The Crane and the Tiger [fireCrystal]

firejay1

The Phoenix
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Online Availability
My times are pretty erratic, but I try to avoid being on EST 11pm-9am.
Writing Levels
  1. Intermediate
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  3. Advanced
  4. Adaptable
Preferred Character Gender
  1. Male
  2. Female
Genres
Fantasy, Modern, Historical Romance.
@CrystalTears

Yeon-ah​
Gender: Female
Physical Age: 25
Date of Birth: June 21

Zodiac Creature: Crane
Element: Fire
Energy: Yang
Appearance:
Although Yeon-ah is not tall, standing at only 5'4", she has long, elegant legs, and a slim frame that makes her look taller than she is. She has a careless beauty she does nothing to maintain, and her intense, dark eyes generally look either bored or serious. Naturally, her hair is black with red highlights when she grows it long, though she at one point cut it short and dyed it brown.

Personality:
"A little strange" is probably the easiest way to describe Yeon-ah. There's nothing wrong with her, per se. She's polite and open-minded, honest if perhaps not always kind, and makes up for being not much of a fighter by being smart, light-footed, and elegant. She is, however, extremely out of touch with other people, and easily bored. She likes people, and for the most part they tend to like her too, but it's easy to lose her interest, and the only thing she truly loves is nature, so she knows almost nothing about common expressions, what people find strange versus normal, and what's best to do in emotionally driven situations. Heck, she rarely can tell (or even cares) when a situation is emotionally charged.

While Yeon-ah doesn't much care about fighting, it is important to note that she is not averse to it, either, and can be extremely aggressive when other people annoy her, violate her boundaries, threaten children, or attack her first.

Likes:
✓ Water
✓ Nature (including nice breezes, rain, and the sun)
✓ Fish
✓ Flying
✓ People in general

Dislikes:
✕ Orange
✕ Enclosed spaces
✕ Chemicals
✕ Meat

Arsenal:
Nothing. Yeon-ah gets by with her wits, her speed, and the fact that she is a pescatarian. She doesn't really need anything extra to fulfill her daily needs. Plus, cranes are endangered. Most people respect her or even try to feed her when she's in her natural form.

Skills:
Dancing
Swimming
Balance (she can stay on one foot for a really long time)
Sleeping anywhere

Abilities:
Purification - Far from being combat oriented, Yeon-ah can purify anything she touches, healing people of illnesses, cleaning water and food of filth and spoil, even expelling lower level demons and ghosts from objects or possessed people. Although she cannot heal people of more mental and emotional things, her presence and touch do also tend to have a calming, soothing effect on others.

Weaknesses:
Mostly an extremely poor fighter, she pretty much attacks the way a wild animal does.

Why Do You Want to be a God?
Yeon-ah doesn't really have a goal in mind when it comes to becoming a god, but she missed the first race because it looked sort of silly, and after so many years, she's starting to think it would be nice to make it upstairs with everyone else. Plus, she'd make a great god, so why not?

Relationships:
TBA

Extra:
TBA

Character Description:
The crane is beautiful and elegant, but has always been a bit of a solitary oddball. Still, she can't deny that she misses the companionship of others, and this cute little race the emperor set up is just about the most interesting thing she's seen in a while. Who knows, if she makes it up top, maybe she'll find more interesting things to occupy her time.



Yeon-ah
"All peoples rise on the wings of the sun."
Yeon-ah looked in over her head. The girl with red-tipped hair staring up at a giant monster that looked a bit like a black cat made of smoke with horns and eyes of fire. But the sacred crane was a higher-class demon than this long-lived cat, she wasn't unduly concerned.

Less than a day ago, they had been summoned for what would probably be known as the Second Great Race. The game: they had to exterminate several large, malicious demons causing trouble in the human world, and the one who exterminated the most would receive a reward from the Jade Emperor. Yeon-ah hadn't bothered participating in the first one, but this one actually seemed sort of interesting, and after years of being away from many of her fellow demons, she thought it would be nice to meet up with them again. Humans were interesting in their own right, but not terribly long-lived. She wasn't a great fighter, but she did have an advantage over most demons.

