FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

*****

Chapter Seventy Three

*****

"No."

"Ahpledarble!"

"I don't care how many apples you can darble." Revaramek cocked his head, chuckling. "You're still not going outside today."

"Baabbleerbrrl!" The little hatchling hopped around in a circle.

The rushing hiss of steady rain just outside nearly drowned out the sound of adorably nonsensical hatchling words. The rain smelled bitter today, foul and acidic. Its acrid stench wafted into the cave, but his son paid it no mind. He wasn't yet old or experienced enough to know when the rain was safe to play in.

"Arrrbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-rupp!" The hatchling stared at the curtains of gray rain falling beyond the confines of the cave, then made a dash for the exit.

Revaramek grasped his tail, and gently pulled him back. Tiny claws scrabbled at the stone. "Nope. No matter how impressively you may trill and roll your tongue, I'm still not letting you go outside."

"Breeeeetttttt!" The youngling made a high pitched, agitated trumpeting noise.

"I know you're upset, but these are the rules." Revaramek kept hold of the hatchling's tail.

The hatchling ran in place, all four paws thumping against the ground. He stopped, panting, and glared back at his father's paw. "Raaarrrhhh! Agagdabahhrrahahh!"

"Yes, I know your mother's out there, but she's older than you." Revaramek swept his paw at the exit, where gray rain pelted the mud. "She can tolerate it better than you can. Big dragons can handle a bath in the poison rain, and the mire. Little dragons can't."

The hatchling twisted round, swatting at Revaramek's paw several times. "Arrrgaaaaahh!"

"If I let you go, are you going to try and run outside again?"

"Braaaaaaaah!" The hatchling smacked Revaramek's paw, hissing.

"That sounds like a yes, you are, so I can't release you." Revaramek stretched his neck and took the little hatchling's neck gently in his jaws. He lifted him off his feet, and the tiny dragon went limp. Revaramek carried him towards the back of the cave. The hatchling hung limp and wide-eyed the whole way, his limbs bobbling. Revaramek eased him back down near the back wall. "There. See? There's water here to play in. You don't have to go outside."

For several long moments, the hatchling stared up at his father, his muzzle hanging open. He looked as if he just couldn't believe his own father would dare carry him around that way. Then as though to exact his terrible vengeance, he pounced on Revaramek's forepaw, biting and chewing at the scales across the back of it.

"Yes, that's it." Revaramek flexed his fingers. "Give your foe a right, good gnawing. That'll teach me to care about your health and wellbeing."

The hatchling jerked his head up when the sound of the rain changed. For a few moments, the distant patter held a sort of hollowness. The raindrops tapped against taut wing membranes instead of just muddy earth. The sound grow louder, followed by a single wing beat. The little dragon turned his head, following the sound beyond the rocky ceiling of their home. Revaramek reached out and grasped his tail again.

"Yes, that would be your mother returning. No, you can't run and greet her till she's cleaned up."

"Arrrawwrrrroooo!"

"I know it's inconvenient, but you'll just have to wait."

Nyramyn soon emerged through the rain into the cavern entrance. Gray water ran down her wings and dripped off her scales. A large swamp crab hung from her jaws, still waving a few of its dark, chitinous legs. She spat their meal out, and put a forepaw on it to keep it from crawling away. Then she shook herself, sending leaden droplets splattering the cavern walls. Little rivulets of poisoned water trickled away from pools forming beneath her.

"I've got it!" Nyramyn followed up her statement with a victorious trumpeting sound.

The hatchling tried to copy her. "Brrraaaaahhh!"

Revaremek scooped up the little one and moved aside to give Nyramyn some space near the clean water. "I should hope you've got it. It's going to be a hungry day for all of us if you let that crab get away."

"Not that." Nyra put some weight on her paw, crushing the crab's shell to end its life. It twitched a little nonetheless. "The name!"

"Oh?" Revaramek kept hold of their child. The little hatchling wriggled, squirmed, and scrabbled at Revaramek's scales, struggling to free himself. "Not yet, little one, when she's clean."

"Yes!" Nyramyn snagged a few strips of fur on her way over to back wall. She settled on her haunches, wiping discolored droplets from her body till the hide was soaked. Then she rinsed it out in the trickles of clean water, and started over. "So how was your morning? Has he behaved himself?"

