A Boy and His Dragonwolf

[Mythy the Dragon-Wolf]

Nym pouted when he was told that he couldn't nuzzle into Nemune, but nevertheless he did as Tyler said, beginning to fly as directed and wagging his tail as a kind of wind-rudder as Tyler leaned above him. Mahara looked back and smiled, leading them in a bit more of the gentle practice before she smirked and leaned down to whisper to Nemune. Then she looked back and waved. "Right! Try and keep up!" she called before starting to have Nemune dive and begin to fly into the highest branches. Tyler would need to be able to think quick, or 'die'.

 

[Quiet One]

Tyler took a deep breath and patted Nym's side as Mahara went down. "Alright, bud. Down we go!" He leaned them forward until they started flying down, though really it felt more like falling. He followed afterwards, waiting for Mahara to go up, hoping that he and Nym could rise in time with her. Nemune spread her wings and she and her rider were gliding over the trees. Tyler pulled back on Nym's back. "Nym, up!"

Neither of them noticed the sound of additional wings beneath them.

 

[Mythy the Dragon-Wolf]

However before they could pull up, there came a heavy flap of wings, and in a split second Nym rolled. It threw Tyler off him, but kept him from getting gored on one of the dark dragonwolf's spears. There was about five of them, a patrol or ambush size perhaps. Tyler would fall, but Nym was quick enough to dive and catch him before landing without crashing.

However, they were now surrounded and mostly unarmed. Nym would shoot out a howl to Nemune while backing up towards Tyler, wings flareing to try and intimidate while the bipedal, armed beasts moved forwards..

 

[Quiet One]

Tyler cried out as he fell off Nym, catching sight of the monster attacking them just before Nym caught him again and helped him to the forest floor. The pasandrylyr howled and jumped down at him. Tyler rolled as it stabbed into the dirt. He looked at the nearest tree and jumped for a branch, pulling until he broke it off. Not a real weapon, but the dark dragon-wolf wasn't going to care.

Okay, remember how to parry. You can't hurt it, so you just have to buy time. There's three knights for backup. You've got this. He told himself. The pasandrylyr barked and lunged at him. Tyler swung his stick and parried, then parried again, and again. It swung against him with its claws and he fell over.

Nemune howled and lunged at the pasandrylyr from above, driving her fangs into its neck. The pasandrylyr, being much bigger, threw Nemune off and roared at Tyler and Mahara, who landed beside him. Tyler turned to her. "Thanks for dropping by. Would you like to take care of our guest? I just got a stick, and I don't think he wants to play fetch."

 

[Mythy the Dragon-Wolf]

Mahara had jumped to the ground when Nemune dived, trusting her partner to not get hurt and not get herself much too far into the fray yet. She looked over to Tyler and nodded. "Impressive, you aren't dead yet." she said with a smirk, drawing out one of her two swords, and handing Tyler a smaller auxiliary blade from the back of her hips before drawing her second one. "It's not much but it'll help you defend yourself. Don't go too deep, you're not quite ready."

and with that she dashed forwards, using some ice on her feet to literally slide faster than was expected and stabbing the one distracted with Nemune through the heart, freezing and destroying it before beginning to dance with three of the other four in a fight that looked like she was ice-dancing. Meanwhile the fourth looked over to Tyler and charged, Nym bashing it whith his shoulder which made it stumble a little, but then bring a barbed mace down into the armor on his side.

 

[Quiet One]

Tyler took the offered blade and tossed aside his stick. It was much shorter than the stick, but on the plus side it could actually hurt the monster in front of him. It lunged for him and he jumped and rolled away. He was behind the pasandrylyr now, and he took the opportunity to stab behind its knee. The beast roared and swung back, missing because Tyler was crouched, but he quickly moved away as it turned. It flapped its wings and charged again. Tyler jumped out of the way of its mace and stabbed into its chest.

