To Stand When Others Won't (Open to one creative female.)

[LucianDevine]

(Closed for Mairu)

"God Dammit!"

Lucian swore loudly as he ran through the woods. He'd been crazy to run in here, but he'd had few other options. He ran now for his life and his freedom, running from men who had been allies only days ago.

Tree branches swatted and whipped at him, but didn't get any farther than his cloak or his armor.

The sounds of pursuit were loud in the woods. For many men were indeed chasing after the lieutenant turned traitor.

When Lucian finally reached a broad clearing, one where he could make use of his own skill and mobility, he stopped, trying to force his tired body to be calm, force his mind to think past what failure would mean.

Not a single minute after he stopped, Lucian's pursuers crashed into the clearing. They looked confident, and for good reason, they stood ten strong against one man.

"What do you hope to accomplish Lucian? You stand alone against us, with no possible chance of success. Give up now, and you might be lucky enough to be sacrificed to one of the demons."

Lucian didn't say a word, nor did he make a move as the ten men made to surround him. From under the cowl of the cloak, startling deep and intense blue eyes stared hard at them, sizing up each of them. Yes, he recognized them all, had trained with them, fought and killed with them. Already, Lucian could see in his mind, the weaknesses of each. Even surrounded as he was, he wouldn't give up and wouldn't go down. No, Lucian knew in his heart that he had played a big role in the summoning of the demons, and now he would do everything in his power to stop them.

 

[Mairu]

Luna was annoyed. At 5' 6" and with a lithe body covered with blue markings against her white skin and long raven black hair Luna stood out against the trees though right now she took refuge in them. The reason she was so annoyed was because she was feeling so many bad auras. It was making her almost weak. Of course it wasn't, though it was close, but it was still so annoying as she kept in the trees. Being as silent as a mouse. Soon she found the source. 10 men circling one and closing her eyes she saw the auras, the 10 bad ones surrounded by the one good one. Well he had a hint of darkness, probably from being around the 10 or something but then again she couldn't know. So before thinking against it Luna leaped from her hiding place, landing in front of the guy on one hand and both feet, the other hand at her side. "Leave now foul men or you will feel the true power of the forest you trample on." Luna then opened her electric blue eyes, standing on her feet, glaring at a few of the ten men, barefoot in only a leaf top covering her breasts and some leaf shorts she had made with her elemental powers.

 

[LucianDevine]

A lot of expected scenarios played through Lucian's mind as he eyed the ten men that surrounded him. None of those scenarios included a mysterious woman covered in blue markings and clad only in leaves landing in front of him. He was not one who was easily caught by surprise, but her sudden appearance made both him and the men that surrounded the pair of them hesitate.

The woman's words were bold, to say the least, but spoken with a confidence that belied her slight size. Lucian took the momentary hesitation of his pursuers to his advantage. While the woman still had her back to him, he spread his cloak just a bit, letting the men see the blue dragon scale armor that he wore. He knew that they were already aware of it, because of who they were chasing, but it had the desired effect all the same. The men fidgeted nervously as they cast their glances back and forth between the two people they surrounded before the first of them took a slow step backward.

http://img10.deviantart.net/7250/i/2005/077/3/2/dragon_scales_blue_by_bluesman219.jpg

Lucian nodded his head when he saw that single step backwards and took a single step forward and to the strange woman's right side. With the armor that he wore hidden beneath his cloak once more, he turned his gaze to look behind him, making sure that the men behind him, were in fact, moving around them to follow their leader in retreat.

"This doesn't change anything Lucian..." One of the men said as they beside him. "You're just delaying the inevitable..."

Without saying another word, Lucian stepped up beside the woman and watched until long after the ten men had disappeared back into the trees.

"Thank you...for that..." Lucian started as he turned to face the strange woman. He still found himself at a loss of what to say and do. He had no idea who she was, why she'd helped him, or what she intended to do next.

 

[Mairu]

Luna was standing there and staring at the men when she saw one see something and take a step backwards. What wasn't exactly expected was that the step back wasn't because of her and she glanced behind her. Ah, dragon scale armor. Interesting. Not many were daring enough to wear dragon scales. This was proving to be an encounter that could possibly change her whole life but Luna wasn't one for things like that so she brushed that out of her mind when the male stepped beside her. His armor was once again hidden and she suspected he didn't know that she had seen it as one of the men spoke.

Luna then smiled. "Oh but it does." Luna then giggled and waved at them as they left, knowing that once they got out of the forest they would never remember their time in it. Luna then looked at the guy.......... what was his name again? Oh right the one guy had said Lucian. "No problem, they were annoying dark aura people who I wanted out of my forest. Yes you heard me right I did say my forest. You are welcome to stay as long as you like though you may want to take the dragon armor off. I have dragons that come here and they will respect you as one of them when they see it but if you have it on, since they are non violent they will take offense and I don't like offending supernatural creatures." Luna then muttered, "Especially cause I am one" Luna then looked at Lucian thoughtfully. "By the way if you are planning on staying in the forest do you have anywhere to sleep? If you don't I have a big enough tree house where you can sleep. I sleep on the tree branches anyway so you will have enough room."