The smokey cat lunged for her, and Yeon-ah jumped aside without thinking about it. They had been doing a lot of this, since she'd found the cat demon in the first place and pecked him in the face. He hadn't been fond of that, which was just as well for her. Turning into a massive crane mid-leap, Yeon-ah swooped at him and pecked aggressively, wings flaring as she gave a loud call. He batted at her, but she managed to dodge and finally, finally, turn back into a human, landing squarely on his back with both hands gripping tightly into his fur. He thrashed, trying to get her off his back, but Yeon-ah hung on. She had purifying properties, after all. A demon this big wasn't going to be subdued very easily, but any malicious spirit was bound to be weakened by it.

Sure enough, slowly, the other demon began to wobble on his paws, and finally, he fell to the ground, dazed. Turning into a large crane again, Yeon'ah stabbed her beak into his neck, and the demon began to dissipate.She didn't realize, that as she was doing that, she was also being watched. A different dark presence stalking her from behind. The minute she finished off her prey, something else bounded forward from the shadows. She turned too late, smashing her eyes shut as she realized the dark shadow coming from her was probably far from friendly. It was too late to run. She was finished.

But the blow she was waiting for, never came.

 
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Time is nothing more than a river.

One could toss it to instincts that Taehyun had only been stalking one of the bigger demons. How long he had followed the malicious being that had taken the form of a shadowy bear, he did not know, but it had been so much fun to only observe his prey. The shadowy creature, ever since it arrived in the human realm, had been much a predator itself. Surprisingly, it had not harmed a single human, but instead kept to the darker corners of the city. Perhaps it knew that it was being hunted, and causing a ruckus would surely draw attention. How unfortunate that the white tiger had spotted it regardless its discretion.

This second “Great Race” of some kind was more like a game than a competition. The favor from Jade Emperor was not something he held any interest in. However, the race itself seemed like fun. Over the many years, he had only watched civilizations be born and die. Some of the natural causes, others of survival of the fittest. Why it was interesting for the time controlling tiger, it was boring to be nothing but an observer.

Stalking prey was fun, and it undoubtedly brought him to interesting places. Taehyun was just in time to watch the large crane stab her beak into the neck of a shadowy cat before the demon faded away due to the fatal blow. The tiger had thought for the bear to turn away from the fight, seeing how his friend had fallen, but instead, it leaped in and raised its humongous dark paws to strike.

“Me, oh my,” Taehyun sighed. In the blink of an eye, the tiger had teleported from behind the bear demon to in front of it. His eyes flashed blue for a moment and the paw that was about to strike froze in the air. “I’m sorry Miss Crane,” the tiger apologized as he flashed her a smile. “I was stalking this bear, but he seems to have found you at an inconvenient time. Allow me to take care of it,” he doesn’t wait for an answer as the demon let out a roar that belongs to no real animal.

Its paw is still stuck in the air and Taehyun smirked. A helpless prey caught in a trap, one would argue that he should not play with it, but a tiger’s playful manner couldn’t be solved even when centuries had passed him by.

Casually, he stepped up to the demonic bear. The paw was finally freed but the shadowy creature had no chance to react as Taehyun disappeared and reappeared behind the bear to give the head a solid kick. He sped up his own body to make it hurt even more before slowing it down so he fell carefully back onto the ground. The tiger took the opportunity to pin the bear onto the ground by stopping the time before stepping over to it while slowly transforming into his tiger form. The last thing he wanted to do was to stick his teeth into it, so instead the tiger strode over to the bear’s head, the thing he had just kicked, before stomping it down with his paw as the shadowy creature started to fade away just like the cat had done.

“Yeon-ah,” Taehyun says as he shakes the paw that stepped on the bear’s head. “Cranes are endangered, so take better care of yourself. It would be a shame if you weren’t here,” he smiles and transforms into his human form. “Though that cat definitely got what it deserved,” he jokes as he had only seen the end of it, but he had a good feeling that the cat went through more than just a jab to its neck.

Codes by firejay1 :D <3
 
Yeon-ah
"All peoples rise on the wings of the sun."
Yeon-ah had frantically flapped her wings and fallen backwards, so it wasn't until she heard the male voice in front of her that she realized that she had been spared the dire fate she had been expecting. She turned into her human form, but before she could say anything to the man in front of her, he was gone, zipping around with some strange magic. Yeon-ah didn't think she'd seen anything quite like that power, before. Eyes sparkling with excitement, she picked herself up off the ground, brushing herself off so that she was presentable for this fun new friend.

