Board Thread:Roleplaying/@comment-5543592-20170222205200/@comment-5543592-20170323020854

The moody loners and like two friendly people who made up the Outsiders passed quietly into sleep. The evergreen forest made pleasant ambient noise around them, and the crackle of the fire was comforting. Through the canopy they could catch sight of a star every once and a while, vibrant and brillant, and the world seemed a quiet place for once.

 The tigers lifted their heads as a man strode into the camp, his head lowered so that his hood obscured his face. The soldiers, dressed in their Viking armour, watched him with wary eyes. Torch light lit Tigris' court, casting ghoulish like on the cloaked stranger.

 “Who comes before Tigris, the Mother of Beasts?”   The half-naked woman on her throne made of an Overseer’s chair with a bunch of other vault junk piled beneath it demanded. Her massive tiger lay by the foot of it.

 “I.”   Kheiro answered, lifting his head.

 The woman was surprised. “You! I… how’d you get past the guards?”

 “I asked them to let me pass. Words can take a man far in this world.”   Kheiro said, setting a hand on his pistol.

 The Queen looked down at him Imperiously, angry at this man for manipulating her and for bringing her under the eye of the Cause. “Shyeta!”   She barked to the massive tiger at the foot of her throne. “Slay him!”   She pointed to Kheiro.

 The big cat lifted itself from the ground and began to stalk towards Kheiro, muscles tense, prowling along the ground, like he was a deer it had spotted in the grass. Kheiro didn’t even react. Tigris could’ve commented on the weather for all the attention he gave. The tiger slunk closer, it’s hackles rising, a growl low in its throat. It leaned back on its hind legs, prepared to pounce.

 “Sit.”   Kheiro ordered it. The tiger’s lean turned into a perfect sit. The beast instantly looked complacent and it cocked its head at him, as if awaiting further command.

 “How—what—what--” Tigris stammered, shocked and confused. The faces of her guards said they were equally surprised by this turn of events. Their tigers were trained from birth by their companion. Only a caretaker could command his beast. Yet one word from Kheiro’s mouth had called the creature to a halt. Tigris, now growing embarrassed by her failed attempt to have Kheiro killed, got over her initial shock and called down to her guards. “Kill him!”   The masked man stared up at her unflinchingly, totally in control.

 All the soldiers around the clearing in which Tigris made her court leveled a rifle at Kheiro.

 “You don’t have to do that.”   The masked man suggested to them. “Why don’t you just put those down?”

 The guards hesitated. Then they did as he said.

 “And it’s a nice day. Why don’t you all go for a walk?”   Kheiro added. The guards turned and began to walk away, tigers following them. He then began to calmly approach Tigris’ throne.

 The Queen of the Jungle looked rather frightened by this point, and sweat began to drip down her face. She snatched up her 10mm pistol that sat on the armrest of her makeshift throne, and aimed it down at Kheiro. “Let’s not pull that trigger.”   He proposed. “You don’t really want to hurt me, do you?”

 Tigris’ arm shook as every muscle in it tensed, trying to force that one finger wrapped around the trigger to pull back. No shot came.

 “Thank you.”   Kheiro murmured, climbing the throne to her, slowly pulling his own pistol from its holster. Kheiro was at complete ease with having a weapon lined up to him with the perfect kill shot. He knew she wasn’t going to shoot him, not when she was under his control. Whatever strangeness he was using, how it worked was familiar to him.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal"> He came to a stop in front of Tigris, once the barrel of her gun pressed into his stomach. Sweat was practically pouring down her face at this point, as if something was taxing her, her whole being focused on trying to pull that trigger. And yet she couldn’t. She made a move to strike him with it, or perhaps escape, but Kheiro only muttered: “Don’t.”

