a return from a long hiatus:

[Tulay Takekaze]

stepping through the edges of the place between where the world tree system exists and picking a remembered branch of the system one that had not been visited in too long. "i have been too long absent, and so many changes. i wonder if i shall even be remembered amongst my friends?" a soft grin passes her face as she remembers the good natured ribbing and teasing amongst them and the unique situations and features of them all, the most prominent being the wizened Wyvern who ran the recruiting office. she pauses and brushes her white hair back and summons a desk and chair sitting down and begins her application filling it out using her new name and all.

"too many changes to go by who i was after all," she mutters while pausing remembering the requirements and sighs softly. "i wonder if a tale is still required, i have so many and have lived so very many lives to draw from..... i never know what to put here." as she looks about her molten copper eyes taking in the numerous branches of the world tree system at this end how many of them that have been broken off and the ones still forming and even those that thrive even after the many years since their conception. as she took it all in a thought formed and a smile passed as she remembered a tale told to her as she grew in the cradle. "perhaps a simple retelling of a lost children's tale?" she muttered as she scrawled it out upon the parchment and then signed it taking it and standing as the desk and chair shimmered out of existence as she steps through the entry to the end of the branch and into the Pen's Keep.

She quickly began slipping quietly through the sleeping keep to the recruiting office silently opening the door and tacking her application on the inside of the door for Wyvern to see pausing a moment to notice that the office is oddly clean now. Nodding to the enchanted door in the corner she slips out and to her long neglected home, hoping the mess is not too terrible. after all a unmaintained space compression spell can be a catastrophe especially in a plain as unique as the one the Keep was inhabiting. hopefully the twins had kept to their duties in her absence.......

 

 

Application for admittance re-admittance to the Pen Keep:

Name: (former name was Mai Takekaze) Tulay Takekaze

Age: old enough (seriously i wonder why every application seems to have this one)

Gender: changing (at least they didn't ask sex this time)

Race: no thanks (like i would admit to something i am not even sure of)

Description: white hair, molten copper eyes, feminine curves, attitude when called for, Mistress of many elements, and all around wordsmith in training.

Applicant Story:

'Sit and listen.

The Goddess three have given me a tale to say

It concerns the beginning of all

And of the magic she grants.

 

In the beginning of all things

The Goddess was.

She was both male and female

She had been, and may always be

She moved in the nothingness that was the element of darkness

 

As she waited for anyone to come,

She grew lonely

After a time a thought came to her

She would have children to love and care for

And she set about making a home for them yet unborn

 

First she knew they needed a place

To walk and run and climb

So she looked and nowhere was found

To do this for her children

 

She reached out and formed

The hills valleys and plains

And set them into the flow of time

And as she did this the element of earth was born

 

As she looked at her work a thought occurred

Her children needed to drink so she set to work

The Oceans Rivers and ponds she bent

And the element of water was born

 

She looked and realized the water made the earth cold

And children need it warm to live

So in the earth deep she reached out and made

A furnace to burn always

And so the element of fire was born

 

She looked to make sure the Home was complete

But found no air to caress or care

So she breathed onto the world

And the element of air was stirred into being

 

As she prepared to bring her children to be

A last thought occurred

Children start out small and scared of the dark

So of her own she gave and formed the sun

To shine till all else ends and the element of light was born

 

As she looked she found the earth was hard

And no one living yet so she took hold of the elements

And made the grass trees

And all other plants to give softness to the earth

And also made the animals to be friends to her children

 

She looked down on the home she made

And she smiled now for all her children

Should need was now there for them.

With this thought she birthed the children she had.

And she decided to make them able to reproduce and made them male and female.

They were either two or many, it matters not how many.

What is important is that now the seventh element was now laid and birthed: the human spirit.

 

The elements brewed and stewed

Wanting to live on their own

And reproduce so they made

the sprits faye and all manner of spirit folk

 

So now my friends you now do know of the reason we all exist and live.

We were made to comfort and love and be loved.

And we must care for our home for the thought that went in to its making.

And this is why we do harm to none, so mote it be'

((*ooc: this is my original work just in the story of my characters past life it is a children's bedtime story that has been forgotten in the modern days))

[Degorram]

OOC: That moment when you type a whole, beautiful response, only to have it be destroyed entirely by hitting the wrong button. *seethe*

 

As Tulay's footsteps faded in the distance, an awkward silence fell over the room, as if waiting for a storm to descend. The door creaked guiltily in its frame, squirming beneath the papers tacked to its surface with the incriminating inscription of "For Wyvern" on the front in bold, fluid handwriting. The application ruffled in response, caught in a breeze that had suddenly picked up at the back of the room.

 

In midair a sudden tendril of black smoke was squeezed into existence, spreading down over the desk and pooling onto the floor, spiraling in searching motions. It grasped with finger-shaped tendrils towards the door, pointing, reaching, but pulling back with inquisitive caution. The smoke cloud grew, from the size of a pinprick to the size of a man, and suddenly, from its depths, a leg stepped out, followed by two arms, and the shapeshifter uncloaked herself, casting back the waves of ashen air from her shoulders like a cape. Tulay's gentle tapping on the door had been like an overzealous gong to Degorram's ears, a series of gunshots, highlighted by the sound of breaking glass. It was how she had designed the spell, for there was not much else that could awaken her from her reveries where she saw through time and space to other galaxies, to other ages of men -- to other stories to be told. Not the gentlest wake-up call. But effective.

 

Degorram brushed the final wisps of smoke from her clothing and it scattered and vanished, snapping back into non-existence as if it had never been there to begin with and the changeling had always been present. "A little more melodramatic than intended," she mused out loud to herself. But then, what was wrong with a little drama in private? Besides, it was still the fastest way to travel from the ether back into the physical planes.

 

In a few strides, Degorram had crossed the room and snatched up the application, raising an eyebrow fondly at the note intended for her predecessor. "Ah, Wyvern," she murmured. "If only I had known the size of the shoes I was meant to fill." She smirked quietly as she could almost hear the almost-dragon's response involving the sly connection between big shoes and big feet and...

 

Turning back to her desk, Degorram spread the papers over its surface and tapped the corners, scanning through the poem of origins with a smile here and a twitch of her ear there. Sparks ignited on her shoulders and a rush of air lifted the edges of the application, swirling around and through Degorram's multi-colored hair. She pushed her bangs out of her eyes routinely and chewed her lip. "Takekaze," she said, repeating the name a few times to attempt to recall it to memory. "Passing through by another name, are we?" Degorram paused and glanced out the window at the Pen's towers, far different now in their reconstruction than they had been in those eras gone by, when she herself had sat on the other side of this desk. Perhaps it was only fitting. There were so few of them left now who retained the old names. "Quite lovely," she complimented the papers, which seemed to blush under her fingers, and she shuffled through her drawers for a fresh stamp. With a slam, she marked it with a large green "ACCEPT" and filed it away in the "Initiates" section of her records.

Degorram turned her flashing eyes on the door and addressed its trembling with a scowl. "I suppose I should hang a sign. And you, you miserable creature, are not going to spit out any more hooks. I'm not afraid to turn you into a breakfast table."

 

An hour later, a small wooden plaque hung on the subdued portal that read:

Degorram

Office of Recruitment

Honored Guests Inquire Within

OOC: Welcome back Tulay! Good to have you at the Pen again. Your title has been upgraded from Honored Guest to Initiate!