"Oh, no, no no." Revaramek flared up his frills. "You're not getting away with that. If you've got a name let's hear it."

For a moment, the little dragon gave up his scrabbling. He stared up at his father, and then tried to spread out his tiny frills the same way.

"What?" Nyramyn rinsed the wet strip of blanket again, then wrung it out and worked it over more sections of her scales. "Oh, you wanted to hear it?"

Revaramek tapped unsheathed claws against the stone floor. "And it had better be damn good after this."

Nyramyn cleared her throat with a loud growl. She arched her neck, smiling. "Naramek!"

"That's terrible."

His mate's frills slumped, and her ears drooped. "What? You don't like it?"

"It's just my name with a bit of yours at the front."

"No it isn't." Nyramyn glared at him, running the hide down a foreleg. "Well...I like it."

"So that's what we're going with, then?"

"I want your input, too." She washed her other foreleg, glancing at him. When Revaramek just stared at her, she hissed. The hatchling hissed too. "See? He likes it."

"Hissing doesn't mean he likes it."

"He was hissing to agree with me!" Nyramyn inspected herself, looking for any areas she may have missed. "Besides, you're the one who told me dragons often combine their parents' names for their children."

"In the stories, yes!"

"And aren't those stories based on real things that happened to real dragons? Isn't that what you said?"

"Yes! From other worlds, though." Revaramek tilted his head. "What...what sort of naming conventions do the swamp dragons have?"

Nyramyn held the blanket swatch under the dribbling water, rinsing it. "I've no idea. I know what I'm called, and what you're called, and what some of the other dragons were named. But I don't know where those names came from." She scrunched her muzzle. "I never really even knew my parent's names. I heard them now and then, but...I suppose they didn't stick. I just knew them as mother and father." When the blanket was clean, she wrung it out, and set it aside. "You can let him go now. I'm as clean as I'm going to be."

Revaramek released the little dragon's tail. He turned his head, stared at his father's paw, and then dashed towards his mother. "Arrrrraabbblle!"

"Yes, Arrable has returned." Revaramek laughed, scratching at his neck with a wing tip talon. "Maybe we'll call him Naramek, and we'll call you Arrable."

"Maybe I'll call you homeless after I kick you out." Nyramyn snatched up the hatchling when he neared her, and hugged him to her chest plates. He wriggled and squirmed and giggled and scrabbled and licked her, purring. "Yes, I missed you too! And how has my favorite dragon been in my absence?"

"BrrrrrRUP!" The hatchling gave a happy trill.

"Oh, your father's been mean to you, has he?"

"I thought I was your favorite dragon." Revaramek chuckled as he pushed himself to his feet and padded over to the swamp crab she'd caught. "Though I couldn't think of a more fitting usurper."

"You're my fourth favorite dragon." Nyramyn swiveled her head around to smirk at him over her wings. "My parents are tied with little Naramek here for first."

"Wouldn't that make me second, then?" Revaramek picked up the broken crab in his jaws, carrying it up alongside his mate. Limp, hard-shelled legs bobbled on either side of his jaws. He set it down, and used fresh water to rinse away lingering traces of the poisoned rain. "If everyone else is first, then I have to be in second place."

"No, you're in fourth, because there are three of them ahead of you."

"But if they're all number one, then the next available position is number two. You can't change the rules-"

"I can if I'm the one who makes them up."

Revaramek paused to grin at her, his ears perked. "You didn't make up numbers."

"But I've made up my own ranking system, for dragons. And it says you're in fourth."

Revaramek snorted, tossing his head. "Could be worse, I suppose. At least I'm ahead of that blue-scaled whelp you told me about."

"Ooooh." Nyramyn gave a lingering trill, then sighed. "I'd almost forgotten about him. I guess you're fifth...though, I only rank the top four. I'll give you an honorable mention."

"I give your ranking system an honorable mention." Revaramek cracked open a few crab legs, once the shell was clean. With delicate care, he used his claws to pry free strips of sweet meat. He held the first one up to his son, now cradled in Nyramyn's forelegs. "Here you go, little one."

The little dragon sniffed at the meat, then chomped down on it, trying to yank the whole piece away from his father. He tugged his head back and forth, pulling his neck back, growled through his full jaws.

"No, you're not getting the whole thing. You'll choke yourself." Revaramek sliced through the slab of pale crab flesh just beyond the end of the hatchling's muzzle.

