{hit you like a hurricane}o

[bast]

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[atrb=background,http://i55.tinypic.com/r1bpu1.jpg] NEVER in his life had Train considered himself a dog that didn't like getting wet. He was a labrador retriever after all, it was practically in their DNA to be water-loving. Tonight however, Train was finding himself wishing only for a dry place to curl up as he quickly relearned the difference between liking a good swim in the lake and being stuck in a torrential downpour in the middle of the night. Quite frankly, he was finding it most unpleasant. Of course it wasn't the first time he'd been stuck in a downpour but normally Train could just find a dry place to hole up and wait out the storm, or he would be close enough to home to just stick it out. Tonight however the fates had other plans. The black retriever had been out walking along the railway tracks, trying to scout out any signs of trouble and in general stretch his legs. It was his job to keep the pack guarded and safe but it was also not his rotation today. Tomorrow he would be prowling the borders and interior of the territory trying to sniff out any troublemakers. Today though he'd been given a day off so to speak while a different group of protectors did their job. TRAIN had decided to take this unexpected day of freedom to scout around the loner lands. You never knew who you'd find, slinking through the shadows of the unclaimed portions of the city. Bands of Tempest sympathizers out to hunt anyone and everyone, struggling young ones in need of a helping paw or sometimes the true loners that wanted nothing to do with any of it. It all suited Train fine, it broke up the monotony of his life since joining the Lexis. He had always been unsure, back when he'd been nothing but a Tempest whelp. Always wondering why they had to fight, cats and dogs. It just seemed so automatic to his packmates but not so for him. As a younger dog he'd just chalked it up to something being wrong with him and kept his mouth shut, up until he met Mayla, the pretty retriever that changed his world. She'd taken his life and turned it upside down, sending him snout of tail in love only to yank it away in a desperate act for freedom. She'd been gone in a whirl of fangs and thunder of snarls the instant the Tempest found out she'd made a run for it, leaving Train heartbroken and desperate. SHAKING his head at the sad thoughts crawling through his brain, the long-legged dog tried to quicken his pace as if he could actually escape them. Deep down he knew it was impossible. His own memories of being nearly beaten to death were enough to ensure he'd never forget the Tempest, or Mayla. In some ways Train supposed it was a good thing, this not being able to forget business. It reminded him that other dogs like him, free-thinkers and gentle souls might be trapped in the claws of the Tempest, too afraid to run but too gentle to truly hold their own in the world of violent dogs. That was why Train often made these trips out to the middle of nowhere, so far from the tribeland, trying to find those that might be brave enough to speak up and say they needed help or needed someone to save them. Normally his trips were uneventful, often devoid of any contact with anyone at all, dog or cat. Tonight it had been both devoid of contact and ended with a surprise thunderstorm bombarding him in the middle of the train yard. NOW, jogging through the flooding streets, Train couldn't see the end of his own nose. All he was aware of was how dreadfully wet he was, soaked from ears to paw pads. Thankfully the double-layer coat he had kept him from feeling too cold, but he was starting to get turned around. With all the rain washing away familiar scents and making everything run together, Train was feeling thoroughly confused. The inky blackness of a stormy midnight sky wasn't helping either. All he was certain of was the splashing of his paws as he loped through the dark stormy streets. Occasional growls of thunder egged him on while a flicker of lightning briefly gave him ideas of where he was. It wasn't a lot but he should be able to get home once he stopped getting turned around like a newborn pup just learning his world. Pausing at a crossroad of four streets, Train