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lucathiaI think I've hit a writer's block. ): (Because...17k, and they're still just standing around??) It doesn't help that November's halfway over, but I haven't written enough for November to be halfway over. I only have 15 days left to write all the rest! *flails* It's really time to get the plot moving. I actually wrote part of something that might actually help move this thing along, but then, this part happened so I had to scrap that other part. Now Rykatu and Tekatme are still milling about. ): I haven't deleted the other bit that I wrote (it's still part of my word count), but it doesn't really fit anymore either.
I was also second guessing myself with Rykatu and Tekatme here and asking myself, would they act this way?? I think Tekatme's speech has been a bit constrained lately. I should add some more curse words to his vocabulary, hahaha. He's feeling very limited by only being allowed to use "lord".
I finally named a few of the side characters (yay!) but haven't had a chance to use those new shiny names yet. I created a new minor character yesterday to go along with a future character, but I think he might actually turn out to have a larger part, haha. I'm wondering how to bring in the other characters when I'm focusing so much on Rykatu and Tekatme at the moment. =x They weren't supposed to have so much of the focus. I was thinking of keeping the current story to just Rykatu and Tekatme's POVs and then switching gears after this first plot wraps up... but maybe I'll actually end up spending 50k words on this "first plot" haha, and then those other characters will never see the light of day. -___-; Or maybe I can just keep on with two POVs and describe the others through these two POVs... ahhh, gotta decide. This is why I'm stuck. XD; I keep starting bits from a new character's POV and then thinking it doesn't fit at all. =/
Google docs stopped working for me today, so I downloaded my NaNo story as a doc and am now writing with Word. It's 35 pages long so far. Didn't know that. :3 Would be shorter without the double line breaks between paragraphs.
Part 5 ~2726 words (...shorter than the other parts since part of my word count was for a completely different scene)
RYKATU
The time passed quickly, perhaps thanks to all the foreign things Rykatu was learning. They picked up his knife, explored the village some more, had lunch, and were now on their way to spend more of Rykatu’s gold, or so Tekatme had claimed. Throughout the day, Rykatu could feel Tekatme’s gaze on him now and then, so Rykatu had also taken to studying his escort, who was turning out to be a very lively person. Being in Tekatme’s presence was actually fairly tiring, since the young man seemed to expect Rykatu to talk, and Tekatme was the type who reacted strongly to everything. His sudden, loud exclamations often jolted Rykatu out of his thoughts, just like right now.
“Lord, leave the poor cat alone!” yelled Tekatme at two of the village children. He was rubbing his nose furiously as he yelled. Rykatu looked over and saw two young humans who were tugging on a black cat in separate ways, as if they were fighting over who had the right to hold the cat. When they heard Tekatme’s reprimand, they dropped the cat and ran, though one of them was cheeky enough to turn around and stick her tongue out at Tekatme.
That wasn’t going to go over well with Tekatme. Rykatu soon heard a low growl come from his escort. “Why you!” He looked like he was about to chase after them, but when Rykatu knelt down and held his hand out to the black cat, Tekatme stopped in his tracks to peer down curiously, growl dying in his throat.
After being dropped, the cat had landed on its feet, but Tekatme’s voice spooked it. The cat backed itself into the corner. It crouched low, ready to leap away at the slightest hint of danger.
Rykatu didn’t move at all. He waited patiently for the cat to approach him. When the cat took a few tentative steps forward, nails clicking on the stone pavement, and started sniffing at Rykatu’s hand, Rykatu cautiously inched his hand forward and petted the cat between its ears.
When the black cat started rubbing its head against Rykatu’s hand, Rykatu took that to be a good sign. He ran his hand through the cat’s fur and felt the cat nudge him.
“The lord?” exclaimed Tekatme, flabbergasted by the scene in front of him.
By then, Rykatu had the cat in his arms, tail curved around his forearm. The positioning made his arm and chest feel very warm. The cat kept nudging Rykatu for more attention. He absentmindedly scratched the cat underneath its jaws. A slow rumbling started until it grew into an outright purr.
“Huh, I never would’ve thought dragons and cats get along so well,” said Tekatme in surprise.
“Mother claims dragons are fairly feline,” murmured Rykatu as he remembered the feeling of his mother’s hand in his own hair. She sometimes called him a great big cat. Perhaps there was some truth in that, since his mother's touch had been soothing. In his transformed state, he liked it even better when his mother scratched his scales for him since it was a little difficult to reach them himself.
