Fallon took a step toward the edge of the space. "You're traveling toward the desturbance arn't you? You'll run into my mount then and those with him. I'm sure they'll aid you however they can." Before the girl could say another word Fallon vanished.
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Ceddon was standing on a hilltop, his breathing easy and calm. "Amazing...simply amazing." Ceddon had though himself fit and trim but use of Fallon's body had proven to him that his brother was no slouch.

Indeed the body was faster, stronger, and much more durible than Ceddon had expected. Ceddon might have tailored it to look like him but it didn't act like him. When he moved he felt the slowness of his movement...his best attempt at running little more than a quick jog. "You really kept yourself in shape pretty boy."

"Yes and I'll hope you don't do anything stupid and ruin what I've worked so hard on." Turning Ceddon smiled as Fallon stood next to him. Well it looked like Fallon was standing next to him and it certainly had his aura all right, gave Ceddon the willies just standing next to him. But Ceddon knew Fallon wasn't there, not entirely.

"Astral projection...how unlike you. Here I would have thought that you'd just come and kick me out when you felt like it...or try to kick me out." Fallon said nothing and Ceddon simply followed his gaze to where the figures of three equines and two humans could be seen. "They'll freeze to death soon...I trust you've taken care of that." Fallon gave him an arch look that said nothing...but denied nothing either. It was just a look...

"Don't I always?"
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Right that's the first part, just hang on for the rest.
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Kalanna Rai



Joined: 21 Jan 2006
Posts: 3102
Location: The Frozen North

Posted: Sun Jan 21, 2007 2:07 pm    Post subject:  

Next part...Enjoy.
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Chapter Six: Black Wings, Bloody Hands pt 2

Layla woke with a start, heart slamming against her chest, sweat soaking her cloathing. She crawled a little distance outside the cave mouth, ignoring the bitter cold, and emptied the megar contants of her stomach onto the Fryeda moss that grew there. She crawled back into the protection of her shelter, drawing her hide wrap tighter about herself. Tears slipped down her ebony cheeks.

"How could you do this to me? How could you send this...monster here?" As usual her Goddess didn't reply, she hadn't replied since Layla had begged for a saviour to be sent. "Maybe this is what you were trying to warn me about, maybe this is what you were trying to protect me from." She stood, shaking off the effects of the shock. She didn't even know His name, just what he looked like.

"Do all pure-bloods look like that?" Her father hadn't...of course that scar had marred his face pretty badly. Still there was something too perfect about the young Gallaen in her dreams. Maybe that's what made it all the more heart rending when he'd betrayed her. "Black wings..." she shook her head. "Well I'd better make the best of it. The Goddess would never have let me find him if he couldn't help in some way."

She gathered up her things, her sleeping furs and surface gear, slinging the heavy pack across her back. Bundling up and pulling her fur-lined hood up around her face she moved out onto the frozen desolation that was the Surface. The wind pried at each crack in her clothing, seeking to steal her warmth, her very soul if she'd let it.

Head down, never once glancing at the Dark above her, Layla kept her mind on each footstep, one infront of the other. He said his mount would aid me...he couldn't possibly mean a true kession could he? I havn't seen a kession since... Her heart clenched. Myala's death was just one more thing her brother would have to account for. One more thing of many such.

She let her feet take a snaking path, her senses warning her of danger long before it could rear it's ugly head. Cresting a rise, the lichen under her feet squelching a bit, she looked across the ragged landscape of the Eir Plains. Far off, almost at the edge of her vision, she could make out a few struggling figures in too little clothing...indeed was that idiot in metal armor!

She moved down the hill swiftly, dodging nubbins and holes that riddled the large hill she was on. It didn't take her long to close the gap between them. Stopping a few yards away she let her eyes nearly bug out of her head. It was a kession, a real-live kession. Of the Royal line if she wasn't much mistaken...she couldn't be, not with that color and build. He couldn't be anything less.

On she could just make out the slim figure on his back, a girl too young to be out in this weather. Indeed the entire group would have perished already had it not been for the heat the kession was striving to emit. She doubted they knew all he was doing for them. The other creatures...they were obviously lesser equines, as far below the kession as a mortal man would have been below the Black Wings.

On the back of the one next to the kession was the man in metal armor. Judging by his youthful face and the rueful expression he wore he already knew how foolhardy his choice of clothing was. The armor was rimmed with frost and ice hung from certain places in long sharp icicles. His hair was threaded with frost as was the coat of his mount.

The young girl on the kession's back was fairing better, although she too had touches of frost. Layla's heart went out to her, she looked exhausted and drawn by something...worries or the stress of surface travel no doubt. Still the figure was too slim, the limbs to delicate, the clothing far too sparse...Layla was going to have some severe words for whomever dragged an obviously well-bred girl out onto the Surface like this.