stood still, head up looking for some landmark or shelter. Overhead white-hot lightning forked the sky, briefly illuminating the skyline. Train's head snapped to the right, looking across the crossroads to see the hulking spiny form of an old church rising up from the ground. Its many spines looked like they were trying to puncture the bellies of the clouds and the windows, some cracked or broken, looked dark and forbidding. Still, Train turned tail and bounded toward it, large paws splashing loudly only to be nearly drowned out by a second roll of thunder. HOPPING the curb and splashing across the wet grass, Train headed straight for the door of the church, jogging up the worn cement steps. Tongue lulling out from parted jaws as he panted on the front step, sheltered from the rain by an overhang above the door, Train paused to look behind him toward the darkened street. The darkness seemed to writhe like a living thing, agitated and unhappy, as lightning flashed and flickered in fits and the storm raged. Bracing his limbs, Train gave himself a hardy shake sending diamonds of water flying all around him for a moment before they fell back to gravity's hold. Turning to the large wood door, Train reared back onto his hindpaws. The door handle was a tube of metal held in place on the door in a vertical fashion. Turning his head to the side, Train was able to awkwardly grab the handle and heave. Old broken hinges groaned noisily as the heavy door was pulled open. When Train dropped back to all fours, the door didn't swing shut like it should have, the hinges too stiff and the closing mechanism long broken, perhaps even by other strays that had found a use for this place. Sliding inside, it took Train's eyes a moment to adjust. HE was standing in small room and beyond that room was the larger portion of the church where humans once gathered, the ceiling vaulted so high he couldn't see it past a certain point. Passing into this bigger, cavernous area, Train peered around as his eyes adjusted to the change in light. The wall farthest from him held panels upon panels of stained glass. Normally moonlight would have lit up this space but tonight it was just reflecting the occasional crack of lightning. The sound of rain falling was let in by a few broken bits of the glass but otherwise the place seemed oppressively quiet. Pews were still in the church, but very few were still orderly and lined up nicely. Most of them were broken and lopsided or pushed aside at odd angles. One was even turned completely around facing the back of the church instead of the front. Looking around at all of it as he walked down the worn carpet of the aisle, Train saw shadows crawling through the whole place. Up the columns that lined the church on both sides, under the pews, up high in the vaulted ceiling. The whole place felt like some giant dead beast and he was walking in its stomach. Stopping just before the steps that would have once led to the alter, Train peered up at the glass wall. Lightning flickered and he saw the faces of men, humans. They looked odd, slightly distorted, but all in all they looked sad. Or he was just tired and imagining things. Giving his head a forceful shake, Train turned away from the strange glass windows and leaped onto a pew. Curling up as best he could on the hard wood bench, he laid his head over his paws tucked close to his belly. BETTER to sleep in plain sight than skulking in the shadows. Everyone tended to overlook obvious things and who would look for someone to sleep in plain sight? His black pelt would also be good camouflage at least until the storm let up and revealed the moon, if it did at all. Even then the lights would break up his form, make him easy to miss. With that in mind, Train let himself drift. Not to sleep necessarily, but just quiet rest and stillness. How long he stayed like that, still and silent, Train didn't know, before the sound of a resounding crash nearly had him bolting upright. By sheer will and training alone, he stayed still and forced his muscles to relax as if he'd heard nothing at all. The sound of the crash echoing still through the belly of the stone beast, Train waited. Tagged;; open Word Count;; 1589 Background Song;; NA Notes;; why longer than intended....