“Really?” asked Tekatme incredulously. He was staring again, as he had been doing all day. After a moment, he lowered himself so he was closer to eye level with the cat. “Hello there, little kitty-”
Before Tekatme could finish greeting the black cat, Rykatu felt the cat in his arms lash out, muscles contracting.
“Lord! What was that for!” exclaimed Tekatme, narrowly missing having his face scratched out. The used-to-be-purring cat in Rykatu’s arm was now hissing and wriggling so much that Rykatu knelt down and let it jump out of his arms.
The cat turned, tail high in the air, and leaped away, disappearing between two of the shops. Rykatu only caught a glimpse of its black tail before it disappeared all together.
TEKATME
“FINE,” yelled Tekatme at the cat even though it was completely ignoring him and soon vanished from sight. “Be that way. I don’t like you anyway! Your breath stinks of fish!”
Lord, he had only been trying to introduce himself amiably to the cat. Overreaction or what? He had thought that maybe, since the cat had been so docile in Rykatu’s arms, maybe this time would’ve been different.
But nope. The number of yowling kitties trying to scratch his eyes out had gone up by one, and he had almost earned a battle scar to show for it. Cats really seemed to hate his guts. Whenever he got near them, there were two ways they reacted - one, scratch on sight; two, hightail and run. Lord, were they all in some kind of conspiracy to hurt his feelings? It wasn’t like he was out to harm them or anything! Hadn’t he saved that lord forbidden cat from those little monsters? That cat should’ve been grateful. It had totally been sucking up to the wrong person. It wasn’t like Rykatu had helped or anything.
In the end, he guessed it was how much his scent screamed “DOG” to them that set them off. It wasn’t something that he could help, even though he was only distantly related through his dad’s side. Tekatme took pride in his ancestry though, so he wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. If only the rest of his family thought the same way!
Tekatme glanced at Rykatu, who had stood back up and was smoothing his clothes down. So dragons were kind of feline themselves? He sure learned something new today. He also remembered the other part of Rykatu’s statement.
“Your mom sounds like an interesting person,” remarked Tekatme, wondering what kind of relationship Rykatu had with his mom. The way he addressed her was so formal, but she sounded like she had interesting thoughts. Was his mom like him? He couldn’t imagine two of Rykatu staring at him yet not staring at him. That would totally freak him out. He didn’t really know what moms were supposed to be like though, since, for as long as he could remember, there had only been his dad and his older sister. Tekatme was pretty sure Rykatu’s mom was nothing like Tekatme’s older sister. Thank lord for that. One of his older sister was plenty.
Rykatu inclined his head in some kind of affirmative.
...was that it?
“So does she look like you?” Tekatme asked.
Rykatu shook his head once. He had that faraway look again. Tekatme was really, really tempted to snap his fingers to see what’d happen...so he did just that. Since he’d already had the thought more than once anyway. Lord, he’d behaved perfectly up until now, right?
He’d forgotten, however, how his snaps might be just a bit alarming if you weren’t ready for them.
When Tekatme snapped his fingers, he didn’t just produce the usual noise that came along with snapping. Like his dad, in addition to the snazzy sound he made, his snaps came accompanied with fire. This time was no different. A tiny blaze sprung out from his fingers and danced in his open palm, illuminating Rykatu’s eyes.
Rykatu’s reaction was way more than he had anticipated.
In a split second, even as Tekatme was extinguishing the blaze, Tekatme felt something sharp pressed against his neck. He hadn’t even had enough time to see the guy move. One moment, they’d still been a feet apart. The next, Rykatu had closed the gap and was in Tekatme’s face. Rykatu stared directly at him, his eyes narrow.
“Whoa,” said Tekatme. He let the fire in his palm dissipate. Whatever Rykatu had against his neck was cold as steel, maybe even colder, but it wasn’t metal. He could feel it dig in just a bit deeper as he swallowed. What Tekatme smelled was magic, lots and lots of magic. It smelled so strong that he almost couldn’t smell Rykatu’s sudden apprehension, and was that...envy? But it was there. He’d definitely gotten more than he had bargained for. It was like going out to buy an apple and coming back with a barrel full of bananas instead. A good deal, but not what he wanted. Or something like that. He was lousy at analogies.
