On the banks {Open}

[Falile]

Falile nuzzled the corpse. She was doubly excited to find this hominid corpse. It was practically covered in metal. Since this human was already dead when she found it, she was confidant that the hominids wouldn't hunt her for consuming it. The blood pooling under the man hadn't coagulated yet, so it was lunch. She reached out a hand, and plucked the arrow that had pierced the man's neck from the body, making the wound worse, but it wouldn't have mattered.

Falile bit off the metal end of the war arrow. She swallowed down the chunk of metal, her saliva quickly dulling the point and the four sharp edges. She would work the most tasty bits of this meal first, and work her way down. Next was a pouch of golden coins. which tinkled as they rolled down her throat. She used a bit of her fuel reserve to freeze the man's metallic outer shell, then flicked it with a fore claw, causing it to shatter. The mouthful of gold had already sated her appetite for metals, so she slit the body down the center and took the liver and heart, they were the most delectable organs she had ever eaten. This was bad, if she developed a taste for hominid meat, there would be trouble.

Instead of eating any more of the man, she ripped the man's cloak from his shoulders and gathered up the rest of his metals, sword knife, spiked boots, gauntlets, shieldand warming shards of his armor. Falile's head snapped up, and her nose slits flared. Her eyes flicked to and fro looking for the bearer of the scent. She knew someone was there, but she couldn't see them. Instead of standing her ground, she slipped to the bank of the river, an easy egress if she wished to quickly flee.

[REII]

K:anode sighed. He'd moved into this place a few days ago and hadn't really struck it off all that well with the locals. He hadn't been aware that they were mostly all demons -who wanted to pick fights with other demons.
And even though he was only half, that included him.
Still, walking along the river banks, despite the bleak light forest which surround him, he found the sound of the water strangely relaxing. He took a deep breath, breathing in the fresh... smell of blood?

He looked calmly, though surprised for the source. It seemed fresh, with little or no smell of decay. There was little wind, so walking back into the forest, he easily found it.
]"Waaaaht...?"He breathed, then mentally cursed him, moving quickly back behind the trees.
There was a dragon over there.
A freaking dragon.
He knew they existed sure, but hadn't met one yet. He expected them to be a bit bigger.. but it was still twice his size, more dangerous and most probably stronger. He sighed, closing his eyes as he tried to regain his composure. His heartbeat slowed back to normal, and his breathing became light. Hopefully that much would stop it from noticing him.

There was a body -dead of course. From what he could see, the dragon probably killed it, either for fun or food. He looked back.

[Falile]

Falile seemed to shimmer. She was unconsciously shifting her scales, which moved in waves from her neck to her tail tip. The sound was a hideous scraping and rattling put together. It was an early warning of sorts, to scare off potential threats. It had two other effects in addition to warn things off. The first, was it puffed her up a little, and let it be known that an agitated dragon was in the area, throwing off tendrils of her fearsome aura to the winds around her. The second would be to torture beings that had particularly sensitive hearing, giving her an advantage in that area.

Very low to the ground, to protect her belly, she slid a step forward, the smell of the coppery blood, an instinctual urge to feed driving her. She opened her mouth and issued a series of deep hissing words "Kii ornla wux banri ve de sia kharch? Tir wux huven ekess ashne nomeno kehlash?" She turned her flank toward the intruder, Anyone who interrupts a meal is an intruder in her scroll, while keeping her head toward him so that she may strike by tail or bite, whichever struck her fancy.

The manling didn't look to be so much of a threat, but she found that it is better to err on the side of caution. Falile took a couple more steps forward, hissing out a second string of words."Sjek wux tir ti huven ekess ashne, hak itrewic gethrisja!" She was mere feet from the corpse, but would not look down at it, even though her mouth was watering.

[REII]

K:anode shivered as he felt wave of fear wash over him. He turned slowly from the corpse, his eyes widening as he beheld a dragon behind him. He winched, his hearing wasn't too much more then an average human's, but it was enough to hear the strange sound of the dragon letting off the fearsome aura. He tried to step back, but the tree was behind him. He knew well he couldn't escape from this creature, they were much too fast and far too powerful. He'd just have to hope the last meal was enough.

