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lucathiaWell, I managed today's word count, but I haven't made up for the past two days yet! Still, there's hope! I'm just floored by my writing buddies who've already written over 20k. I'm looking at you, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
absolutehymn007 and nitaspitas. =P
I've been needing to open my NaNo from last year as reference since my main character this time was also featured in last year's NaNo (but not exactly as the main character). Trying to get details about him straight isn't as easy as I thought it'd be! I wonder if his characterization even feels the same. (For one, he's not throwing around the word "lord" as much as he did last year... but maybe he'll do that more later).
Well, here's the very boring prologue that almost made me want to stop writing. XD; It rambled a lot, so I decided to cut it down by 900 words. I feel beginnings should have more momentum, but I've failed hard at that!
Whee, widget! It wasn't showing up for me before, but now it is! I have so many yellow boxes littered through mine... *mopes*
Prologue
~5,442
The beginning of Tekatme's journey didn't start with a bang or anything, and there wasn't any point in his journey that was particularly life-altering, certainly not the kind where you woke up and thought, "Man, what the lord have I been doing up until now?", but stuff did happen, like discovering some important stuff, getting toyed around by a goddess, playing hero after being mistaken for someone else, the whole nine yards (he even gained a sidekick, but he didn't ask for it, okay?), and he guessed you could say that he grew up along the way.
He did grow one year older after all, and maybe a little less brash. Though not by much.
This was how his not-so-enlightening journey began, with a bout of impatience, much like how many things in his lifetime began.
Tekatme was not known for his composure. Over his nineteen years of life, he'd had his fair share of brawls because of his temper and his lack of patience. Being good at fighting didn't help matters, since it only meant his opponents came out a lot more injured than he did while he got nothing out of the fights except for disgruntlement over dashed expectations. That, and getting yelled at.
This was such a time when his temper got the better of him, but it wasn't his fault.
"Tekatme!"
When his older sister yelled at him to stop, it was already too late. Not that he had any intention to pull back even with her shrieking like a banshee in his ear. If his hearing had anything on his nose, he'd be deaf by now.
With a satisfying wham, Tekatme's fist connected with the Mayor's son's face. Or more accurately, the bastard's eye, because on top of sneering, the bastard had the nerve to leer at his sister. Oh no. You did not do that in front of Tekatme unless you wanted a black eye.
So that was what Tekatme gave the guy.
He sent the Mayor's son flying into a stack of barrels, the barrels tumbling upon impact. One even burst open, mead spilling out onto the dirt ground, filling his nose with the scent of burnt rubber - someone was selling mead that smelled like that? yuck - that almost served to cover the bastard's ever-present smell that reminded him of the sea. Everyone carried a scent, but the Mayor's son's scent was one Tekatme disliked. A lot. He'd even take burnt rubber over that scent. Vaguely, he heard gasps and faint murmurings from what was probably a flock of gossipers up to no good, but none of the spectators' commentary was loud enough to pierce through the blood that was roaring in his ears.
Someone grabbed his arm. Someone unhappy from the smell of things. He wretched his arm out of that person's grasp but was immediately grabbed again. He tugged forcefully, snarling and swearing, but the next whiff stilled him even before she spoke. All the different smells in the air - now mixed with the heavy scent of revulsion and the unwanted stink of derision - almost made him unable to tell that she was still next to him, but her scent was unmistakable. It was citrusy and sharp, sometimes sweet but more often sour when it came to Tekatme.
"Stop this," his sister hissed. "You are behaving like a savage. Do I need to wash your mouth with soap?"
His sister had an iron grip.
Tekatme growled, hands clenched and trembling with his fury. His nails dug into his palms, hard enough to draw blood. He knew his sister hated it when he swore, and she hated it when he used his fists, so doing both had definitely ticked her off, but he had good reason. "You heard what he said about you. About Dad. About Mom." And that look, that demeaning look that infuriated Tekatme so much that he just had to sock the guy in the eye, told him that the Mayor's son thought they were all lower than the dirt below his fancy shoes.
Well, who was eating dirt now, huh?
Before him, the Mayor's son lay curled on the muddy ground that was steeped in mead, one hand half stuck in the barrel that had burst open, the other hand covering his eye in his pain.
"You will pay for this!" gasped the Mayor's son as he struggled to stand up, blond hair in disarray, his pristine clothes now speckled with mead and dirt. "Don't think you won't hear from my father!"
With that, the bastard limped away. The gossiping crowd parted before him since he was the Mayor's son, and therefore someone you didn't want to upset even if you disagreed with him, thought him immature, or downright hated his guts.
Tekatme, however, was exactly someone who didn't play by that rule.
If you wanted to find someone who felt all three of those unflattering feelings towards the Mayor's son, from disagreement to disdain to hatred, Tekatme was your guy, and he'd shout it to the world at the top of his lungs. Tekatme wasn't anything like the gossiping crowd that was willing to part for the bastard even if they didn't want to. He didn't know what he hated more, the pampering crowd for fueling and nurturing the bastard's idiocy by agreeing with him and, even worse, by turning a blind eye to his follies, or the Mayor's son himself for being such a bastard in the first place. Tekatme had no qualms about upsetting the bastard because he needed to be taken down a peg or two. Or more. Maybe a dozen.
He watched as the Mayor's son rudely shoved the people that didn't immediately part for him. Just because he was the Mayor's son, born to an important guy, did not give him the right to think he was better than everyone else! Entitlement or what?
He thought he'd feel satisfied seeing the Mayor's son practically running away from the fight, but he didn't feel satisfied even from the scent of humiliation that rolled off the Mayor's son in waves. His rage continued to burn within him, and he was trembling with the need to utterly pulverize something. Smart of the Mayor's son to retreat so quickly, or else his black eye would be the least of his concerns. The only reason Tekatme hadn't managed to destroy anything beyond the barrel of mead that had unfortunately served as an ineffective cushion for the Mayor's son's crash, mead spilling onto the ground to be lapped up by the dirt, was because his sister was still holding onto him with an iron grip.
It wasn't like he couldn't pull himself out of her grip, but there were lines even Tekatme didn't cross, and one of those was that he'd never raise his hand against his family.
"You are completely and utterly stupid, little brother," his sister hissed, grip tightening. "Don't think your temper tantrum helped our placing in the village at all!"