The look in Rykatu’s eyes was really chilling. He’d thought he’d startle Rykatu out of his daze, but he hadn’t thought Rykatu would react so violently. Definitely more than what Tekatme had bargained for, and now Tekatme could totally see the resemblance between Rykatu and those cats that he always pissed off. Rykatu’s mom must be a smart lady for noticing the similarities.
“Sorry about that,” said Tekatme carefully. He winced when he felt his skin break. What exactly did Rykatu have pressed against his neck? Even with Rykatu’s newly sharpened knife, Tekatme’s skin shouldn’t be that easy to break.
“You use fire,” said Rykatu. A statement, not a question. His voice was calm as usual, but the scent he gave off spoke of a different story.
Was there something wrong with using fire? He’d thought Rykatu used the same element - Tekatme had definitely smelled fire from the guy - but now he wasn’t so sure since the magic he smelled now was completely different. The only fire he could smell at the moment was the fire from his own little magic show, which had been really stupid of him. A complete spur of the moment thing. He’d been lulled into a false sense of calm with how Rykatu had been behaving. The saying - don’t incur a dragon’s wrath if you want your head intact - was pretty spot on, really, since it seemed like Tekatme’s head was currently in danger. He had a feeling that the saying had more to do with a dragon’s claws and teeth than their magic though, but that didn’t change the fact that he was facing a provoked dragon with no idea about what said dragon was capable of.
“I do use fire,” replied Tekatme. Now, how was he supposed to get himself out of this situation? Was he fast enough to retaliate without too much damage? The trickle of blood running down his neck was telling him sudden movement probably wasn’t a good idea, but lord, this was his chance, wasn’t it? What other chance would he have to fight against Rykatu? He could already imagine the scene playing out in his mind.
Good lord, this was stupid of him, but Tekatme was stupid like that, and he was probably going to be out of a job after this and maybe he'll even have the entire dragon tribe after him if he couldn't explain himself well enough because lord knew he downright sucked at explaining himself but that was all right because it was probably time to skip town and everything.
His thoughts were derailing, fast.
Think, he thought to himself. Think, and get your ass out of there.
Rykatu was taking no chances and had whatever that sharp object was pressed closely against Tekatme's neck, but he wasn't doing anything to prevent Tekatme from moving backwards. He probably thought having something sharp enough to draw blood against your neck was enough to keep anyone from moving, but yeah, Tekatme wasn't just anyone.
He leaped backwards.
He winced when the slit on his neck turned into a gash. He landed a good ten feet away from the guy, sliding for the last few, one hand on the ground to keep balance, one hand on his neck to stop the bleeding. Rykatu didn't chase after him. Rather, he stood poised to fight. The air was thick with the scent of Rykatu's magic and Tekatme's blood, so much that it was almost hard to breathe.
Now that he was farther away, he could finally see what Rykatu had been threatening him with. Like Tekatme had smelled with his nose, what Rykatu held wasn't a knife, but it certainly looked enough like a knife to Tekatme. He would've thought it a knife if his nose hadn't told him otherwise. As Tekatme watched, Rykatu held his hand to the right and gathered more magic into his arm until a much longer sword grew from the dainty little knife he had held. It almost looked like the sword was growing out of his arm, and maybe it was.
Tekatme's nostrils flared.
"Crystallized water?" Now that Rykatu's weapon was much larger - why the lord did Rykatu need a knife when he could do that - he could tell that what Rykatu wielded was ice.
Tekatme placed a hand on the handle of his katana, ready to draw it if Rykatu was to spring forward.
When the swing came, Tekatme pulled out his katana, cloth unfurling in the air. He blocked blow for blow. Rykatu was fast and deadly, so much more skilled than nearly all of Veline's guards Tekatme had been pitted against. When Rykatu realized that he wasn't getting through, he gathered magic in his left arm and began a second barrage with two swords instead of one.
Lord, that was cool, but this was no time to be impressed.
With a clang, Tekatme blocked both swords at once and threw Rykatu back. Although Rykatu was quick, he didn't nearly have as much power as Tekatme had. Chips of ice flaked from Rykatu's makeshift swords. Tekatme smelled another surge of magic; the swords magically mended themselves in front of his eyes, ice extending from Rykatu's hands to fill in the chipped areas.