<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal"> “What are you?”   The Queen asked in a quiet voice as Kheiro set the barrel of his pistol against her head, taking his time doing it. He savored the moment, wanting her to know just how absolute his power and control was.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal"> “So much more than you can imagine.”   Kheiro answered as he fired off one shot.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal"><span lang="EN" style="mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-ansi-language: EN">William had a dream. Whether brought on by the deadly virus pumping through his veins and towards his heart or as a response to recent events was inconsequential. It came to him all the, and it quickly became clear it was not his own.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal"><span lang="EN" style="mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-ansi-language: EN">“I’m gonna catch you Sarah!”   The boy shouted, running across the grass, after his sister. He kicked up dirt in his wake, his little legs kicking his little feet almost up into his butt his strides were so long.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal"><span lang="EN" style="mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-ansi-language: EN">Sarah, however, was faster, and the young boy behind her was soon left in the dust. But that didn’t stop him. He pressed harder, feet working across the dusty earth. He passed the fields of his family’s farm where they grew their crops, past the Brahmin pen, past the Radstallion stables, out into the fields that were abandoned and had been for centuries. He was going to catch Sarah, she wasn’t faster than him. She was a girl, and girls were slow. Everyone knew-

<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal"><span lang="EN" style="mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-ansi-language: EN">His foot caught a rock and he suddenly went tumbling down a steep path. He was jostled and rocked, tossed about mercilessly, dust covering his overalls, and getting all manner of nicks and scraps. He finally skidded to a stop at the bottom of the path, bleeding from his elbows and knees.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal"><span lang="EN" style="mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-ansi-language: EN">The boy quivered, the pain, although relatively nothing, was extreme to someone so young, and the sight of so much blood scared him.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal"><span lang="EN" style="mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-ansi-language: EN">He cried out, tears running free down his face, leaving streaks in the dirt that covered it. He hugged himself, and sat up. He’d been thrown off the path, into a patch of dense weeds, cattails by the looks of them, and suddenly, he wasn’t so scared. The cushion of flora around him made him feel safe, and he knew his mother would come find him soon.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal"><span lang="EN" style="mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-ansi-language: EN">He stood up slowly, legs shaking as if he’d suffered some great ordeal, and began to walk in the direction of the road. The cattails were higher than his head, the boy was only about three years old, and the world was a grand place to him. It took him a few minutes to realize he had gone in the wrong direction, when he emerged from the cattails not at the dirt path that lead from his farm to the town, but at the mouth of a cave.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal"><span lang="EN" style="mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-ansi-language: EN">A small opening in the earth that you’d never find unless you stumbled upon it like he had. The opening was pitch dark inside, no light entered it, and that frightened the boy. The cave was scary, terrifying on some level he didn’t understand, and he suddenly did not wish to be near it. He took a step back and then stopped.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal"><span lang="EN" style="mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-ansi-language: EN">The cave spoke to him.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal"><span lang="EN" style="mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-ansi-language: EN">No words, no voice, but there was speech. Something reached out to him, some force, something as constant as the wind and the rain, touched the boy. The fear is gone.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal"><span lang="EN" style="mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-ansi-language: EN">The boy let his arms drop to his sides and the shaking his legs faded, the pain forgotten, and slowly walked towards the cave.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; line-height:normal"><span lang="EN" style="mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-ansi-language: EN">Hours later, when his mother did come looking for him, she would find the boy sitting beside the road, staring at his shoes. She fussed over him, worried about where’d he been and how’d he’d been hurt. The boy said that he wasn’t hurt, he was a big kid and a fall wasn’t so bad. Besides, he’d made a new friend, the best friend a boy can have. His mother was confused, Who? She asked. Who is your new friend? And the boy answered that he couldn’t tell her, it was a secret, and his mother put off his statement as the imaginings of a young child and let it go.

<span lang="EN" style="font-size:11.0pt;line-height:107%;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-ansi-language: EN;mso-fareast-language:EN-US;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">She scooped the boy up into her arms and carried him back to the house. The boy stared unblinkingly over her shoulder in the direction of the cave.

Birds chirped, a quiet welcome to the rude awaking that was the eight AM sun sending rays of light down through the trees' branches. The forest was a place of colour again, vibrant shades of browns and greens. They were free to travel, but first, they had to decide their destination. Armed with the prophecy, what steps they took next, whether they returned to the Cause or perhaps tried to deal with what they know knew on their own was up to them.