Ascending Legends

[Dragongal]

"The great trick is keeping that innocent hope, or at the least valuing it, into adulthood. You probably would have been a great father no matter what, love." Arryn stepped out from behind the screen, where she'd been changing into more comfortable clothing, laid on the bed, kissed him, then nuzzled up against his chest and pulled up the covers, closing her eyes.


Arryngale was dreaming again, but it wasn’t normal: instead of clear-cut, obvious memories, or dreams that seemed to make sense it seemed like a feverish mix of many memories, good and bad, mostly bad, and she was just thrown in for kicks. She woke up with a slight jump, then looked to Dayn, slowly running her fingers over his hand, lighter than a breeze, then rolled over and put her legs over the edge of the bed. She didn’t feel tired anymore, but she knew she would eventually. After a heavy sigh, she glanced at her dagger on the table beside the bed. She was safe….





Arryn stood up suddenly, looking about the room. What had she heard? Suddenly she heard a voice that wasn’t there in reality, but she heard it nonetheless. She turned quickly, and in the corner stood Inder, an old priest dressed in white robes. “What in Hel…?” she whispered.


“Now, Miss Eleran, you know you shouldn’t bring up Hel in conversing," the nonexistent old priest replied.





“N-no, y-you’re not here,” she whispered again. She’d forgotten Dayn was in the room because she was so drawn into the illusions, but she knew there was a reason she had to keep quiet. When Matthias and Taddereus had been hurt, Arryn had threatened to murder Inder if either of them died. The old man had been lucky, but she’d never forgotten her deep hatred toward him.


“Miss Eleran, why are you speaking to me if I’m not?”


Arryn had backed up, her legs quietly hitting the table by the bad. She reached around and grabbed her dagger, holding the blade in an offensive style. “Don’t call me that….”


Inder was gone, but she heard another voice that wasn’t there, from a person who certainly wasn’t there. “What’s wrong, Atria? You’re the leader, don’t tell me you’re scared.” The speaker stood in the other corner by the door, her blonde hair pulled back and her big amber eyes looking at Arryn with concern, and a bit of venom.


“May, n-no, you’re dead….” Arryn could feel tears streaking down her cheeks.


“Oh, right. Well, that doesn’t seem to make much of a difference, I’m here, after all. What about him? He just another one of your fighters?” She nodded toward Dayn.


Arryn looked at Dayn and shook her head. “N-no, I swear, he’s not…. May, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought you along, it wasn't fair, it’s nobody’s fault, but I’ll take the blame, just - just leave him out of this.”


“How do you think he’d have fared when the trap was sprung? As well as you? Or me?” Suddenly May was covered in blood, a deep wound over her heart, blood covering her shirtfront, crimson splashed on her pale skin and smeared through her gold hair. Her now glazed-over amber eyes seemed to looka t Arryn accusingly.


“No, I saw your funeral, you’re dead and burned, stop it! Get out of my head!” Arryn had accidentally raised her voice, shouting. She glanced to Dayn. He was certainly about to wake. The next moment when she looked up, it wasn’t May standing there, but something entirely different. Likely the only thing that could truly strike fear into Arryn’s heart. She wanted to scream, but her voice was gone, instead she just stood rigid and staring with wide, terrified eyes, her body shivering, her heart nearly beating out of her chest, and her mind racing, tears still running from her eyes. The scars on her arms and back hurt terribly, and she could feel the old pain in her shoulder again. She wanted to protect Dayn, to move between it and him, but she couldn’t move, just whisper without voice, “No… no, no, gods please, no…”


She raised a clear blue-tinted shield, separating Dayn and herself from the illusion, but that was all she could do. When the body failed, magic naturally kicked in to defend the mage. Electricity crackled lightly and quietly at the tips of her fingers, the result of her untrained magic and complete, absolute terror combining, and the electricity charged the silver dagger in her hand imperceptibly.

 

[BookWyrm]

What, Arryn? Arryn?! The desperation in her voice paired with the smell of fear and confusion caused Dayn to wake in a mostly instinctual mode. By the time his eyes were open and he as out of the bed Dayn had half-way shifted. His body was covered in hair and his face had taken on more wolf-like features along with his hands and feet, but for the most part he had stayed relatively human in this shift. But when he found himself staring back at his own reflection Dayn stopped, realizing suddenly that Arryn had thrown up a shield around something in the center of the room. Dayn was at Arryn's side quickly, noticing the sparks around her fingers even as he reached for her hands. He shifted back to normal just as his hand touched her own. "Arryn, it's me Dayn. Arryn, come back to me love." Dayn looked down at the silver dagger knowing he needed to get it away from her. Gods this is gonna hurt.