But either the blade was too short or Tyler wasn't strong enough, because the pasandrylyr roared in pain but didn't die. It grabbed his armor and threw him into a tree. He grunted and looked to see his stick. He picked it back up and brandished it in front of the monster. It stalked over, and Tyler decided he should be the one to attack first this time. Screaming at the top of his lungs, he lunged forward. His stick hit the blade in its chest and pushed it up, turning a stab wound into a gash. The creature roared and backed away, and Tyler remembered what Mahara had said; their hides were super tough. But their insides...she never said anything about those.

He pierced his stick into the open wound, forcing it between its ribs and bursting a lung. The creature started coughing, drowning in its own blood. It threw away its mace and grabbed him, its claws slipping into gaps in its armor and piercing through. "AH!" It hoisted him up and tried to squeeze him. Or rip him apart. Tyler couldn't really tell which. Either way, he didn't want to go out like this. He could see Nym attacking and trying to fend him off. It scooped him in one arm, hoisted him up, and slammed him into a tree.Tyler growled and grabbed the stick and turned it at an angle. "Don't hurt my dog!" This prompted the pasandrylyr to squeeze him tighter. He took it and pushed with all his might, breaking it from the inside of its ribs and causing the stick to pierce its heart. The monster fumbled, and finally collapsed on top of him.

Nemune barked at Mahara's last enemy, freezing it in place for her to slice through it with ease. She then turned to see her mate disheveled but otherwise fine trying to pull the dead pasandrylyr off his human. She walked over and helped him get the thing off of Tyler.

"I killed that thing...with a fucking stick..." he panted. "Tell me someone saw that."

 

[Mythy the Dragon-Wolf]

Mahara hadn't had a time harder than Tyler, and she had been fighting three of them. But then, she was also very much a trained warrior, and Tyler had just began. Her first opponent clashed a single large blade against hers, throwing it to the side and wrenching the weapon out of Mahara's grip. But with a smirk she simply used that momentum to slam her other blade into its neck, cutting off the head while Nemune caught the other sword in her maw, throwing it back to Mahara just in time

Thee warrior slid forwards and bent back under a large two handed axe which nearly, but didn't, brush her nose, before Mahara bent back up and slid forwards, slamming both blades into its heart and cleaving through the chest. Then Nemune barked and froze the last enemy which had attempted to sneak up behind her, an easy target to simply shatter.

"I am sure Nym saw it." Mahara said as Nym and Nemune were able to pull the corpse off Tyler, the Aer kneeling down to look at his face, while pulling her auxiliary blade out from the Pasandrylyr. "Flying practice is over for now. We have something more important to do." she said while mounting up on Nemune. "Come, follow." she said, flying back up towards the training circle.

Once they arrived, they would touch down and Mahara would lead Tyler back to the blacksmith, where she looked between them seriously. "Time to make your own weapons." she said seriously as she turned to look at Tyler. "he will teach you the basics, but your weapons will be your own, so make what feels right." she smirked. "A little advice.. don't think about anything. Just go with the flow." she clapped his shoulder before walking out.

 

[Quiet One]

Tyler looked at Mahara in disbelief as she pocketed her blade. Seriously? No acknowledgement of the awesome thing he just did? Was this really so normal for her? He sighed and gave Nym a pat before climbing onto him and flying back up to the mountain city. In his head, he wondered what she was leading him to as they returned and seemed to be walking to the blacksmith. He doubted it was some kind of reward, like congratulatory cake. Which was a shame. He could use cake after that little fight.

When they actually arrived at the blacksmith's he was surprised by what Mahara told him? Making his own weapon? Really? He looked at the blacksmith and started taking off his armor. "So, um...where do I start?"

"With rolled steel," the blacksmith explained gruffly. "Folded over and over makes it strong. Heated and cooled with a bit of magic makes it nearly unbreakable. So...how d'you want to start?"

Tyler thought about that. Where would he begin? Then he remembered his magic lessons, and that crystal. "Hey, do you have any of those crystals lying around? You know, the ones with the power to move stuff?"

 

[Mythy the Dragon-Wolf]

The blacksmith grunted and waved his hand at a crate in one of the corners. "In there, we got all kinds. I rarely use them for Guardians and Taelesol make their own, so they never use 'em. Piling up dust over there so if you need or want to use some go right ahead." he said, focusing on some of the base steel that he would start for the Taelesol before leaving him to finish everything else from it.