He heard them now, sound to go along with the emotions his nose had pieced together for him. He'd already known - scent didn't lie - but words put everything into startling clarity. They whispered about his violent behavior, about how his eyes had turned scarlet in his anger. He wasn't human, they said, no better than the beast he descended from, so quick to anger, so dependent on physical prowess instead of intelligence. They were like parrots, parroting back to Tekatme the insults that were never far from the Mayor's son's lips. Squawk, he's dangerous! Squawk, why are they even in the village?
Squawk, squawk, squawk!
Tekatme didn't care about these insults. He'd heard them all. What irked him was when the insults turned to his family. That was a line he'd let no one cross.
Not the villagers, not the Mayor's son, not even his own family because they were not beasts and his mom was not a slut and he'd allow no one to leer at his sister like she was one either.
They shouldn't have to lower themselves. They weren't the ones who were wrong. If only his dad and his sis would acknowledge that.
But no, who was he kidding? He should've known his spineless dad wouldn't see things his way, but he had hoped. He'd hoped that maybe his dad would finally come around because Tekatme was sick and tired of all this.
"Dad, you are not making sense!" Tekatme growled once his sister had dragged him back to their house and explained to their dad what had happened. He could not believe what his dad had just yelled at him.
Tekatme knew his dad wouldn't be too happy, but Tekatme hadn't thought his mild-tempered dad would actually fly into a rage. If Tekatme had any doubt that he was related to his dad, all doubt would've flown away at the thunderous look on his dad's face that made Tekatme and his dad look like they came from the same mold. After all, Tekatme had to have gotten his temper from somewhere even if his dad usually seemed like the gentlest person ever. He must've reached Zen or something sometime during his lifetime, maybe from all his years of experience of being a dad, leaving behind his anger-filled youth to become the most backbone-less dad ever, because you know, it takes patience to be a parent.
Tekatme couldn't imagine himself being so serene in the face of prejudice, but now his dad was actually angry and he wasn't faking it because the fiery scent was stifling and making Tekatme's nostrils flare. Normally, a gentle dad flying into a rage might be a cue for panic, but what Tekatme felt was rising frustration. Of all the times for his dad to become angry! He didn't understand how his dad could stand up for that stupid bastard and claim that Tekatme was the one in the wrong!
Dad and son stood face-to-face, neither wishing to back down. His dad used to be much taller than him, but soon Tekatme would overtake him, Tekatme was sure of it. Tekatme stared at his dad's sharp eyes that were normally so gentle, at the severe frown on his face and the wrinkles between his forehead. Gray hair wove between his orange strands like highlights, the trophy of his age and the hint that he knew better but Tekatme didn't believe that age made people right - maybe more astute but not necessarily wise - or that authority made people more responsible.
Usually Tekatme's brawls amounted to nothing, but arguments with his family always hurt the worst, like a knife stab to the chest complete with a cruel and violent twist. The anger inside of him simmered, waiting to burst out.
"He is making perfect sense, little brother," his sister said while twirling a strand of her long orange hair.
"Kikami, don't bait him," their dad, the almighty Omakate who thought himself wise, reprimanded.
"Fine," she huffed, dropping her hands to her side, letting the strand of hair she'd been toying with fall against her chest. His sister, overbearing Kikami who was just about the only one who could pummel him into the dirt but had no love for the thrill of fighting, pursed her lips. She didn't need him to defend her honor, he knew that, but she was his sister and would always be his sister. They were so much alike in so many ways, yet different in so many ways as well. Her temper was just as bad as his, but she knew how to veil her anger, how to sweet talk her way out of situations, how to poke him with her words in ways that would make him lash out in a fashion that could only be drawn out by bossy older sisters. Kikami was like a reflection of himself - their physical resemblance would leave no one guessing at whether or not they were related - but she was softer and wile while he was headstrong and brash.
"Tekatme, I'm disappointed in you," his dad said, voice controlled, no longer the startling loudness of their previous screaming match, but his level tones grated on Tekatme's nerves even more, like he was speaking to a child. Tekatme was no child, and his dad was baiting him a lot more than his sister at the moment. He didn't want to lash out, but his dad was making it so hard.
"Words are words. Ignore them, and they will do you no harm. By reacting as you did, you only proved their words right."
Tekatme scoffed. "You're kidding me. Do you seriously believe that? Have you heard what they say out there? You might not care what they say about you, or me, or Sis, but you should care about what they say about Mom! They said that she-"
"You don't have to tattle on them to me," his dad said with sigh, cutting off Tekatme's tirade. "I've heard."
"Y-You've heard yet you still let them walk all over you?" Tekatme gritted out. "I hate how spineless you are!"
The coil of red, hot fury stopped merely simmering - it surged and overtook his senses.
Enough was enough.
His eyes were probably bloodshot with how his anger coursed through him. They were burning.
Tekatme grabbed his katana. It was the only weapon he had in the room. He smelled surprise and resignation among the citrusy scent of his sister's and the smoky scent of his dad's when he stormed out of his childhood home, slamming the door behind him, sealing away the smells that had accompanied him since birth, ashy fireplace included. How he loved warming his hands in front of the fireplace, watching his dad ignite the flames with a snap of his fingers, all his no good dad was ever good for.
He didn't stop. He didn't look back.
He tossed his katana into his other hand. His spear was in the other room, or else he'd have grabbed that instead since he was better with a spear than a katana, but storming into the other room to grab his spear and then storming out of the house while passing his dad and sister again just didn't have the same effect.
His feet brought him all the way to the edge of the village. It was then that he smelled the hated scent of seawater that didn't belong in a village like this one that was far, far from the sea. Only a guy who loved seafood to death and who loved to fish would carry such a smell, and it suited him, the slippery bastard.
"Scram, Mikatko," Tekatme growled at the Mayor's son who must have been following Tekatme. He'd succeeded too with how Tekatme had been too overcome with fury to notice he was being followed.
"Pray tell what you think you're doing?" asked the dratted blond in that haughty voice of his.
"Leaving. You'll never have to see me again."
"Running away with your tail between your legs now?" drawled the Mayor's son, taking to opportunity to verbally kick Tekatme while he was already down. He was succeeding with this too because Tekatme's hackles were rising. Mikatko might think himself witty, but he wasn't, really. "I didn't know you were that intelligent. I'll have you know, Father already knows what happened, and-"
"Do you think I care?" Tekatme snarled, whirling around, two tufts of hair on both sides of his head bouncing upward in his motion like flapping mutt ears. He wasn't shocked by the ugly bruise mottling the pale skin of the Mayor's son because he'd expected it - he was the one who had put it there - but he was surprised by the whiff of misery he caught. He didn't quite know what to make of it.