Ice huh? That meant his fire could melt those things. "Could" being the key word. Tekatme wasn't able to produce more than a cute little flame. Good for lighting torches or campfires, but not good for much more than that. Which meant it was useless in a fight, though it could come in use as a distraction of some sort, but that was boring. Lord, if Rykatu could make swords out of ice, then maybe it was also possible for him to make swords out of fire? Still, he'd never give up his weapons.
He grinned as he slashed forward with his katana, hearing his blade sing in the air. The feel of a real weapon in his hand was irreplaceable. Wielding them depended on his skill, not his magic. Replacing them with magic would take the fun out of things.
Rykatu met his swing with his own, the shock vibrating up Tekatme's arm. The dragon had his eyes narrowed again.
Steel blade against Rykatu's magic-made one, Tekatme spoke.
"You know, I wasn't trying to harm you." And if he seriously had the intent to injure, he would be doing a lot more than blocking and forcing Rykatu back.
Another swing. Still, even this was exhilarating.
"And I can't do much fire but that little flame you just saw," he added as he parried once more.
Suddenly, Rykatu vanished from sight. He landed softly a good distance away from Tekatme. He didn't relax his fighting stance, but he wasn't rabidly going after Tekatme's neck anymore either.
Rykatu was really behaving like a spooked cat, seriously.
“Sorry, I was just trying to get your attention,” explained Tekatme, katana by his side. “I just did it in a stupid way.”
Disbelief. Wariness. And then finally, not quite relief, but close, though still mixed with distrust. In these few short seconds, Rykatu smelled of more different emotions than he had smelled of for the entire day, but it seemed that Rykatu had come to a quick decision and was already sending his emotions packing.
Tekatme felt it when the magic in the air finally faded. It almost felt like it was easier to breathe now. The swords in Rykatu's hands dissolved into water, splashing the stone pavement below their feet. Tekatme relaxed his own stance, wondering if it was safe enough for him to pick up the cloth he'd been using to wrap his katana. It was on the ground, and water from Rykatu's dissolved swords was slowing seeping into the cloth.
"I overreacted," Rykatu said.
No shit.
Tekatme was only one step away from laughing in Rykatu's face, but he'd already provoked the guy enough for one day, and he finally noticed that a sizable crowd had gathered to watch the commotion. When the hell had that happened? They were practically surrounded.
Lord, as if he weren't infamous enough already.
Goal for tomorrow. Get the plot going!!
I was also second guessing myself with Rykatu and Tekatme here and asking myself, would they act this way?? I think Tekatme's speech has been a bit constrained lately. I should add some more curse words to his vocabulary, hahaha. He's feeling very limited by only being allowed to use "lord".
I finally named a few of the side characters (yay!) but haven't had a chance to use those new shiny names yet. I created a new minor character yesterday to go along with a future character, but I think he might actually turn out to have a larger part, haha. I'm wondering how to bring in the other characters when I'm focusing so much on Rykatu and Tekatme at the moment. =x They weren't supposed to have so much of the focus. I was thinking of keeping the current story to just Rykatu and Tekatme's POVs and then switching gears after this first plot wraps up... but maybe I'll actually end up spending 50k words on this "first plot" haha, and then those other characters will never see the light of day. -___-; Or maybe I can just keep on with two POVs and describe the others through these two POVs... ahhh, gotta decide. This is why I'm stuck. XD; I keep starting bits from a new character's POV and then thinking it doesn't fit at all. =/
Google docs stopped working for me today, so I downloaded my NaNo story as a doc and am now writing with Word. It's 35 pages long so far. Didn't know that. :3 Would be shorter without the double line breaks between paragraphs.
Part 5 ~2726 words (...shorter than the other parts since part of my word count was for a completely different scene)
RYKATU
The time passed quickly, perhaps thanks to all the foreign things Rykatu was learning. They picked up his knife, explored the village some more, had lunch, and were now on their way to spend more of Rykatu’s gold, or so Tekatme had claimed. Throughout the day, Rykatu could feel Tekatme’s gaze on him now and then, so Rykatu had also taken to studying his escort, who was turning out to be a very lively person. Being in Tekatme’s presence was actually fairly tiring, since the young man seemed to expect Rykatu to talk, and Tekatme was the type who reacted strongly to everything. His sudden, loud exclamations often jolted Rykatu out of his thoughts, just like right now.
