The Dragon Rider (Ryax x Ecchi Kunoichi)

[Ryax]

It was a busy evening in the capitol of the country. It was the time of the great harvest, where the kingdoms would rake the profits of the lands, in both food from the farms and gold from the pockets of rich kings, merchants, adventurers and regular folk. The streets were overflowing with people from all over the world. Merchants crowded the sides of the streets, with their shops and stalls set up all along the walls, selling everything from regular household items to mystical ointments and potions. In the crowd, there was a specific fellow, a rather tall fellow, sun-kissed skin, lean muscles, short black hair and eyes that were green and blue, was walking around, examining the stalls, the shops and the people vising this years harvest festival.

The name of this specific fellow, was Ryax. While strutting around the town like he was one of them, while appearing as a human in the midst of everyone, he was in fact a dragon. A rare breed of dragon at that. In this day of age, his breed is extremely rare, even amongst rare dragons. Only a handful still exist. He was of a highly intelligent breed, way above the normal animal, way above the normal human. They were also gifted, along with their innate intelligence, with the ability to shape-shift into a human form. They could control the shift if they willed, becoming halfbreed monsters if they wished, for whatever reason. Because of their great intelligence, they were also highly potent in the art of different magics.

Ryax laughed, "No, no, no! There is no way that the kingdoms wont clash soon! The food is running out, the gold is stockpiling and can only be spend on precious metals or weapons and armor.", he said happily. "There will soon be war my friend. The kingdoms need their food, or the people will protest and destroy it from within, you know this as well as I do!", he exclaimed. A laughter from the merchant was heard, "How do you know these things? From my point of view the kingdoms seem to have plenty of food and gold, sure the armies are increasing in size, but that should be normal for any growing country.", the merchaint said, trying to convince Ryax that there was no way that a war was going to break out. Ryax simply replied with a smile on his lips, "Oh, I just know. Trust me. You should know by now old friend. I see you here every year, and I tell you exactly what's going to happen, every year, and they always happen, every year!". He continued, "Now! .. What do you take for that murky, dark looking sword behind you, the one you've been trying to cover up so sneakily.", he asked the merchant with a devious smile on his lips. The merchant looked curiously at Ryax for just a moment as he then said, ".. You always were fond of the odd stuff, weren't you?". The merchant took out the sword from it's hiding place behind the merchant, under the white cloth trying to cover it up. Ryax took a hold of it and examined it thoroughly. It was a sword black as night, in the shape of a dai-katana, with colorful and shimmering scripture on its blade. It seemed to be cracked a lot and was not at all in useable condition. "I'll give you ten gold coins for it.", Ryax said simply. The merchant replying, "Ten!? I wouldn't even have sold it to you for 1! I would almost have given it to you... It's practically useless you know!". Ryax smiled and said, "You want the ten gold coins though, do you?", he said and smiled deviously at him and the mechant sighed. "Fine, thank you for giving an old man like myself a chance to feed my children.", the merchant said, smiling widely at Ryax as he was handed the 10 gold coins that would feed his family for another year. Ryax smiled happily and sheathed the sword and equipped it to his belt as he said, "With this, I expect to see you here next year as well, to sell me even more interesting junk!". Ryax walked away as he waved to the merchant, then disappeared into the crowd.

While still in town, Ryax bought a lot of exotic meats and fruits and other food, as well as a lot of interesting and rare drinks. He also bought some rare and interesting potions. As the sun was settling, Ryax was heading out of town to simply walk a bit away and to find a quiet place away from prying eyes. As he arrived without any fuzz, he put his things on the ground and transformed himself into a full fledged dragon. His scales were black as the night, his eyes a light blue color. He grabbed his stuff with his claws and gracefully and silently flicked his wings and took off from the ground. He quickly made his way high up in the sky, confident that he didn't scare too many people as it was almost dark and his scales allowed him to blend with the night. He soared through the sky for a while, enjoying the northern winds and the freedom of the sky. After a while he descended and landed gracefully at the top of a big mountain. The top of the mountain was not as a peak, but more like a inwards dome. The wind didn't blow here, it was perfectly still and warm.

He yawned a bit and laid his newly aquired things next to the his human bed. He bended down gently and manifested some fire on a large pile of wood that immediately caught on fire from the magical dragon fire. He yawned again, loudly, as he made himself ready to transform into a human for a more comfortable sleep in the bed. He had developed a liking to some human things, particularly the beds, as human beds were very comfortable compared to the rock hard mountains he used to lay on.

 

[Ecchi Kunoichi]

Tira was camping out in the nearby forest that night, and had she not been looking up at the sky to watch the stars come out, she might have missed the dark figure flying over so quietly. Green feline eyes widened and lit up as she saw what was most definitely a dragon fly past and off toward the mountains in the distance. It was only a few moments later that her camp site had been packed up and the fire extinguished, the young Kitran girl moving at a quick pace to head in the same direction as she saw that dragon fly..

The Kitran are a race of feline featured people that hail from the southern lands, living within dense jungles, few ever joining the 'civilized' world. Most were content to remain within the jungle dwelling tribes living as hunter gatherers, and only occasionally trading with outsiders they might encounter. It was a tribal, and some would say savage, primitive existence. Tira however had grown up in a city north of the jungles, her mother have left the tribal life behind to seek out something different. She ended up marrying a human man, who Tira grew up calling father. This human father was one of the last few of an old order that was now barely surviving. It was an order of warriors who tamed, and rode dragons. Dragons are like most any other beast, and can be tamed, and trained with the right knowledge. And now Tira sought to carry on in her father's footsteps, traveling and searching for a dragon that she could tame and make her own.