 

[Quiet One]

"Thanks." Tyler took out a couple gems, going for the flattest, roundest ones he could find. He was doing what Mahara suggested and just sort of going with his gut. He took one of the thin slabs of steel meant for the Aer swords and looked to the blacksmith for instructions. He told him to heat the metal up so he could hammer it into the right shape. He did as he was told, but when it was taken out of the forge and placed on the anvil he ran into a problem. While shaping the hammer he accidentally dropped it into the water and cooled it. On his next hit with the hammer he got water all over the hot steel, which first hissed and then fractured into pieces.

"God damn it!" he cried out in frustration. Then he looked at the shards of metal. With his hammer he pushed them around, making them curl around in segments. "Hm...there's an idea..."

 

[Mythy the Dragon-Wolf]

Nym, meanwhile, had taken refuge in the corner and laid down to yawn right when the metal shattered. he jumped in surprise and the blacksmith grumbled. "You better not leave my forge a mess. Darned youngling Taelesols..." he grunted before going back to the work he had been doing.

Nym then went over and made a small 'wroo' sound as if to try and keep Tyler calm and reassure him that he could do it. From then on the pandrylyr would stand and watch as Tyler worked, excited to see the weapon(s) he would make.

 

[Quiet One]

He pet Nym's head and looked at the metal. He then went to the walls and looked at some of the stuff available. He found some paper and pulled that out, as well as what looked like a normal pencil. He searched around for something he could use as a straightedge and drew out a straight line. He placed the crystal in the middle, drew a rough outline of a gear around it, He then drew gears on either end, and measuring by eye drew smaller gears that connected those outermost gears to the crystal. THEN he took the shards of metal and arranged them around the whole assembly. Finally, he drew a handle at the bottom.

"What do you think, Nym?" he asked his pandrylyr, scratching his ears while he looked it over. "Yeah...I'm going to need some thin metal for a base."

A few hours later Judy came into the forge to see Tyler hard at work. She had Mahara and their pandrylyrs following after. Nemune nuzzled and sat down beside Nym. He had two thin sheets of metal laid out with identical sets of holes punched in them. He had the blacksmith with him, helping him poor some molten metal to shape gears.

"Careful, careful..." Tyler said as he held the mold.

"I know what I'm doing with my steel," the blacksmith replied.

"I was talking to myself," he said, sighing as they got all the metal poured in. These gears were supposed to be extra strong to make up for their size.

 

[Mythy the Dragon-Wolf]

Nym looked over the design and cocked his head as he did so, looking as if he was actually thinking it over. After a moment he smiled and barked, making the crystal in the center glow before he walked away and grabbed something in his jaws, standing up on his hind legs and placing it on the table in front of Tyler. It seemed to be some of the parts, exactly what Tyler would need to keep going. Then Nym barked again.

When Judy and Nemune returned, Nym barked and went over to them while nuzzling into Judy's legs. He twined around them for a moment before going to settle back down next to Nemune, moving close and grooming her neck while Tyler would continue to work. Every once in a while the male would get up to get something Tyler needed, just to go back and nuzzle his mate some more.

 

[Quiet One]

"So, what're you working on?" Judy asked as she studied the design in progress. It certainly wasn't a sword; far too complex. Tyler had already fit the gears together and focused his will on the crystal experimentally. The crystal spun, which turned the gear it was nestled into, which turned the other gears so that they all spun together.

"It's kind of a magic chainsaw," Tyler explained, still looking at the crystal so the gears would continue to spin. "I know it's a little...much, but Mahara said to go with my gut."

"And your gut said 'chainsaw,'" Judy nodded. "I kind of like your gut. Of course, you'll need a sharpened blade to pierce pasandrylyr hide. A normal chainsaw isn't sharp enough."

"Yeah, figured. That's why I'm trying to make chain links with blades on the ends of them. Easy concept. Hard to make," he added. He scratched his chin. "Thinking I'm going to have to make a blade, cut it into equal parts, and then bolt each piece onto a chain link..."

Judy smirked and turned to Mahara. "If he pulls this off it means a bladed weapon that'll do all the cutting for him. Is this what you thought his gut would come up with?"