She had just placed one foot on her other leg, balancing comfortably that way, when the tiger walked back over to her, having switched forms back and forth rather quickly. "Thank you for saving me." She said, cheerfully, the jokes he had just cracked flying over her head entirely. He seemed to know her name, but she wasn't quite sure who this was supposed to be; it was the tiger zodiac, clearly, but she couldn't recall ever actually having met him. Despite the fact that they had met at the very start of the race, when everyone had been gathered together to listen to the rules of the race. Still smiling, with her usual polite cheerfulness at meeting new people, she asked directly, "Who are you?"

 

Time is nothing more than a river.

Taehyun could not keep himself from grinning to one ear to the other. He looked more like the Cheshire Cat than a tiger at this point. His hair had gone from the usual black color to a bright silver, something he tried his best to hide as it brought too much attention while wandering around in the streets.

“I had been stalking that bear for a while,” Taehyun replied to Yeon-ah’s thanks. It felt strange to be thanked for something like that, perhaps because the tiger didn’t spend too much time with the other zodiacs. The only reason he remembered the Crane’s name was because of his amazing memory. That and Cranes were beautiful and elegant creatures as one of the rulers in the sky.

He chuckled softly and ruffled his hair as the Crane asked for his name. What a pity, to be forgotten was always such a sad thing. Not unlike how the humans wished to leave their mark in history, Taehyun wanted to leave his in other’s memories. It seemed like he needed to try harder.

“I’m Lee Taehyun, the tiger,” Taehyun introduced himself. “We met at the beginning of the race,” he added though they had passed each other by a few times over the centuries, but never truly interacted much until today.

While he was happy to keep talking, they were standing in the middle of an alleyway which demons seemed to have some sort of attraction to. The tiger was in no mood to get attacked once more and the hunt for his prey was already over. Some good bubble tea or a treat was in order.

“You wish to join me for some bubble tea?” Taehyun offered. “Standing in this alleyway won’t do us any good. I know a good place, it’ll only take a few seconds to get there,” he smiled. Granted, for the tiger, getting anywhere in the city or elsewhere would only take him seconds, minutes at its worst.

Codes by firejay1 :D <3
 
Yeon-ah
"All peoples rise on the wings of the sun."
"Oh, did we?" Yeon-ah asked, politely. "I apologize for having forgotten." She said, with a smile. She tilted her head slightly when he asked if she'd like to join him for some... bubble tea. Blinking at him, she placed her raised foot back on the ground, both feet shoeless, as always, and took one long, elegant step towards him, taking her time with it. Grabbing one of his hands in both of hers as if it was the most natural thing in the world, she asked, "What's bubble tea?" She knew what bubbles were. She knew what tea was, but she'd never heard of bubble tea. For once, her black eyes were properly trained on his face, curiosity keeping her attention on this new-ish person.
 

Time is nothing more than a river.

“Aigoo,” Taehyun chuckled as the innocent Crane took one of his hands in both of her smaller ones and peered up at him with pure curiosity as the unexpected question hit him. He couldn’t help himself from smiling. Unlike him, Yeon-ah hadn’t bothered gotten involved or invested in the human culture, granted that for someone like them it didn’t matter, but the time controlling tiger always held an interest in the many changes humans took over the centuries. “It’s a sort of milky tea, but I think it would be better to show you than to explain,” the tiger smiled. Standing around and explaining took too long, especially since he was already itching to move after being in one space for a while now.

Taking the opportunity now that their hands were laced, Taehyun pulled Yeon-ah a bit closer so he could wrap one of his hands around her delicate waist. “Allow me to take you,” he smiled and in an instant, the two of them were already gone from the dark and cold alley.

Teleporting was much like running at an incredible speed. It always left Taehyun feeling a bit tingly with just the hint of some adrenaline in his blood. Disorientation or dizziness was never a problem, as he always knew where he was going and where he would be facing, though he knew not all shared the same feeling. It was fast, the scenery changing in an instant as his vision turned white just for a moment so his eyes could get used to wherever he decided to go.

This time, he wanted to go up. Away from the dark, cramped and dirty alleyway and up on a rooftop where the night’s stars were blinking happily down upon them. Taehyun released his grip on his hands and her waist, taking the moment to just enjoy the night sky as he had promised to take the Crane to a bubble tea place, but the night was long, so there was no need to hurry.