"You should," Mikatko said, voice as snide as ever even though Tekatme's nose told him this was all a brave front, but he didn't understand what Mikatko was trying to do by egging him on. "Father is the Mayor and he can punish you for your act of violence and-"
Again, Tekatme cut him off. "Not if I leave. Isn't that good enough for you?"
With that, Tekatme left home without another word, the Mayor's son being the only one who knew he was actually leaving. He didn't bring any extra money or clothes. All he had was what he had on him - the clothes on his back and the katana in his hand. He didn't tell his dad or his sister where he was going because even he didn't know, but he had no plans on returning until his dad and his sister woke up from playing nice with the villagers who had no intention of giving them the same courtesy. He'd gone through nineteen years of life listening to his dad's reminders that this was their mom's hometown that she treasured greatly, and that this was where they had decided to settle together. Just because she had passed on did not mean that they should desert the place their mom was so attached to even if the village was already forgetting how much she had loved it.
Nineteen years of the same drivel. There was no way his dad was going to change his tune over a single night, and there was no way the village was going to forget that Tekatme, his sister, and his dad, were distantly descended from canines and therefore "not human" despite how very human they were.
Since things weren't going to change just like that, that meant Tekatme wasn't going to return for a long, long time.
Tekatme was being hotheaded and irresponsible, he knew this, but he didn't care.
-----
Crunch.
He'd been rash.
Yeah, understatement or what? Go ahead and laugh. Oh wait, there was no one to laugh at him. He could head home - there were plenty of people willing to laugh at him there - but would his pride let him? No way.
Below Tekatme's feet, leaves crinkled, heavy with the smell of decay from leaves that had fallen previously. He was probably squishing some poor snails and worms with each step of his. Oh look, now he was a mass murderer on top of being a deranged mutt. He wrinkled his nose and stepped away from the leaves.
He'd left home at the tail end of autumn, the air getting chillier and chillier as he traveled. He had no destination and nothing to his name. He let his feet carry him off onto paths he'd never taken before, each step becoming lighter and lighter as he walked away from all that had bound him previously. He was dirt poor and a nobody, but he'd never felt freer in his entire life. Some philosopher might be able to spin some deep stuff out of his mindless wandering, making it into all that, good for them, but to Tekatme it was just that. Mindless wandering.
It felt good. That was all he needed to know.
He didn't fish - he loathed fish for many, many reasons, especially since the smell was unbearable - but he hunted for food, drank from streams, and slept under the starry sky, which might've sounded romantic to some, but it wasn't. It was just cold. Cold, but freeing. Or more like freezing. During the mornings before the sun rose, Tekatme would rise and begin to practice with his katana, going through the motions so that he wouldn't forget his form. His blade would slice through the wind, singing in the crisp morning air as he turned and ducked and jumped. One slash. Up. Across. Two slashes. Thrust. Back step. Another slash. Then came the sun with its morning rays and all, bright but chilly nonetheless. No, Tekatme was not spouting poetry about beautiful mornings complete with dewdrops gathering on flowers, but nature was quite something. Fresh. Peaceful. Uncomplicated.
For the rest of the day, Tekatme would walk and walk and walk, pausing in his meandering whenever he saw suitable prey to hunt for that day's meals. He was lucky in that hunting hadn't been difficult and he hadn't needed to spend too much time just on hunting, but with winter coming, he was going to have more trouble. Around him, smells vanished one by one as winter slowly crept in.
At night, Tekatme would build himself a small fire to cook his food, coaxing a small flame into his palm. Fire magic ran in his family, another thing they were given the side eye for merely because it was different even though it wasn't unheard of even among those who were purely human without any blood of other species running through their veins. Tekatme was no whiz at it - and understood it even less - liking weapons and physical fighting much more than something as intangible as magic. He'd never sought to improve his fire magic, but at least what little he could do with it made things convenient. A small flame was all he could manage, and that was enough for him to cook his food. He'd toss the spark into the firewood, watching as the fire slowly caught on, burnt smell of crackling wood filling the air. It often reminded him of his dad, of winters spent around the fireplace with his sister, battling for the best spot in front of the fireplace to sprawl across their stomach, legs kicking in the air as they watched their dad tend to the fire.
Having memories of home dredged up made him scowl every night without fail.
At the start of winter, and still very much on his own, though he was proud to say that he'd fared pretty well with the resources he had (meaning, pretty much no resources), Tekatme's feet brought him to the outskirts of a town that was much larger than his own. It was large enough for him to blend in without anyone finding him out of place, as it received many travelers outside of Tekatme. He hadn't had company other than the wilderness for days - or was it weeks? While he didn't exactly crave companionship, the thought of a warm bed was alluring.
He almost went cross-eyed when a snowflake landed on his nose.
He headed inside.
He had no money, so he immediately looked for work. He lucked out that the bulletin board was full of notices looking for guards, fighters, and mercenaries, exactly up Tekatme's alley. He'd thought that he might need to help some farmers plant their crops - who knew, maybe people still planted even during winter, though Tekatme had no clue what plants were tenacious enough to brave the cold - or he might need to help someone look for their lost cat. Yeah cats. Cats and Tekatme did not mix, so it was a good thing, both for himself and for potentially lost kitties, that he didn't need to look for cats. They'd have scratched his eyes out. By "they", Tekatme meant the kitties, those dastardly little maggots that were so sweet and cuddly in anyone's hands but his.
Looking over the bulletin once more, Tekatme ripped one of the papers off.
The first job Tekatme took on was guarding some kind of vault. The posh guy who'd hired him hadn't explained much beyond the fact that he was supposed to guard the vault. A burglar broke in during his third shift. Tekatme smelled his apprehension even before he'd deigned to make an appearance. Gripping his katana, Tekatme very eagerly rendered the surprised burglar unconscious with a few well placed strokes, his way of thanking the guy for breaking the monotony of Tekatme's job, but the burglar was weak. Tekatme hadn't even needed to take his katana out of its scabbard.
It turned out the guy was some wanted criminal and that the vault had been a decoy which was not what Tekatme had signed up for, but the fight was nothing special. The money he earned was enough for a room at the inn, so whatever. He was angry, however, when Mr. Posh Guy decided that he no longer had need of Tekatme just because the burglar had already been caught (and who had helped him catch the burglar, huh?). Tekatme had been counting on the job to last him through the winter!
Tekatme probably shouldn't have punched the guy who'd hired him, but he did, so it was too late to consider that maybe throwing his fist out wasn't the best reaction (but at least it was marginally better than using his katana). Needless to say, even if he hadn't already been out of a job, he was now.
Wonderful.