Dayn reached out and grabbed the dagger from Arryn's hand. The pain shot into his arm and up into his chest, but he still held it tightly. He was crouched right in front of her now, one hand on her cheek while the other gripped the dagger as tears began to slid down his cheeks. "Arryn, let my take the dagger." When he finally held the blade he slid it along the floor with a yelp, a blood trail marking where it finally stopped. Dayn's whole arm up into his chest hurt, but his concern for Arryn helped to mask the pain. "Arryn, please come back to me."

 

[Dragongal]

Arryn glanced to Dayn, and then back to where the illusion had stood, but it was gone. However, she couldn't shake off the feeling that she wasn't safe and that something else would appear. She looked at Dayn, saying quickly, "I-I swear, I saw them, I had to protect you, I mean, I-I thought, but that doesn't make since, May's dead, but I-I mean I conversed with her, and...." Arryn looked back to the shield, hesitating before lowering it. Was it really safe? Had all of that been in her head? She looked at her empty hand in confusion. Why didn't she have her blade? Tears continued to course down her cheeks. "I-it wasn't a dream, I-I mean.... I saw them,a-and I heard them, a-and it felt like the... creature was here, and May even referenced you, a-and...."

 

[BookWyrm]

Dayn wrapped his good arm around Arryn and held her, himself crying in a mix of pain and emotion over this whole mess. "Its okay Arryn. They are gone now." Dayn gently rubbed the back of Arryn's head as he held her for a few minutes. He let her calm down some before he pulled back and looked at her again, his eyes still tinted with green as his body reacted to his injury. He winced slightly as he looked over at his arm, but looked back to Arryn as he gently stroked the side of her face with his thumb. "Walk me through it slowly, if you can. If not we don't have to worry about it right now. But if you can I want to help you."

 

[Dragongal]

Arryn managed to calm down to a point where she could speak, but she was still confused, and, well, spooked, to put it mildly. She looked at his hand, a bit confused. How had that happened to him? Had the creature actually gotten to him? No, no that didn't sound right, she'd thrown up a shield. She slowly took his hand in both of hers, running her fingers over the injury, using her magic to ease the pain, then begin healing it. Working with him meant burning extra mana, but she didn't care. It gave her something to focus on, to tie her to reality. She looked at the corner where she'd seen the images, and shook her head, still healing Dayn while saying, "I-I don't know, I-I had weird, um, dreams I guess, and I got up, and I heard - I heard a scream, I know that scream, and i looked, and then Inder was there, and I knew he wasn't, but he was, he kept calling me 'Miss Eleran' and I hated it, and... and I think I grabbed my dagger then.... then it was May, but-but I saw her corpse burned on the pyre, I watched from the window of the healer's house, I saw it, two years ago, so she couldn't have been there, but then - she - she asked if I thought you'd have made it out of the trap like her, or - or how I did, and she was covered in blood, like she was when - when she died, and I told her, I told her I was sorry but to leave you out of it, and.... and then... one of the creatures was there, but I had to protect you, but I was too scared to move and my wounds hurt too bad, I-I couldn't...."





Arryn was nearly sobbing now. The more she spoke, the more obvious it became that she'd gotten drawn into false illusions. She looked at Dayn and whispered, "I'm so scared.... I don't want to go insane again, Dayn."

 

[BookWyrm]

Dayn's hand trembled and ached even as Arryn began to heal it. "Arryn, you aren't going insane again. Not on my watch." Dayn suddenly felt a sharp prick in his hand, causing him to reflexively grab Arryn's wrist and his claws to form in one fluid motion. "Sorry, sorry." Dayn slowly eased off and let go of Arryn's hand, feeling his claws retract into his fingers. "I'm sorry Arryn. I didn't mean to.." Dayn brought her hand up and kissed it apologetically. "When I heard you I woke up half-shifted, I guess it was defensive." His heart was still racing with adrenaline. "But don't fuss over me."





Dayn was trying to work all of this over in his mind. "Arryn, is there anything magical that is tying you to these past events? Anything like a curse, or a phylactery maybe?"

