It was dark in the forest clearing, the soft blue moonlight filtering through the surrounding trees did little in the way of providing light. Fireflies flitted quickly about, flickering from time to time for whatever their own reasons were. A wolf stalked along the edge of the clearing, staying close enought to the trees to avoid being seen. A tent was set up in the middle, with a horse standing nearby. A figure was just visible within, a sleeping figure. A few feet away lay a girl of around 15 on a pallet. Her hair was honey colored and long. Not far away lay another girl. Her hair was almost white. Her blue-green eyes were open as she scanned the treeline constantly. At the treeline was her brother, whispering to the trees as he tried to work things out in his mind. He was staring into the forest with a pleading look on his face, whispering franticly. A figure the size of a German Shepherd stood beside him. But this was no dog, this was a dragon. He sensed his master's urgancy as the boy searched hopelessly for some answer to the horible question: "Why did I kill him?" One year ago Sky had killed a man named Gandyn, father to an eleven year old son named Jamoth. The boy had been Sky's friend, but had turned on him upon the death of his father. Gandyn had been aiding the wicked man, his half brother, Arren, for a while now, and had tried to kidnap Trionna, resulting in his own death. Jewel had tried to comfort her brother, as had EmberFalcon and Trionna, but now one thought stirred in the lad's mind. "I am alone." He thought he heard a murmer in the back of mind, the voice of the witch Magda, a memory of days gone by. "I am Pain and I am Fear. I am Fear and I am Doubt. I am Doubt and I am Death. I am Death, and you will never defeat me." Sky shook his head to clear his mind. "No", he said aloud, "I am never alone, and I will defeat you." thus said, he turned back toward the clearing, not catching Jewel's faint smile.



(Did I do it right?)

OOC: Yes, you did it right. Quite nicely, actually. I shall join.

IC: Solarae stalked forward in the darkness, the scent of a shade crossing her flared nostrils. The dark, tainted scent would soon be purged, if she had anything to say about it. Shades had caused the dragoness no end of trouble in the past. She and some of her friends had been nearly killed by shades. She remembered the incident with the powerful shade in Du Weldenvarden, and barely suppressed her growl.

There were many in the clearing, and several of a very odd nature. Most were just two-legs, but a couple were different. There was one mainly male two-leg scent, but it was mixed with wolf. And there was a scent of a dragon, but it also seemed wolfish. Solarae was perplexed, and wondered what she'd discover in this clearing of oddities. The shade, however, was her top priority. If it was evil, as she suspected it to be, then it must die.

The orange dragoness crept closer, her small body slinking easily through the shadows. Despite her fiery orange coloration, she was extremely stealthy. Over six-hundred years worth of experience was not lost on her. Her small size also gave her a measure of added stealth. Any normal-sized dragon would not be able to slink up in a manner like this. Solarae crouched down on the edge of the clearing. She had approached upwind, to prevent her scent from reaching the noses of those within. Now, she had to locate the shade and make a few last-minute observations.

EmberFalcon stared at his sleeping master and nodded in aproval, this was the first actual reast the lad had gotten since killing Gandyn. It looked like his consience was finally at ease. But there would be no rest for EmberFalcon just yet, he had things to do. He stretched his wings slightly, wanting to fly but not wanting to leave his master; he knew ho helpless humans could be. He wondered quietly how humans lived without dragons. He extended his claws for a moment before turning to lick his shoulder. He straightened at a sound from the tent: THe shade was stirring. EmberFalcon wandered over and peered inside. The shade had risen and was looking quietly around the inside of his tent. "Perfect," he muttered, "Almost midnight." He noticed the dragon watching him. "And I suppose you want to be nosy and find out what I'm doing." He exited the tent and bowed his head slightly toward the dragon before patting the furry muzzle fondly. "Very well then, I might need some of your magic anyway. After all, this buisiness is very awkward at the best of times." The dragon nodded and walked with the shade to the edge of the clearing, pretending not to notice the goblin following them. It was then that the dragon noticed another mind nearby. His ears perked up curiously, but he decided to remain with the shade for the moment.

