Evolution [Open, NR]

Evolution was a fickle thing, both in timing and result. For the normal creature, evolution was something that happened over time, as a result of thier surroundings. For those of his species, evolution came as a result of desire. The will to become sronger, the intent of becomng greater than what you once were. But there were limitations. For the pure dragons, those whom were attuned to specific elements, they were limited to becoming more powerful within thier respective element. But for those like him.. the Ryuukishi? There were no singular elements. His species was constantly evolving thanks to the bit of Biskmatar in thier genetics. One could gain access to a multitude of powers in the time before they finally asended into thier final stages of life. and at that point... the dragon lines would be more powerful than ever.

But for him, these stages of evolution were troublesome. He welcomed them normally -- it was the perfect chance to catch up on his sleep. And it had been quite a long time since he'd undergone his own..

The first sensation that he could feel... gravity. He was hanging, and it was dark. He couldn't feel his body. Sleep paralysis was a bitch... As he stood -- er, hung there, memories came back to him. He'd climbed into a tree, and had fallen asleep hanging from it.

Ok. But he felt like something was on him. Something tight. Had he shed his skin in his slumber? WEll, if he did, he'd done a shitty job of taking it off. The world felt constricted.. something he wasnt too happy with. He was a dragon, a creature that craved freedom. He'd get it, sooner or later. For the moment, he just attempted to wiggle his extremities, attempting to force feeling back into them...

Wandering the inner forest was... soothing, in a strange way. his influence was changing the areas he frequented; turning them from what seemed to be hellish death traps into a more peaceful appearing place. This was merely an illusion, however; as even the 'peaceful' areas of the forest where still lethal in their own ways. His influence was turning this glade into forest of spirits and demi-gods; similar in many ways to the one in which he was born. His very existence gave the tree's sentient spirits, which worked to aid him in cleansing the land of contamination in the form of unnatural toxins and poisons; he hesitated to claim he was cleansing the world of evil, as his world view precluded the common values of good versus evil. Semantics was something that he was taught to understand early; as his 'childhood' among the demi-gods, spirits, and high gods of his birth forest would have otherwise warped him into a being that saw the world in stark black and white. Those like his mother, aunts, and the High Gods that protected and gave them life? Good. Anything else? Bad. That was what he was taught not to believe, but to see the world for all the shades of grey, and all the hidden colors that it contained.

Still, he was young, and rather naive; as his recent escapades had shown him. The sudden appearance of a huge section of forest had confused him, and he'd risked leaving his forest in order to investigate. Some insanity he'd stumbled into had nearly ended with him being crushed and killed by flying constructions of the human world; a slide, if his brain was pulling up the right word. He was never sure with the constructs the humans used; they where strange and unnatural, for the most part. At least a slide made sense, many of the semi-aquatic creatures of the rivers and ponds would make natural slides in the clay banks, to use for fun or a quick escape from the heat. It was at least something that he understood; even if he used a different word for it. He was, after all, the child of the Greek Pantheon; his mind worked in Greek, read in Greek, and thought of things in a very Greek manner. That he understood anything outside of the Greek world was a gift from his patron Goddesses, Artemis and Aphrodite. Artemis was like a grandmother to him, from her will and her hand came the first generation of Dryad spirits in the ancient forests on the lower reaches of Mount Olympus. Aphrodite was a Goddess that his mother in particular, as a spirit of fertility among the Dryads, was very close to, and worshiped freely; meaning that he had inherited her favor, and was honestly rather happy to continue the tradition. It was their power that granted him his telepathic abilities; to compensate for his being functionally, and fully, deaf; the tragic, but required, cost of being a cross-breed. He was not bitter for this, as he'd never had problems with his lack of 'hearing'; the forest and animals where just as alive to him in his mind as they would be had he had working ears.

