Guest Katzaniel Posted October 20, 2002 Report Share Posted October 20, 2002 A cool wind blew lightly, stirring the leaves. The movement was only one in a vast eternity of time and events, yet it triggered another. Two dimly glowing eyes opened and surveryed their surroundings. Nothing else moved. The sharp mind behind the eyes determined the cause of its awakening and the eyes began to close. Then, a single star flickered in the twilight and disappeared. Eyes opened again. Certainly nothing of import had happened. Light years ago that star had died and now its rays ceased to reach the wakeful light of those open eyes. The mind knew it but discounted it. Its sleep had been disturbed just long enough for it to realize that it was hungry. Consequently nothing mattered but that it eat. The feline stood and stretched her hind legs. Padding quietly she moved with ease towards the village just east of her den. Her muscular body tensed for a moment and cleared the makeshift fence that had been built around a pasture. She knew there to be good eating in this area, so she advanced softly and looked around for the animals. Instead, she saw the tribe that owned them. She knew in an instant that she had outstayed her welcome in this village - the townspeople that lived there had gotten fed up with her eating their livestock and had fashioned an attack against them. The tiger wasted no time in defending herself. In an instant she had killed three of the tribe and knocked away the spears of many of the others. While they panicked and shifted positions, trying to gain some sort of lead, she ripped off the head of one of them then bounded towards a few more, meaning to rip them apart with her sharp claws. She did not count on the witch doctor of the village, who was uttering a spell. She did manage to kill the ones she had gone after, but as she turned around for more, the incantation reached a close. She found herself facing another cat - the magic had turned the witch doctor into a lion. The two faced each other. The tribepeople that were left from the village backed off a little, not afraid of the magic but of the two hulking beasts. Lion attacked tiger. Tiger parried and swiped at lion. Lion took a gash out of tiger, but tiger sank her teeth in lion's neck. Lion howled and lashed back. Tiger, brutally wounded, clawed desperately at her opponent. She was losing the battle and had little left to try. She fell back, trying to find an escape. The witch doctor slipped halfway out of lion form so that he could utter a spell. It was a short one, but by the time he was finishing the desperate tiger was on top of him. As the dying tiger was ripping the half lion apart, the unfinished spell somehow intertwined the two partway living forms. The almost-dead figures, together, possessed enough life to transcend death. That single spell, gone awry, had created a single beast. Confused and still angry, the two souls in that one body wrought destruction on the villagers that remained to witness the scene and then fled into the woods. Centuries later, a muscular leopard enters the recruitment office of the Pen with an application form in her teeth. Edited by: Katzaniel at: 10/20/02 8:21:05 am Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Portrait of Zool Posted October 20, 2002 Report Share Posted October 20, 2002 Welcome! A wonderful story, well told. I am confident Elder Wyvern will agree you have found a home. Till we meet again, ~Zool~ King of Nothing, Lord of Nobody, but thoroughly in charge of how I feel about that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gyrfalcon Posted October 20, 2002 Report Share Posted October 20, 2002 First of all, an interesting story. (Though I do note that you should try to avoid eating the other Pen members, or parts of them.) One thing that confuses me about your story is: are you a lion? a tiger? a leopard? in the story 'Mari' in the Conservatory, you go from a lion to a tigertaur. Is this shapeshifting, or what? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gyrfalcon Posted October 21, 2002 Report Share Posted October 21, 2002 Ah... an interesting history. *bows* I haven't formally introduced myself, have I? My name is Gyrfalcon No'Dessu, though you can always call me Gyr, as you've already done. And yes, your e-mail address *will* be neccessary. Should you be accepted (and there is no reason that I can see right now that you will not) it allows Wyvern to send you your password. (That lets you get into the spiffy, secret places... Oh wait, they aren't that spiffy or secret, but you can still get into them. ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Katzaniel Posted October 21, 2002 Report Share Posted October 21, 2002 OK, Gyr. From now on I will behave myself and refrain from eating people. Yes, I suppose I haven't quite been clear on what exactly I am. The magic that took me and the witch doctor stuck us together in this body, but it gave us the ability to change shape within limits. These limits are very strict that we must stay as some type of cat, the only exception being a strange combination of our last shapes. The tiger and the half lion shape merged into a sort of "Tigertaur" as you put it - no lion, probably because the doctor was in the process of coming out of that. The last spell must have had something to do with shape shifting. The doctor can't remember, but we have surmised that maybe he was trying to change me into a harmless, smaller cat. Now we share this changing body, but he is a weak personality and I remain dominant most of the time. In the centuries that we have been alive we have made up our differences (and unmade them a few times, but it's hard to fight with someone who resides with you in your mind). I hope you don't think I am being insulting by calling him weak. He really is a shy sort of fellow, and he has lost most memory of what he used to be. If you need to distinguish us, you can call him Lionel and me Kat. But really we have merged almost seamlessly into exactly what we usually appear to be; one creature. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Katzaniel Posted October 21, 2002 Report Share Posted October 21, 2002 Oh, and I can also be reached at parmeisan@yahoo.com if it's really necessary... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wyvern Posted October 22, 2002 Report Share Posted October 22, 2002 Katzaniel paces back and forth near Wyvern's desk as the Elder of Initiates procedes to go over her application story carefully... The overgrown lizard stops in his reading every few seconds to glance up nervously at the pacing leopard, afraid that she might grow impatient and decide to opt for an almost-dragonic lunch over an accepted application... Having finished reading over the application, Wyvern grins and sets it down on his desk, nodding to the eager leopard and hissing: "Just a moment... I have to fetch my Acceptance stamp from my desk drawer... let's see here..." Having said this, Wyvern begins opening several of the drawers in his desk, all of which are overflowing with various unfinished papers and other oddities. Rummaging through his endless mess of a desk while cursing to himself under his breath, the greedy lizard happens to come across a drawer in which several posters offering rewards for the retreival of missing animals have been stored. The picture of a missing dark spotted yellow cat belonging to a rich family on the top of pile immediatly catches Wyvern's eye, and a sinister scheme quickly makes it's way into his selfish little mind... Picking up the dark spotted yellow cat poster from the top of the pile, Wyvern compares the picture of the cat's face to that of Katzaniel's. They seemed quite similar, though Katzaniel was obviously a bit larger... But then, Wyv could always make up a story along the lines of having fed her copious amounts of food... heck, he might even be able to get the rich family to augment their reward due to "food costs"! Turning to Katzaniel and grinning, Wyvern mutters: "Well Katzaniel... I very much liked your story, and will certainly accept your application... if you'll do a little favor for me. You see, there's this rich family that seems to be missing a black spotted yellow cat, and I thought that you ressembl-" Before Wyvern has finished, Katzaniel has changed forms into that of a tigertaur, having suspected the overgrown lizard's plot in advance. The incredibly fierce-looking tigertaur applicant rushes up to his desk and growls: "Is my application accepted for the writing, or not?!" Seeing that his scheme will obviously not pull through this time, Wyvern lets out a terrified " eep" before quickly stamping Katzaniel's application "ACCEPTED". OOC: A good application, Katzaniel, ACCEPTED. Welcome to the Mighty Pen! I'll e-mail you the appropriate password material in the very near future... Almost a Dragon... "My life is one big crime, I try to scheme through it." -Common, "The 6th Sense" Owner of the Decanter of Endless Booze. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Portrait of Zool Posted October 23, 2002 Report Share Posted October 23, 2002 LOL! You kill me Wyv, you really do. ~Zool~ Hell NO I don't want competition - I want something I can win! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yui-chan Posted October 23, 2002 Report Share Posted October 23, 2002 Horrified, Yui rushes up to Zool's painting, paintbrush in hand. "No! Hang on, Zool! You can't die, yet! " she gasps, then mumbles darkly, " ... you haven't helped me finish Darkness Rising." Not wasting more than a moment for the admonishment, she quickly pulls out a pallete loaded with paints and starts slapping color onto Zool's enchanted canvas. Within seconds, he finds himself surrounded by a sterile-looking hospital bed, a cardiologists' cart, and a pair of orderlies that are her two-dimensional hands in his world. He barely has time to let out a startled "B-but...!" before he's on his back on the bed, tuxedo-shirt opened and hairy chest exposed. "I-it was an expression!" he shrieks, struggling against the pair of massive hands holding him to the sheets as the other orderly grabs the paddles and rushes towards him. The conductive jelly glistening on