 

[LucianDevine]

The woman's cryptic talk about auras sounded almost as strange as the way she casually laid claim to this forest, a beast all it's own that had claimed more lives than one could count. She was a flurry of words, though, and just as he got a handle on one thing she said, she jumped to another, and another. His brow had furrowed from the moment she started talking, and the light mutter under her breath that he couldn't make out only made it furrow that much more.

Only when the woman finally seemed to be done speaking did Lucian finally clear his throat and speak.

"I truly wish that things were as simple as that..." Lucian started, shrugging his black cloak off his shoulders until it hung by just the secured clasp in front of his neck. "This armor..." He continued as he took a step back, letting the sun glint off the radiant scales. "is not a trophy from a conquest as many might suspect. It is my curse to bear."

Lucian paused there, taking a long and slow breath. He took that brief moment to study the strange and strangely-dressed woman in front of him. With a soft sigh, he lifted his deep blue gaze to her slightly lighter, but no less intense one.

"There is more to the story of course, and I will tell you if you wish, but I must warn you that it is neither a short nor a happy tale..."'

Though he was not looking forward to telling his tale, Lucian would resign himself to it if the woman desired it. If this was truly her forest, as she claimed, and she heard his tale and quest she would help him...

 

[Mairu]

Luna smiled as the man spoke but turned thoughtful as he said about "his curse to bear" and she sighed. She knew curses, probably more then she should but it was not a word you used lightly. Especially in front of someone who had almost been cursed, only to be pushed out of the way at the last second. Curses weren't always fair and always ended in tragedy. That much was certain to Luna. "I wouldn't use the word "curse" so lightly if I were you. By looking at you I would say at first glance you don't know the first thing about a true curse and it's affects. I may be wrong though, who knows. Anyway I would like to hear more but I don't like standing for very long so let's go to my tree house, if you want that is. Come or not I'm going." Luna then started walking, going a few steps then looking back like she was saying come on if you are coming and then started walking again, not really caring if the guy came or not but she was intrigued.

 

[LucianDevine]

Lucian couldn't help the small chuckle that came to his lips when the woman talked about using the word "curse" lightly. "If only you knew..." He said softly as he turned to follow the woman. He pulled his black cloak a bit tighter around his well-built but wiry six-foot frame. It was tough to tell much of anything about this woman, but one thing was for certain. It was certainly going to be an interesting night, one way or the other. "After you." He said softly, letting the woman get a handful of steps ahead of him before he followed after her.

 

[Mairu]

Luna huffed when she heard the guy. She knew all too well about curses. So him saying "if only you knew" were pointless words since she did know. She thought about this as she lead him to her tree house, climbing up the tree like a cat before a vine grew down for Lucian to climb on, Luna sitting in the tree house which was a big one. Once Lucian was in there Luna smiled. "Please sit and if you wish to I would like to hear the rest of your story."

 

[LucianDevine]

Lucian tried to remember the path through the trees that the woman led him on, but he ended up giving up pretty quickly. All the trees looked the same to him. It wasn't until he saw the woman start to climb a tree with the grace and agility of a cat that he realized that they had reached their destination. He stood at the base of the tree looking up, wondering how he was supposed to follow her. It was then that he saw a vine descending towards him. He hesitated for a moment before finally extending his hand towards the vine. When he gave it a sharp tug and nothing bad happened, he closed his other hand around it and started to slowly climb up.

The tree house that Lucian eventually found himself in was surprisingly large, and he found himself wondering how long it had taken to build. He didn't have much time to dwell on the subject, because the woman spoke once more, asking him to continue the story he'd started earlier. He offered up a small smile, nodded to her, and lifted his hands to the clasp on his cloak. He unclasped it, slid it off his shoulders, and hung it from one of the few hooks near the door. At the woman's invitation, he moved to a chair that was on one side of a small table with a couch across the table from him. His hands lowered to the sheathed katana at his waist and slipped it free from the loop that secured it to his waist. He slowly lowered himself into the chair as he laid his sheathed weapon on the table in front of him. His hand slid slowly down the full of the sheathed blade before sat back fully in the chair.

Lucian took a moment to decide how exactly he wanted to start his story. Even after he decided, he took a long and slow breath before he lifted his gaze to meets hers.