Luke scrambled up a tree as the shade suddenly looked almost directly at him. His brown hair tossed gently in the breeze as his slightly tan skin crawled with excitment. He was a young goblin, only 18 years old. He just knew he could prove to the others that this one shade wasn't evil. He fingered the bow slung across his back and knew that the quiver of arrows should be being used this moment to hunt for deer, but curiosity kept him where he was, wrapped inside of his grey cloak and huddled on the branch of this tree.


EmberFalcon's head jerked up as another wave of something else's hesitent curiosity swept through his mind. It seemed to be one of his kin. His tail flicked nervously and a low growl came from his throat as he pondered whether the creature he sensed was friend or foe. The shade looked at him. "What has gotten into you? I need your help with this memory spell." The dragon glared up at him. A deep, rasping voice was transmitted into the shade's mind. "Stay here and do what you can without me; I need to go look for something." with another flick of his tail he loped silently away, leaving a puzzled shade to shrug absently.

EmberFalcon hesitated for a moment, not wanting to wake his master, but decided that he really needed to and sent Sky a mentle message. "Wake, Brother, there is a presense here that I know not. I'm going to see what it is, but you need to be awake to fight it if it's an enemy." He felt Sky stir sleepily for a moment and the ncome wide awake. He then heard Sky's reply. "Very well, I'll warn the shade, I trust he's out doing his nighttime weirdness right now?" EmberFalcon sent his confirmation and Sky headed off to let the shade know there was something going on. EmberFalcon went a bit farther and saw the orange dragon several yards away. He summoned his fiercest voice and snarled. "What are you doing here?"

(caterpillar you just Godmodded! Just kidding, I don't care )

EmberFalcon surveyed the new dragon cautiosly. "I'm in the company of a shade because my rider is." he replied. He came even closer, folding his ears back as he went. "Who might you and your hidden friend be?" he asked, a growl coming into his voice. "The shade happens to be Sky's form of a sire at this point, as we have been traveling with him for awhile now." He gathered his thoughts to summon the boy. "Sky, come here, I've found the watcher." he heard the reply, "Friend or foe?" and then he sensed the boy coming. He tilted his head. "So what are you," he asked, "Friend, or foe?"

OOC: How'd I godmod? I meant warning as in when he demanded what Solarae was doing.

IC: Solarae grinned. The shade really cares about others? Maybe he's not one of the evil ones. Anyway, I'm Solarae. And you can cut the act, kid, I'm a friend as long as you guys don't engage in any activities of evil. No reason to get all agitated, she replied with a laugh. Solarae stepped forward to get a better look at the other dragon. Partially hidden behind bushes as she was, and in the dark, it was rather hard to make him out entirely. When she saw him completely, she was immediately curious. The young dragon was covered in fur! The wolfish smell made more sense, now.

(Oh, sorry, I misunderstood. )

EmberFalcon extended a paw. "I am EmberFalcon, a WolvenDrake. My rider and I come from a different world, but this shade transported us here." He looked over his shoulder for Sky, but then looked back at Solarae. "THe rider is a werewolf, I do hope you don't fear them. We and our companions are trying to get back to our real master." he noticed the expression in the other dragon's eyes as she noticed the fur. "oh yes, Wolvendrakes do have fur. But I'm like any other dragon. Tell me, do you have a rider?" At that moment Sky came running to EmberFalcon with Jewel and Trionna. All three of them had a good reaction to the new dragon. Trionna yelped slightly and backed away. Jewel gasped and bowed slightly, and Sky grinned and muttered, "Wonderful." under his breath.

Sky grinned. "The shade's going to love this." he said. He nodded to Solarae. "Hello, My name is Sky. I'm EmberFalcon's rider. This is Jewel and Trionna." He looked around, wishing he could see this new dragon, not having forgotten what it felt like to really look at one; he hadn't been blind when EmberFalcon had hatched. "So what are you doing here, exactly?" he asked, sending the shade a mentle message to come quickly.