“Lord, leave the poor cat alone!” yelled Tekatme at two of the village children. He was rubbing his nose furiously as he yelled. Rykatu looked over and saw two young humans who were tugging on a black cat in separate ways, as if they were fighting over who had the right to hold the cat. When they heard Tekatme’s reprimand, they dropped the cat and ran, though one of them was cheeky enough to turn around and stick her tongue out at Tekatme.
That wasn’t going to go over well with Tekatme. Rykatu soon heard a low growl come from his escort. “Why you!” He looked like he was about to chase after them, but when Rykatu knelt down and held his hand out to the black cat, Tekatme stopped in his tracks to peer down curiously, growl dying in his throat.
After being dropped, the cat had landed on its feet, but Tekatme’s voice spooked it. The cat backed itself into the corner. It crouched low, ready to leap away at the slightest hint of danger.
Rykatu didn’t move at all. He waited patiently for the cat to approach him. When the cat took a few tentative steps forward, nails clicking on the stone pavement, and started sniffing at Rykatu’s hand, Rykatu cautiously inched his hand forward and petted the cat between its ears.
When the black cat started rubbing its head against Rykatu’s hand, Rykatu took that to be a good sign. He ran his hand through the cat’s fur and felt the cat nudge him.
“The lord?” exclaimed Tekatme, flabbergasted by the scene in front of him.
By then, Rykatu had the cat in his arms, tail curved around his forearm. The positioning made his arm and chest feel very warm. The cat kept nudging Rykatu for more attention. He absentmindedly scratched the cat underneath its jaws. A slow rumbling started until it grew into an outright purr.
“Huh, I never would’ve thought dragons and cats get along so well,” said Tekatme in surprise.
“Mother claims dragons are fairly feline,” murmured Rykatu as he remembered the feeling of his mother’s hand in his own hair. She sometimes called him a great big cat. Perhaps there was some truth in that, since his mother's touch had been soothing. In his transformed state, he liked it even better when his mother scratched his scales for him since it was a little difficult to reach them himself.
“Really?” asked Tekatme incredulously. He was staring again, as he had been doing all day. After a moment, he lowered himself so he was closer to eye level with the cat. “Hello there, little kitty-”
Before Tekatme could finish greeting the black cat, Rykatu felt the cat in his arms lash out, muscles contracting.
“Lord! What was that for!” exclaimed Tekatme, narrowly missing having his face scratched out. The used-to-be-purring cat in Rykatu’s arm was now hissing and wriggling so much that Rykatu knelt down and let it jump out of his arms.
The cat turned, tail high in the air, and leaped away, disappearing between two of the shops. Rykatu only caught a glimpse of its black tail before it disappeared all together.
TEKATME
“FINE,” yelled Tekatme at the cat even though it was completely ignoring him and soon vanished from sight. “Be that way. I don’t like you anyway! Your breath stinks of fish!”
Lord, he had only been trying to introduce himself amiably to the cat. Overreaction or what? He had thought that maybe, since the cat had been so docile in Rykatu’s arms, maybe this time would’ve been different.
But nope. The number of yowling kitties trying to scratch his eyes out had gone up by one, and he had almost earned a battle scar to show for it. Cats really seemed to hate his guts. Whenever he got near them, there were two ways they reacted - one, scratch on sight; two, hightail and run. Lord, were they all in some kind of conspiracy to hurt his feelings? It wasn’t like he was out to harm them or anything! Hadn’t he saved that lord forbidden cat from those little monsters? That cat should’ve been grateful. It had totally been sucking up to the wrong person. It wasn’t like Rykatu had helped or anything.
In the end, he guessed it was how much his scent screamed “DOG” to them that set them off. It wasn’t something that he could help, even though he was only distantly related through his dad’s side. Tekatme took pride in his ancestry though, so he wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. If only the rest of his family thought the same way!
Tekatme glanced at Rykatu, who had stood back up and was smoothing his clothes down. So dragons were kind of feline themselves? He sure learned something new today. He also remembered the other part of Rykatu’s statement.