The recent days had found him sticking close to the center of the forest; far away from the insanity happening in the outside world. He needed to time to come to terms with what he'd experienced, and to calm his heart and mind; the cervid half of his spirit was restless and easily scared, as he was just a tiny fawn at his age; and no amount of power or wisdom granted via his dryad spirit could soothe the deer soul just yet. As he grew older, he would gain better control over his Prey instincts, but for now, they where a hassle that served to keep him isolated, lest his heart explode from the stress of being in an sort of dangerous situations. It was in his hidden little glade that he was hiding, really; a special place under the largest tree in the area; surrounded by rocky outcroppings and small cliffs that served to wall in the area. It was only for his ability to move through the root system of the forest that he'd even found this place, and that was the easiest way for him to reach it; although with his powerful, deer-like legs he could easily scale and descend the rocky walls if needed. It was just easier and faster to move along the roots and appear at the base of the tree. This tree was special in many ways; it was extremely old for one, likely the original sire of the entire forest; and high in it's branches hung what was, for lack of a better word, a rather strange... cocoon? It was alive, that much was obvious, but it was no fruit, nor anything generated by the tree. Far to large, and made of the wrong material; this was living flesh and an almost scale material, not the bark and woody fibers of a tree or plant. What it was, he had no idea, it had been there since long before he was even born; to the point that it carried no distinct smell of it's own. It was a part of the forest, and it had hung peacefully for so long that he sometimes forgot it was there; as was the case at the moment. He was merely resting on a bed of moss and leaves that he'd grown between the roots of the ancient tree; his bed, in a way; resting and thinking, barely moving, and seeming like a plant himself, as he did when he lost himself to the forest around him.

Falling.

She knew she was falling: she wasn't quite sure how she knew it exactly given she couldn't open her eyes yet, but she knew. Perhaps it was the ever present wind rushing around her back; or the fact that her body was bent almost in half, aimed back first towards the ground.

But... wait. How could she be falling? She should be dead. She could remember her last moments on earth very well: she, or rather Zansho, had been working patrol when a sharp pain had been sent straight through and up Zansho's spine. Haikyo had been sealed inside of her, or rather Haikyo's dragon side had been since that was the only part of her that had made it into that other world, and she had felt it as surely as Zansho had. She could remember Zansho catching her reflection in the mirror, she could remember the large knife sticking out of Zansho's back. Then it had been all over, lights out.

Then, there had been nothing. Nothing at all.

But, now there was this sensation of falling; a whistling in her ears telling her she was speeding rapidly towards... what? Something surely would break her fall eventually if she didn't find some way to stop this madness. She became aware of heat around her, not painful in the slightest, familiar really, comfortable. Flames were licking at her form: though she was completely unaware if they were actually flames from her high speed or flames that she had somehow manifested without meaning to. The flames helped her to become aware of arms and legs; human form, and she was clothed - a black and white stripped long sleeved top that hung off her shoulders, black shorts, bare feet - though the colors and details were lost to her since she still couldn't open her eyes: but otherwise she looked much like she always did even her short red hair and orange colored eyes were the same.

Too tired?

Too weak?

Perhaps something else...?

If she didn't figure out something soon surely she would go crashing down... She had only about two hundred feet to go before the trees and the hard earth of the forest would end up breaking her fall, and likely break her.

With a jerk of his body and several loud cracking sounds, he forced his mass to respond to his mental commands. Fingers flexed, cracking and releasing five years worth of muscule tension. Arms moved within the confined space, still cracking loudly with each flex. The great beast rolled his neck, releasing the pent up tension from there as well.

It took the beast a minute to realize there was something wrong. Despite him being able to finally feel his limbs, he still sould not move his legs or his arms. It would take him another minute to figure there was more. He could feel something wrapped around his legs, something that was thick-- something that wasnt there before. As for the cocoon...skin? Skin that felt like it wrapped around his body. With a shitton of difficulty, he was able to open the wings, stretching them out for the first time since they'd grown in.

Yea, this was definately new. He damn sure didnt remember having wings before. Looking back over his body, eyes blinking and becoming adjusted to the first bit of light in five years, he came upon the reason why he could not move his legs. Curled tightly about them was a strange bit of flesh... something else that he didnt remember having before his evolution either. Slowly, the beast willed it move, uncurling it from his body.

Well, shit. He had a tail. If he'd been a dog, he would have begun to chase it.

If. But chasing it would have meant letting go of the tree brance that his feet were dug into at the moment. He still didnt like gravity enough for that. A clawed hand reached out, digging deep into the trunk of the tree as the beast pulled himself into the tree propperly. Fort he first time since he woke, he took a deep breath, and almost immediately became drunk off the scents of the world. Forest, the scent of a nearby animal, fire, the grass, trees--


Fire? What the fuck was there a fire doing out in the fore-- oh. Golden eyes looked up, catching the sigh of a burning trail across the sky.