The hatchling pulled his head back, eyes widened in surprise. He stared at the rest of the crab, still in his father's paw, then tried to bite it. In the process the piece he already had in his mouth fell out of his jaws and onto the floor. He gave a frustrated yowl, pawing at the air, trying to reach the rest of the food hovering before him.

"Naramek, you have to learn to eat what's in your mouth before you try and cram more into your snout." Nyramyn laughed and eased him closer, and he snapped his teeth down onto the crab again, once more trying to pull the whole thing free.

"So you're already calling him that, are you?" Revaramek held the chunk of crab tight till the hatchling bit through it. This time he chewed it up, swallowed, and immediately took another bite.

"If you don't like it, just say you don't like it."

"Did I not tell you it was terrible?"

"Why is it terrible?"

"It's actually not, but-"

"See?" Nyramyn opened a wing to smack Revaramek with it. "It's a good name."

"Yes, but it sounds an awful lot like our names."

"So?" Nyramyn rubbed the hatchling's wings with her thumb as he ate. "Afraid you're going to go hard of hearing, and get confused which one of you I'm calling?"

"It's just..." Revaramek curled his tail, huffing. "I've heard enough stories to know that characters with similar sounding names can be a problem."

"Characters?" Nyramyn perked her frills, and furrowed her eye ridges. "There's only the three of us, Revaramek. I don't think we're likely to be confused about who is who. Have you a better suggestion?"

"Not really." Revaramek gave the hatchling the last of the crab leg, and retrieved the meat from another for him. He gestured with it, the fleshy cylinder wobbled in the air. "Maybe something like...Varamek."

"Varamek." Nyramyn's voice was flat, her glare as sharp as her teeth. "That is literally just most of your name."

"So is Naramek, it's just a different syllable at the beginning."

"I thought you'd be honored to have me use most of your name for his. At least my way still honors my name as well."

"Maybe we could call him..." Revaramek waved his paw again. The little hatchling rolled his head around, trying to follow the crab till Revaramek offered it to him. "Revamyn."

The hatchling snapped at the crab, grabbing at it with both forepaws while he chewed.

"You can't call him Revamyn."

Revaramek cocked his head. "Why not? That's a good combination of both our names. I mean, if that's the naming convention we want to use, we-"

"Because that's a female name!"

Revaramek hissed at her, spines up. "My name is not female!"

"No, but my name is. Ending a name with 'myn' is only for females."

"Says who?" Revaramek cocked his head.

"Says..." Nyramyn sighed, shifting the hatchling against her. "That was just the way it was with my clan. I've only ever known females with a 'myn' suffix."

"We can start our own naming conventions, then. He doesn't have to know only females used to be called that. He could-"

Nyramyn snapped her jaws hard enough to startle the hatchling. "We are not calling him Revamyn!"

The hatchling stared up at her, wide-eyed. She gave him a soothing coo, nuzzled him, and soon he went back to eating.

"Fine, fine." Revaramek waved his free paw, huffing. "We could change a few syllables. Call him...Vyramek."

"Now you're not honoring my name."

"I added the 'yr' part for you." Revaramek broke up another crab leg when the hatchling finished off the second one. "We could just make up an entirely new name. Call him. Dyramaxyl or Vandrigaar or Korakos or something."

Nyramyn cocked her head. "What was that last one?"

"Korakos?" Revaramek licked the end of his nose. "Why, you like it?"

"It's not bad. Does it mean something?"

Revaramek arched his neck, waggling a wing-tip talon. "I'm...not sure. Sort of tickles my brain, though. So maybe. Let's ask him what he thinks." Revaramek lowered his head to nose at the tiny dragon. Bits of crab stuck to his green muzzle. "What do you think? Want to be named Korakos?"

"Abbledabble!" The hatchling swatted Revaramek between the nostrils.

Revaramek jerked his head back. "That's a yes!"

"I think that was a no."

"We could just call him Abbledabble, he seems to like that noise."

"We're not calling him a bunch of babbled nonsense."

"You hear that, little Abbledabble?" Revaramek nosed at the hatchling again, whispering. "Your mother thinks you're full of nonsense."

"Garrrraruuup! Neggaahhbbbummm!"

"Yes, garrumph indeed." Revaramek smirked at his mate, tail tip twitching across the stone floor. "You're right, she is a negative bum."