“Sorry if that was sudden,” Taehyun apologized with a smile that betrayed his apology. The tiger didn’t care too much if his choice of transportation frightened or startled others, in fact, their reactions after getting a ride was perhaps the most amusing. “And we’ll be taking a little detour, but that’s the fun of a trip in the first place.”

Codes by firejay1 :D <3
 
Yeon-ah
"All peoples rise on the wings of the sun."
Yeon-ah had never felt much trepidation or enthusiasm for physical contact with others, and she'd grabbed his hand simply because it had felt like the simplest way to show she was connected to the conversation. She hadn't at all expected him to wrap his hand more firmly around hers, and pull her close enough to place his other arm around her waist. She had been busy wondering what exactly milky tea would taste like, as it sounded rather strange to her, so she'd barely had time to look down at the hand on her waist in surprise.

And then they were flying.

In some ways, this was not true flying. She didn't have to flap her wings, there wasn't quite the same sense of weightlessness, but the speed sent the wind flying through her hair in the same way. The heady feeling of adrenaline and freedom was the same. It was just as beautiful, just as thrilling, and very very interesting, because it was new. She recognized the feeling of speeding upwards, and before she'd really had a moment to catch her breath, they were standing on top of a roof, and he'd let go of her. Her lips were parted slightly, breathing quick and shallow with the remnants of the thrill. Surprise and a pure joy had a smile gracing her face, eyebrows raised slightly, cheeks ever so slightly flushed and eyes staring at not quite anything at all. Tilting her head back, she stared up at the stars. "So that's what he'd been doing." She breathed quietly to herself, referring to the way he'd seemed to disappear when she'd seen him fight the bear. She barely heard anything he said, and she rather didn't care. They would have to deal with the oddity of this milky bubbling tea later.

Overcoming her shock, she grabbed him again, this time firmly grasping both his hands, guessing that she had to be in contact with him for it to work. Her face was surprisingly close to his, but she didn't care, the smile twinkling on her face and in her eyes the most intense expression of interest she'd ever shown him or most of the zodiacs. "Do that again! Go far far up into the sky! Please." The crane said, without explaining exactly what she was thinking. "I want to fly. As far up as you can go." She'd forgotten his name again, but she wasn't about to forget the tiger from now on. Not when he could do that.

 
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Taehyun
"Time is nothing more than a river."
Taehyun couldn’t keep himself from smiling somewhat sheepishly at the Crane, who had seemed uninterested at first, flare up with curiosity and enthusiasm in the split of a moment. Most of the tiger’s “passengers” would have a strange pale or green look on their faces before either asking him to never do it again or to give them a warning, there were very few who asked to do it again and Yeon-ah was undoubtedly the first who told him to go as far up into the air as possible. He cocked a brow as she mentioned “flying” to him. While it could feel like it, it certainly wasn’t true flight. He didn’t spread his wings or soar in the air, only move at incredible speed. However, this was the Crane. She probably had something fly related in mind, and even if she didn’t, Taehyun could keep himself still in the air along with her.

Plus, while he knew most would think differently, he was a gentleman. The kind and the excited lady asked him to fly up into the air, as far as he could go, and there was no reason why he should not listen. Yeon-ah even figured out he needed to be in contact with her, or at least Taehyun guessed so from how she was clenching his bigger hands in her small ones.

“Of course,” the tiger smiled. “Taehyun oppa will do as you please,” he added. The tiger had no way of knowing whether or not he was older than Yeon-ah, but he decided to take on the “older brother” role regardless, he was the one bringing them up into the air.

Now, how to approach this? He had never attempted to bring someone up into the air with no true landing destination in mind. His powers worked in the way where he needed to know where to go, which meant Taehyun had to know where in the air he wanted to teleport. It was a strange thought and a new one, but one that he wished to attempt. Plus, in their current positions, that was going to make things more difficult.

He gave it some more thought before wanting to try something. Taehyun turned around so his back was facing Yeon-ah, before wrapping her arms around his stomach. In many ways, it looked like the Crane was giving him a hug from behind. In this position, it was going to be a lot easier to jump up into the air, and he didn’t need to worry about hanging onto the Crane.