Tira, like most of her people, had the usual feline features such as feline eyes, two triangular fuzzy ears resting on top of her head, and a furry tail. She had caramel tan skin and light brown hair that matched the fur of her ears and tail, her eyes a bright emerald green. Currently she wore a pair of leather pants with a belt and loincloth over them(a tribal tradition inherited from her mother), and a cloth wrap around her chest, under a leather vest laced up the front. Over that she wore a light cloak, and on her feet were a pair of leather boots. She carried a pair of short curved swords at her hips, a few daggers strapped on here and there, and a bow along with a quiver of arrows. She also had a travel satchel she carried with her, which had much of her supplies in it.

It was a long, brisk walk to get to the mountains where the dragon had flown, and by the time she came to the edge of the forest to begin climbing up the mountainside, the sun was already starting to rise. Tira was fairly tired, but far too excited to try sleeping now. She knew she would soon have a dragon, she only needed to tame it by confronting it, meeting it in battle, and casting a particular spell to bring it under her power as a dragon rider. Of course, she was assuming this was an ordinary dragon, as people in this age were unaware of any other sort.

 

[Ryax]

(sorry, sorry, oh so very sorry(!), about the long response time, had some troubles at home and no time to write, but it should stabilize sometime around now hopefully, I hope you can bare with me)

Ryax yawned loudly as he transformed to a human again. He went over to the bag with things he had bought from the festival during the day. He crouched down and started to rummage through it, picking out some delicious looking meats and drinks for his evening supper. He skewered the meats on a couple of sticks which he lodged into the ground, grounding them over the fire, for the meat to cook and grill nicely. He went over and laid down in his bed, looking up at the stars and listening to the cracking of the fire and the gentle wind kissing the mountains crevices. After a little while he sat up again and turned his focus towards the meat, his stomach rumbling from hunger. He smiled as he went over to the fire and smelled some of the meat, his mouth watering a little from the delicious scent. He let the meats stay over the fire a little longer, then quickly devoured them one by one. A dragon does develop quite a hunger by transforming all the time.

After all the meat and some of the drinks had been consumed, he turned his attention to his other bought things. He went over to the bag, rummaging through it again and picked up all the potions he had bought as well. He went over to his storage cabinet and placed all the potions in there, in sorted order, ranking from both potion strength and type. When he was satisfied he clapped his hands and went excitedly over to the bag again, only to take out the broken sword he had bough earlier. "This sword really looks interesting.. I wonder what it may be capable of..", he said excitedly to himself as he held the blade towards the night sky, the light from the fire flickering across it's surface strangely. He quickly went over to his workshop, laying the sword carefully down on his work table. Surrounding the table in properly sorted cabinets, he had gathered many magical tools to help in in repairing additional curious and interesting items like the sword. He picked out a few and started to poke and work on the sword, trying to figure out all of it's features. After a while, he had not managed to understand anything of the blade still, rendering him a little angry but curious over such a complex sword.

Ryax decided to just go to sleep, he was getting tiered and he might do something foolish with his work if he kept on working right now. He went over to his bed, laying himself under the warm and cozy covers. He sighed delightfully as he closed his eyes, gently drifting off to sleep. The fire was burning ever so steadily, as it was fueled by the magical energies of nature rather then the wood itself, consuming very little physical material in the process. The stars were shining brightly as there were no clouds around this night.
After a couple of hours of sleep, Ryax woke up, yawning and stretching as he leapt out of his bed. The sun was shining upon his lair, spreading a gentle warmth. Ryax recalled the magical energies from the fire which quickly died out after that. As he went over to survey and continue his repair work of the dark sword from last night, his mind was swirling with thoughts of how to go about it, when he suddenly thought of a brilliant idea. He went straight to work, working for a couple of hours, still not being able to reveal any information about his blade he was getting quite frustrated. He decided it was time to get a new magical survey tool he had been wanting to get for a while, it was of a rare sort but he knew of a few people who might have something like that. He picked up the gold he had brought back as leftovers from the festival yesterday, put it in his pockets, then transformed into his dragon self. His scales reflected little of the sunlight as he spread his wings to the max, stretching himself a bit to relieve some of the muscle fatigue from the frequent transformations he had done over the last two days.

 

[Ecchi Kunoichi]

Tira had made her way up the mountain slowly but surely, searching around for where the dragon's lair might be. She looks around until finally she finds an opening and heads inside it. She moves quietly through the passage and deeper into mountain until she comes to another opening. She looks up, surprised to see that it seemed to be open at the top rather than a typical cave, the sun shining in. She looks around slowly, curious about the things she can see, almost seeming like a person's home rather than what one would expect of a dragon's lair. Still, she moves deeper within, looking around for any sign of the dragon itself.

She slowly pulls her bow from her back and draws out an arrow to notch it onto the string. Her feline eyes scan the area as she continues to move slowly, looking for the dragon, hoping she would see it before it saw her.

 

[Ryax]

Ryax had transformed back to human form to easily gather up a few things he had forgotten to pack along. He hummed cheerfully this beautiful day as he picked up his bag, tossed it over his shoulder and turned around to go to a more safe place to transform back into a dragon. He stopped in his tracks as he saw her, shocked. He did not expect anything to dare make its way into his lair. But still, this feline creature had strayed into it, despite the clear signs of a dragon living here spread throughout the entrance she used to get there. He took the chance to look upon her body, her clothes, her movements and most of all, her weapons. He snapped to his senses, realizing the immediate danger. He tossed his bag aside, transforming himself into his dragon self, drawing the immediate attention from the feline as he growled loudly, towering his majestic body. He flapped a bit with his wings at the feline, sending gusts of air towards her as he went down on all his four and started making his way over to her, trying to scare her away.