Is there a cure?

[The Returner]

Her name was Lorelei. She was young, a princess but not an heir to the thrown. It was her brother who would one day sit upon it and rule the kingdom. Therefore, it was not that difficult for her parents to hide her away from public sight so that at one point, Lorelei just became a fabled child that the king and queen were thought to have. Little did the kingdom know, that their princess was just a girl of royal features and good manners who had to be locked away by her own parents as her soul was cursed to suffer thousand deaths. Her parents promised her a cure, but that was so long ago that it seemed like a shadow of a memory now. Lorelei could not take it any longer, lest she swore she would throw herself into the depths of the castle's moat and drown herself along with her agony. Yet before she would give up all her hope on life, she was willing to give a chance to a last crusade, last fight to find the cure on her own.

Walking through the cold of the night, she has never been in the castle town before. Maybe once, as a small child, her parents took her to parade the streets with her brother ahead in the procession, but she did not remember it. Her breath crystallized in the air into a misty cloud that dissipated fractions of a moment later. She found that strangely fascinating. It was never that cold in her room and she rarely allowed to go outside. Maybe it was due to her distraction and fatigue from escaping the castle, that she did not notice a group of dubious man who suddenly formed a circle around her.

"Oy, look at her! Pretty! And alone...Why would a beauty like you walk out here on her own? Lost your way, girl?" said one of them, his voice nothing like she has heard before. The vowels were too long almost swallowed sometimes. In Lorelei's mind she labelled it as a peasant talk.

"Let us take you to where ever you need to go." Added one of the companions, drawing too close and before Lorelei could make a step back, he had his arm around her waist pulling her uncomfortably close. In the dazed state, she was not sure whether she found the immediate contact or the smell of his unwashed body more unsettling. She averted her gaze, the look of disgust on her face, trying to push herself away from the stranger. Yet, it only provoked a raspy laughter of mockery.

"Look at her! She don't like you, Butch! You probably stink like horse shit!" Another outbreak of the men's amusement, that Lorelei suddenly found overly irritating. But more than that, she felt the darkness coming. Her mind immediately panicked. She couldn't....she wouldn't...she was not allowed to lose control. The inner emotional turmoil did not help to hold back what she has just conquered after escaping the castle. The image of a dark, human-like shape lying lifelessly on the floor, flickered in front of her inner eye.

"No...no...let go." She said in a soft, anxious voice, feeling the darkness of her soul growing. The man did not hear her, if anything they carried on mocking her fragility. She could see her hands placed on the ruffians chest shaking, and she knew that if she would try to hold herself back much longer, the destruction that would follow would be much greater. She had to let go, otherwise she would wreak havoc that would end her journey there and then.

"I said, let go!" Her voice grew stronger, commanding. It was the voice of someone who was used to giving out orders and did not tolerate disobedience and it carried warning upon its tone. Yet, it wasn't the change in her demeanour that silenced the group. It was the unexpected, sharp breath intake of their mate who was holding her, as if he was drowning. His eyes rolled back into his head, his skin turned whiter. The grip on Lorelei's waist weakened and she was finally able to push herself free. As the man collapsed on his knees, gaping for air, his eyes full of terror, none of the man could put their finger on what has just happened. Their comrade was alive, but none of them saw what caused him to suddenly look like a cornered rabbit, shaking violently as if he was just pulled out of a frozen lake.

"What did you do?! WHAT DID YOU DO?!" Shouted one of them in frustration, his intentions clear in his face. He was not there to reason with her, but relieve his confusedness with force her female frame would not be able to take. After all, human's always either retreated away from the unknown or attacked it, unaware of the possible consequences. Right now, the man's hand was lifted high above his head about to strike Lorelei, who could not do anything but watch, her hands clasped together on top of her chest, the fatigue blurring her vision as she stumbled backwards.​

 

[GreatSalmon]

The prideful, joyful hum of a lute brought about much confusion to the surrounding crowd.