 

[Dragongal]

Dayn grabbing her wrist didn't bother her in the least. She was too disoriented to even react reflexively. She smiled at him and continued healing him despite his telling her not to fuss. This was just what she did, fixing people, and at the moment she was entirely set on auto-pilot, reacting instinctively to certain snatches of words but not others. However, when he suggested that there was a magical tie to the memories, she pulled away from him as tears ran more profusely down her face and she sobbed harder, saying, "No! I'm not cursed! That's what they said, but they're wrong! They were scared of me, but that was stupid, because there's no curse! They hurt Matthias and Taddereus, because they were so stupid! I'm not cursed! I-it was all faked by the man who made the trap, so nobody'd trust me! After I survived, he rigged things! I'm not cursed!"

 

[BookWyrm]

Dayn stared in a silence. He could help but cry with her, his heart aching because of her pain. "I am so sorry Arryn." Dayn didn't know what to do. He wanted to hold her and cry, part of him wanted to shift and run outside to get some air, but most of him wanted to kill the bastards that did this to his beloved. "Arryn, you are not cursed, I....I'm sorry....."

 

[Dragongal]

Arryn moved closer to him and pressed her head against his chest, saying quietly, “Don’t apologize to me. You never have to apologize to me.” She took his hand in both of hers, running her fingers over the wound, continuing to heal it, though it was hard to see it clearly past the tears in her eyes. “Th-they said, I was cursed, a-and anyone who got near me would die, but it’s a lie, the nurse was poisoned, but they wouldn’t believe me. So they were all scared after that, except my friends who believed me, but - but then they hurt Matthias and Tad, and I couldn’t stay.”

 

[BookWyrm]

Dayn tried his best to wipe off his face, though it was pointless at the moment, so he closed his and rested his head in his hand. "Who did this? I mean who spread the rumors, attacked your friends, all of it. Was it the black market dealers that you were hunting, or did they have collaborators in Rorich?"

 

[Dragongal]

Arryn closed her eyes, still leaning her head on his chest. “It was a small village, a few days walk through a mountain pass from Rorich. One of the Black Market leaders set up the trap, a-and I lead half my team into it. The villagers didn’t know, but when I was found alive, they were terrified, a-and I couldn’t blame them. It was stupid, but I couldn’t blame them. I don’t know how the bastards set it up, but I wasn’t supposed to survive, so then they worked with it, and, and someone poisoned the healer who was taking care of me, making the rumors seem true.”


Some of the people back in Rorich, they heard the rumors… a messenger got back before Matthias and I did, a-and, so they heard what was said, and they were scared. Inder, the priest, he spread the rumors, but he’s not black market, he was a dumbass priest who was scared. He knew people liked me more than him, and would listen to me before they listened to him, so… it worked to his advantage to discredit me. Some of the villagers, they - they got scared, and threatened to hurt me while I was down, and said slander, and when Tad and Matthias stood up for me, they hurt ‘em. They weren’t collaborators, they were just… scared.”

 

[BookWyrm]

"Fear can lead people to do terrible things. I am honestly terrified by the thought of what would happen if my secret was found out here...." Dayn trailed off, recalling stories his father had told him as a child. "Father told me stories as a child about so called wolf hunts, only these wolves were as large as a man and just as smart. Whenever they were found they would wait until the wolves showed themselves and they would crucify and burn them alive, displaying the bodies in the center of towns and villages." Dayn looked up at Arryn and gave a half hearted smile. "What can I do to help you, love?" Dayn wanted to focus his mind on something other than being hunted right now, and helping Arryn was the best thing he could do.

 

[Dragongal]

As always, Arryn liked listening to Dayn tell stories. But in response to his question, she shook her head. "I don't know. I... just have to wait it out.... I'm too scared to sleep...." Arryn didn't mean she had too much adrenaline to try sleeping, she meant she was scared of sleeping; because that brought on nightmares which brought on more pain and potentially the illusions. She knew how this worked, usually. First came the nightmares, then the illusions then the confusion, then the pain and fear and lingering attempts of the illusions to draw her in again - sometimes the attempts worked, sometimes they didn't. Arryn closed her eyes as she thought she heard a scream she knew wasn't really there. Not real, gods damn.... She could feel the pain starting on her shoulder and right arm - eventually it would go from her shoulder to include her right arm, to her left also, then include her back. She winced, pressing her forehead against his chest as the pain started and the screaming continued and more tears streaked down her face. Slowly, she glanced up at him before closing her eyes and holding on tighter. She whispered, "The scars hurt...."





Arryn was scared, but if she kept her eyes closed, and held onto Dayn, it wasn't as bad. Instead of her being scared and glancing over her shoulder to protect herself, he could do it: it didn't mean she didn't feel the fear, but it wasn't as bad that way, if he could protect her.