The kession sensed her far before the others did, flinging his head up and peering into the darkness. He'd have known she was there far sooner if he hadn't been wrapped up in his companions. He snorted, shaking his massive head and pawing deep furrows in the lichen. "Show yourself." Layla did as she was told, holding her hands up to show she was unarmed. "Interesting...put your weapons away Darith. Show the lady some respect."

The young man in armor, Darith, slowly flipped his, were those Windaggers?, around and slid them back against his greaves. "Sorry Callix. Though it was a monster."

"Hardly. I am Layla Vallinthis and if you don't want to freeze follow me." Without waiting to see if they complied Layla turned and began to work her way back along her trail. With any luck she could get them back to the shelter before they froze solid, kession or no.
---------------------------------

That's two...meet Layla the girl from Fallon's dreams. She'll be with you for the duration so you'd better get used to it.
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Kalanna Rai



Joined: 21 Jan 2006
Posts: 3102
Location: The Frozen North

Posted: Sun Jan 21, 2007 2:52 pm    Post subject:  

And the next...
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Chapter Six: Black Wings, Bloody Hands pt 3

Darith didn't trust the strange woman an inch. She'd come out of nowhere, so bundled in furs and whatnot that she'd looked twice her size. Was it any wonder Darith had taken her for some horrible creature that lurked in these eternal shadowlands? He was freezing, so cold that he knew his armor and skin had bonded in places, his teeth slamming together so hard the roots of his hair hurt.

The ride seemed, like the rest of this trip so far, to be hell. Poor Neverstar was doing his best and Darith kept praising the charger, praising the beast's great heart. Neverstar seemed to realize that his master was pleased and whuffed, a long plume of white smoke that spiraled away in the raging wind. Noticing the pace could hardly be faster than that of a man who walked Darith slid off the charger's back. Normaly he could have done that while Neverstar was still walking and not miss a beat. But now, due to cold and stiffness, he ended up in a clinking heap.

His embarassment must have showed somehow since the woman, Layla, chuckled a bit as she helped him up. "I'm surprised that you can even move in that. Most people don't wear metal anything on the Surface...not with the Breath chilling them down and leaving them as lichen fodder." She returned to the front as Darith managed to begin walking, with much squeaking and grimaces of pain. Neverstar lipped his hair in a half-hearted attempt at gratitude, slowly plodding along next to Darith.

The group wandered up hills, where Darith nearly needed to hold onto his charger's tail and be drug up, and through hollows, where the lichen seemed to pry at his plate-boots. Every once and a while his foot would snap something under his tread. Once he investigated and found the bones of some small animal covered by a thick layer of lichen. He'd asked Layla about it and she'd shrugged. "With no light the plants of the Surface have had to find other means of feeding themselves. Feel lucky that we'll only skirt the Strangler forest."

Darith hadn't liked the sound of that but he'd liked it worse when Layla and Callix had both had them all drop to the ground, pulling the horses down to their knees even. Sparing his sister a glance, Darith heaved a sigh of relief that Asalia was still asleep. "Darith."

"Humm?" He turned to look at Callix.

"Layla says there's a large heard of beasts off along the trail we should take. They're dangerous and following her scent. The only place we can lose them would be the Strangler Forest but those trees will require all of us to be on our guard..."

"The beasts will crush us though. There's no way your equines can out run them on this terrain in their present conditions." Darith looked at the two of them.

"I need more information. I don't know what Stranglers are and I've no idea what kind of beast you're talking about." Layla sighed but shrugged.

"The Stranglers are Strangler trees, several species living together around the old ruins of Amad'nura. There are around five species in this particular forest. Two won't harm us with the Breath blowing as hard as it is and with Callix nearby. The other three though...they'll make a try for us for sure." She sketched a diagram on the lichen below them, ripping through the light surface to the darker undersides. A rough map was there in seconds.

"It's mostly Tentacle stranglers. They have massive trunks bigger than two men could reach around. Their crowns are all tentacles a foot thick and as supple as whips, up to ten on a mature Strangler, and each of those has hundreds of smaller tentacles for grabbing and binding. But they're slow and fairly stupid when it comes to prey, more likely to tangle up and fight themselves or each other." She lined several pockets of the trees on the crude map.

"Then we've got Poisonbloom Stranglers. They look like small dwarf trees and are covered in brilliant blossoms. These blossoms have a cloying scent that lures the prey closer to the plant while making them drowsy until, once they reach the high gas concentrations around the plant itself, drop unconcious at the bottom of the trunk. Then the roots snake up from the soil and, well, then you're history. These guys are territorial and tend to spread out in clumps of no more than five." She added a few stabbing dots all through the map.