It started to move forward, back towards the now meal. K:anode winched. He hated the sight of blood. He hated the sight of corpses even more, and with it slit open... he almost felt faint.
"uhm... sorry?"He breathed, his voice weak. The great dragon was trying to speak with him. He didn't speak any dragonic language though -he was surprised by how the sounds she/he made seemed to make any kind of sense to him. In the back of his mind he felt like he should know this.. like he knew it before and had simply forgotten.

As it came closer to the corpse, it again 'spoke', but this time with more venom. He stepped back away from her, into another tree. The dragon seemed to be getting irritable. He had to think quick. At any second she could lunch forward and kill him in a second. Pausing to actually think, he could feel a strong force here. Telepathic perhaps?
If he could tap into that force and use his ability to magnify it, then he might have enough force to create an effective shield against the dragon. He'd avoid causing any conflict with it for now though, it could make the first move.

[metal]

Inu walked for a while, pearing across vast amounts od land coming across the vast sky thinking about the past. Inu's nose twiched at the smell of blood. "Probably just some qaurrel" Inu muttered under his breath. Inu changed into his human form, he didn't want anyone to see his true form, he placed his mask on and started to walk to towards the scent of the blood. "One quarrel?" Inu thought as he had slight flashbacks of the past.

Inu made his way closer through the thick forest but then stopped, something has cuaght his eye it was big and purple. Purple? What was something that was Purple? Inu was far more interested now and made his pace a fast walk. The more Inu closed in on the purple glob in the distance the more it was defined. "A dragon" Inu muttered out with little excitement.

Inu loved the company of dragons far more then that of a humans or demons, they had something different about them that had always drove him to be inspired by these creatures. Inu walked closer to the creature not paying much attention to the smell of a other present, Inu looked human enough anyway. Inu walked fairly close to the creature close enough that he or she should take notice of his presence.

Inu decided to talk to the creature, but he forgot that he needed to know the language it spoke. Inu knows most languages but he had to hear it's speak first before picking one. Inu made himself look comfortable as he looked at the dragon, he really only had a few qeustions about the dragon habitat and so on as those used to be his favourite thing to study. Inu was sure the dragon and other being couldn't see past his human form either as this form looked and smelt like a real human.

[Falile]

Falile heard the two words the hominid near the body spoke, but they were slippery, too smooth for her mind, let alone her mouth to grasp. She calmed only slightly at the weakness in the thing's voice. She smelled the fear coming off of the man, and she knew that if it hadn't pulled metal, she wouldn't have to worry about it attacking right away. All the mind pictures her mother had taught her in the egg said that they attack directly upon seeing her kind. Since that was not happening, she was convinced this one was too afraid to attack. The only problem was that if she didn't do something about this one, it may go and bring more of it's kind, and along with them more courage.

She had decided. It took only one more step to get to the corpse, her luminous golden eyes fixing upon the man. She spoke one more time, putting force behind her words.
"sjek wux maulk ve, nomeno geou shinalt ekess wux." The intent carried a picture toward his mind, plastering it directly behind his eyes, moving as she moved. Her head encased the thigh of the corpse and bit down, slicing clothing, flesh, muscle, and bone with ease, until the limb was severed. She then gnashed her muscled jaws rending the fleshy limb to shreds until she raised her head fully upright to allow the meal to slide down her long throat.

In his mind's eye it would have played differently. Instead of the corpse of a man none of them knew, it took on his visage. It was his guts that had spilled along the side of his own body. It was his flesh that she was tearing apart to be swallowed and consumed. Of course it was all a picture in his mind, and could easily be identified as such, more as a warning, rather than what she already intended to do.