Nyramyn glared at him. "You're asking for a smack in the-"

"Shall we go with Korakos, then?" Revaramek curled his tail to protect himself, just in case.

"I do rather like the way it sounds." Nyramyn tilted her head, ears splayed in thought. "And it has a nice rhythm across my tongue. It seems a fair compromise."

"Compromise, nothing! It's my name, so if we choose it, I've won!"

"Naming our child is _no_t a competition!" Nyramyn hissed at him. The little hatchling hissed, too.

"Oh, no." Revaramek waved his paw at them both. "You're not fooling me with that. Everything is a competition for you."

"Only because someone has to keep your ego small enough to fit in this cave."

"Tell you what." Revaramek stretched his wings out to gesture with them. They brushed the stone. "We'll call him Korakos, see if it sticks or not. And if it does, I won't brag about it."

"He's our child, he's not our pet. We can't just..." Nyramyn slapped her tail against the rock floor. "Switch names in and out till we find one we like."

"Of course not!" Revaramek held his paws up in agreement. "But until he's old enough to recognize and remember them, it's not going to matter if we change it a time or two."

"That's not how-"

"We only have one shot at naming him, Nyra." Revaramek reached out and gently took the little hatchling from her arms. After his meal, he was getting sleepy. He gave a drowsy mewl of complaint at being moved, but soon snuggled up against his father's chest plates as Revaramek cradled him. "It'll be his name for all his life, and...I want to get it right."

Nyramyn took a deep breath, her scales and plates almost separating. Then she heaved it all back out in a great sigh. She stretched her neck to nuzzle at Revaramek. "I want to get it right, too."

Revaramek licked the top of her muzzle. "We both like the way Korakos sounds, right?"

"It's unique, I think." Nyramyn smiled, pushing her head against his affection. "I've not a heard a dragon's name quite like that." She smirked at him. "At least not here in the swamp."

"Let's try it for a few days then." Revaramek softened his voice. The hatchling was already napping in his forelegs. One wing was draped across the top of Revaramek's limb, and his tail hung down over the bigger dragon's paws. "If it doesn't seem natural soon, we'll talk about other names."

"We're in agreement, then." Nyramyn lowered her muzzle to give the sleeping hatchling the softest lick she could. "Sleep sweet, Korakos."

*****

Deep in the night, Vakaal bolted awake from a strange dream. He panted, his chest tight. His mouth felt as though he'd eaten a handful of desert sand. The dream wasn't frightening, though. It was odd. Something about it seemed important. Almost revelatory. For weeks now, he had obsessed over that riddle It seemed unsolvable. After all, the storytellers claimed it was rhetorical. But for Father to have told him to solve it, it must have been so much more.

He shifted the blankets, and let the cool night air flowing in through his window brush his fur. The dream, what was it? Vakaal sought to recall it, but the harder he thought about his dreams, the faster they faded into nothingness. It was like trying to retrieve a spider's web without breaking it. There was an urd'thin. There was...sand. Dancing.

Vakaal balled up his fist and smacked it against the bed. The sound started Oasis awake, the rabbit's cage rattled. "Sorry, buddy."

The pup rubbed the base of his horns. There must have been more to it than that. That wouldn't wake him and leave him feeling this way. Maybe he just hadn't gotten enough sleep lately. The first few nights after Father nearly died, he couldn't sleep at all. And the week after that, every time he fell asleep, he was plagued with horrifying nightmares, and woke up screaming.

Vakaal swung his legs over the side of the bed. He walked to his table, poured himself some water from the pitcher, and took a long drink. Before all this, he often dreamt of dancing in the sand, so what was different now? If anything, it was probably just a dream spawned from one of his stories.

Stories.

That was what was different.

The urd'thin in the dream was a child, a pup. Alone and empty in a vast, beautiful desert. A gorgeous but lonely place. No one to keep him company. So the pup told himself stories, and with his vast and endless shaping, he brought those stories to life all around him. Every tale he told became a new friend to dance with, a new family to sing with, a new challenge to set his mind to overcome. The more tales he told, the further his shaping reached, like music to be followed. And when others followed his song, from beyond the desert, he had new friends.

So he told their stories, too, and just like the others, they all came to life.

But not every story his new friends had inside them was a happy story.

Vakaal flopped down on his bed, trying to make sense of it. Stories springing to life from the desert, like a family out of sand.

