tampered | (no subject)

When; April 2/ Before Dawn

Rating; PG/PG-13 (for dragonwrath?)

Characters; Angelus

sealedinscales and anyone who wants to join

Summary; Angelus’s undignified entrance into the city

Log;

In a sudden flurry of violent wind, a monstrous form tumbles gracelessly from the sky. Her bulk casts a massive shadow in the heart of the City, and those who find themselves within the shadow’s boundaries would be wise to get away as quickly as possible. Disoriented, falling when she was sure she’d only just been standing on solid ground, the Red Dragon is out of any semblance of control.

With the sky and tops of buildings swirling above her, she only just manages to realize which way is up when she slams into the concrete hard. Stars flare in her visions, and she roars her pain, but, stunned for the moment, she doesn‘t move.
What has happened? Is this what becomes of the Bearer of the Seal?

What she can see of the world around her is alien, unlike anything she’d ever experienced in her thousand decades of life. Lights. Steel walls. A moving mechanical device.

The scent of humans fills her nostrils, and she suddenly realizes that this could be some sort of trap, one to kill her like they had killed her parents! Or a spell or binding set by the Watchers to hold her so they could destroy her. The Seal! She scrambles about until she’s right-side-up, anger fueling her, and she roars again defiantly at those around her, prepared to take on any who might seek to capture or harm her. “Foul Vermin! I shall not be your sacrifice!”

Her rage appears to be short-lived, however, as the only thing to greet her challenge is the steady ticking sound in her mind. She shakes her head to clear it, and though the attempt doesn’t work, she moves on to studying this place she’s come to, suspicious eyes analyzing, planning, guarding thoughts.

“Caim” She calls steadily, expecting to hear his thoughts in her head, as always. But still nothing answered except the ticking sound. “What infernal land is this?”

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But who could fail to hear the roar of a dragon, even in this city? Elaine cocked her head towards the sound from inside her room in Lux. She rushed to her windows just in time to see a huge red dragon slam itself to the ground. Concerned, she flew out of her window, landed just some distance away from the dragon, who was now right side up, and called out to it.

"Are you hurt?"

Her head swiveled about to watch the approaching form, a growl building deep in her throat, and a threat shining in her yellow eyes. Was tis the trap she'd suspectd? If so, she woudn't be taken alive. She bared her fangs...

Then drew her head back, looking at the stranger in a puzzled fashion. She had never seen such a creature before. A human with wings? What twist of nature was this?

"Not so much that I cannot fight you, if you dare to try, twisted human. What sorcery created you?" Her voice was as rough as granite and ablaze with suspicion and anger. "Where is Caim!"

Twisted human. Now there was a name she was never called before. Sorcery? A wisp of wind ruffled the feathers on her wings. Oh she, thought. With a thought, she made her wings vanish, while at the same time making herself as unassuming as possible to the creature, clamping down on her powers. One was pretty easy to do, anyway.

"I did not come here to fight. I do not fight. Only to see what made such an entrance." She assured the highly-strung dragon. She made her voice as calm as possible. She could've weaved some sort of spell in her voice to try and calm down the dragon herself, but she thought against it. The dragon might have its own magic to wield, and she was not sure if hers would work on it.

"You are in the City now. In another world, realm. If you're looking for... Caim, I think you left him, or her, where you came from..." She told the dragon, not moving from where she stood.

The red dragon watched guardedly as the human's wings dissapeared. This place just continued it's strangeness it seemed. The woman before her seemed calm, and that was intriguing. There were few humans who did not flinch before an angry dragon, in her experience. Those who remained calm were often foolish, like so many humans, or powerful. Very interesting. Perhaps it would do well to listen and learn for now.

She listened to the words, but though they answered her questions, they did little to comfort her. She seemed to grow suddenly quiet at the mention of leaving Caim, looking away from the woman momentarily. "I did leave Caim... but I did not think this was what it meant to become the seal."