“Your mom sounds like an interesting person,” remarked Tekatme, wondering what kind of relationship Rykatu had with his mom. The way he addressed her was so formal, but she sounded like she had interesting thoughts. Was his mom like him? He couldn’t imagine two of Rykatu staring at him yet not staring at him. That would totally freak him out. He didn’t really know what moms were supposed to be like though, since, for as long as he could remember, there had only been his dad and his older sister. Tekatme was pretty sure Rykatu’s mom was nothing like Tekatme’s older sister. Thank lord for that. One of his older sister was plenty.
Rykatu inclined his head in some kind of affirmative.
...was that it?
“So does she look like you?” Tekatme asked.
Rykatu shook his head once. He had that faraway look again. Tekatme was really, really tempted to snap his fingers to see what’d happen...so he did just that. Since he’d already had the thought more than once anyway. Lord, he’d behaved perfectly up until now, right?
He’d forgotten, however, how his snaps might be just a bit alarming if you weren’t ready for them.
When Tekatme snapped his fingers, he didn’t just produce the usual noise that came along with snapping. Like his dad, in addition to the snazzy sound he made, his snaps came accompanied with fire. This time was no different. A tiny blaze sprung out from his fingers and danced in his open palm, illuminating Rykatu’s eyes.
Rykatu’s reaction was way more than he had anticipated.
In a split second, even as Tekatme was extinguishing the blaze, Tekatme felt something sharp pressed against his neck. He hadn’t even had enough time to see the guy move. One moment, they’d still been a feet apart. The next, Rykatu had closed the gap and was in Tekatme’s face. Rykatu stared directly at him, his eyes narrow.
“Whoa,” said Tekatme. He let the fire in his palm dissipate. Whatever Rykatu had against his neck was cold as steel, maybe even colder, but it wasn’t metal. He could feel it dig in just a bit deeper as he swallowed. What Tekatme smelled was magic, lots and lots of magic. It smelled so strong that he almost couldn’t smell Rykatu’s sudden apprehension, and was that...envy? But it was there. He’d definitely gotten more than he had bargained for. It was like going out to buy an apple and coming back with a barrel full of bananas instead. A good deal, but not what he wanted. Or something like that. He was lousy at analogies.
The look in Rykatu’s eyes was really chilling. He’d thought he’d startle Rykatu out of his daze, but he hadn’t thought Rykatu would react so violently. Definitely more than what Tekatme had bargained for, and now Tekatme could totally see the resemblance between Rykatu and those cats that he always pissed off. Rykatu’s mom must be a smart lady for noticing the similarities.
“Sorry about that,” said Tekatme carefully. He winced when he felt his skin break. What exactly did Rykatu have pressed against his neck? Even with Rykatu’s newly sharpened knife, Tekatme’s skin shouldn’t be that easy to break.
“You use fire,” said Rykatu. A statement, not a question. His voice was calm as usual, but the scent he gave off spoke of a different story.
Was there something wrong with using fire? He’d thought Rykatu used the same element - Tekatme had definitely smelled fire from the guy - but now he wasn’t so sure since the magic he smelled now was completely different. The only fire he could smell at the moment was the fire from his own little magic show, which had been really stupid of him. A complete spur of the moment thing. He’d been lulled into a false sense of calm with how Rykatu had been behaving. The saying - don’t incur a dragon’s wrath if you want your head intact - was pretty spot on, really, since it seemed like Tekatme’s head was currently in danger. He had a feeling that the saying had more to do with a dragon’s claws and teeth than their magic though, but that didn’t change the fact that he was facing a provoked dragon with no idea about what said dragon was capable of.
“I do use fire,” replied Tekatme. Now, how was he supposed to get himself out of this situation? Was he fast enough to retaliate without too much damage? The trickle of blood running down his neck was telling him sudden movement probably wasn’t a good idea, but lord, this was his chance, wasn’t it? What other chance would he have to fight against Rykatu? He could already imagine the scene playing out in his mind.
Good lord, this was stupid of him, but Tekatme was stupid like that, and he was probably going to be out of a job after this and maybe he'll even have the entire dragon tribe after him if he couldn't explain himself well enough because lord knew he downright sucked at explaining himself but that was all right because it was probably time to skip town and everything.
His thoughts were derailing, fast.
Think, he thought to himself. Think, and get your ass out of there.
Rykatu was taking no chances and had whatever that sharp object was pressed closely against Tekatme's neck, but he wasn't doing anything to prevent Tekatme from moving backwards. He probably thought having something sharp enough to draw blood against your neck was enough to keep anyone from moving, but yeah, Tekatme wasn't just anyone.