While Falile's hearing was as sharp as all her other senses, she had missed the muttered exclamation her attention was consumed solely by the man she had already seen. Up until her head went up to swallow the sweet mouthful of human flesh. With her head raised high, nearly fourteen feet above the ground, she spotted the newcomer and froze. Her mind raced. Her mother had warned her, time and time again. Where there is one hominid, there were two. Where there are two, there could be fifty. Of course, the dead one still counted, he was freshly dead, and now that she saw that there were more than two, she expected to be surrounded by armed and armored hominids.

The freeze and thinking only took at the most, a half second. Instead of lowering her head again, she rose further, her head swiveling, then curving down toward this new threat. Her body followed the swivel as well, turning her flank on the already frightened hominid. Further and further she rose, until she was standing upright upon two legs, in an only semi unnatural pose. This secondary stance was more for scaring off other dragons and large animals, but it should work on hominids just as well. She rose to a full twenty five feet at the tip of the tallest spike upon her neck and unfurled a full sixty feet of sail like wings before issuing an ear-splitting roar. She inhaled a second time following the roar, ready to squeeze out a portion of her liquid pouch, and immolate the entire area around where the new threat was standing.

[metal]

Inu wached as the massive dragon standed on to legs. Inu thought it was as too warn him, he put his hand behind his head. "I just want answers" The dragon probably thought Inu wanted to hurt it but he just adored dragons, he would be afraid but there was one problem he wasn't human. "You're not going to scare me so just give up" Inu spoke as if he was talking to a child.

Inu stood there waching the dragon's movement. "I know you can speek" This wasn't Inu's first run in with a dragon back when he was little he spent some time near them, but that was over 900 years ago. Inu scrached his head feeling his masks warmth. Inu even had the guts to walk closer to the dragon.

"Don't make me blow a gasket Inu coldly remarked to the dragon even though it was much taller and looked even more feirce than him. Inu didn't have much to live for which is why he didn't care for his own life, he wanted revenge but not that bad. You could say he wants die sometimes but not by suicide he thinks that's the cowards way out.

[Falile]

Falile could speak. She was actually a loquacious type of dragon, and was quite eloquent when speaking. There was just one problem though. Half the problem was that she didn't speak any language that was well known to man. The other half was that she didn't understand any of them either. That was the problem she was facing right now. While it wasn't a small problem, it wasn't a particularly critical one at the moment either.

It was one problem Falile was trying to surmount though, and she thought that having to hurt or eat every hominid she came across would not help though. Nor would being afraid of an attack from every angle either. She noticed this one hadn't drawn a weapon, but was yelling and advancing aggressively. She didn't like his bold and unwavering demenor though, and would have to do something about it.

Instead of letting loose a torrent of fire though, she instead tore great furrows into the ground with the metallic claws that were still earthbound and made a massive down stroke of her wings. That single movement shoved the air in front of her at tornado speeds toward the figure before her, kicking up massive amounts of river sand and a spattering of fast moving pebbles and smooth river rocks.

[metal]

Inu looked at the dragon curiously, it was tying to creat wind? Inu looked at the wings flap and by looking at the dragon Inu assumed that it could creat alot of wind at that. Inu was just being cautious right now but it was better to be cautious then to be flung in the air. Inu placed his palm on the ground manipuating the earth to form around as he prepare for the initial wind.

Once Inu felt the wind pass him he returned the earth back to it's original state. Inu stood up looing rather ticked at the dragon. "You want to set me on fire don't you?" Inu walked even closer to the beast. That was some trick you just did, but as you can see I have a few too. Inu sort of snickered still walking toward him. Inu didn't want to hurt the creature just ask it a few qeustions but it was being more mean then friendly.

[Falile]

blockquote] Falile's test had worked. Her parents had never told her of any normal hominid that could manipulate the elements as quickly and efficiently as this one had. She had been taught that the ones who could bring great numbers against one of her kind, the ones that were the only real threat to her kind, did not wield magic like that.

She had been told that most of the hominids that could wield power as such were mainly outcasts, and did not command armies. That those kind were like pack-less wolves. While wolves without a pack have some degree of annoyance to them, they did not go out of their way to hunt and exterminate her kind.