Solarae nodded her head in a friendly way, chuckling when he mentioned the shade. It sounded like they had the relationship of a son and stern father, at least from what Sky had said so far. Solarae's father had not been very stern, except when she got into trouble, which was often.

Well, I suppose I'll be rather blunt. You guys are probably aware that shades are usually not the nicest of characters. I was keeping an eye on yours. I've had a few nasty run-ins with shades, you see, she said, telling most of what she had been doing. She didn't want to say, yet, that she was going to attack him if he turned out to be evil. If he was, he could try to trick her into thinking he was good if she revealed that much.

OOC: If this gets onto the next page, we should wait for Kit to post again. Don't want to leave him behind.

OOC: HEY!!! aren't we supposed to be taking turns? *Looks Draco dead in the eye and taps foot*
I didn't get warning post, nor is ten minutes, "a small time". A day or two is usually given BEFORE the warning post and then another day or two AFTER it.

IC: Elika watched and listened, it seemed that only Rae knew of her presence. Elika wasn't surprised by the hairy dragon, she'd seen enough weirdness to the point that most things were not weird anymore. When she felt the call to the shade she decided that she best introduce herself.

She dropped down from the tree branch and probably seemed to materialize into the sight of the others. Elika went for her frighting, yet warm face so that these new comers wouldn't try anything stupid. She used her ability to search intentions without detection, once more and couldn't find anything that was threatening. "Hello, I am Elika. For now, I'm a friend." She crossed her arms and shifted her weight to one hip, her blue crystal weapon caught the moon light, even in the gloom.

Anthony was tired of walking so he sat down and used hit telekinesis to move him across the plains after the right turned sharply south.

THe shade came and saw the new dragon and the human. He looked at Sky with a 'What did you do' look. He stared with raised eyebrows at the dragon. "Well hello." he said. "Since Sky isn't dead yet I assume you aren't going to hurt anyone. Has hunting been good lately?" Sky grinned as he realized that EmberFalcon was trying to get nearer to the other dragon without being noticed. He finally decided to let the dragon have its way. "Go ahead EmberFalcon, we know you want to, go ahead and talk to them." EmberFalcon growled slightly and looked at the new dragon. "What none of these humans are telling you is the name of the person we serve. Do you know?"

OOC: Rps don't have to have an order. But you're right, we did get away from you. I'm sorry, Kit. We'll have an order now.

IC: Solarae grinned as her new two-leg friend dropped from a tree and joined her. Elika seemed to like being surprising. She looked up when the shade approached the group, her gaze suspicious. She didn't like shades. She knew that most of them were evil, or at the very least unpleasant and cold. What this shade was like, she didn't yet know, but she intended to find out.

She glanced at EmberFalcon when he mentioned that they served someone. Solarae's eyes narrowed. Most of her friends never mentioned serving anyone; only her enemies. Reluctantly, she decided to ask who. Why? Who do you serve? she asked hesitantly.

Sky smirked slightly. "Who do you want us to serve?" he asked before being whacked by the shade again. The shade shook his head slightly and frowned at Sky. "Sky, I'm frowning at you." he said. Sky quickly dodged the coming blow and stood beside his sister. Trionna grinned. "Sky, he's rolling his eyes at you." she muttered. The shade threw his hands up in to the heavens and gave a general long-suffering look. Then he looked at Solarae and said: "We serve his majasty the king of Alagaisia. Galbatorix the conquerer. I myself don't aprove of his methods and think that dragons should be left alone, but I'm just a shade who was called up out of nowhere, what do I know?" Sky could tell that that was the wrong answer.