Well, aint this some shit. But there was something else-- the scent of something familiar, something or someone he'd met a long time ago. He couldn't quite place it.... but it seemed to be coming from the flaming trail in the sky. He'd have to investigate.

Curling his legs, the male leapt upward, off the trunk of the tree with enough force that the ground was swept outward from the harsh wind. While he didnt trust his wings just yet, he knew better than to doubt his legs. The jump was well calculated-- somethings you just never forget. He was a jumper by heart, despite his innate ability to manipulate air currents to grant himself flight.

If there wasnt a suddent change in the air patternt, he would collide with the flaming object in such a way that he'd be able to slow its descent without causing it more damage than needed....

Normally, something falling through the sky wouldn't even bother him. Birds diving, rocks falling, creatures jumping; it was normal to him. However, the smell of fire had him instantly on edge; fire was dangerous to a forest, and to a forest spirit. It was one of the few physical things that could harm him in a way that he couldn't avoid or heal, and that made him pay attention. His head snapped up and around so fast that it sounded like a branch snapping; which had he has a spine or the equvilant would have been accurate. This... would not end well when the falling object impa-... was that a person? He didn't have super vision, but it was clear enough to notice the shape in the center of the fireball. That was... a human? Or something humanoid, at least. How in the name of the infernal one was there a human falling to the earth in a fireball?

A pheonix maybe? He'd never met one, but he'd heard legends of them from his mother and her sisters, before his exile.

And then he was turning again, noticing finally the sounds of something directly above him moving around. The coccoon high in the tree had finally cracked open, or rather, unfurled from around itself. What in the High Gods was that!? Scales... leathery wings... extreme size.

Was that... a dragon?

Ohgoditwasjumpingnow?

He was instantly panicking, and panicking HARD. His inner deer was screaming:

RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!
RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!
RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!
RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!RUN!

over and over again; Prey Instinct making his heart racing a trillion miles a minute and sending a shot of adrenaline so potent he nearly exploded from it. He neededto move, he needed to move BADLY; but he was rooted to the spot, literally. From his legs, arms, back, and lower abdomin he'd sprouted thick roots to tie himself into the network of roots that made up the arteries and life well of the forest; and while he wouldn't have died to break the roots away, they where too thick for his meager strength to snap at once. He was bound in place until they retracted, a process that was far too slow for his deer-soul's panicking patience.

Dragon. Alpha predator.

Deer. Common snack food.

Please, by all the High Gods and Infernal Demons... don't be hungry and don't notice him...

She was going to die: she couldn't open her eyes and she couldn't get her wings to manifest and she knew eventually she would impact the earth - and with the speed in which she was moving surely the impact would crush her, kill her. The most she could do was manipulate fire; something second nature to her, something that happened simply because the air around her which she was moving so quickly through was chilly. 

And then... she was caught. She gasped, sure that this was the impact with the earth she had been fearing, but no. There was no sudden stop, no violent and brutal impact, and the fact that she was still moving told her someone, somehow, had kept her from hitting the ground, had caught her. The flames died down instantly, her fear for burning her rescuer great enough to over-ride her natural hatred of the cold.

She lifted her hand slowly, pushing her red hair out of her face and rubbing at her eyelids: they felt almost frozen shut - perhaps that was the very reason she couldn't open her eyes or manifest her wings, the cold was stopping her - but the ice around her eyelashes was melting quickly and sure enough after another few seconds of rubbing them she was able to open them. Eyelashes fluttered open, as orange colored orbs which glowed like a gentle fire was alive in them stared up at her rescuer: the one who had kept her from dying.

There was something familiar about him: though how she knew this or what exactly it was she didn't know: perhaps it was because he looked very much like a dragon and she, up until that side of her was murdered, used to be one. She thought back, attempting to connect this feeling with something from her past, but digging so deeply so quickly in her own skull simply caused a headache to begin to form. "Thank you...", she said softly; it was the least she could do after all.

Unable to help herself she asked, before she could tell herself the idea was foolish, "Do I know you from somewhere? You seem... familiar."