 

[BookWyrm]

"I know they do. But I'm here, and I'm real. So even if you can't sleep then rest easy against me. I'll keep watch tonight." Dayn held true to his word and stayed up for the remainder of the night as he kept watch over Arryn. For once Dayn wasn't concerned about himself or being partially shifted. His wolven senses allowed him to see in the night as clearly as the day and hear anything that stirred. Throughout the night he found himself tracking the mice that scurried through the walls as well as listening in on the happenings in the rooms closest to their own, even if he didn't really want to know what they were doing at that moment.


When the first rays of sunlight shown through the curtains Dayn, weary and tired, looked over at the movement only to be blinded momentarily before allowing his eyes to return to normal. He blinked away the fog before yawning, looking down at Arryn, who was still huddled against his chest. Sometime during the night he had moved around and laid his back against the fireplace, trying to at least allow Arryn the comfort she might need if she fell asleep. He gently kissed the top of her head as he rubbed her upper back. "Arryn, it's morning."

 

[Dragongal]

Arryn had only slept for around an hour by the time dawn came; she'd been so entirely exhausted, she couldn't have stayed awake any longer. Luckily, she'd been plagued by no dreams. She looked around, then up at Dayn, quietly saying, "Y-you stayed up with me?" And on the floor against the fireplace, no less. Last night was mostly a blur for her, she could recall specific bits and pieces if she tried, but it was hard. Even this morning, she didn't feel entirely back to notmal, and she doubted she would for a bit. She took his hand, whispering, "Thank you, mo chroi." After looking around again and getting her bearings, she stood up, pulling on his hand. "You need sleep." It was quite obvious that he was tired, and she wanted him to get some sleep, especially since it had been her fault that he'd stayed awake. After considering that he might refuse to sleep if she didn't, she said, "If you will sleep, then I will sleep. Promise. When we wake, I'll give you a good lesson on raid-style fighting. Ok?"

 

[BookWyrm]

Dayn slowly stood as Arryn pulled on his hand, his body aching as it did from lack of sleep and the residual pain from the knife. Dayn could faintly make out the smell of his own blood on the floor as he walked towards the bed. Of course Arryn had been right about him. If she hadn't of joined him Dayn would have stayed awake another day and night for her, and further on up until his body forced him to sleep. But in truth he wasn't in the mood to argue otherwise.


As Dayn staggered to the edge of the bed he ungracefully flopped onto it, laying there on his stomach until he felt Arryn's gentle touch, to which he rolled onto his side, this time though the roles were reversed and Dayn laid his head against Arryn's stomach. He blinked his eyes, one green, the other steel, before the heavy lids slowly closed to the welcoming comfort of his love's warmth and embrace. "Your belly is comfy..." By the time the sentence was out Dayn was asleep.

 

[Dragongal]

Arryn smiled at Dayn and lightly traced her fingers across his cheek before sighing. A promise was a promise. She forced her body to relax so she could drift off, though she woke quite a few times. She eventually slept pretty deeply, even dreaming. She was sparring with her father again, though their conversation was much shorter. "The illusions again, huh?" "Yeah. Dayn stayed up with me though, so it wasn't so bad." "Disoriented?" "I was, I really was. I saw one of the... creatures... and I tried to protect Dayn... but it wasn't there, of course." She chuckled, "He tried helping me, suggested that I was cursed. I think I might have, um... reacted harshly to that." "Well, is he right?" Arryn stopped, lowering her sword. "Nobody died just because they've been near me. That's a lie Inder and the villagers spread because they were scared cowards!" Her father stopped, tilting his head at her. "Or maybe you're not cursed the way they think? There's more than one kind of curse, Arryngale." Arryn sighed, "I don't know anymore." "Well, just keep going as you had before the nightmares... you'll figure it out, I'm sure." Arryn laughed slightly, then said, "D'you know, I almost showed him the scars last night, that's how bad I was spooked." "Do you think maybe you should?" Arryn shook her head. "I don't know if I could handle explaining it yet." "Do you have to explain it all?" Arryn stayed silent, so he continued, "Do you think he'd be upset if you couldn't explain it?" "No, but... I don't know. I've been scared of it and trying to ignore it for so long... I don't know." "Maybe that's your problem, you've been trying to ignore it." "Well, tonight I'm going to be training him like one of my team, so... I won't be able to ignore it for much longer." "Are you sure you're ready to teach him? I know you were scared of bringing anyone else into it after what happened to May." "That was nobody's fault; bad luck all around. I don't know why I brought our best trapper, despite her age, on a basic raid... I think I recall reasoning that we might need to catch food while we were travelling. But she begged so much to be allowed to go... I don't think it was anyone's fault." "About time you realized that."