Sky gulped, realizing that he was probably about to get killed. He thought back over his short life and shrugged, who really cared what happened. He looked at the orange dragon. "Well, it isn't quite that easy. You see, Galbatorix, er, he has this spell, I think you've heard of it, where he can, you know, see through the eyes of an oracle. Even though I'm blind, I assure you I have perfect vission when he wants me to. And, er, we can't leave because he has something that we need to get. We've been in leage with the dragon riders.. sort of. We've been slipping them little bits of information and money, that sort of thing. But, we're going to get caught soon and we need to get something really useful before we get out of here." Trionna nodded. "Oh, and Solarae, where did you learn those terms you were using for our master?" The shade glared at Sky. "You terrible liar." he thought. Aloud he said, "But, other than what my little whelp told you, we do serve him for minor tasks. And actually, Galbatorix isn't the one who created me, it was his brother."

Sky looked injured. "What? We've never killed for him... Have you ever been inside his castle? You he has these weird rooms that when you walk in them..." The shade noticed with a sense of dread that Sky sounded furious. It must be getting near full moon. "Sky," he said quietly, "Go over there and scratch a tree or howl at the moon. It will be all right." Sky looked even more injured. "Yes Shade." he muttered. Jewel laughed. "Of course we help the dragon riders. You can ask, you know, him." Trionna smirked. "Oh yes, Juliett, him. As a matter of fact, we haven't personally seen any dragon riders, besides Sky, but we don't really carry out Galbatorix's orders. We do what he tells us specifically. One time he told us to oversee his minions while they built a bridge. We did, and made sure it got built." Jewel grinned evily. "But he didn't tell us we couldn't burn it down when it was finished. And one time he told us to track down this dragon and kill it. We tracked it down and, well," Trionna interupted. "It was foolish, but we got it to play dead." Sky came back looking afronted. "This was a little before EmberFalcon hatched. We would never really kill for Galbatorix, we want him dead as much as anyone else. And if we are evil, so what? At least we're evil for a good cause."

It was unlucky that Sky chose that moment to get really mad. "Why? Why should we jill one of them? Most of them can't help it. Besides, you do realize that we could have harmed you by now, or at least tried to, if we wanted to harm you at all. Are you asking us to get ourselves killed? If you claim to not be evil then why do you ask us to become like the evil? You want us to kill the helpless to prove our innocence? I won't, I'm fond of most of them. His armies aren't all bad either. Now, you want someone who's evil because they want to be? That would be Galbatorix and about ten of his advisors, as well as his right hand man, and if he has an apprentice we could get ahold of. If he does then we could either kill the apprentice or try to get him on our side, he has to go somewhere other than where Galbatorix wnats him. If we let him have his apprentice it could be much worse, the apprentice always turns out greater than the master." He looked around, wondering if his little rant had been as stupid as he thought it was. The shade nodded. "Plus, how would we ever prove that we had in fact killed them? Bring you their head? If we did that we may as well be screaming that we hate Galbatorix. No, we'll bring you proof more solid than that... How long is it until full moon, by the way?" he said with an almost evil glint in his eyes.

(Sure there can be ferns, don't worry about it. Do whatever you like, I idn't go into much detail describing the place, so add whatever. )

THe SHade could tell that in a matter of moments Sky would do something stupid, so he grabbed Sky by the collar of his shirt and practically dragged him to the one tent. "I know you're my slave and all that, unworty to look at my tent, but get in there and stop making things worse for us or I will take it out of your hide!" he muttered fiercly. Sky flinched slightly because for a moment there nothing but air underneath him as the Shade flung him inside the tent. He thought of re-joining the argument, but the shade sealed the entrance with magic. Sky shrugged and tried to think of a good counter spell.

EmberFalcon glared reproachfully at the Shade for a moment before glancing at Solarae. "The human didn't mean to offend you by saying who we work for, we were handeling things our own way and he isn't used to having a mother figure. We wouldn't have to prove our loyalty if you hadn't come, if you think about it, but don't you wonder what exactly our motive is? I can tell you most of Galbatorix's secrets, but then, how do we know you aren't his spy?" He left it at that before his ears suddenly pricked and he started sniffing warily. He wandered for a moment before saying, "Someone's watching us."