Thinking that this one was one of those, she folded her wings again and settled to earth. While she would not be against snaking out her long neck and eviscerating this one if he got too close, her curiousity was getting the better of her. She still did not understand a word he was saying, so she just fixed a single golden orb upon the hominid, and tilted her head in an inquisitive gesture.

[metal]

Inu sat down, still curious about the dragon and why it refused to speak with him, Inu scacthed the back of his head. "Do you understand writing?" Inu knew that dragon's were not just animals they ae alot smarter and most beleive this to be fake because of them looking like beasts Inu didn't but that one bit. Inu placed his palm on the ground once again manipulating the earth, this time he formed writing in the ground saying, "Do you undertand ?"

Again Inu thought this was a stupid idea but he really had no other way to comunicate with the dragon. Inu stood up thinking it would be able to speak with him if he transformed, but then he be giving his day up for the dog form and Inu didn't want to do that. Inu started playing with his fingers why also sifting through the vatious scents of the dragon. Inu obviously had thought itt had been feasting on humans, he could smell the blood from the human aswell.

[Falile]

Falile's nostrils flared as she listened to the gibberish this thing was saying. She watched closely to it and saw it wrote symbols on the ground. She understood that it must be the written style of the language of the hominids. All she saw was a miriad of lines. Some connected together, and more were spaced out. Dragons, as a rule did not have a written language. Instead they shared memories directly. She could see how this would be useful though, as it would allow two people who have never met to communicate ideas without the in depth sharing of mind pictures or memories.

With the flaring of her nostrils she took in a deep breath. Because of that breath, she scented the creature more fully. This thing's scent reminded her of the pack she had ran with for a while in her youth. She had spent some time when she was but a small wyrmling with a pack of wolves, for mutual protection and ease of hunting. This thing smelled something like that. An idea struck her then. This thing may speak as the wolves did. It may understand her if she spoke in her broken lupine tongue.

She then spoke, in a series of yips, grunts, and the ever present growling baritone that acted as a rough accent when she spoke in the lupine tongue."This I have no understanding. Not howled or scratched on dirt. Understanding of speech of the wolf, do you have?" Her lupine was somewhat horrible, since she only spent half a moon, as they called it, with the pack, but for those fourteen days, it was a remarkable feat of linguistic prowess. She did not know for sure if this one would understand her, but she had a hunch that it would, smelling as it did.

[metal]

Inu was a little curious as she started to speak his native language. Inu could understand her but some things were more fuzzy then others. Inu was after all more of an animal than human but that was his little secret. Inu began to look around anxiously at the area looking for other humans. Inu then began to talk as she did. "You can understand this?" Inu wasn't the type good with introductions at all more like asking qeustion or other various things.

Inu looked up at the dragon. "I just have a few qeustions" Back when Inu was a human he loved to study the habitats of dragon's he was mostly there to study the effects of demon's but then fell in love afte seeing a dragon. Most people in his town knew him well but we're surprised at what he did but he could never recall that not atleast right now.

"I study" Inu slightly studdered. "I study dragon's you see, humans do not have the much contact with your kind" Inu covered that pretty calmly except for the studer. Inu looked at the draogn, it was pretty smart and it must've been testing him the whole time probably not noticing his scent untill now.

[Falile]

Falile was incensed, but she kept the feeling deep down, away from showing in her eyes and facial features. " Understand, I does. Do you offer prey... No, Payment.. For answers?" She said haltingly. Her mastery wasn't perfect over the lupine language. Her speech wasn't perfect, but it was to the point. She would require him to offer her some kind of payment for truth. Truth was the hardest thing to come by in a world such as this, and it's price ran high when it came to things of a more secret nature.

Falile bared her glimmering amethyst teeth, in a wicked reptillian grin before she spoke in lupine once again." Truth is cost a lot. A good price is required. Metal or flesh is the price." She wondered if this little being had any good metal on him. She inhaled and smelled none, so it was either in a scented pouch, which some merchants carried, or he didn't have any. She didn't see any decent flesh about his person either. She doubted this one could pay a decent price for the information.