"You can't defy an order when it comes from a king, especially when the king is your father. So when the king gathered me and my nine brothers together with the inner council to tell us that he had a plan to make our kingdom powerful enough to be envied by the entire world, we were all ears. It was then that he told us that it involved a ritual whose key ingredient was the heart of ten of the largest and strongest dragons in the world. It required the heart of the largest gold, silver, bronze, copper, brass, red, black, blue, green, and white dragons. As I said before, when the order comes from the king, you can't do anything but obey. The order came that same night, and the following day, my brothers and I were each given a command of one thousand men and a destination."

Lucian paused then and lowered his gaze to the floor before he continued to speak once more. "Ten thousand men left the kingdom that day, and when it was all said and done, less than a thousand men returned. We were successful in our endeavors of course, and that very same night, preparations for the ritual began. The preparations alone took an entire cycle of the moon. In that time, my father had a suit of armor commissioned from the scales of each of the dragons and given to the son that led the party that killed it. Once both the armor and preparations were complete my father called all of us, as well as the inner council to the chamber in which he'd prepared the ritual. It wasn't until that moment that I started to truly get a bad feeling about what was about to happen. As bad as I could have thought things could be, though, nothing could have prepared me for what happened next. The ritual itself took the better part of an hour, and when it was finally complete, the entire chamber went black. The circle of dragon hearts started to glow. It was soft at first but soon got bright enough that we had to shield our eyes from it. When the light finally died down, the hearts had somehow risen to form an archway of sorts. I could see into the archway, and what I saw was enough to make me sick. It was a world that I can only describe as hell. Sadly, though, what happened next only made things worse. A creature appeared on the other side of the archway. It was almost fifteen feet tall, had huge bat-like wings, and evil looking horns. It had black scales like a reptile and was surrounded by flames. Even the two huge swords it carried were covered in flames. It was a creature out of a child's worst nightmares. My father had opened a gate between our world and a demon world..."

Lucian's gaze lifted after he spoke his last words, wanting to look at the woman and gauge her reactions as he finally finished his story. "There was nothing I could do just then but watch in horror as the creature reached towards the portal. It got closer and closer, and when it seemed like it couldn't get any closer I was shocked to see it pass through the portal to our side. It started with just a claw, then a hand, and an arm. Before I could think of anything to do, the large creature stepped through the portal into our world."

Lucian went silent for a long time after that. He simply shook his head for a bit before finally forcing himself to meet the woman's gaze once more.

"More demons came through the portal after that first one. They looked like the first demon, just smaller and weaker, though still powerful in their own right. I overheard my father conversing with the big one. They talked about what they could do together. The demon talked about how it had been allowed to cross over because of the strength of the greatest creatures on our world, and that the one thing they feared was the strength of the planet itself. They talked about the elements and how each element had a temple dedicated to it. They didn't know where the temples were located but talked about how they would seek out and destroy them because the combined power of them could potentially rival their own. After I heard that, I fled the castle, determined to find the temples that they spoke of and do everything I could to bring that power to bear against them."

"That is why I came here, to your forest. It is an enigma that people from the outside have yet to solve, and I believe that one of the temples lies within it."

 

[Mairu]

Luna was okay at first when she started listening to Lucian's story but grew very distressed as he continued on and by the time he was done she was shaking. Then after a few minutes of silence she said in a very icy voice. "So not only did you release a true demon in this realm, YOU TELL ME THEY ARE COMING HEREEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!" By the middle of the sentence Luna had stood and was screeching, her whole face twisted in anger. "Damn you humans! Can't you just live with what you have?! Do you always have to search for more??! DAMN HUMANS!" Luna then sat down again, taking slow deep breaths. "Sorry about that just upset. This forest and the temple within hold a very precious thing. It's not the temples themselves that gets has the power but the item within that can grant the power of a Goddess and a dragon. So it is vital that it is kept safe, if it falls into the hands of a true demon no good can come from it. For now though we will not do anything. Tomorrow though we go to the temple. I need to keep it secure and in my hands. Or who knows what could happen? Not just our fate but the fate of the world is dangling in front of the fire. The heat already there." Luna then got a far away look before snapping out of it. "Anyway for now are you hungry? I have some meat and berries and yes I can cook the meat."

 

[LucianDevine]

The minutes of silence that followed his story only made Lucian feel worse, something that he wouldn't have thought possible. Whether or not the outburst that followed was better or worse than the silence was also up for debate. It was hard for him to meet her gaze at that point, but he did force himself to do it.

The sudden change back to her calm self after the outburst also caught Lucian off guard. He had to take a moment to try and process what she had said, and even then he found himself quite confused.

"I guess I could eat..." Lucian started, pausing for a second before forcing himself to continue. "What did you mean about "us humans" though? What are you, if not human, and how exactly is this entire forest yours?"