 

[Mythy the Dragon-Wolf]

Nym, after a moment, stood up and walked over to the crystal and wagged his tail at it liking the way that Tyler was making it spin. Thinking it was a game, he would bark which would keep the crystal activated and spinning fast enough even if Tyler broke his concentration on it.

Mahara rose her eyebrow and leaned back on the wall, unable to stop herself from chuckling a little bit. "That I did not. However this isn't much blacksmithing anymore. It's... what do you call it.. engineering." she said with a smile and a chuckle, looking at the human and his pandrylyr. "But who knows? That ingenuity may very well serve him when he has to fight."

 

[Quiet One]

Tyler showed his latest little sketch to the blacksmith - a model of the chain he wanted to use around the gearbox (that was still spinning). The blacksmith nodded, saying something about how he could make a mold for it, and that the pegs in between would be easy. Tyler nodded and took the small chunk of wood he was given - which he'd have to carve into the model of the chain links that would then be molded. He looked over at Mahara and Judy while he sat and started drawing on the wood, getting the starting shape before he would get to work on it.

"Sorry about that, Mahara," he said while getting started. "Guess I'm not the...smithing type. Is that the right word?"

"No," Judy repied with a smirk.

"Well, whatever. I've got an idea for a bow, too. Comes with an automatic draw if you've got an arrow in place. I'll show the designs to Claire when she comes back," he said. "Hope she likes it."

"So your first gift to your girlfriend is a mechanical bow?" Judy taunted. She snickered. "You know, you're starting to grow on me, Tyler."

He blushed a little. "Uh, thanks."

 

[Mythy the Dragon-Wolf]

Mahara smirked and leaned down to give Nemune a scratch while Nym watched Tyler for a moment, and then dropped down and moved over towards the female, closing his eyes and murring once he laid down and nuzzled into his mate. At that point Mahara stood back up and leaned onto the wall, just watching a bit more. "So you're bringing a bit more of your world into ours, it seems." she said with her face a little unreadable, though she smiled. "And I am sure she'll like it."

 

[Quiet One]

Tyler wasn't quite sure how to take Mahara's words. The Aer knight was difficult to read; he couldn't shake the feeling he was somehow offending her with his design. He looked at her dragon-wolf, wondering if she had any reservations, but she was just content to lay down with her mate. He looked back at the girls and sighed. "Hey, is it okay if I pic this up tomorrow? I mean, I've been here for a few hours, plus there's my near-death experience to consider."

"I heard about that. Good job surviving," Judy replied with a smirk. "Normally, you keep working on your weapon until you get it completed. But normally the taelesol isn't almost killed by a pasandrylyr before starting." She turned to Mahara. "Your call."

 

[Mythy the Dragon-Wolf]

Mahra sighed a little and placed her hand on her head. "If you think you cannot finish it tonight then you can stop. However it would be better for you to be armed should we be attacked again while you train." and with that she turned and walked off, Nym giving a soft whine at the way the Aer walked off.

Mahara would walk up to the training circle and kneel down, looking at the expanse of land in front of her while she moved to instead sit with her legs hanging off the edge. She couldn't shake this feeling, that something was happening. Something that wasn't normal. And somehow, for now, Tyler seemed to be in the center of it.

 

[Quiet One]

Nemune watched her Aer leave concerned, then whined and nudged Nym. The two silently nuzzled and whined, seemingly communicating in their own private language. Dartmoor barked, seemingly agreeing with whatever they were talking about.

Judy watched Mahara go with a frown, crossing her arms and leaning against the wall. Tyler, meanwhile, was a little dumbstruck by the whole thing. "What the hell? I've been working hard! Plus, almost died. I get you guys are used to that, but I'm not! What's her problem?"

"I'd ask her," Judy said, then she turned with a slightly softer expression. "But I don't think it's you."

So Tyler walked out of the blacksmith's and went to the training ground, for some reason assuming - rightly - that he'd find Mahara there. When he spotted her sitting on the edge he approached quietly. "Hey. What's wrong? Is it because I wanted a break? What's going on?"