December 11, 2000: the anger resides
I was trying to write something for closer today. I kept trying to write it and my chosen topic kept on turning its slippery little back on me and changing into a rant on another topic entirely. The new topic was not entirely unconnected, but it wasn't something I really wanted to write about.
Mostly because there were a bunch of truths I didn't really want to confront.
I wanted to write about integration and instead I wrote about anger and shame. Anger with myself and another person. Shame about not keeping an agreement I had made with myself. And anger that my emotions seem to be easily manipulated and swayed by certian people in my life.
And anger that there is this process going on inside of me that I feel is being rushed by the desires of other people.
I don't talk about it much; it doesn't define who I am any more than the fact that I have green eyes and brown hair defines me. And it's one of those dangerous little secrets that's awfully hard to recall once it's out in the world.
But the pieces are starting to go back together like an infinitely complicated Kinder Egg toy. And I don't know if I'm ready yet. I want to be ready, I want to be willing, I know that I'm able.
But I don't know if I'm done with the way I am, yet.
Famous last words, I know. But I'm not done! I'm just getting good at being the way I am and now you're telling me I have to *change*? Give me a break, here. Try to see things my way. I'm just not done...
Only half baked. Le sigh.
fictional (inspired by gaming)
"It's time, Kalva. Get your people together. We're attacking on Nathre's signal."
Kalva put down her mug and climbed to her feet, sighing. Werek turned and started shouting at the cleric he was going to be leading into battle. She looked around and found Nathre, a hundred yards distant, talking with the dragons they were taking with them.
It was time. Time to go to war.
Kalva walked over and exchanged some words with the red dragon and Pazi, who were her backup. She discussed the strategy that they'd decided on with them while trying to avoid the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. I'm not a hero. That's a red Great Wyrm we're going to go up against. We don't have a chance. I wonder if it's too late to go back to being a pirate? I don't think i'm cut out for this...
Then she ruefully glanced down at herself, at the copper scales that covered her arms and the rest of her body. She looked like a creature out of myth--not quite human, not quite elf, not quite dragon, though she looked something like all three. She couldn't go back, ever. She'd started out as a pirate, but now she was a cleric of the god of the good dragons, and she was slowly turning into a dragon herself. Though, if the true seeing spells she'd cast were accurate, she'd actually been a dragon all along and never known it, her memories stolen by the same necessity that had caused her to be turned into a half-elf.
The signal was given and a shout raised. There was no more time for self-absorption. Kalva placed her hand on the dragon dagger at her waist and summoned her wings, taking flight, leading her small group. Werek and his clerics split off, and Kalva, Nathre, and their backup flew towards their own part of the battle.
Time for war.
---------------
The enemy was waiting for them, of course. This attack was no surprise; it seemed to be a given that after today, one side or the other would be wiped out. Werek and the clerics met with their battle--the clerics of Morrigan arrayed against them. Leading them was the man Werek had really come to fight--is face tattooed in swirling patterns of hold and black,in his hands one of the single most powerful artifact weapons known. The tattooed man smiled and the battle was joined.
Werek fought, and fought, but every time he landed a blow it was healed before he had a chance to land another one. He fought on, knowing that there was no retreat or escape this time...he would die fighting, if he had to. Just to give Kalva and Nathre some time. He had to delay the clerics long enough so that their parts could be completed before the priests of Morrigan and their ravens fell upon that battlefield, as well...
Nathre and all of the dragons except the red swooped in on the pair of yellow dragons who had been eyeing their approach. This sort of thing was right up Nathre's alley, and it was a good thing, because the yellows were *nasty*. Desert critters, with a sandblast of a breath weapon that would flay the flesh from your bones if you got caught in it.
Nathre spared a glance for the other opponent on the field. They should be...oh, there. The red dragon who'd joined them, the male, was small beside the ancient red dragon he was stooping towards. The great wyrm cracked a toothy smile and set herself for the smaller red's charge. A lightning crackle signaled that Pazi had found a reasonably place to stand and cast spells from, and then, as the small red dropped towards the large one, a copper-bright flash darted out from behind him, streaking towards the red dragon's neck and the pouch strung around it.
