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Posted: **Wed Oct 12, 2005 2:40 pm**

Sian swung himself up over the rocky ledge with a grunt through gritted teeth. One arm bucked from the strain of his weight combined with that of his heavy travel bag and the studded leather brigandine armor he brandished on his body. A subtle slide of gloved fingers over gravel, and a handful of pebbles and dust plummet off the edge into dizzying depths. He almost slipped, but spun off a heel and let himself fall backwards onto the mountain's natural ledge.

He set himself right there, exhaling sharply, and wiped some of the glistening sweat from his scarred forehead with the rough back of his gloved hand, smearing some dirt upon it. Overlooking the wild valley while heavy breathing caused his padded shoulders to heave rhythmically, he could feel the aching of his muscles.

"Where are you, Damascah," he muttered under a quickened breath, his brows quirking in disappointment.

His neck craned quickly to a side as he peered to the source of noise that suddenly erupted somewhere further up the rocky cliff wall of the mountainside, and a small shower of dust and rubble sprayed off some rocks from there. Squinting his eyes, he spotted the glistening of reptilian scales shifting and recoiling somewhere in the shades between the stones.

A crookedly feral smile crept over his face. The lizard had been following him - and he had known it all the while. With another grunt he jolted up from sitting and scurried further up the face of the cliff, climbing up with newly gathered energy. The wooden Tanora shield from Shukk, adorned by elaborate carvings on its surface, clicked and swung back and forth on top of the backpack that Sian bore upon his back. With another crunch of stone and a last adroit movement, he practically flung his own weight up over the final edge to the summit and rose to full height, casting a glance of his icy pale blue eyes in the round, scanning the whereabouts for Shirun.

Spotting her nowhere, he began discarding shield, bag, and other necessities of exploration, piling them neatly near a stone where Firnis grew. The summit was a fairly flat plateau, obstructed by jagged rocks and boulder and still uneven, but flat enough. Well, flat enough for training. The last bits of dusty grey garbs and ragged cloaking flapped down to join his other gear in the pile, and he even began unbuckling the old armor on his chest, until a glistening, scar-worn tattoo of a wolf's head came into visibility, covering a big portion of skin on his back.

Running a still glove-clad hand through his chaotic mess of raven-black hair and braids on his head, he visibly shook as he accomodated to the cool mountain air running up against his now bared chest. Then grabbed his two scabbard-bound sabres from the pile of belongings, and walked towards the middle of the plateau, holding them together by their belts in one fist by his side.

"This is the first weapon form of Zelphia's Rising Tides," Sian exclaimed calmly, closing his eyes. He knew she didn't understand the common tongue yet, but if he kept speaking with her and teaching her, she would soon enough. Then he continued with another phrase in his smoky voice: "Observe closely, and train this every three days, using two identical long blades for exercise."

A subtle sound sufficed for him to hear, and he had finally located her and knew she was nearby, watching. With a slight flick of his thumb alone, the two sabres sprung an inch out of their scabbards, and with a flash of sunlight reflected by the blazing blades, they were slung out as the scabbards tumbled to the ground, and Sian began performing the first of 27 of the Tanora templars' katas...

Posted: **Wed Oct 12, 2005 3:15 pm**

The small lizard hid behind the rocks, watching him closely with her dark green eyes. A small hiss came out of her mouth, as she saw him speaking in this strange language. All she was able to understand was the name of the blue goddess, but she kept watching him. Yet, she was quite cautious about this human. Her mother had taught her, not to trust strangers, even if they seem nice and friendly. And especially Sian is not to be trusted in the first time, for he is a mysterious person. But still she kept following him. Watching.

Posted: **Fri Oct 14, 2005 2:02 am**

A tall shape seems to slink around the walls of Trollsbane constantly, always within sight but never within reach. The shape is vaguely feminine, the shape is deep violet.

If you try to approach the shape, it will be gone in one instant, as though it was your imagination.