Vakaal dropped his cup. Water splashed across the floor. The cup rolled under the bed.

Once, long ago, Vakaal dreamt he'd made his father a family out of sand. A new tribe for him to call home. Father later told him, maybe it was more than a dream.

And once, long ago, Vakaal told the tribe a tale in which the men in robes, on their great scaled beasts, came to conquer the desert. An old legend among their people, but Vakaal told the story, he changed it. The first chief was meant to sacrifice himself, but in Vakaal's version, he lived. Then, the storytellers came for Vakaal's tribe. Father went to sacrifice himself, but...he lived. Because of Vakaal.

"No." Vakaal shot to his feet, shouting. "NO!"

He hadn't done that. Had he?

He never told a story where they were captured, so surely...

The fruit rots. Father's voice echoed in his head. Unintended consequences.

"No." Vakaal paced back and forth, panting. "No, no, nonono."

It couldn't be. Such things could not be shaped into existence. Could they?

Maybe...maybe he hadn't shaped them. Maybe it was like the dream. Maybe his shaping only called to them, drew them like moths to a great flame. But...if they were moths, then he was the flame. If he'd somehow shaped them into being, or if he'd called them here, or...whatever may have happened...then...Then they were all part of his story.

Vakaal's head throbbed. He squeezed his horns, groaning. A thousand impossibilities flashed through his mind all at once. Father and he, they were different from the others. The first chief's direct descendent, possessed of shaping meant to bring the world back to life. Father said he fled these men once before.

Trying to sort it out, Vakaal gazed around his room. His eyes settled on sets of four books. If there were four stories...then...then the world the storytellers fled was 'everyone dies', right? Was...that where Father brought him from? Another world? Father said the fought the storytellers, that they'd come before, and would come again. He sent the tribe away, and then fled with Vakaal...But not into the desert...

When night fell, I fled with you into the darkness. If it was all some grand loop, I wanted to break it for you. I wanted you to have a chance to live your life, happy and free. So I took you into the wasteland, where none could follow.

"Into the darkness." Vakaal's voice trembled as he murmured the words. "Where none could follow..."

Vakaal assumed his father meant the darkness of night, and the wasteland that existed beyond the edge of the desert. But what if it was something more? What if...could it be...another world? Some dead place the storytellers left behind?

If Vakaal built a whole tribe out of sand, could he have...spun the entire desert into being for his father, too? Again, his father's voice drifted through his head, on the day he first started to teach him to guide his shaping.

Think of it this way, Vakaal. Imagine it's your story, and you're the one telling it. It goes any way you want it to. If it's your story, then all you ever have to do is change it.

All he ever had to do was change it.

If it was his story, then it didn't matter where the storytellers came from, or why they were here. Whether he called them here or not, they were part of his story, now.

It's funny that you think, when the time comes, you have anything that can hold him. You don't.

Nothing that could hold him.

Vakaal slowly lifted his right hand. Manacles encased it almost to his elbow. Why couldn't they hold him? Why did his shaping, his healing, sometimes escape them? Because it...it...because it followed his emotions? Because the story obeyed his heart? Because he told the story? The story always did what he wanted. Once, he imagined a storm, and so...so a storm came. Once, he imagined a terrible foe, and so they crossed the desert. He wanted his father healed, and so his father was healed.

We must never overuse our shaping, or the gods will punish us.

They're not coming, Vakaal. There's no punishment. The only gods here...We're...suffering. You're...suffering. For nothing. I'm sorry, pup, I'm so, so sorry...

"The only gods here...are suffering."

A shudder wracked Vakaal, his fur bristling, ice in his veins. That could not be what Father meant. Could it? Then again...if it was all his story to change...

The pup stared at the manacles. "This is my story. This is my story. This is my story." With every repetition, the words grew angrier. With every repeated phrase, his heart beat harder. "This is my story. This is my story! This! Is! My! Story!"

The air shook around him, and blue-white motes burst into whirling life, illuminating his room. The sparks startled him, and as he stumbled back, they followed him, spiraling around him as if to bear witness to whatever impossible feats he was about to undertake. He held up his wrist again, staring at his manacles. The sparks spun through the air, twisting around his hand, and settled upon the top manacle. It shuddered. They all shuddered.