Kalva. Swooping towards her prey. This was the first time she'd ever tried to steal anything from a dragon while it was wide awake and ready for her. Here goes...
Her dragon daggers were singing in her ears. They knew that their long-lost sibling, the dagger that would make the set complete, was near. They yearned for their lost brother. Damn magic weapons are noisy... Five daggers, wrapped around each other, one head for each color of chromatic dragon except yellow. The yellow dagger...that was in the pouch around the dragon's neck.
The small red dropped down on the ancient one's back at the same time as she made a grab for the pouch. GOT IT! her mind exulted as she snapped the hide that held it on.
Except there was one small problem. The dragon knew she was there. Knew what she wanted and why. Knew that this battle would end the moment that sixth dagger touched the other five.
And she was not about to let Kalva get away with it.
She ignored the red dragon that was attempting to claw a hole in her back and made a grab for Kalva. Missed with one clawed hand...but grabbed her with the other. Kalva had underestimated how fast the ancient red would be. She tried to break free, as the ancient red inhaled and blew out a blast of fire that would have incinerated most creatures.
Kalva glared balefully at the dragon, untouched by the flame. thank you, little daggers, now keep me safe for a little while longer and then... her thought was interrupted by the shout of a spell--she recognized it as Fumble. Pazi at work again. The dragon lost her hold on Kalva with one forehand but kept a tight grip on her with the other. She rumbled, and then snaked her head down to tear at her prey with her teeth.
Kalva cast an ice spell to attempt to make the dragon let go of her. It didn't work. If I could just get free...a minute would be all it would take... But that minute was slow in coming. She frantically attempted to wriggle her arms free, attempting to heal herself enough to keep herself alive until she could either get free or join the daggers together.
But the dragon was fast, faster than she had any right to be. As one of the yellow dragons screamed its last and Kalva was spitting out the words of her last healing spell, the great jaws closed on her again.
Nathre looked up and her heart sank as she saw the tiny, copper-bright figure in the dragon's claw scream and go limp. But the last scream had had words in it. Words that echoed even through the deafening din of the battlefield.
It would be said later that everyone joined in battle that day heard that last, anguished cry from one of the last clerics of Bahomet.
Where it came from, not many knew. But everyone agreed that the words in that scream were:
"DO SOMETHING!"
And time stopped.
---------------
"Yes, my child?"
Where am I?
"Dead, currently."
Shit.
"You wanted me to do something. What, exactly, would that be, small one?"
Well, remember that sixth dragon dagger? The one that, when joined to the rest, would bring you onto the Prime Material?
"Yes. I do."
Well, I had it in my hands. But I, um, died before I had a chance to put them together. It sounds lame, just saying it. But there was a red dragon chewing on me, and...
"Well. That's certianly not good. I'm going to give you about ten seconds of your life back. But this time, there will be a difference. Now, shoo."
Shoo? God just told me to shoo? Oh, wait...
---------------
Kalva's scream echoed across the battlefield. Nathre looked up, saw the shining figure go limp in the red dragon's claws, and nearly cried. They were so close...
Then a burst of white light came from the vicinity of the red dragon. It was pouring from Kalva's holy symbol. And then, the body clutched by the red dragon began to change.
The red dragon dropped Kalva out of sheer surprise as her body twisted and mutated and *grew*. In a flash Kalva landed on the ground...as a copper dragon. A copper dragon nearly the size of the red she faced. A copper dragon clutching the entwined five dragon daggers in one clawed hand and the yellow dragon dagger in the other.
"NOW!" she roared. And joined the daggers.
---------------
There are still stories today about Bahomet's arrival on the battlefield. The sudden transformation of the dragons that had been trapped in other forms to their real selves. Justice was done that day, they say, to those who had been terrorizing the reigon.
Werek and Nathre went back to being respectable pirates, and it's said they eventually made their way east in search of new oceans to conquer. And it's also said that occasionally they are joined by a plain woman with copper eyes who sits in the crow's nest and keeps watch. Kalva Long-eye, they call her.
Kalva the Dragon.