The job had been boring though, so it was no loss.
The second job Tekatme took on was guarding some kind of noble woman who thankfully hadn't heard that Tekatme had punched the last guy who'd hired him, though she also neglected to tell him upfront that she had a cat. And that he was actually supposed to guard the cat. Not the woman. The cat. It was one of those white ones with long fur that made the cat look more like a walking duster than a cat. Seriously, the white thing was a walking bundle of fur, long fur dragging across the marble floor. Tekatme looked down at the floor, expecting it to be cleaner now that the furball had ambled across it. He'd only stayed at this job for no more than a day before he got into a fight. With the cat.
After flipping one of the tables just to throw the cat off - they'd stared at each other, the cat scratching him whenever its owner turned around and of course the lady didn't believe her sweet kitty could do any wrong - Tekatme was yet again out of a job.
Good riddance to that.
In such a way, Tekatme drifted from one job to the next, never keeping any particular job for long. When he exhausted all of the possible jobs the town had to offer and people began turning him away because his reputation preceded him (a reputation that his sister would have balked at), Tekatme knew it was time to leave town.
He'd figured that it would be hard for most people to tell he was part canine. It wasn't like he had furry ears or a tail or anything that particularly stood out from the norm.
He was right.
Not a single person at the town had given him any grief over that. It was his personality they found problems with.
Traveling through snowstorms wasn't very smart, but Tekatme had never claimed he was smart, so he did just that. Even though he really should have just stayed in town with the money he'd earned. It would've been enough, but no, he just had to be stupid because he couldn't stand staying for a second longer.
It was a miracle he hadn't frozen into a pillar of ice because of his stupidity.
Somehow, he escaped that fate. Much like how he had jumped from one job to the next, he now jumped from one village to the next, never stopping at any town for particularly long. He'd settle down long enough to earn some money, and if he was lucky, he'd manage to pick up some new skill thanks to all the miscellaneous jobs he took on, from guarding to hunting to exterminating monsters, but eventually he'd get into a fight and end up with the need to skip town. Sometimes people figured out he wasn't entirely human. Sometimes they didn't. At times he ran into others like him who were part something - they were more numerous than he thought - but that didn't mean a bond immediately formed between them, and Tekatme tried not to let himself become too attached.
Winter passed. Spring came. Flowers blossomed and made him sneeze more than he liked.
Tekatme trudged on.
-----
Eventually, Tekatme sort of settled down. By that, he meant he found a sort of permanent job, though he was tricked by the captain because Tekatme thought the job would be exciting, except it turned out that all he did most of the time was sit around on some barrels, staring off into space because nothing ever happened. From his complaints, you probably couldn't even tell what his job was, but he was actually a guard. Yeah, he landed himself another guarding job, since well, fighting was the only thing he was good at. This time it was guarding the entire village instead of a vault or some noble women's cat. Which should have been exciting. But it wasn't.
For some reason, despite how boring his job was and how the village was practically infested with cats - lord were they everywhere - he stayed. Well he guessed part of the reason was because Captain Akatkai was one lord of a fighter and Tekatme wanted to have a go at him, so he wasn't going to leave before that happened. He found that staying wasn't too bad. As villages went, Veline was okay. It wasn't small, nor was it overly large, and the leader of the place wasn't some stuck up person, or at least, the second-in-command wasn't some stuck up person since Tekatme still hadn’t seen the actual leader of the place yet and couldn't really say whether she was stuck up or not. She better not be, not that that was Tekatme's business or anything.
After Tekatme got into a brawl at a tavern - yeah, haha, you didn't see that coming did you (at least Tekatme hadn't gotten thrown out of the village yet despite this being his third offense) - his captain assigned him as an escort. To some dragon prince. Seriously, Tekatme, an escort?
Now, if you were to tell Tekatme that he'd actually play escort to the next-in-line to some dragon tribe half a year ago before he'd stormed out of his village without even deigning to toss a word of farewell to his family, he'd have laughed in your face with enough force to make himself double over, his hair bouncing up as he shook.
Tekatme, after all, was not escort material. He was more the last person you'd want as an escort to some important person, unless your goal was to infuriate said important person (then you had the right guy for the job). He'd almost proven himself right about that when he almost punched the dragon prince in the face during their first encounter, but he guessed things went as well as they could after that, since they somehow ended up calling each other directly by their names - Rykatu, that was the guy's name - and Tekatme merrily showed Rykatu around the village. Lord was the guy not talkative. Like, super not talkative. If Tekatme hadn't been told that this guy was a dragon, he wouldn't have pegged the quiet guy to be one of those elusive creatures who didn't mingle with humans. He'd appeared no different from a human either. Much like how Tekatme didn't look any different from a human.
So yeah. Meeting a dragon? No big deal.
Rykatu was, however, as rumors about dragons went, strong. Though it probably had nothing to do with being a dragon and a whole lot more to do with Rykatu himself. Tekatme knew this because he'd almost had his head cut off when he accidentally snapped his fingers in front of Rykatu's face - it wasn't his fault that Rykatu always had this vacant gaze, okay? - and produced a small burst of flames. That startled the guy and the next thing Tekatme knew, there was a blade of ice at his throat.
Okay, so maybe it hadn't gotten so dire that he was about to get his head chopped off, but he did gain a gash on his neck, and the situation had been a pickle to get out of. Tekatme was not terribly fond of pickles, but that was beside the point.
They somehow got the misunderstanding sorted, and Tekatme escaped the fate of getting his throat slit.
Only to get sent by his captain off to the next village as an errand boy.
If Tekatme had thought escorting a dragon around was a mess, well, he just didn't know that he should've appreciated Rykatu's unobtrusiveness because now he was in for a real mess.
A real and very big mess.
Messy enough that he'd wish he'd never left home.
-----
to be continued
Haha, I summarized most of what happened during Veline here. Pft. Really, nothing happened in last year's NaNo. -___-;;
The prologue was also going to include Tekatme trying out for Veline's guard, but once I started writing that, it was well, not a story about Lhordata anymore.
Chapter 1
-----
Non NaNo stuff:
-Nisekoi has begun! New manga by Komi Naoshi (mangaka of Double Arts). I'm not too fond of the premise of his new series unlike how I was very interested in Double Arts right off the bat, but I'm excited he has something new running. Now I also kind of wish I'd said that I would nominate Double Arts for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
yuletide. Hm, it's not too late, is it...