When she woke, it was well past noon. She gently ran her fingers through Dayn's hair, unwilling to wake him. What lesson would she go over first? She'd never trained someone in a city, but they had plenty of woodlands to train for fighting, and she could use the busy streets to her advantage....

 

[BookWyrm]

Dayn found himself in the deep dreamless sleep of the extremely tired or almost dead, but whether or not he realized it he embraced the wondrous sleep, wrapping his arms around it just as he wrapped his arm gently around Arryn's waist as his head rested on her belly. Oddly enough Dayn felt a soothing sensation, like someone gently rubbing his head or playing with his hair. Dayn woke peacefully and at least moderately rested. He slowly opened his eyes, smiling faintly as he felt Arryn playing with his hair. He sighed contentedly as he nuzzled against her before kissing her belly. For the longest time he didn't say anything as he traced intricate knotwork and figure eights lightly over Arryn's belly. Finally though he started to get up, kissing her belly again as he repositioned himself next to her so that he could kiss her lips. He smiled at her, his dual colored eyes still faintly closed as he laid on his pillow. "Although I plan on being a good wolf for my lesson, I might need a slight pick me up. Could I trouble you for a cup of coffee, maybe a little cream?"

 

[Dragongal]

Arryn laughed and said, "Only if the cream takes away the awful bitterness." She kissed him slowly, gently running her fingers along his neck, then pulled back. "Thank you again for last night." After looking at him for a second, her eyebrows knit together, and she said, "Your eyes are still two colours...." Was that going to be a permanent effect? His family, and anyone who knew him well, was liable to notice it. Perhaps they could play it off as an effect of his magic training? Eye colour changing with the training of magic wasn't unheard of, though it was very uncommon. She shook her head, saying, "Let's get changed and get food. You'll need that coffee; we'll be in bed early tonight, but you'll definitely be tired, your first day of Night's Ascension training is today." She smiled as she said the last part, then kissed him again before getting out of bed and grabbing some clothes before ducking behind the privacy screen to change into a grey shirt and black pants. She then picked up her dagger and set to cleaning it, then to cleaning the blood off the ground, glancing at Dayn apologetically. Once that was done, she grabbed her pack and put on her weapons belt and took him by the hand, leading him downstairs.


Once they were downstairs, she made Dayn sit at a table while she got food; she owed him for last night, and she did enjoy fussing over him even when he wasn't hurt. While it was true that she couldn't cook, she could scavenge up an array breakfast foods. Brunhilde was nowhere to be found, luckily, and the inn seemed deserted: the joys of waking up hours after noon. In the kitchens, she found the pot of coffee easily, pouring two cups. Following Dayn's earlier suggestion, she filled half of hers with cream, and only put a bit of cream in his. She carried a tray out to their table and set it down between them, handing him his cup of coffee. She looked at hers hesitantly, before tasting it. "You southerners have odd drinks to be certain. Your alcohol is sweet and your tea is made bitter and black, requiring cream to be drinkable." She smiled; he wasn't technically a southerner, but he was below the first line of mountains, which was South for her. She hadn't disliked the sweet red wine they'd had when they first met, but it wasn't mead, and she'd definitely not had something alcoholic that was that sweet that had been made by humans. Now that she could barely taste the bitterness, the coffee wasn't too bad, though she wasn't sure why it seemed to be a morning drink culturally.

 

[BookWyrm]

Dayn smiled a tired, good natured smile as he laughed. The coffee was a welcomed treat. He could feel the life returning to his body as he sipped on it and ate his breakfast. He wore a simply steel grey shirt, his sleeves rolled to the elbows, and a pair of brown padded pants with rivets that he used for training. He wore his arming sword and dagger as well as his buckler and he kept his bastard sword at his side as well. "If this is tea than its the darkest tea I've ever drank." Dayn laughed again, this time feeling better. Unbeknownst the him, though, his one green eye slowly returned to normal as he began to wake up. "Is there anything I need to know about this training before we start?"