"Last, and most deadly, are the Maiden Stranglers. They stand twice the hight of a man with slender trunks and graceful arms that stretch out above our heads. But they sprout what looks like silver hair, fine soft and silken, and that gets carried about on the wind or, if there's no Breath, lays in silken curtains. However, if just one brushes you the rest will wrap around you in seconds and that's the end of you." She filled in several pockets of those.

Darith was already seeing hopless written all over that option but then she began to describe the beasts. "On the other hand we've got a herd of Cabodise following my scent. Cabodise are huge creatures, easy thirty feet tall at the shoulder, and covered with a crapace-like skin that's so tough we make our own armor out of it. The only thing known to pierce it is enchanted weapons or weapons made from their own bones. They have two spots that might be peirced otherwise, with normal weapons."

Another crude sketch, this of a creature that looked like a cross between a giant ant and a bull, grown to epic preportion. "There, where the jaw meets the throat, is a patch the size of a man's hand where a weapon might kill the creature and here, where the upper and lower torso meet, you could disembowl the creature and cause the others to fall upon it. Naturally these creatures travel in herds of upwards of sixty, never fewer than thirty." That last might have been sarcasm but Darith wasn't sure.

"So either a forest of deadly plants or a herd of deadly beasts...is nothing ever easy?"
----------------------------

Hang on with those comments. There's one more section to post...then you can make your minds known.
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Kalanna Rai



Joined: 21 Jan 2006
Posts: 3102
Location: The Frozen North

Posted: Sun Jan 21, 2007 3:39 pm    Post subject:  

And now for the last part...Enjoy.
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Chapter Six: Black Wings, Bloody Hands pt 4

Asalia wandered through a dream world, her dream world. She loved it here normally, this garden where her memory was flawless and her Curse did not exist. But now, as either an extention of the conditions her physical body faced or maybe just because of the winter in her heart, snow whirled out of a leaden sky. The flowers were dead, merely black twigs thrust from downy white ground, the evergreen bushes dull and dark against the chill scene.

In the center of this barren world stood Asalia herself, cloathed in mourning black. Asalia didn't look good in black, her pale skin and golden hair seeming washed out against the dark color. On her brow sat a black circlet, the evidence of her curse, it's form manifest in her dream. Many was the time she'd tried to remove it but each time it either shrank tight against her head, paining her, or grew so hot it blistered her fingers, making them bleed.

She'd given up trying to remove it save that now she tried again and again. Tears coursed down her face as time and again she failed, burns, blisters, cuts, and a pounding headache the only gains she'd made. She collapsed in frustration, weeping. "Why, dammit, why? Who did I cross, what ill have I done?" Turning her eyes upward, the direction she'd always been taught was Heaven, she shook a feeble fist towards gods she'd never seen.

"You take my memories, you take my home, my family, my love! Why don't you just take me!" No answer came, only chill snow she'd willed into existance. She drew her knees up tight to her chest, arms looped over the tops of them. She buried her face in her arms, hair cascading over her shouders, arms, and down her legs. Slowly her body was racked by heartbreaking sobs, tears falling, hidden, as she cried herself out.

"Fallon...why? What did I do to deserve losing you?" Warmth enclosed her, a shadow fell, making her look up...and into a pair of amythest eyes she'd thought closed forever. His hands took hers, standing her up, a wall of darkness cutting them off from the outside. "Fallon?" Real in her dreams at least, warm and solid.

She wrapped her arms around his waist, burying her face against the muscles of his chest. The cloth of his garb was soft and smooth against her face, his flesh warm underneith it. His heart was a steady rhythem under her ear, his breath a slow intake, exhale that never slowed and never hastened. His hands rested upon her shoulders for a moment before he slowly pushed her back from him, her arms sliding from around his waist as she let herself be moved.

The snow still fell, the world around them was still white, but she no longer felt the chill of it, not as he stood across from her. "You've changed." It was all she could think to say as her eyes traced the curves of his massive black wings or lingered too long on the refined planes of his face. Was it just the imaginings of her wounded heart that made him appear so? Like the messengers of the gods, the immortal Gallaeni who had watched out for man since time immemorial?

"The world is change." His voice hit her like a sword wrapped in silk, smooth and soft with a steely edge just under it. "You must change and I must change or we shall never keep our place in it." Her brows knotted together.

"What do you mean? Fallon?" He reached out, his long slender fingers resting against the black circlet of her Curse. She didn't realize he'd taken it from her until she saw it in his hands. He looked back at her, eyes serious in a face so beautiful it would make the God's themselves weep. Yet that perfect profile could have been carved from flawless marble, his eyes cold jewels.

"This Curse never changes, it only grows weaker. It is as unyeilding as stone and just as weak." With that Asalia watched the circlet that had ruled her young life become nothing but black ashes in Fallon's hands. "Stone crumbles and is bourn away by the wind." The black ashes drifted off, smothered by the snow in a matter of seconds. For the first time Asalia could hold her head high, a great weight gone for ever.