-received an email from Kingstone about the fact that Legend of Sun Knight volume 8 is going to be out very soon. XD; Why thank you, Kingstone. :D *looks forward to the release even more* Opening my email to a huge picture of Grisia? LOVE.
absolutehymn007 and nitaspitas. =PI've been needing to open my NaNo from last year as reference since my main character this time was also featured in last year's NaNo (but not exactly as the main character). Trying to get details about him straight isn't as easy as I thought it'd be! I wonder if his characterization even feels the same. (For one, he's not throwing around the word "lord" as much as he did last year... but maybe he'll do that more later).
Well, here's the very boring prologue that almost made me want to stop writing. XD; It rambled a lot, so I decided to cut it down by 900 words. I feel beginnings should have more momentum, but I've failed hard at that!
Whee, widget! It wasn't showing up for me before, but now it is! I have so many yellow boxes littered through mine... *mopes*
Prologue
~5,442
The beginning of Tekatme's journey didn't start with a bang or anything, and there wasn't any point in his journey that was particularly life-altering, certainly not the kind where you woke up and thought, "Man, what the lord have I been doing up until now?", but stuff did happen, like discovering some important stuff, getting toyed around by a goddess, playing hero after being mistaken for someone else, the whole nine yards (he even gained a sidekick, but he didn't ask for it, okay?), and he guessed you could say that he grew up along the way.
He did grow one year older after all, and maybe a little less brash. Though not by much.
This was how his not-so-enlightening journey began, with a bout of impatience, much like how many things in his lifetime began.
Tekatme was not known for his composure. Over his nineteen years of life, he'd had his fair share of brawls because of his temper and his lack of patience. Being good at fighting didn't help matters, since it only meant his opponents came out a lot more injured than he did while he got nothing out of the fights except for disgruntlement over dashed expectations. That, and getting yelled at.
This was such a time when his temper got the better of him, but it wasn't his fault.
"Tekatme!"
When his older sister yelled at him to stop, it was already too late. Not that he had any intention to pull back even with her shrieking like a banshee in his ear. If his hearing had anything on his nose, he'd be deaf by now.
With a satisfying wham, Tekatme's fist connected with the Mayor's son's face. Or more accurately, the bastard's eye, because on top of sneering, the bastard had the nerve to leer at his sister. Oh no. You did not do that in front of Tekatme unless you wanted a black eye.
So that was what Tekatme gave the guy.
He sent the Mayor's son flying into a stack of barrels, the barrels tumbling upon impact. One even burst open, mead spilling out onto the dirt ground, filling his nose with the scent of burnt rubber - someone was selling mead that smelled like that? yuck - that almost served to cover the bastard's ever-present smell that reminded him of the sea. Everyone carried a scent, but the Mayor's son's scent was one Tekatme disliked. A lot. He'd even take burnt rubber over that scent. Vaguely, he heard gasps and faint murmurings from what was probably a flock of gossipers up to no good, but none of the spectators' commentary was loud enough to pierce through the blood that was roaring in his ears.
Someone grabbed his arm. Someone unhappy from the smell of things. He wretched his arm out of that person's grasp but was immediately grabbed again. He tugged forcefully, snarling and swearing, but the next whiff stilled him even before she spoke. All the different smells in the air - now mixed with the heavy scent of revulsion and the unwanted stink of derision - almost made him unable to tell that she was still next to him, but her scent was unmistakable. It was citrusy and sharp, sometimes sweet but more often sour when it came to Tekatme.
"Stop this," his sister hissed. "You are behaving like a savage. Do I need to wash your mouth with soap?"
His sister had an iron grip.
Tekatme growled, hands clenched and trembling with his fury. His nails dug into his palms, hard enough to draw blood. He knew his sister hated it when he swore, and she hated it when he used his fists, so doing both had definitely ticked her off, but he had good reason. "You heard what he said about you. About Dad. About Mom." And that look, that demeaning look that infuriated Tekatme so much that he just had to sock the guy in the eye, told him that the Mayor's son thought they were all lower than the dirt below his fancy shoes.
Well, who was eating dirt now, huh?
Before him, the Mayor's son lay curled on the muddy ground that was steeped in mead, one hand half stuck in the barrel that had burst open, the other hand covering his eye in his pain.
"You will pay for this!" gasped the Mayor's son as he struggled to stand up, blond hair in disarray, his pristine clothes now speckled with mead and dirt. "Don't think you won't hear from my father!"
With that, the bastard limped away. The gossiping crowd parted before him since he was the Mayor's son, and therefore someone you didn't want to upset even if you disagreed with him, thought him immature, or downright hated his guts.
Tekatme, however, was exactly someone who didn't play by that rule.
If you wanted to find someone who felt all three of those unflattering feelings towards the Mayor's son, from disagreement to disdain to hatred, Tekatme was your guy, and he'd shout it to the world at the top of his lungs. Tekatme wasn't anything like the gossiping crowd that was willing to part for the bastard even if they didn't want to. He didn't know what he hated more, the pampering crowd for fueling and nurturing the bastard's idiocy by agreeing with him and, even worse, by turning a blind eye to his follies, or the Mayor's son himself for being such a bastard in the first place. Tekatme had no qualms about upsetting the bastard because he needed to be taken down a peg or two. Or more. Maybe a dozen.
He watched as the Mayor's son rudely shoved the people that didn't immediately part for him. Just because he was the Mayor's son, born to an important guy, did not give him the right to think he was better than everyone else! Entitlement or what?
He thought he'd feel satisfied seeing the Mayor's son practically running away from the fight, but he didn't feel satisfied even from the scent of humiliation that rolled off the Mayor's son in waves. His rage continued to burn within him, and he was trembling with the need to utterly pulverize something. Smart of the Mayor's son to retreat so quickly, or else his black eye would be the least of his concerns. The only reason Tekatme hadn't managed to destroy anything beyond the barrel of mead that had unfortunately served as an ineffective cushion for the Mayor's son's crash, mead spilling onto the ground to be lapped up by the dirt, was because his sister was still holding onto him with an iron grip.
It wasn't like he couldn't pull himself out of her grip, but there were lines even Tekatme didn't cross, and one of those was that he'd never raise his hand against his family.
"You are completely and utterly stupid, little brother," his sister hissed, grip tightening. "Don't think your temper tantrum helped our placing in the village at all!"
He heard them now, sound to go along with the emotions his nose had pieced together for him. He'd already known - scent didn't lie - but words put everything into startling clarity. They whispered about his violent behavior, about how his eyes had turned scarlet in his anger. He wasn't human, they said, no better than the beast he descended from, so quick to anger, so dependent on physical prowess instead of intelligence. They were like parrots, parroting back to Tekatme the insults that were never far from the Mayor's son's lips. Squawk, he's dangerous! Squawk, why are they even in the village?