Looking back to the woman, she edged her head down until her eyes were somewhat level with the magic being's, searching for deception or trickery. She moved slowly, aching with sore muscles and stretched tendons, trying not to show weakness. "What more can you tell me of this place?"

To become a seal? Elaine rolled that thought around in her mind for a bit. That must have meant some kind of ritual back in the dragon's world. Something that separated it from the Caim person. She would have wanted to ask more, but that would come later.

When the dragon's head inched near to level with her, she did not show fear, but fascination. Sure, she'd met a dragon or two before, especially during the last clean-up of the outer realms, but this was definitely different.

"You've landed - " Must've been a painful landing, she quickly thought, "in the City. There is no proper name for it, just that. Beings from different worlds and realms have been taken here, generally against their will. Means of escape from this place are hard to come by. They exist, but they present themselves but rarely.

There are so-called deities of this place, but they do not make themselves known that much. And every once in a while, curses befall everyone here."

Talking to a dragon made her revert to a sort of... ye olde way of speaking. It was... slightly silly for her, but she couldn't help it. Maybe she just read and watched too much fantasy stuff.

She scoffed at the name, and muttered in an uncomplimentary tone "Creativity left in the wayside of unnatural advancement. You would think man had made this place."

But though she hid behind her usual air superiority, she couldn't help but feel disturbed by the news. Being pulled from different worlds... that meant that this wasn't just some place where she must wait out her eternity as the seal. She had been pulled here, despite being the seal. The ritual hadn't worked... but she was still alive. And that meant Caim was as well. That thought did ease her troubles a bit.

Her eyes darkened, and she stared deeply at this being before her. But she could not read falsehood in the woman. "Deities. Curses." She shook the dust and bits of street from her back as she thought, raising her head again to look over this City.

When she spoke again, it was with a touch of dark humor in her voice "It is no wonder humans caused so much trouble in my world, if the deities are so busy collecting a gallery of souls here." It was almost as though she were commenting on a small bit of daily news. Something only mildly important, like a ruling in a particularly attention-grabbing trial.

She looked away from the city's signs of advancement in disdain, eyes falling back on the woman instead. A touch of her former dry humor was returning to her voice as she learned about this world. "I find it hard to believe that there are no signs of war here, among the lost souls of different worlds. Have they grown so complacent then?" This could not possibly be any form of utopia, after all.

"These deities... well, they're not exactly all-powerful and all. In fact, they don't really do anything but, hm, watch over the populace here."

"Complacent." Elaine said that out loud, as if saying it would determine if the citizens in the city were or not. "... not entirely. Well, the curses do their part to remind them that they're stuck in this place. But most of the time..."

"You see, a lot of people have tried to find a way out of this place, but they never find it. It's usually one or two people going, 8 take their place as new residents. People have found a way to adapt to life here, so to speak."

"And war? Well, we've had the alien invasions some time ago, I guess that was the nearest to war we've ever had here. But otherwise... among the citizens, nothing big. I mean, there will always be troublemakers, but they have started nothing big so far"

It was mildly surprising to hear that so many had gotten along so well. But then, without any rulers, there was no one to rally behind, and no one to persuade others into their cause. How interesting...

"I should like to explore this place. If exits to our homelands are as rare as you say, then I will not waste my time hunting them. Best to know how this chessboard is arranged." And maybe later, once she knew all of that, she would stumble across something useful. She was patient. So long as there was no sense of Caim in danger.

"I thank you for your information, human. Though I wonder," She mused, "if your kindness is driven by manners, sympathy, or ambition."

She turned to begin a walk through the city. Not flying, she was still too sore for that, after all, but she had to explore. Even if walking felt so distressingly humbling. She took little notice of the recording hardware tangled about her horns, and wouldn't have recognized it for what it was if she'd looked at it properly anyway. She simply figured the bit of debris would fall off on it's own with her movements.

[long ooc: sorry for not getting you name X3 Angelus doesn't share hers often, so she doesn't ask for it in return either. Also, I hope the bit about the recording stuff is alright. I can't think of any way for her to patch into the network except something like that. She certainly can't type X.x]