And closer, if you could get there, it is the hooded figure of a woman. If only your eyes could see into the shadow of her hood, her face is like flawless ivory; a statue; beautiful. Her eyes are a cold, deep blue-violet, her hair is like raven silk, cascading sleekly down her back.

And if only you could get closer still, her heart beats fast and the space where her soul should be is empty. Clean and white, marble, like her face. So perfect, so empty.

But you would have to be closer still to see the shadows in her eyes, to see the thoughts in her head.

Sian.

And how can I have become this? How can I be what I am and still be nothing at all?

What is real and what have I fabricated?

Have I a heart at all? Frozen or dead? I do not know which.

There are boxes that are not meant to be opened, eyes that are not meant to be read. I wanted to leave them closed, clean.

What is this strange feeling in my stomach, in my throat, in the place where I thought my heart had scarred into nothingness?

Once I had asked who am I?

Now I ask, what am I?

What am I left with?

Immortal and empty.

A year is a long time, and many things can happen.

A lesson I know too well.

Fate hands me each stepping stone as a year and I never know until the end if it is real or false.

After this year, will I drown again?

And if I do,

I'm a marble goddess forevermore.

And nothing more.

Nothing.

But out loud, she says only one whisper, in a deep, husky voice.

"Sian. Are you real or an angel of the darkness?"

Posted: **Sat Oct 29, 2005 5:44 am**

Logs hung from ropes that constrained them, hanging from trees like rams and swinging back and forth; forming an abstract labyrinth in the woods. The wood and ropes croaked and groaned under the constant movement. Sian dodged one of the logs swinging at him, and swung himself over it in a nimble leap, thus also dodging a swing from Shirun's staff. In turn he jousted himself off the ground with his own quarterstaff, hurling his own weight up and off to another one of the swinging logs, where he landed on it with the grace of a feral predator; holding steady balance as it swung.

"Gods, you're fast, Shirun."

Shirun didn't miss a beat; the lizard's small sleek body shot through the maze of swinging logs at Sian, like a bolt of oiled lightning; reptilian scales glistened in the daylight, and the subtle howl of a staff whirred through the air as her training weapon's rounded end shot forward towards the man like a lance. Her tail whipped around a log in motion as she literally snaked around the next, and she withdrew just before the tip of her staff connected with thin air, for the man had already thrust himself off the moving perch onto yet another.

Only a snap of a twig let Shirun react in a flash and thwart a swing from Sian's quarterstaff as he rained down on her from above yet again. The sounds of wood striking wood echoed through the forest as they swung at eachother and forcefully parried eachother's blows, all the while ducking and swerving to dodge their way through the maze of the many swinging logs.

Shirun's tail lashed out like a whip and snapped his staff in two, upon which he spun both ends over his palms and began using them simultaneously as two short staves. The sounds of wooden weapons striking other weapons picked up in pace, indicating a wild dance as they trained. Until Shirun recoiled like a cat preparing to pounce on its prey, and shot off up and over Sian's head. He let himself fall back in the motion, diverting an adroit blow from her staff with one of his sticks, but rolled over a shoulder and swung back into standing to full height like a circus artist. But Shirun, she was out of sight this time.

"Nice move," he grunted with a crooked grin.

With his bare bruised chest heaving rhythmically, his icy eyes scanned over the treetops, seeking to catch a glimpse of his now cleverly concealed pupil. And in sight of the treetops, he reminisced back to seeing the top of the tree upon Troll's Bane square very recently - and then it washed over him. The ghostly laughter of the children. The twisted voice of dark temptations. A road of escape, and a dead end. Beyond the road, far from the dead end; standing there in the shadows of trees. A glimpse of the hooded figure that sent shivers down his spine, even in substance of memories alone.

A thought rebounded in his head.
Demascah. It was you who I saw there. I know it was you.

He swiveled around upon a heavy-booted heel the moment he thought he had perceived Shirun's next advance, and one of the swinging logs hit him squarely in the head. Then, everything was black for a while.

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