Well, I said I would post excerpts here, so here one is. For the first excerpt, I chose the introductory chapter for Relan and Fen Aya Zen. I figured this would be popular-ish due to Not Alone. I’m not going to include a spoiler warning here mostly because it’s obvious how Not Alone is going to work out. I’ve already said both characters appear in the comic rather soon, so it’s obvious they at least LIVE. Enjoy, but please note this chapter has not been edited since writing it…oh…2 years ago. :3 I’m probably going to take out some of the detail, as I wrote this in a slightly maximalist stage.
Here’s an old sketch of the two also:
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Chapter 10 – Face to Face – part III
Domain West: Ci’Endis: Seshen’a Tsa
The leaves softly crunched beneath Relan’s doeskin boots as she tightened the single bracer on her right wrist, trying to pull it back into place with her teeth. With a soft grunt at her failure, she sat lightly down on one of the many furred, moss-lathered rocks next to her, a boulder that had been warming in the streams of golden sunlight since the red dawn. After admiring the great trees that surrounded her in an ageless beauty, born down with the weight of spider-webbed vines and leaves the size of a man’s head, Relan relaxed slightly, taking a deep breath of the jungle air. The magnificence of the Seshen’a Tsa, the Forest of Stones, would never cease to amaze her, but the stones hid secrets, deadly secrets, and Relan refused to be caught unawares. To do so would mean her death.
She laid at her feet lay a silver-wooded staff nearly as tall a she, and tight, leather wraps encircled the areas where her hand usually rested. Up its length were a series of engravings, shallow crevasses in the light wood that chronicled her past, her present, and perhaps, her future. Near the top end, the numeral “three” stood boldly out on the hub, three rings, one inside of the other, just touching at the bottom. Next to it, climbing vertically, was her name in the same alphabet, and after, her title of Na’shan. Interspersed between, and sometimes in, the carvings were many indentations, forceful dents whose origin could only be from its use as a weapon on its travels. The woman focused on tightening the straps of her bracer, cautious lest it become too loose during battle and foil her hands. Relan unconsciously flickered her long, loose hair behind an ear, unaware of its annoying nature in her current struggle as it glowed auburn in the late evening light. A wide ring of tooled, golden metal gleamed brightly in the misty air of the Seshen’a Tsa, the only real symbol of rank she chose to wear. The ear cuff proclaimed her to be a protector of the borderlands, a self-professed outcast of cities, and half of a Shan pairing.
A sound tickled the ear she had just freed, and she stilled, slowly sinking off the small boulder to pick up her staff with her left hand. Brown eyes tinged with green picked her surroundings apart with a trained ferocity, skipping over nothing, and yet, focusing on nothing. Relan had learned early that putting one’s attention in only a single place meant being oblivious to everywhere else. A small stream gurgled behind her, and a bird flew overhead, squawking loudly. The wind blew and the great trees rustled, dropping a few leaves in a quiet, unobtrusive, lazy way. A twig snapped, and her head whipped to the right, searching the area behind the many, clustered rocks, but deep shadows hid any forms. Her eyes suddenly shadowed over, a passing flicker of doubt, and she whirled around, her staff at ready.
An enormous beast stood only a body-length behind her, one wide paw above the ground, ready to slowly release its mass to the earth. Its fur was of a dark, reddish hue that faded first to a light, and then to dark gray in stripes, and a large, curled tail stood prominently white over a wide back. It wore an odd harness, a metal skeleton that wrapped around the thick neck, underneath a bearish, barrel chest and then around the strong back. Chain-linked armor filled in the spaces not covered by the harness, and it effectively protected the beast’s vitals from harm. The body shape most closely matched that of a wolf, though its bulk would overshadow two wolves, and a pair of curled horns proudly adorned its immense head. Neither it nor Relan moved.
Suddenly, it pounced, and Relan brought up her staff as giant forepaws landed on her chest and pushed her to the ground. She used the momentum to flip the beast behind her, and she then rolled to the left just as a dripping, fanged mouth lunged for her neck, barely missing. A tendril of hot drool landed on her cheek, and she flinched, but did not pause to wipe it away. On the ground, she flipped her legs around and tripped the wolf-like creature before it could regain equilibrium from the unsuccessful attack. It fell heavily to the soft earth, digging a deep trench with its strong muzzle, and coughed as soil invaded a mouth used only to raw, bloody meat.
Neither fighter moved for a moment, until a rich laugh disturbed the aged silence of trees and growing plants. Relan rolled on the ground, laughing at the beast whose tongue rolled disgustedly in and out of its large, fanged mouth in a clear show of distaste. She had to hold in her sides as laughing cramps became only a slight hindrance to her humor. The animal moved into a more dignified position, large head arrogantly high and forepaws extended in front rather than embarrassingly behind. It growled low when Relan refused to stop, but the sound only encouraged the woman to laugh louder. Finally, her sides worn out and tears leaking from her eyes, she levered herself up with the help of a nearby rock, still chuckling.
“You deserved that, Fenni.” He seemed to grumble as a clod of moss fell from the roof of his mouth and golden-red eyes scrunched in distaste. “And I’m not sorry in the slightest.” To prove her point, she kicked some leaf litter at him, aiming for his shoulders. Her eyes squinted as she held in her mirth in a late, vain attempt to soothe her companion’s sore feelings. Fen Aya Zen’s eyes narrowed and he sent a thought to her, though it was more of an idea and less of words,
« You’re getting faster. »
She grinned, and the beast did not flinch at her bared fangs. He had long ago become familiar with human ways, and he instead grinned back, black dirt marring a sinister smile. « For a human anyways, right? »