 

[Mairu]

Luna wasn't ready for Lucian's questions and started to cook the meat while being silent before hesitating. She really didn't want to say as she feared the look and horror. Luna was a black leopard shifter. She had been given this forest by the Goddess who could be called upon when entering the temple. She showed up with her Dragon, her aid, her friend, her warrior and even in some stories her lover. The Goddess and the Dragon had a unique relationship. Anyway the Goddess had given authority over the forest that the temple resided in to Luna so that it was in safe hands. To explain that not only was Luna a shifter she also had the power of the elements. To tell a human this? It was like asking for ones death. So she decided to lie. Yeah not the smartest idea if she wanted trust but the one thing she was truly scared of? Humans going after her. She could deal with demons and other things for certain reasons but she would never use her power on a human, which meant dying if they turned. So lying it was.

"W-well I am a human it's just I was raised by some leopards in this forest and think of myself as one." It wasn't a total lie, a family of black leopard, before the Goddess thing had happened had taken care of her and led her to be the leopard she was, though they kept away from humans because of fear, though if Luna brought one that wasn't against animals, maybe they would be okay around that person. She had yet to find one like that yet. The part of being a human, that was completely different. "Actually in the forest they are the leaders, and they put me in charge 5 years ago. They don't show themselves to other humans, out of fear really and need someone who is human but like an animal to be in charge so they put me in charge of the forest. Actually a few of the humans that have been a little okay before, they always turned and ran when finding out about me." Again not exactly a lie. This is why she lied, before she used her powers to read auras she was friendly to humans, very friendly in fact that she told them what she was, and then they turned and ran in fear when she put her hands out. Maybe they feared her using her powers, and maybe she would if she was in such a situation but she thought she wouldn't. By this time Luna had a sad look but shook it away as the meat finished and she put it in a bowl and placed it with a smaller bowl of berries beside him. "Anyway hear you go if you aren't afraid of me now.

 

[LucianDevine]

The woman's story of her past was a hard one to believe, to say the least. Even as he found himself wondering if it was true, if was hard for Lucian to not think about his own story and how unbelievable it likely would have been to an average person. The most curious part about her story, though, was the sad expression that ended up on her face by the end of it.

"If this forest truly is yours then you could have killed me long before now if you chose to." Lucian said with a small smile as he reached for the two small bowls she places before him. After a small test bite of sorts, Lucian stopped when he realized that he didn't even know this woman's name.

"Might I know the name of my hostess?" He asked softly, letting his gaze linger on the woman across from him as he started to eat the meal she'd prepared for him.

 

[Mairu]

When the guy Lucian talked Luna nodded. "Easily but I chose not to. You should be glad since I have half a mind to do it now but I'm not. I am instead offering you food." Luna then took her own meat and fruit and started eating before looking at him as he spoke, asking her name. "My name is Luna. Also I already know yours I heard one of the men that had you surrounded say it. By the way why were they surrounding you if you were one of the king's sons? Wouldn't you be helping your Father or at least say you were even if you were running away?" Luna looked a little confused, a bit smart for her jungle upbringing.

 

[LucianDevine]

Luna's statement about killing him actually made Lucian crack a small smile. Deep down he had a feeling that it would be the easier of the two options. Lord knows that many a person would have chosen that route, be it their own hand or somebody else's. He wasn't that kind of person, though. He would rather die trying to fix the problem that he'd helped cause rather than end his own life or give up.

"Sadly those men were under direct order from my father to hunt me down. He is not so stupid as to think that I would just run away. He must know that I will do everything I can to kill those demons, or at least banish them."

After he spoke, Lucian turned his attention back to the meal that Luna had prepared for him, showing no hesitation as he ate and gladly enjoyed it. As he'd said before, if she had wanted him dead then he would be, one way or the other.

 

[Mairu]

Luna listened as she kept eating, listening to him and she understood. Guess the King had known his son's reaction and also knew that he planned to do everything in his power to kill the demons. Luna was glad, since they were a threat to her. A big one. So she would help this, man to defeat the demons. It wasn't all bad anyway since has handsome. Luna actually had some dirty thoughts for a few seconds but swiped those away. He would never be a mate for her, he was human. Humans no matter how nice at first always changed when knowing the truth and this time was no different. Only reason he wasn't after her was because she was smarter now and knew not to tell people the truth. She thought of this as she ate, putting the dishes away when she was done and looked carefully at Lucian. "So how did you know it was this forest anyway?"

 

[LucianDevine]

The two finished eating in relative silence, each clearly lost in their own heads as they enjoyed the simple meal that Luna had prepared for them. When they were done, he offered up his plate to her when she came to take it from him. "Thank you for dinner." He offered up with a small but sincere smile.

When Luna looked at him and voice her question all he could do was shrug as he replied. "In truth, I didn't know for sure. All I had to go on was the rumors. A lot of men have tried to enter this forest, but most of them never returned. Even the ones that did return weren't able to tell us anything about what they'd encountered in here. Your forest is an enigma to the outside world, and it was as good a place as any for me to start looking."