Vakaal snarled at the shackle as if it could hear him. "You're part of my story. This is my story to tell. There's no place for you here! In my story...my shaping is free. The pup's shaping is free! Because it's his story to tell! It's my story!" Vakaal's voice rose to an angry roar, and the stone walls shook all around him. "Who tells the storyteller's story?"

Just like that, Vakaal understood what his father meant. The only gods here...

_Everything_was his story to tell.

"I do."

All at once, something twisted in Vakaal's head, something opened in his soul, a chasm, an ocean of infinite shaping wider than any collar's grasp could ever span. The whole world froze around him, waiting. Waiting for him to tell its story.

The world was his, and now, everything in it was his story to tell.

Vakaal grasped the first manacle. Now, in the frozen world, he could see its power, like coils of silvery ink and blood wrapped around him. In the timeless moment, he snipped each binding thread. "The manacle opened, its power gone."

The manacle opened. Its power was gone. Vakaal pulled it free and tossed it to the floor. Laughing, a mad, jubilant sound, he put a hand to his collar. Its power was a vast mesh around his heart, his soul, struggling to hold back the sea that was his shaping. Like water through cloth, his power poured through every tiny opening, and the mesh crumbled. Hovering above his heart was the so-called failsafe, a tine of Lovro's magic, woven there and waiting to pierce him. With the collar overwhelmed, the failsafe triggered, but it too was all a part of Vakaal's story. The pup touched it with his own shaping, and it melted away like ice under the desert sun.

Freed from his binds at last, Vakaal continued his story. Time wound forward once more. He snatched up a handful of his sand figurines, clutching them to his chest. He thrust his other hand at the locked door, and blew it off its hinges without a thought. The rabbit's caged rattled as the startled animal bounded back and forth.

"Don't worry, Oasis." The pup smiled over his shoulder at the rabbit. "I'll find you a good home. I've got to go now. I've...got to set things right."

Vakaal padded down the hallway. One by one, the manacles fell from his arms. They lay behind him in a broken line down the corridor. His head felt funny, as if filled with something that wasn't there before. Or something he'd never noticed. Hints and glimpses of memories he shouldn't have, powers he shouldn't understand. An old memory flickered in his mind, of the time he almost brought his dead mother back to life.

When Father had stopped him, the world froze then, too. Droplets of water hung in the air as Father...what had father done, exactly? How had father stopped it? And what would have happened if Father _hadn't_stopped it? Would Vakaal have burned the whole world away and made a second where mother live? Maybe Father would have been happier that way...would they remember the first? Or would there be two fathers?

It all made Vakaal's head ache, and he decided it did not matter. There was no more doubt to hold him back, no more fear to quell him. Only the simple understanding that it was all his story He might not be able to re-shape their history without ruining the world, but he could damn sure shape them a better future.

Robed men burst into the corridor ahead of him. They must have heard the door shatter. Vakaal barely noticed them as they rushed towards him, shouting. He had nothing to fear from them, now. It didn't matter how refined their shaping was if they couldn't use it. The manacles he'd just shed flew down the hallway, attaching themselves around the storytellers' wrist. As they cried out and struggled to free themselves, Vakaal slipped between them. He glanced up at each.

"The men fell asleep."

Each robed man dropped to the floor, completely unconscious.

Vakaal made his first destination the servant's quarters. While they had their own homes, they also had rooms at the castle where they kept their uniforms, and did their paperwork and whatever else such people did. Though it was still dark out, it must have been early in the morning. Flickering orange lamp light shone under the door. Someone must have already been in for the day, getting things ready.

Vakaal waved at the door, and it opened. Inside the room, Timmons was busy folding clothes. A platter of pastries and mugs of drink sat around a square-shaped table. He'd probably brought things for the other servants. Timmons was a good man. Vakaal liked him. At the sound of the door Timmons turned around. He looked confused, at first.

"Hello, little master Vakaal. Can't sleep?" He set down the shirt he was folding. "I can get you a snack, if you like. Though you really shouldn't be in...this part..." Timmons trailed off, staring at Vakaal's hands. "Where...where are your shackles?" Fear edged his voice. "Are those your...figurines?"

Vakaal nodded. He took the largest figurine, and set it out on the table. He wanted to make sure any of the other servants who came in early would see it. Timmons wasn't the only one who knew what they meant. The pup spent a moment arranging it, moving it back and forth, till he liked the way it looked.

"Umm...Y-young master...are..." Timmons wrung his hands.

