Killing the Wolf

DISCLAIMER: The character of Penitent belongs to Luster the Rainwing, and the concept of Warborn belongs to Kittyluvver. Neither of them are owned by me.
The nuclear wasteland. All of Pyrrhia destroyed, likened to an ashen field, sown with salt. The land was dead, crawling with abominations and infertile. There was no going back.
Penitent barely noticed it anymore.
She cursed as she threw the hood of her bus, the traveling shelter that had seen more than any vehicle was ever warranted for, and plunged her paws into the smoking wreck of the engine. Cringing as the oil and grease slicked over her smooth white scales, she pulled out a cracked tube and slapped some duct tape around it.
"I swear, this thing is made out of duct tape by now," she said to no one in particular, spitting out a strip of the sticky adhesive. She slammed the hood back down, sending a poof of rusty flakes up from the school bus's multitude of cracks and crannies, and clambered back inside. It shook alarmingly as Penn's weight landed on the dirty plastic floor.
I wonder how dragonets would react to going to school in this wreck, she thought. The idea of a group of screaming dragonets careening across the nuclear wasteland amused her, and as she pulled out a canteen, Penn allowed herself a self-indulgent smile.
Something slammed into the side of the bus.
Penitent started, flaring her wings as water slopped out of her canteen to drip down her wrist. Whatever it was, it had hit the vehicle so hard that the whole thing had nearly tipped over.
Damned mutants, snarled Penn to herself, shaking off droplets of precious water. Let's see how this one likes a flare between the eyes.
It was about sunset, and the burning light from the sun reflected in shimmering heatwaves to bounce into Penitent's eyes. She didn't bother trying to shield her face, just shouldering her flare gun and stalking out to round the bus.
Penn had seen a lot of things. She had seen mutants and zombies, and illegal experiments, and dragons gone horribly, horribly wrong.
Nothing prepared her for the monster she found on the other side of the bus.
It was roughly draconic, with the average body shape of a SandWing, but so very different. It was covered in a grey-and-brown pelt of ragged, wiry fur, with ash-sand scales visible between clumps of mangy hair. The underbelly, normally a smooth, strong stripe of flesh on a dragon, was nonexistent, instead being completely made of that same matted pelt. Its ears were furry and huge, its wings holey, scars decorating its body with tales of age-old wounds.
It was hideous.
Penitent aimed her flare gun at it, with its head still pressed up against the side of the bus, it would never see it coming. She cocked the weapon and began to pull down on the trigger...
Suddenly, the SandWing's ears flicked up, and it curled around to face her, spreading its wings close to the ground and raising its tail in the defensive position of dragons for millennium. She could see its eyes now- wide open and electric yellow, with black around it, it looked like the eyes of a wolf.
Penitent realized that she had gotten caught up with staring at the thing. It may have been disgusting, but it was somehow alluring, like a forbidden object that no one had permission to gaze upon. Flaring her spikes in confusion, she got the weapon ready again...
"Nnhhho..."
The sound came from the mouth of the creature.
She stopped. "W-what?"
It shifted its position, raking the dead ground with its enormous claws and lashing its furry tail. "Nnnho..." The word sounded wrong in its mouth, horribly tortured and mangled, a wild animal attempting to speak.
"Can you... understand me?"
The beast gave a spastic shiver of it's head that quickly turned into a vigorous shake when it attempted to nod, looking almost comical as it floundered helplessly with the constraints of sentience.
Penn knew that this thing wasn't safe- she could feel it in her very bones. But for some inexplicable reason, she lowered her gun, slowly and ready to pick it back up if need be. She took a few tentative steps closer to it, and it shrunk back, like a scolded dog. Its huge, furry ears lowered, until it was practically groveling at her feet.
"Do you have a name?"
The thing seemed put off by that question, and it rolled its huge, hulking shoulders, tasting the words in its massive mouth.
More to come!
Category:Fanfictions (Incomplete)
Category:Fanfictions (Fanon)
Category:Content (Rainbow Phoenix Fangirls)
Category:Fanfictions