 

[Dragongal]

Arryn shrugged. She had a few plans she wasn't about to mention, but this was her area of expertise, training people in this style. She'd loved training her team, and she was certain she'd love training Dayn too, now that she was over her initial hesitance. She felt bad that he was still tired, since it was her fault,but not overtly bad. "Well, today is mostly falls and fluidity, a bit of obstacle-running, normally discipline is the first lesson - we used to have the team line up then do something stupid and they had to try not to laugh - but we're going to go a bit out of order since you're already a knight. So, what does the knight fighting style focus on, mostly?"

 

[BookWyrm]

"Besides the basics of learning individual weapons and unarmed fighting and grappling it focus a lot on fighting within the laws of chivalry and fighting in and against armor, which is probably the most useful thing I've learned to be honest. Besides learning how to fight with a plethora of weapons it doesn't many benefits outside of learning how to fight against and defeat armor. Mostly you don't expect to have to kill your opponents because fights are to the yield between knights, not saying that I haven't killed though."

 

[Dragongal]

Arryn nodded, saying, "Alright, you have a good base to start from. You're going to have to break some old habits, chivalry isn't going to help you much here. We're going to focus on dodges, rolls, working with weight, discipline, and most of all fluidity. If an opponent knocks you down, you have to roll into a position where it becomes your advantage without thinking about it. See, because I'm a lighter weight class, my hand-to-hand is different from yours." Arryn paused, then laid her hands over his and said, "And Dayn, you can't shift. No matter what happens to me, you can't shift, you're going to be in armour, and you won't have time to take it off. Unless we eventually get armour that has weakened links on purpose, you can't shift. Only in absolute emergencies."





Arryn leaned back, thinking over things. "As a rule, I try not to kill when we're leading slaves out. You see, it spooks the kids. But you're going to have to get used to playing dirty. Using the environment around you to your advantage. For example, when you were in the stairwell, and you got hurt, I would have blocked with the buckler then takes a low swipe for the legs, or just a good push will put them on their backs in a stairwell. That's my style. Yours works just as well, though, in that situation. We're also going to have to work with your magic so you can work it into your bladework, like I did with the worg. Same with your wolf-senses. Seems like cheatin', but it ain't."


Once they finished their food, Arryn cleaned up, then led Dayn outside, into the streets. The streets were empty compared to last night, but there were many merchants cleaning up their stalls even this late into the afternoon. She stopped Dayn in an alley, and said, "We'll do a warm-up. Wait here for one minute, then find me. Use your senses if you want. Don't attract any attention, though; don't look like you're looking for me." She gave him a quick kiss, then walked away, turned a corner, and ran a few blocks, dodging between stalls and in-and-out of shops so he couldn't smell her out as easily. She ducked into an alley and sat down behind a water barrel, then pulled out her dagger. They needed to test Dayn's reactions, and they needed to be able to be sure that he could control the wolf. She dragged the blade lightly across her left palm, then waited. What would he do if he smellt her blood...?

 

[BookWyrm]

Dayn waited patiently for the minute to pass before following after Arryn, her scent trail obvious against the other smells he was accustomed to. He moved carefully in and out of the streets and alley ways as he trailed after her, making sure to keep out of sight and avoiding drawing attention to himself by sticking to lesser traveled sections of the city that ran parallel to the path Arryn had taken. As he came closer to the location Arryn had stopped in the faint smell of blood brought Dayn swiftly to attention. Had she ran into another old enemy? Instinct kicking in Dayn closed the distance between them swiftly. Having two distinct smells to track her by made the process a lot quicker, and within a few minutes Dayn had closed in on the alley way where Arryn had hidden. He edged up to the corner, peaking around carefully as his eyes shifted, allowing him to see in the darkened space before he barged in, his hand on his blade as he cut the corner only to find Arryn sitting behind a water barrel, her knife in hand. Some time between moving into the alley and discovering Arryn Dayn had partially shifted, his protective instinct causing the shift to happen. Luckily for him he hadn't shifted further, his body mass had grown considerably, and his muscles bulged against his clothes, his face protruding out into a snout as his body took on a more wolf-life appearance.


When he growled in place of speaking Dayn suddenly realized he had started to shift. <I'm going to go ahead and guess the blood was to test my reaction?>

 

[Dragongal]

Arryn smiled up at him apologetically and healed her wound before standing and walking up to him, gently laying her hand against his cheek, gently saying, "Yes, I'm sorry dearest, but we're still figuring this out." She smiled slightly and said, "I swear on my father's grave, I will never do it again. Ok?"Arryn felt slightly guilty about the whole thing, but it was something she needed to know.