"My head feels funny, Timmons." Vakaal waggled his fingers around his head. "I feel like everything's suddenly a lucid dream. Do you ever have those?"

"O-once or twice."

"I don't think I ever have, but...this must be what it feels like." Vakaal turned and gazed around. Now that he'd freed himself, a strange sense of calmness had settled over him. "Nothing quite seems real, I can..." He lifted a hand, and held it out towards Timmons. "I can feel...everything. Existence_._ It's like a story waiting to be changed. And now it's my story." A smile broke out across Vakaal's muzzle. "What color is your shirt, Timmons?"

Timmons ran a shaking hand down his face. "Green, sir."

"Your shirt is blue, Timmons."

Timmons looked down just in time to see his shirt change from green, to blue. He sucked in a ragged breath, stumbling back against the wall.

The pup giggled. "You see? I have my shaping back. But it's...different now. It's like I taught myself a secret I wasn't supposed to know. Now I can shape anything. The whole story. Lovro says it's all a story..." Vakaal turned away, cackling to himself. Almost sounded like Lovro himself, for a moment. "You see, he was right! It is_all just a story. But it's _my story, Timmons. And I'm going to tell it to Lovro." His laughter returned, higher and happier than before. "You won't want to be here when that happens."

Just outside the door, Vakaal paused. He turned around, and stared at Timmons for a moment. The poor old man had gone utterly pale. Vakaal softened his voice. "You've nothing to fear, Timmons. When I'm done telling the story, you'll be well cared for. Oh, will you keep Oasis for me? Father and I are leaving soon."

Timmons took a shuddering breath, a hand pressed to his chest. He tugged at his blue shirt. "Certainly, sir..."

"Good. You've enough time to fetch him, before you leave." Vakaal gave him a friendly wave, his voice soft and genuinely grateful. "Thank you for being kind to me, Timmons."

"The least I could do."

Vakaal turned away, and headed deeper into the castle. Vakaal didn't care if Timmons raised an alarm or not. What could they do to him now? Lovro wanted the pup to re-write his peoples' story, and that was exactly what Vakaal was doing. First, he had one more stop to make.

The rooms Vakaal wanted to reach were on one of the upper floors. As he climbed the stairs, he pressed the last of his scuplted figures together between his hands. He rolled them back and forth, dissolving them back into sand. Then he shaped the sand into glass, and shaped the glass into a knife. As he shaped, he sang. The notes of his song bent and warped the walls around him.

He spoke the story aloud, just to hear it. "Brave Vakaal was a great hero. Vakaal was always a great hero, even when doubt and fear weighed him down. All the vast world was but his story, his clay to shape and mold. Vakaal was unstoppable! Vakaal was righteous, and all the evil-doers would fall before him."

The world bent, and made it so, and his story was reality.

At the top of the stairs, a guard in sturdy armor saw him coming. The man rushed over to grab him. Vakaal caught his arm with his free hand, and with impossible strength, tossed the man back down the stairs. The pup kept walking as the guard tumbled down the stairway. He didn't need fists of stone to win this battle. He'd already won it the moment he solved their riddle, and discovering who he truly was.

He was their storyteller.He told their story.

A cluster of armored men stood at the end of the hall, protecting his destination. When they saw him coming and realized he had no manacles on, they drew their weapons as one. Half of them approached him as a single, cohesive, well-trained unit. The other half of the group remained behind, protecting the Colony Commander's quarters. One of them slipped inside, and closed the door, while the others took up position all around it.

Vakaal tilted his head. "Men came to slay Brave Vakaal." He tightened his grip on the knife, calling out to them. "Lay down your weapons, and you'll live!"

None of the men obeyed.

"Brave Vakaal was a whirlwind, dancing among his foes! None could touch him, all fell by his hand!"

Brave Vakaal sprinted forward, dancing amongst the men. His glass dagger, impossibly hard and sharp, cut through flesh and armor, bit through tendon. Men screamed and collapsed. Their weapons never touched him. Wind from swords whistling by his ear ruffled his fur, but no matter how hard they tried, every blow missed. Vakaal's every strike hit home, using the moves, the techniques his father taught him over the many soul-crushing years in this place. Amplified by his shaping, Vakaal was nothing more than a whirling blur.