EmberFalcon felt quite proud of himself. "I see I've scored a point. We really don't know, you could be working for him. In fact, I'll bet you are. But I can prove to you, with no bit of doubt, that we are for the varden. The simple fact is, you'd have to give us a bit of trust in order for us to prove it. You let one of us go to the castle and stay there, if no one comes for you you'll know we've alerted no one. Plus, we know where the varden is. Wouldn't we tell Galbatorix if we were with him?"

OOC: is it Silver's turn or mine? We really need an established order, I've been under the impression that it is hers

OOC: I propose the order of Curfew, Silver, Kit, Draco. Which would make it Silv's turn, yes.

EmberFalcon grunted slightly, looking down at his paws.

"I...er...don't...can't...I don't want to see any of your memories andI don't believe in that kind of thing. Your memories are your own, and I've got no business looking through them. I'm quite sick of this debate and rather be doing other things; you know we'll be in so much trouble if we're not back to Galbatorix at the correct...hey...where'd Sky go?"

His ears pricked up as he realized that he couldn't sense his rider's aura anymore.

"Oh great... He's left. I bet he's heading for the castle."

The Shade nodded. "On my orders."

Jewel glanced sideways at him. "Why would you order him to go to the castle?"

The Shade shrugged. "It may have been that I want him to report these people, in which case Galbatorix's men will be here shortly."

He waited until Trionna looked close to fainting before he continued. "Or it may have been that I wanted him to retrieve an important artical that will convince the dragons of our alliance. There's really no way to know what I told him to do, so you'll just have to wait and see."

OOC: Silver, your it in this'n

OOC: I know this is an old thread but it was kind of interesting and I'd be willing to start it up again, if everyone is willing.

OOC: I'd be willing also, but I guess Curfew has to make the final call. If she doesn't reply I'll pm her in a few days.

OOC: Sure but is it okay if we wait a little while? I'm kind of busy with stuff lately but maybe like tomorrow or something? ^?^

OOC: Just let us know when you wanna continue this, Curf, if you do. It'd be Kit's turn (since Silver's kind of gone).

OOC: Whenever is a good time with you guys ^;^ I'll be away for about four or five days starting tomorrow ^;^

Emberfalcon allowed himself a small snort at that remark, catching the sarcasm and deciding that this dragon was one that he quite liked. "And I wonder which side we'd be fighting on in the case of that?" he muttered softly.

The shade narrowed his eyes in disgust at the new arrival. "Oh," he hissed, "More company? Shall we invite the whole of creation then?"

OOC: Sorry it's short; gotta go take Grampa to the cemetery right quick, be back shortly. XP Next reply will be longer ^;^

OOC: Curfew, your post!

OOC: Oh my gosh, I'm sorry! *Facepalm* I thought it was your go! Um...I don't think I'm going to be able to roleplay anymore; I can't seem to do it well and I think it would be best that I just sort of slip out of this one. I'm really really sorry, hate to do it to you...but you guys can keep going if you want to. I just can't seem to get back into it....

OOC: 'Practice makes perfect' I wasn't all that good when I started, but now I'd like to consider myself a very strong RPer and one of the top ones here on SF. If we didn't think you were any good or at least couldn't improve, me and Draco wouldn't have joined this one in the first place. That is the 100% truth, you can even ask Draco if you want to.

OOC: No need to ask me. I agree completely.

OOC: Oh and also, for being new at this, you did come up will a pretty good story for an RPG, one that challenges the characters, mentally and physically. That usually comes later on, but you started out with it Lucky!!

So like I said before, go ahead and post, you'll do fine. If you do want to end this, then let's at least end it RPG style

OOC: I know this RPG is old, but it is still unfinished, and since we are starting to get the RPers back I thought I just ask if we wanted to start this one, among others, back up again? I'm game for it, but I can't RP by myself, so anyone else want to give it a try?

OOC: lol You know I'm in.

OOC: Alright cool so I guess that leaves it up to you Curfew. I believe it is your turn if you want to continue and just go ahead an post...please