Movement from down the street caught the eyes of the drunkards, what skipped into view would truly paralysis their aggregation. She was a strange character, short, portly, an unsettling toothy grin from ear to ear. The music she played on her lute was an attempt to create an uplifting, heroic atmosphere which sounded more corny than threatening. When the woman drew closer their attention closed in on something truly bizarre: the floppy, dog-like ears that rested on her head. Her prance ended with a glorious pose, her head high, her tail still. Some of the men were shocked alone by the hair that hugged around her face, some more or so becoming annoyed with her act. Strumming her tune's last note brought her to speak:

"Ho there my good sirs," Excitement brought her to sway her hips, "might I intrude on your mid-night 'beating up of fair maidens' session for a mere moment?" Bravely she moved closer to the band; a slower pace not out of caution but of wanting to look cool. "You misfortune souls- GAH MAKE SOME ROOM TUBS!" In frightful speed her happy composure exploded as she barked at the huskier man in her way. He departed from his position and allowed her to enter the eye of the storm. "- You misfortune souls have committed your crimes at the wrongest of times, for you have all now entered the ballad, as a mere sentence I do inform, for the great wandering Loveblade himself!" Her grand announcement failed to invoke fear in the men surrounding her, something she had somewhat expected upon starting this very shtick again.

The musician, as if forgetting the violently intoxicated men around her, turned her attention to the woman being attacked. She bent slightly, raised her arm mid height, and waved to her. "Hey there cutie, you're going to be saved by the greatest man alive today! How great is that?" She cooed while wiggling her fingers. "Um look, miss, we're kind of busy here-" The bard stepped back, combing a hand through her tangled hair as her tail wagged. "No of course, I understand, a dragon is only scary when you're in it's presence... you all understand the words I'm saying right? You all know what 'presence' means? What about the word 'scary', what about 'alive'?" Having his fill with her annoyance, one of the men grabbed the back of her short, silky cape and yanked it back. Her fingers began scrapping against her neck.

This obviously was unacceptable for SOMETHING as an explosion's roar echoed across the alley. Only a few feet from the drunkards stood another new body, their weapon pointed towards the man who strangled the bard. The newcomer glowed dimly, bolts of electricity danced from his shoulders and around the blade. Hair on some of the men's arms began to rise with the presence of the armored figure, both out of fear and static that now surrounded every being in the circle.

"I present you with that very dragon." She wheezed.

 

[The Returner]

Something or someone stopped the man from advancing. That much she could see, but it took her some time to find the source of the distraction and when she did so, Lorelei almost believed she passed out and this was just a dream. That creature was, to put it bluntly, impossible to explain in her frame of mind. She has never seen anything like that before and that was partially a reason why its apparent failings on inciting horror, has indeed worked on the princess. The hair on the back of her neck stood up as she watched the creature advancing. The girl made yet another shaky stepped backwards as what appeared to be a female dog on two legs entered the circle. Yet, the horror of not being able to comprehend how something as incredible as that creature could even exist, Lorelei was almost mesmerized to the point that when the being prompted her to come near, she quite easily obeyed, staggering forward, yet maintaining the disbelieving look in her eyes that now mixed with what could be identified as carefulness.

However, before she made it even half way to the inviter, one of the ruffians has decide to take matters into his own hands, quite literally. Before Lorelei could summon the thought on attempting to help the poor being, a roar reverberated in the street, bouncing of the walls to be thrown back at them. It was indeed a sound most terrifying, but Lorelei had a feeling that she heard it somewhere before, from inside the confines of her room. Her azure eyes swiftly found the source and as much as she felt fright upon seeing the hairy bard, shivers were now running down her spine this time. The man who tried to choke the life out of the dog-like creature loosened his grip, starring in awe and dread upon the blade and its possessor.

"A dragon?" Lorelei was the first one to drop in a hint of a whisper filled with bewilderment, disrupting the charged silence. A dragon in her mind certainly did not look like that. Nonetheless, to the aggressors who now turned into scared lambs, the identity standing before them was convincing enough to make them rush into safety, leaving Lorelei and the bard behind. Loveblade. She recalled and it tickled a memory somewhere back in her mind which she was too weary to recall. In fact, the furore of the evening has caught up with her rapidly as her vision blurred once again, but that was not enough for her tired mind. Whilst she tried to stay upright, remain regal even in this situation, wanting to thank the stranger for saving her life just by appearing, her knees disagreed with her to the point that they were about to give up. The sudden sway of her body backwards and to the side was enough of a hint to reveal the fact that the princess was indeed going to collapse.