Channelknight Fadran

"No. Keep him safe, but keep him close."

The streets were quiet. Too quiet. Elya kept an eye out, watching each of the streets and alleyways. Other than the regular passerby and businessmen, there wasn't any sign of anything unusual - which, of course, was the unusual thing. She tried to keep her breathing under control, which was difficult with Ji stuffed into her arms; but there had to be something. There just had to. They reached the building: a massive, towering apartment building. Local commoners sifted in and out of the lower layers, with the wealthiest relaxing up at the top. None of them seemed at all fazed by... well, anything. As they shouldn't, of course, but still... "Something's wrong." Elya said. "The Reapers have to know where we are. They..." She sucked in a breath. "One of you needs to get Ji away from here," she said, placing him down on the ground gently. "Everyone else: get your weapons ready. We're not done fighting yet."

HAPPY SIXTEEN THOUSAND POSTS --uhh... me. Hrm. Anyhoo... welcome to my brand-new mini-story writing corner. Basically, this place is for anything on the shorter side that I happen to write. I have a number of short stories / novellas stuffed deep into my google drive that I'd honestly love to share with y'all, so I decided to make an entire scudding thread for them. I'm gonna kick things off with the story that got me into the TABC anthology: The Forest Guardian. It's a soft fantasy based on various cool spiritual thingses like Princess Mononoke. It clocks in at just under six thousand words, so it shouldn't take too long to read through. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zLET5x3ZxXrHHnGdxuwyAjAPMovdMhaQ/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=108238934762779874751&rtpof=true&sd=true

“Would you rather we just keep him awake?”

“Just… hold on.” She was muttering now, focusing almost entirely on their surroundings.

“Just come on.” Elya began to push forwards.

"I was about to say the same thing." Elya retrieved her sword, sheathed it, then scooped up Ji and held him close. "Just follow me, and stay alert: I doubt that she'll be the only Reaper we'll run into today."

"Alright." Elya nodded, swallowing. She tried to keep her gaze steady, but even that was proving difficult. "Do what you think would be best. Please."

"Surface." Elya said immediately. "We just need to stop the bleeding for now, and avoid damaging any of his organs. If any of them have been cut already..." Elya fell silent. Internal wounds weren't exactly her speciality. "We'll want to take care of those in a more controlled environment," she finished.

Elya took the antiseptic and started dribbling it across the bandages, pressing it into the wound. She quickly examined the dagger, making sure it wasn't poisoned or barbed at all. Puffing out a breath and nodding, she held Ji steady for Kazh to cauterize the wound.

"It's a large wound. You--" The blood began soaking through. She was running out of bandages. "Alright. Do it."

"Hold on... just hold on..." Elya sucked in a breath, then firmly jerked the knife out of his chest and shoved a wad of bandage to the wound.

Her entire... everything was confused. The tiniest parts of her tried to cry, laugh, smile, say anything. Literally every feeling was trying to burst out at the same time. "No. Ji..." Elya hesitated, then carefully wrapped her hand around the knife in his chest. Concentrate. Calm. Harmonize. She could do that. "You can hold still, right?"

Blood spilled and splattered as Elya drew the sword back out of the Deathgranter's chest. Her hands shook violently, now stained with blood that wasn't her own. The image of Ji covered in red had to have been... an illusion. A trick of the light. It wasn't his. The chaos, the--the-- Elya braced herself and turned around, then dropped her sword as she rushed forwards to grab him. Lights. Lightslightslights... Maybe it wasn't too deep. Maybe the blade wasn't at all jagged or rusted, or... or maybe... "You're gonna be okay," she panted, wrapping an arm around Ji to hold him steady as she brought out as many bandages as she could grab. "You're going... Lights. Not... not you too..." Saaphir's body wisped away into old, dead ashes. "You're okay..."

So... I've been improving. It's far from good, but I've gotten better. Now my humans look somewhat realistic, my shading actually exists, and I've elected to NEVER color under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. Considering all that, I think my stuff isn't half bad. So... here's a thread for it. Hopefully there'll be a visible learning curve of sorts.

Unghhhh... Polly blinked awake, groaning. Why was everything so blurry? That was... the wall. Yeah. He'd fallen asleep at work again--wonderful. Not enough coffee. He stretched, but couldn't really feel much of anything. Whatever. Mornings were like that. For some reason he couldn't hear anything. Maybe he should just-- This computer wants to: Use your microphone. [Allow] [Block] ...what? He mumbled an expletive and clicked the Allow button by reflex, then popped his ears. Sounds began filtering in: coworkers, his boss, the machines. They all still sounded a bit jumbled and... pixelated? Just like his vision. All unfocused. "Hello? Anyone?" That was his boss. Polly grunted and stepped out of his cubicle. "Yeah?" "AHH!" "AHH!" That was not his boss. That was a potted plant. That was the fake tree from the lobby. It was right there, and it was talking to him. "What-- I--"

"Heck." Ellis whimpered.

She almost froze. Was... he was-- Lights. Elya grit her teeth, then slashed across a couple more corpses. They all slowed, giving her just a moment to slide her blade up and out. She darted forwards, sidestepped a corpse, then cut across the Deathgranter's chest a wide arc and swung back around to ram the end of the blade into her heart.