He leaped backwards.
He winced when the slit on his neck turned into a gash. He landed a good ten feet away from the guy, sliding for the last few, one hand on the ground to keep balance, one hand on his neck to stop the bleeding. Rykatu didn't chase after him. Rather, he stood poised to fight. The air was thick with the scent of Rykatu's magic and Tekatme's blood, so much that it was almost hard to breathe.
Now that he was farther away, he could finally see what Rykatu had been threatening him with. Like Tekatme had smelled with his nose, what Rykatu held wasn't a knife, but it certainly looked enough like a knife to Tekatme. He would've thought it a knife if his nose hadn't told him otherwise. As Tekatme watched, Rykatu held his hand to the right and gathered more magic into his arm until a much longer sword grew from the dainty little knife he had held. It almost looked like the sword was growing out of his arm, and maybe it was.
Tekatme's nostrils flared.
"Crystallized water?" Now that Rykatu's weapon was much larger - why the lord did Rykatu need a knife when he could do that - he could tell that what Rykatu wielded was ice.
Tekatme placed a hand on the handle of his katana, ready to draw it if Rykatu was to spring forward.
When the swing came, Tekatme pulled out his katana, cloth unfurling in the air. He blocked blow for blow. Rykatu was fast and deadly, so much more skilled than nearly all of Veline's guards Tekatme had been pitted against. When Rykatu realized that he wasn't getting through, he gathered magic in his left arm and began a second barrage with two swords instead of one.
Lord, that was cool, but this was no time to be impressed.
With a clang, Tekatme blocked both swords at once and threw Rykatu back. Although Rykatu was quick, he didn't nearly have as much power as Tekatme had. Chips of ice flaked from Rykatu's makeshift swords. Tekatme smelled another surge of magic; the swords magically mended themselves in front of his eyes, ice extending from Rykatu's hands to fill in the chipped areas.
Ice huh? That meant his fire could melt those things. "Could" being the key word. Tekatme wasn't able to produce more than a cute little flame. Good for lighting torches or campfires, but not good for much more than that. Which meant it was useless in a fight, though it could come in use as a distraction of some sort, but that was boring. Lord, if Rykatu could make swords out of ice, then maybe it was also possible for him to make swords out of fire? Still, he'd never give up his weapons.
He grinned as he slashed forward with his katana, hearing his blade sing in the air. The feel of a real weapon in his hand was irreplaceable. Wielding them depended on his skill, not his magic. Replacing them with magic would take the fun out of things.
Rykatu met his swing with his own, the shock vibrating up Tekatme's arm. The dragon had his eyes narrowed again.
Steel blade against Rykatu's magic-made one, Tekatme spoke.
"You know, I wasn't trying to harm you." And if he seriously had the intent to injure, he would be doing a lot more than blocking and forcing Rykatu back.
Another swing. Still, even this was exhilarating.
"And I can't do much fire but that little flame you just saw," he added as he parried once more.
Suddenly, Rykatu vanished from sight. He landed softly a good distance away from Tekatme. He didn't relax his fighting stance, but he wasn't rabidly going after Tekatme's neck anymore either.
Rykatu was really behaving like a spooked cat, seriously.
“Sorry, I was just trying to get your attention,” explained Tekatme, katana by his side. “I just did it in a stupid way.”
Disbelief. Wariness. And then finally, not quite relief, but close, though still mixed with distrust. In these few short seconds, Rykatu smelled of more different emotions than he had smelled of for the entire day, but it seemed that Rykatu had come to a quick decision and was already sending his emotions packing.
Tekatme felt it when the magic in the air finally faded. It almost felt like it was easier to breathe now. The swords in Rykatu's hands dissolved into water, splashing the stone pavement below their feet. Tekatme relaxed his own stance, wondering if it was safe enough for him to pick up the cloth he'd been using to wrap his katana. It was on the ground, and water from Rykatu's dissolved swords was slowing seeping into the cloth.
"I overreacted," Rykatu said.
No shit.
Tekatme was only one step away from laughing in Rykatu's face, but he'd already provoked the guy enough for one day, and he finally noticed that a sizable crowd had gathered to watch the commotion. When the hell had that happened? They were practically surrounded.
Lord, as if he weren't infamous enough already.
Goal for tomorrow. Get the plot going!!