Squawk, squawk, squawk!
Tekatme didn't care about these insults. He'd heard them all. What irked him was when the insults turned to his family. That was a line he'd let no one cross.
Not the villagers, not the Mayor's son, not even his own family because they were not beasts and his mom was not a slut and he'd allow no one to leer at his sister like she was one either.
They shouldn't have to lower themselves. They weren't the ones who were wrong. If only his dad and his sis would acknowledge that.
But no, who was he kidding? He should've known his spineless dad wouldn't see things his way, but he had hoped. He'd hoped that maybe his dad would finally come around because Tekatme was sick and tired of all this.
"Dad, you are not making sense!" Tekatme growled once his sister had dragged him back to their house and explained to their dad what had happened. He could not believe what his dad had just yelled at him.
Tekatme knew his dad wouldn't be too happy, but Tekatme hadn't thought his mild-tempered dad would actually fly into a rage. If Tekatme had any doubt that he was related to his dad, all doubt would've flown away at the thunderous look on his dad's face that made Tekatme and his dad look like they came from the same mold. After all, Tekatme had to have gotten his temper from somewhere even if his dad usually seemed like the gentlest person ever. He must've reached Zen or something sometime during his lifetime, maybe from all his years of experience of being a dad, leaving behind his anger-filled youth to become the most backbone-less dad ever, because you know, it takes patience to be a parent.
Tekatme couldn't imagine himself being so serene in the face of prejudice, but now his dad was actually angry and he wasn't faking it because the fiery scent was stifling and making Tekatme's nostrils flare. Normally, a gentle dad flying into a rage might be a cue for panic, but what Tekatme felt was rising frustration. Of all the times for his dad to become angry! He didn't understand how his dad could stand up for that stupid bastard and claim that Tekatme was the one in the wrong!
Dad and son stood face-to-face, neither wishing to back down. His dad used to be much taller than him, but soon Tekatme would overtake him, Tekatme was sure of it. Tekatme stared at his dad's sharp eyes that were normally so gentle, at the severe frown on his face and the wrinkles between his forehead. Gray hair wove between his orange strands like highlights, the trophy of his age and the hint that he knew better but Tekatme didn't believe that age made people right - maybe more astute but not necessarily wise - or that authority made people more responsible.
Usually Tekatme's brawls amounted to nothing, but arguments with his family always hurt the worst, like a knife stab to the chest complete with a cruel and violent twist. The anger inside of him simmered, waiting to burst out.
"He is making perfect sense, little brother," his sister said while twirling a strand of her long orange hair.
"Kikami, don't bait him," their dad, the almighty Omakate who thought himself wise, reprimanded.
"Fine," she huffed, dropping her hands to her side, letting the strand of hair she'd been toying with fall against her chest. His sister, overbearing Kikami who was just about the only one who could pummel him into the dirt but had no love for the thrill of fighting, pursed her lips. She didn't need him to defend her honor, he knew that, but she was his sister and would always be his sister. They were so much alike in so many ways, yet different in so many ways as well. Her temper was just as bad as his, but she knew how to veil her anger, how to sweet talk her way out of situations, how to poke him with her words in ways that would make him lash out in a fashion that could only be drawn out by bossy older sisters. Kikami was like a reflection of himself - their physical resemblance would leave no one guessing at whether or not they were related - but she was softer and wile while he was headstrong and brash.
"Tekatme, I'm disappointed in you," his dad said, voice controlled, no longer the startling loudness of their previous screaming match, but his level tones grated on Tekatme's nerves even more, like he was speaking to a child. Tekatme was no child, and his dad was baiting him a lot more than his sister at the moment. He didn't want to lash out, but his dad was making it so hard.
"Words are words. Ignore them, and they will do you no harm. By reacting as you did, you only proved their words right."
Tekatme scoffed. "You're kidding me. Do you seriously believe that? Have you heard what they say out there? You might not care what they say about you, or me, or Sis, but you should care about what they say about Mom! They said that she-"
"You don't have to tattle on them to me," his dad said with sigh, cutting off Tekatme's tirade. "I've heard."
"Y-You've heard yet you still let them walk all over you?" Tekatme gritted out. "I hate how spineless you are!"
The coil of red, hot fury stopped merely simmering - it surged and overtook his senses.
Enough was enough.
His eyes were probably bloodshot with how his anger coursed through him. They were burning.
Tekatme grabbed his katana. It was the only weapon he had in the room. He smelled surprise and resignation among the citrusy scent of his sister's and the smoky scent of his dad's when he stormed out of his childhood home, slamming the door behind him, sealing away the smells that had accompanied him since birth, ashy fireplace included. How he loved warming his hands in front of the fireplace, watching his dad ignite the flames with a snap of his fingers, all his no good dad was ever good for.
He didn't stop. He didn't look back.
He tossed his katana into his other hand. His spear was in the other room, or else he'd have grabbed that instead since he was better with a spear than a katana, but storming into the other room to grab his spear and then storming out of the house while passing his dad and sister again just didn't have the same effect.
His feet brought him all the way to the edge of the village. It was then that he smelled the hated scent of seawater that didn't belong in a village like this one that was far, far from the sea. Only a guy who loved seafood to death and who loved to fish would carry such a smell, and it suited him, the slippery bastard.
"Scram, Mikatko," Tekatme growled at the Mayor's son who must have been following Tekatme. He'd succeeded too with how Tekatme had been too overcome with fury to notice he was being followed.
"Pray tell what you think you're doing?" asked the dratted blond in that haughty voice of his.
"Leaving. You'll never have to see me again."
"Running away with your tail between your legs now?" drawled the Mayor's son, taking to opportunity to verbally kick Tekatme while he was already down. He was succeeding with this too because Tekatme's hackles were rising. Mikatko might think himself witty, but he wasn't, really. "I didn't know you were that intelligent. I'll have you know, Father already knows what happened, and-"
"Do you think I care?" Tekatme snarled, whirling around, two tufts of hair on both sides of his head bouncing upward in his motion like flapping mutt ears. He wasn't shocked by the ugly bruise mottling the pale skin of the Mayor's son because he'd expected it - he was the one who had put it there - but he was surprised by the whiff of misery he caught. He didn't quite know what to make of it.
"You should," Mikatko said, voice as snide as ever even though Tekatme's nose told him this was all a brave front, but he didn't understand what Mikatko was trying to do by egging him on. "Father is the Mayor and he can punish you for your act of violence and-"
Again, Tekatme cut him off. "Not if I leave. Isn't that good enough for you?"