Her smile grew only wider, her eyes shone as she hurled herself at Fallon, arms wrapping around his neck, feet dangling high off the ground. Before anything could interfer, before she could wake from this sublime dream, her lips pressed against the firm gate that was Fallon's mouth. Suddenly she was alone in her garden, nothing but black feathers edged in gold held withing her arms. She remembered the stone hard feel of Fallon's lips and smiled.

"Stone crumbles." Her eyes opened with that word and, for a moment she felt disoriented. Voices assailed her ears as if from far away. Darith was talking to someone.

"So either a forest of deadly plants or a herd of deadly beasts...is nothing ever easy?"

"What deadly beasts?" Darith turned and gave her a smile, Callix nuzzled her cheek.

"Hello...I'll explain later but right now we're in a bit of a bind. You see we've either got to face a heard of deadly beasts or travel through a forest of deadly trees. I can't for the life of me figure out which way to go. But if you'll..."

"I know which way..."
-------------------------

Which way will Asalia choose?
-----------------------------

There you are, give me your comments.
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Polokin



Joined: 12 Aug 2006
Posts: 178
Location: It seems that I'm not physically capable of visiting a forum... damnit!

Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 2:06 pm    Post subject:  

I've come up with an ingenious idea all by myself! :whist:
Fallon's clues (and Rai hinting to what the heck they could mean) helped a bit too...

Because the beasts are tracking your scent they'll follow where you go. So lead them into the forest. Then once the beasts and the trees are killing eachother get away from the forest and be on your way.
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dinranwen
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Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 2:11 pm    Post subject:  

Quote: as unyeilding as stone and just as weak

Quote: "Stone crumbles and is bourn away by the wind."

Loved the chapter Rai! Simply loved it! But now for the interesting puzzle you preposed.

"As unyeilding as stone and just as weak." Is speaking of the curse but could it speak of their situation too....It must because from what Asalyia said "Stone Crumbles" seems to apply so why not the rest.

So what is as unyeilding as stone and just as weak....The beast of course. Hard hided, they have weaknes that would make them easily crumble...so I say face the herd of beast.

However this leaves the question...what will crumble the Stone...and what is the wind that will bear them away.

The answer: Simple the Forest of Stranglers...hungry, stupid, blind will easily crumble stone. Afterall, haven't you ever seen what a tree can do to a bolder it grows around?

The wind may or may not be the trees. But I believe it is the breath...so here's a wild and crazy idea.

Go towards the beast but lead them to the forest, during the flight allow pieces of themselves (clothing, hair, etc) on the beast. Lead the beast onward to the trees, and but swerve suddenly to one side. With any luck the beast should end up in the trees, and with the trees distacted you may be able to work your way through.

Plus with the 'marks' of 'them' on the beast, they may have enough luck to fool the 'wind' or breath into thinking their dead giving them time to plan for just about anything.

But this is can only happen if they are lucky.

So let's all cross our fingers and hope for a little luck.

((I too admit I may have had help in the comment department from Rai's teasing and hinting... ;) ))
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Kalanna Rai
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Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 2:27 pm    Post subject:  

Alright...no more major puzzles for you two. I'm going to stick to K.I.S.S.* from now on.


*keep it simple stupid
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Polokin
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Posted: Thu Jan 25, 2007 10:53 pm    Post subject:  

:shock: What I meant was what din said. I just put it as a short version ;)
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Kalanna Rai
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Joined: 21 Jan 2006
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Location: The Frozen North

Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 1:12 am    Post subject:  

Right all you readers out there...the latest poll is up! Vote and see what happens for all is not as it seems in the darkness....
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Posted: Sun Jan 28, 2007 10:42 am    Post subject:  

You know din has got a point. and it is good thinking. trees attacking the beasts. so very intresting. ents-- trees hehe :P
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Kalanna Rai
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Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 12:07 am    Post subject:  

Any other votes? I'm leaving this up for another few hours...
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Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 9:16 am    Post subject:  

*falls onto ground with an empty bag of weeks and weeks food*
few Rai youre an typer. *whipes face*

:P I liked it- the spirit world the beasts. deadly trees. The discriptions. Simply -- simply loved it.
I WILL BE WAITING hehe for the next chap man. *few* the warior woman has a point, but it's best face the beasts. and somehow face it with a weapon of strength. Maybe a sword. And the poems and word construction absolute :D
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Kalanna Rai
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Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 3:29 pm    Post subject:  

*laughs at Tara* I warned you. Welcome to Dark Tara...you won't be leaving soon.

Now as far as the next chappy goes I'll start going up around 5:00 my time which is in about two and a half hours away. You can live with that right?
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