Thread: The Light and the Dark in the Soul (Anaeria and razerwing)

The strange, hard ground under her hooves made her hooves chime louder and clearer as ran, having leapt over some kind of hollow beast that sputtered and went silent as she Imalia bolted out of the Forest, the freedom heady as any fresh breeze could possibly be to someone trapped underground for weeks and months and years at a time. The land around her was hideously strange though, there was little in the way of greenery, and there were those hollow beasts everywhere, making noise and honking or whining like little chick-buns when they were hungry for fresh meat. It was a disorienting sound, and the black unicorn pressed her ears to the back of her head tightly and ran faster, hoping to escape it, and the forest she had left behind so abruptly. The ground was grey under her hooves, and the smell of where she was was disgusting entirely, and Imalia slowly began to regain her mind as she headed for an open space she'd seen, a pathway that crossed itself into a four directional road convergence. She was almost there, not even so much as touching any of the humans milling around in confusion. They all moved out of her way subconsciously or were fully aware of the 'black horse' which barreled towards them and got out of the way. Triumphant, and still terrified at the idea that humans still existed, her eyed slowly began to lose their red glow....until the earth in front of her exploded. Rearing back with a shrill shriek of surprise, Imalia flailed her front hooves in case something burst from the ground to attack her and backed up immediately, her sides lathered with sweat, giving her hide a sparkle as though she was part of the night skies. Flailing her forelegs until she regained her balance, she came to a stop about two or three hundred yards from the Forest and looked about for the cause of the explosion at her feet, the sounds of humans screaming and crying out and yelling in vulgar tones just adding to her confusion more until she Screamed. The sound was like that of a dying soul, and it was loud and it was long, silencing most of the humans near her in an instant. There were still vehicles blaring a block away of course, but suddenly this block of the city was silent except for the shuffle of feet and tires as people turned to look. Her horn glittered as the sky overhead shifted some clouds away from the sun, allowing a ray of light to hit it, sending a spark of rainbows into peoples eyes and across the ground and walls of the buildings that were much too closed in for her liking. A small child, who'd been caught in the panic of people pushing back and forth to get and go to the Forest then called out Unicorn! And the noise started up again, scaring the hellfire out of Imalia until she turned around and tried to head back towards her home, where it was quiet, where she knew her way around, and where she could fight and kill whoever entered the Forest and not feel so trapped. All of that happened within moments of the gunshot sounding out, and then hands. Filthy, human hands were reaching for her mane and her face and her sides, touching her tail and grabbing it, pulling her hair and making her shriek of terror. It was that terror that had her biggest supporter showing itself from the Forest. Within moments the the smallest trees in the edges of the forest were crushed as a large lizardlike creature slithered out, sending people flying as it's tail moved in an arc behind it. The beast was similar to tales of dragons, but wingless and of course flightless, but it's teeth and eyes and head and body were the same. As was it's intelligence. It was gentle as it picked up the terrified 'horse' from the throng of people that were grabbing at it, it's front talons quite dexterous as it lifted the horned horse out of the grasps and reach of the humans, then it turned slowly and headed for the Forest and safety, glancing down once to see the equine form vanishing to reveal the huddled human female it liked the company of so much. The Drake was called Anaeron, and was the eldest of his race in the Forest. It had helped to raise the terrified young Imalia until she took over as Queen and Guardian of the Forest in the Dark Space, and not even the Rathgnarls dared to attempt to harm it or go near it's den. Entirely naked except for her long hair, which faintly glittered in the sunlight, Imalia curled into a ball in the Drakes' hand and quivered in terror as it headed back for the trees, the enormously thick scaling along his spine stopping a bullet that was shot from a gun that a brash young man held, his cronies having scattered in terror at the sight of the 'dragon' as it exited and then reentered it's domain.