With that, Tekatme left home without another word, the Mayor's son being the only one who knew he was actually leaving. He didn't bring any extra money or clothes. All he had was what he had on him - the clothes on his back and the katana in his hand. He didn't tell his dad or his sister where he was going because even he didn't know, but he had no plans on returning until his dad and his sister woke up from playing nice with the villagers who had no intention of giving them the same courtesy. He'd gone through nineteen years of life listening to his dad's reminders that this was their mom's hometown that she treasured greatly, and that this was where they had decided to settle together. Just because she had passed on did not mean that they should desert the place their mom was so attached to even if the village was already forgetting how much she had loved it.
Nineteen years of the same drivel. There was no way his dad was going to change his tune over a single night, and there was no way the village was going to forget that Tekatme, his sister, and his dad, were distantly descended from canines and therefore "not human" despite how very human they were.
Since things weren't going to change just like that, that meant Tekatme wasn't going to return for a long, long time.
Tekatme was being hotheaded and irresponsible, he knew this, but he didn't care.
-----
Crunch.
He'd been rash.
Yeah, understatement or what? Go ahead and laugh. Oh wait, there was no one to laugh at him. He could head home - there were plenty of people willing to laugh at him there - but would his pride let him? No way.
Below Tekatme's feet, leaves crinkled, heavy with the smell of decay from leaves that had fallen previously. He was probably squishing some poor snails and worms with each step of his. Oh look, now he was a mass murderer on top of being a deranged mutt. He wrinkled his nose and stepped away from the leaves.
He'd left home at the tail end of autumn, the air getting chillier and chillier as he traveled. He had no destination and nothing to his name. He let his feet carry him off onto paths he'd never taken before, each step becoming lighter and lighter as he walked away from all that had bound him previously. He was dirt poor and a nobody, but he'd never felt freer in his entire life. Some philosopher might be able to spin some deep stuff out of his mindless wandering, making it into all that, good for them, but to Tekatme it was just that. Mindless wandering.
It felt good. That was all he needed to know.
He didn't fish - he loathed fish for many, many reasons, especially since the smell was unbearable - but he hunted for food, drank from streams, and slept under the starry sky, which might've sounded romantic to some, but it wasn't. It was just cold. Cold, but freeing. Or more like freezing. During the mornings before the sun rose, Tekatme would rise and begin to practice with his katana, going through the motions so that he wouldn't forget his form. His blade would slice through the wind, singing in the crisp morning air as he turned and ducked and jumped. One slash. Up. Across. Two slashes. Thrust. Back step. Another slash. Then came the sun with its morning rays and all, bright but chilly nonetheless. No, Tekatme was not spouting poetry about beautiful mornings complete with dewdrops gathering on flowers, but nature was quite something. Fresh. Peaceful. Uncomplicated.
For the rest of the day, Tekatme would walk and walk and walk, pausing in his meandering whenever he saw suitable prey to hunt for that day's meals. He was lucky in that hunting hadn't been difficult and he hadn't needed to spend too much time just on hunting, but with winter coming, he was going to have more trouble. Around him, smells vanished one by one as winter slowly crept in.
At night, Tekatme would build himself a small fire to cook his food, coaxing a small flame into his palm. Fire magic ran in his family, another thing they were given the side eye for merely because it was different even though it wasn't unheard of even among those who were purely human without any blood of other species running through their veins. Tekatme was no whiz at it - and understood it even less - liking weapons and physical fighting much more than something as intangible as magic. He'd never sought to improve his fire magic, but at least what little he could do with it made things convenient. A small flame was all he could manage, and that was enough for him to cook his food. He'd toss the spark into the firewood, watching as the fire slowly caught on, burnt smell of crackling wood filling the air. It often reminded him of his dad, of winters spent around the fireplace with his sister, battling for the best spot in front of the fireplace to sprawl across their stomach, legs kicking in the air as they watched their dad tend to the fire.
Having memories of home dredged up made him scowl every night without fail.
At the start of winter, and still very much on his own, though he was proud to say that he'd fared pretty well with the resources he had (meaning, pretty much no resources), Tekatme's feet brought him to the outskirts of a town that was much larger than his own. It was large enough for him to blend in without anyone finding him out of place, as it received many travelers outside of Tekatme. He hadn't had company other than the wilderness for days - or was it weeks? While he didn't exactly crave companionship, the thought of a warm bed was alluring.
He almost went cross-eyed when a snowflake landed on his nose.
He headed inside.
He had no money, so he immediately looked for work. He lucked out that the bulletin board was full of notices looking for guards, fighters, and mercenaries, exactly up Tekatme's alley. He'd thought that he might need to help some farmers plant their crops - who knew, maybe people still planted even during winter, though Tekatme had no clue what plants were tenacious enough to brave the cold - or he might need to help someone look for their lost cat. Yeah cats. Cats and Tekatme did not mix, so it was a good thing, both for himself and for potentially lost kitties, that he didn't need to look for cats. They'd have scratched his eyes out. By "they", Tekatme meant the kitties, those dastardly little maggots that were so sweet and cuddly in anyone's hands but his.
Looking over the bulletin once more, Tekatme ripped one of the papers off.
The first job Tekatme took on was guarding some kind of vault. The posh guy who'd hired him hadn't explained much beyond the fact that he was supposed to guard the vault. A burglar broke in during his third shift. Tekatme smelled his apprehension even before he'd deigned to make an appearance. Gripping his katana, Tekatme very eagerly rendered the surprised burglar unconscious with a few well placed strokes, his way of thanking the guy for breaking the monotony of Tekatme's job, but the burglar was weak. Tekatme hadn't even needed to take his katana out of its scabbard.
It turned out the guy was some wanted criminal and that the vault had been a decoy which was not what Tekatme had signed up for, but the fight was nothing special. The money he earned was enough for a room at the inn, so whatever. He was angry, however, when Mr. Posh Guy decided that he no longer had need of Tekatme just because the burglar had already been caught (and who had helped him catch the burglar, huh?). Tekatme had been counting on the job to last him through the winter!
Tekatme probably shouldn't have punched the guy who'd hired him, but he did, so it was too late to consider that maybe throwing his fist out wasn't the best reaction (but at least it was marginally better than using his katana). Needless to say, even if he hadn't already been out of a job, he was now.
Wonderful.
The job had been boring though, so it was no loss.