Soon the corridor's rugs were sodden with blood, and the ground covered in wounded men. Some of them moaned in pain. Others lay still. Vakaal did not pity these men the way he pitied those he killed when they were first caught. Not after years of torment and abuse at the hands of their masters. There was little room left in Vakaal to pity the cold, callous, and the cruel.

Further down the hall, the remaining guards cursed as Vakaal continued towards them. They called for someone with the spark to come and defend the commander. That was what they called their shaping; the spark, the ember. It didn't matter.

"None could touch Brave Vakaal, Teller of Stories."

As he neared the end of the hall, another door flew open, and one of the higher-ranking shapers came out. Vakaal snarled, those men were all the same. At one time or another, they'd all come to watch Lovro "train" the pup. Come to gawk at his father's torture. Come to laugh at his father's pain. Fury and hatred welled up inside Vakaal. When the robed man saw the pup free of his shackles, a shocked look spread over his face. He called for help as lifted his hands to summon his shaping.

Vakaal gave him no such chance. He threw a hand forward, and the stones that formed the corridor exploded into sand, a whirling, shrieking storm of it. The storyteller's scream lasted for only a moment as the sandstorm scoured the skin from his flesh, and then the flesh from his bones. Vakaal flicked his fingers, and the rest of the corridor blew open, exposing the night sky. The sandstorm carried away the storyteller's ragged bones.

Near the door he needed, a few guards laid down their weapons, lifting their hands in surrender. Vakaal tilted his head back the way he'd come. They took off running, and he let them go. One guard remained outside the door, staying at his post despite the way his sword shook in his hands. He looked ready to wet himself.

"Why do you serve them?" Vakaal spun his bloodied knife around his fingers, a move his father taught him.

The guard stammered. "I...I want to..."

Vakaal could almost hear his thoughts, as if they were just another part of the story. Or...part of a story, anyway. Vakaal put a finger tip on the man's sword, lowering it to the ground. He touched the man's arm, and another life flashed through his head. A scorched world. A difficult childhood. A broken family. A young man who wanted to help make a difference for his people. A dangerous mission.

Vakaal pulled his hand back, and gestured down the hall. "Go."

"I...I can't. I won't abandon my duty."

Vakaal perked his ears, smiling. "You're brave. And...you're not evil. I'm not going to hurt him. Wait over there."

Vakaal used his shaping to push the man out of his way, and down the hall. Then he tore the door off its hinges. The barricades shattered in an instant. The guards inside the Colony Commander's quarters rushed him together. Vakaal hurled them all to different parts of the expansive. He gazed around, noting the immense bed, a desk that took up an entire wall, a strange map of spheres and lines, and shelves of books. None of that interested him.

Instead, Vakaal focused on Jirim. The Colony Commander stood with his back up against another door. That must have been where his son was. Jirim had a sword in his hand, his face drawn and pallid.

Jirim's voice shook. "Whatever you think you're doing, Vakaal-"

"I'm rescuing my father. None of you will ever hurt him again."

Jirim's face hardened. "Please...my son. He's...he's only as old as you are. Whatever you do-"

"Suddenly you're worried about what happens to pups? You made him watch what Lovro did. He didn't seem very worried about helping us, either..."

"Vakaal, you have to understand-"

"I only came here to tell you to leave."

"What?" Jirim lowered his weapon just a little.

"Your son needs a father more than I need to kill you." He pointed back to the hallway. "Leave this castle, quick as you can. If you know anyone else with pups here, take them with you. Do not come back."

"What are you going to do?"

"We both know what's about to happen. None of you will ever hurt my father again." Vakaal shaped his knife back into a figurine of a happy, smiling pup, holding his father's hand. He gave it a kiss, and set it on Jirim's dresser, where he was sure the man could see it. "We were happy, you know. We had good lives. Peaceful lives. Until you came, I don't think...I don't think I'd ever hated anyone before." He patted the figure's head. "Take this with you. Remember what you did here. What you did to us. Remember why this is happening, and teach your son better. Now take him and go."

Outside in the hallway, Vakaal found the guard staring at him, looking dumbfounded. "You...kept your word."

Vakaal scratched at the base of one of his horns, smiling. "Of course. Escort the Colony Commander and his son somewhere safe, far outside the castle. And tell everyone you see to get out." Vakaal padded down the hall, then paused. He smiled. "Unless they wear a robe. Tell them I mean to set my father free. Tell them all. I want them to try and stop me."

*****

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