“Hang on, Yeon-ah,” Taehyun instructed her. “I’ll take us up as far as I can go, so just hug me really close, okay?” he added, though he was sure she understood it the first time around, one could never be too sure since he hadn’t done this before either.

And with that, he jumped up into the air. The first was a normal jump to get as high up as he could, before stopping the air beneath him so he could do a second leap, but this time, he teleported.

The two of them leaped off the building and off into the night sky. He brought them up pretty high, his aim being the moon though he could obviously not bring them up into space. Instead, they were far above the city. The lights almost looking like the stars which they were much closer to now than when they were on the roof.

Taehyun laughed as he made sure Yeon-ah’s grip around him was still tight by holding her arms as well. He looked over his shoulder to glance at her, hoping the Crane was enjoying this as much as he was.

“Is that good enough?!” He asked through his fit of laughter. “I could try going higher, but we’re pretty much in the clouds!”

 
Yeon-ah
"All peoples rise on the wings of the sun."
Yeon-ah smiled. He seemed happy enough to fulfill her wish, it was just taking him a moment and a little readjusting to figure out how to carry it out, it seemed. As he wrapped her arms around his waist, she found her attention beginning to wander with the waiting, but then he made a leap into the air.

It felt most strange. She usually had to jump up to begin flight, but she'd never stopped awkwardly in the air this way, and she'd never had someone else do the jumping for her. She was about to make a disappointed noise, but then the rush of speed happened again, and they were suddenly far high up in the sky, the multi-colored lights of the city far below them. Which city was it? She didn't know, and she didn't care. They could be in America for all she cared.

She laughed with exhilaration, loving the feeling as they began to spiral into a fall, the wind whipping past her face almost painfully. She didn't feel the Tiger laugh nor hear his question, and without any warning, she shook off his grip and morphed quickly into massive crane. Stick-like claws dug into his shoulders, grasping him firmly as her huge wings spread to either side, riding the currents of the air, and only really meaning to guide and slow their fall as they soared high above the city. This was it. With no effort on her part at all, they had found themselves high, high up, and were flying. She laughed again and gave a flap of her wings, no doubt a small silhouette from the ground, doing its best to block out the moon.

 
Taehyun
"Time is nothing more than a river."
Taehyun would usually be worried if someone attempted to wrangle themselves out of his grip while this high up in the air and while they were falling. However, if anything, she was a graceful flier and was proving herself the moment she transformed and dug her talons into his shoulders. It didn’t hurt, though it did prick his skin, but the joy of being so high above the city and actually flying was so different.

Her laughter drew another one out of Taehyun. The tiger had never thought nor dreamed of flying, not finding it that different from teleporting or standing in the air, but now he knew better. Flying held the same adrenaline as teleporting about did, but it was slower and a far more weightless feeling. On top of that, they were soaring in the sky. Taehyun could only stand still or keep freezing the air around himself, but now the wind was whipping his face and almost making it hard to see the great view that they had both underneath them and above them.

“This is amazing!” He attempted to tell Yeon-Ah. “I’ve never tried flying or wanting to fly, but I can see why the humans speak so fondly of it now!” And there was no doubt in his mind that he would want to do it more often. Obviously, he would need the Crane’s help, but he didn’t mind her company, not in the slightest. They both experienced something new today, and Taehyun was sure they both loved it.

 
Yeon-ah
"All peoples rise on the wings of the sun."
Yeon-ah could just barely hear Tae-hyun over the sound of the wind, but she could tell he was enjoying it, too. That was good, because she wanted to do this again and again. Giving another hard flap, she increased their speed, swooping lower and lower gradually. She closed her eyes for a bit, slowly gliding in a wide circle at a safe distance from the tops of the buildings.

After a long moment just relishing the feeling of the wind against her face, she opened her beady eyes again and guided them down to the top of one of the tallest buildings. When they were several feet above the roof, she dropped Taehyun, confident that the tiger would touch down just fine, even though it was a fair sight higher than the average human would have landed without at least a twisted ankle. A moment later, she touched down herself, taking on her human form again just as her feet landed on the concrete. Her cheeks were flushed ever so slightly with excitement, her hair floating wildly around her head. "That was wonderful." She announced, looking very pleased, before plopping herself down on her butt. "So, where are we?"