The second job Tekatme took on was guarding some kind of noble woman who thankfully hadn't heard that Tekatme had punched the last guy who'd hired him, though she also neglected to tell him upfront that she had a cat. And that he was actually supposed to guard the cat. Not the woman. The cat. It was one of those white ones with long fur that made the cat look more like a walking duster than a cat. Seriously, the white thing was a walking bundle of fur, long fur dragging across the marble floor. Tekatme looked down at the floor, expecting it to be cleaner now that the furball had ambled across it. He'd only stayed at this job for no more than a day before he got into a fight. With the cat.
After flipping one of the tables just to throw the cat off - they'd stared at each other, the cat scratching him whenever its owner turned around and of course the lady didn't believe her sweet kitty could do any wrong - Tekatme was yet again out of a job.
Good riddance to that.
In such a way, Tekatme drifted from one job to the next, never keeping any particular job for long. When he exhausted all of the possible jobs the town had to offer and people began turning him away because his reputation preceded him (a reputation that his sister would have balked at), Tekatme knew it was time to leave town.
He'd figured that it would be hard for most people to tell he was part canine. It wasn't like he had furry ears or a tail or anything that particularly stood out from the norm.
He was right.
Not a single person at the town had given him any grief over that. It was his personality they found problems with.
Traveling through snowstorms wasn't very smart, but Tekatme had never claimed he was smart, so he did just that. Even though he really should have just stayed in town with the money he'd earned. It would've been enough, but no, he just had to be stupid because he couldn't stand staying for a second longer.
It was a miracle he hadn't frozen into a pillar of ice because of his stupidity.
Somehow, he escaped that fate. Much like how he had jumped from one job to the next, he now jumped from one village to the next, never stopping at any town for particularly long. He'd settle down long enough to earn some money, and if he was lucky, he'd manage to pick up some new skill thanks to all the miscellaneous jobs he took on, from guarding to hunting to exterminating monsters, but eventually he'd get into a fight and end up with the need to skip town. Sometimes people figured out he wasn't entirely human. Sometimes they didn't. At times he ran into others like him who were part something - they were more numerous than he thought - but that didn't mean a bond immediately formed between them, and Tekatme tried not to let himself become too attached.
Winter passed. Spring came. Flowers blossomed and made him sneeze more than he liked.
Tekatme trudged on.
-----
Eventually, Tekatme sort of settled down. By that, he meant he found a sort of permanent job, though he was tricked by the captain because Tekatme thought the job would be exciting, except it turned out that all he did most of the time was sit around on some barrels, staring off into space because nothing ever happened. From his complaints, you probably couldn't even tell what his job was, but he was actually a guard. Yeah, he landed himself another guarding job, since well, fighting was the only thing he was good at. This time it was guarding the entire village instead of a vault or some noble women's cat. Which should have been exciting. But it wasn't.
For some reason, despite how boring his job was and how the village was practically infested with cats - lord were they everywhere - he stayed. Well he guessed part of the reason was because Captain Akatkai was one lord of a fighter and Tekatme wanted to have a go at him, so he wasn't going to leave before that happened. He found that staying wasn't too bad. As villages went, Veline was okay. It wasn't small, nor was it overly large, and the leader of the place wasn't some stuck up person, or at least, the second-in-command wasn't some stuck up person since Tekatme still hadn’t seen the actual leader of the place yet and couldn't really say whether she was stuck up or not. She better not be, not that that was Tekatme's business or anything.
After Tekatme got into a brawl at a tavern - yeah, haha, you didn't see that coming did you (at least Tekatme hadn't gotten thrown out of the village yet despite this being his third offense) - his captain assigned him as an escort. To some dragon prince. Seriously, Tekatme, an escort?
Now, if you were to tell Tekatme that he'd actually play escort to the next-in-line to some dragon tribe half a year ago before he'd stormed out of his village without even deigning to toss a word of farewell to his family, he'd have laughed in your face with enough force to make himself double over, his hair bouncing up as he shook.
Tekatme, after all, was not escort material. He was more the last person you'd want as an escort to some important person, unless your goal was to infuriate said important person (then you had the right guy for the job). He'd almost proven himself right about that when he almost punched the dragon prince in the face during their first encounter, but he guessed things went as well as they could after that, since they somehow ended up calling each other directly by their names - Rykatu, that was the guy's name - and Tekatme merrily showed Rykatu around the village. Lord was the guy not talkative. Like, super not talkative. If Tekatme hadn't been told that this guy was a dragon, he wouldn't have pegged the quiet guy to be one of those elusive creatures who didn't mingle with humans. He'd appeared no different from a human either. Much like how Tekatme didn't look any different from a human.
So yeah. Meeting a dragon? No big deal.
Rykatu was, however, as rumors about dragons went, strong. Though it probably had nothing to do with being a dragon and a whole lot more to do with Rykatu himself. Tekatme knew this because he'd almost had his head cut off when he accidentally snapped his fingers in front of Rykatu's face - it wasn't his fault that Rykatu always had this vacant gaze, okay? - and produced a small burst of flames. That startled the guy and the next thing Tekatme knew, there was a blade of ice at his throat.
Okay, so maybe it hadn't gotten so dire that he was about to get his head chopped off, but he did gain a gash on his neck, and the situation had been a pickle to get out of. Tekatme was not terribly fond of pickles, but that was beside the point.
They somehow got the misunderstanding sorted, and Tekatme escaped the fate of getting his throat slit.
Only to get sent by his captain off to the next village as an errand boy.
If Tekatme had thought escorting a dragon around was a mess, well, he just didn't know that he should've appreciated Rykatu's unobtrusiveness because now he was in for a real mess.
A real and very big mess.
Messy enough that he'd wish he'd never left home.
-----
to be continued
Haha, I summarized most of what happened during Veline here. Pft. Really, nothing happened in last year's NaNo. -___-;;
The prologue was also going to include Tekatme trying out for Veline's guard, but once I started writing that, it was well, not a story about Lhordata anymore.
Chapter 1
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Non NaNo stuff:
-Nisekoi has begun! New manga by Komi Naoshi (mangaka of Double Arts). I'm not too fond of the premise of his new series unlike how I was very interested in Double Arts right off the bat, but I'm excited he has something new running. Now I also kind of wish I'd said that I would nominate Double Arts for
yuletide. Hm, it's not too late, is it...-received an email from Kingstone about the fact that Legend of Sun Knight volume 8 is going to be out very soon. XD; Why thank you, Kingstone. :D *looks forward to the release even more* Opening my email to a huge picture of Grisia? LOVE.