their metal surfaces has a decidedly red tint, and he makes a mental note to mention to his would-be savior that she should work on her color drift when painting transparents. With the grunt's shout of "CLEAR!", though the surreal moment of observation fades back into his general alarm over the situation. "YIPE!" KA-THOCK! Painted Zool jerks on his hospital bed, eyes bulging as a handful of 2-dimensional volts jolt through his body. He freezes there for a moment, back arced off the matress, face blank with shock, and then collapses to the bed like a limp ragdoll. Outside, in the 3-dimensional world, Yui gasps in dismay. "No, no. CPR before the paddles, you two! Check for a pulse!" Now, generally, paintings don't have a pulse, but luckily for Zool, the two-dimensional orderlies were able to detect the two-dimensional beatings of his two-dimensional heart. (Imagine an ape pounding on your sternum, and I think you'll see why it was 'luckily'.) As the unnamed lackeys hurried to contiue the procedure, our inspirational Elder was just starting to shake off the stunning effect of the paddles. He giggled, his sight still overlayed by dancing electric sparkles, "Hee! That tingled my toes!" ... and then he focused his sight on the approaching lips of Orderly #1 as he leaned in to begin administering mouth-to-mouth, and his eyes went wide with horror... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yui-chan Posted October 23, 2002 Report Share Posted October 23, 2002 ((Hee, hee. Be careful, Wyvie. Your writing is so good, it's starting to do in the rest of the Elders. Are you trying to eliminate the competition? Great job, as always. Now, get more time to write! )) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Katzaniel Posted October 24, 2002 Report Share Posted October 24, 2002 "That's better, then." says the tigertaur, shrinking back down in intimidation until it is a mere cougar. She pads up to the painting of Zool, inspects it, and then wanders off in search of adventure - or food that conforms to the new stipulation of not being Pen members. A moment later, Rhapsody can be seen rushing down the hallway in the opposite direction, followed calmly but determinedly by the cat. OOC: Yay, I'm in! Rhapsody, you'd better hurry up with yours. Some of these readers are growing hungry - I mean impatient. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canid Posted October 28, 2002 Report Share Posted October 28, 2002 "I do hope you will retain your smell regardless of what form you assume?" asks a concerned voice from the doorway. Katzaniel turns around to see a large gray wolf looking intently at her. "I do occasionally hunt cats when they show the more brutal side of their nature. The local alligators seem to enjoy their meat, so I don't have to eat it myself, which is good because I don't like the taste." Katzaniel opens her jaw to say something and turns to Gyrfalcon for an explanation. Gyrfalcon gestures for her not to get angry and mutters "Katzaniel, this is Canid Phoenix Canidae... I think she just wants to respect the same rules as you." he gives Canid a worried look and the wolf nods. "I have no desire to eat my fellow writers." The edges of Canid's mouth twitch a bit as she attempts to hide her smirk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Katzaniel Posted October 28, 2002 Report Share Posted October 28, 2002 OOC: Just so you know, I can't "talk" unless I'm in tigertaur form. I'm still working on the specifics of how the magic works but that much I've decided. I can't remember what form I'm in right now, so if I wasn't, that's what I am now... IC: "Are there local alligators?" asks Katzaniel, shifting the spear. "It sounds like great sport. Will you be kind enough to show them to me?" A sly grin crosses the tigertaur's face. "They aren't writers, too, are they? I promise you, I don't intend to break that rule again. Even though you do assume that you would be the winner in that circumstance." The tail flicks slightly. "I shouldn't have said that. Certainly, you must be the stronger between us. What is the purpose to making you angry when you would clearly be able to beat me? I apologize. Come, let's go hunt something. You can show me the best places around here for sport!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canid Posted October 29, 2002 Report Share Posted October 29, 2002 Canid raises a fuzzy brow. A green phoenix glides down and perches on her back. The wolf turns her head and licks the bird's tummy in greeting then turns around smiling slightly. "I ask you not to touch the alligators without cause, they already have quite a formidable foe named Prospero who I shall introduce you to at some point. If you want a bit of hunting fun though, keep your eyes open for a hairy human leg. His name is Legman and he'd be overjoyed to conjure up something interesting for you." Canid wags her tail and the plants in the room come suddenly out of the neglected state assumed by anything living in Wyvern's office. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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