[sorcerer]

The little dog waddled along on his too-short legs, and sulked in the rain, and dreamed about chicken. Pen had never eaten chicken before, but sometimes he heard older dogs tell stories about it. It was a bird, so like a pigeon, but fat and delicious and you could cook it with fire and make it even better..
He stared up at the grey sky, getting drops of water in his eyes, and imagined to himself what it would be like to eat hot food cooked in fire. Probably amazing, he thought. Probably it would make you all warm everywhere.
The puppy sneezed unhappily and looked back down, blinking the rain off of himself. His brown eyes settled on a door nearby, leading into a gigantic building. A castle? He frowned slightly, having some idea that castles contained dragons and such things, which, Pen knew, probably ate small lost puppies that had decided to wander away from home in the rain.
Then again, his name was Pendragon. If that wasn't vaguely meaningful, Pen didn't know what was. Presumably he would be safe from dragons or whoever else lived in the giant building. The brown-and-white puppy raised his head and tail, took a deep breath, and walked determinedly across the wet street, through the half-open door of the place, and into a nearly pitch-black room of inestimable size. He immediately sat down in front of the door and crouched down, trying to be as tiny as possible.

Not that he needed to. Pen was already tiny enough, and felt even smaller as his senses started to get used to the darkness in the building. At first, all he could hear was rain outside and the black seemed to press around him. Then it got a bit lighter. He stared around and saw that the source must be the strange, high-up windows in the walls. They seemed to be like pictures, but the grey light outside shone through them and made muted colors. Pendragon stared, huffed out a breath, and stalked as quietly as possible underneath some benches, trying to get a closer look.
This never happened. The puppy was distracted by the still form of a strange creature killing what looked like a giant snake and could only be a dragon. So this was what his name was about. Pendragon. A giant snake-creature that a human (Pen had to assume that was what he was looking at) with wings could kill. Curious.
He stared at the statue for a moment, head to one side, and reached out a paw to poke at the stick the winged person was using to kill the dragon. The stick was sharp on one end. It was also very old, seemingly, because he touched it and it broke off, along with the human's arm. Both fell to the floor with a crash. Pen stared in dismay, ears and tail flat. He'd broken it, after it stood there for so long, and now almost certainly the stone-still dragon would come to life and kill the human and then, most likely, him as well.

He stared at the broken statue. Maybe it was a trick of the greyish light, but it looked for a second as if the dragon's eyes took a blueish tint, and the broken winged man never moved. Pen squeaked slightly, turned, and ran as fast as his too-short legs could take him. Straight under the benches, towards where he thought the door was, terrified to look behind him. His paws made echoes all over the castle.
Then he was running straight at a black shape, which he thought was probably the dragon - a flash of clarity - before he realized, too late to stop, that he was probably going to run right into whatever it was.

[bast]

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[atrb=background,http://i55.tinypic.com/r1bpu1.jpg] THE echoing crash of something heavy falling to the old stone floor had Train's short fur standing on end but he determinedly didn't move. His muscles tensed under his damp fur but he was determined not to move. It was an old training technique from back when he was one of the Tempest soldiers. Moving at a loud noise could give you away. During ambushes, that was a very bad thing since cats tended to have quite keen eyesight and could pick out movement, even the slightest movement, with relative ease. Only sighthounds, so far as Train knew, could contest this ability. Still, Train was rusty to say the least and after a few moments let the tension slide out of his muscles. Folded over black ears twitched atop his head as a sharp squeak, seemingly of fright, echoed next off the worn walls of the church. So, he wasn't alone. Slowly, carefully, Train raised his head. At the end of his muzzle, his black nose twitched as he tested the air. It was puppy-scent that he found, the distinctive scent of milk and warmth and safety mixed with the odor of wet dog. A puppy lost in the rain. MOST dogs born and raised in Tempest wouldn't bat an eye at such a scent unless it was a packmate. The fact that Train smelled Tempest under all the other messy smells should have just added to him not caring since he was no longer a Tempest dog. He served the Lexis, plain and simple. Rabba was his leader. He had no loyalties to Tempest anymore, no sympathies for them and their wicked ways that easily drove dogs to madness, but Train never could seem to make things easy. Pups and recently kits, they always awakened an urge to protect in Train. Even when he was with the Tempest, he'd never struck out at a dog younger than old enough to know right from wrong. Never. He'd always been able to get away with it until he finally snapped after Mayla's death and in suicidal desperation declared the Tempest to be monsters right in front of the warden. Since going to the Lexis, it seemed Train's sympathies toward the young had not wavered and even now in a dark church, the sound of scurrying frightened paws had him leaping down from the pew he'd taken refuge on. STRIDING on long legs toward the sound of the scampering feet, Train peered down an aisle of haphazard pews. Walking briskly back toward the door at the back of the church, a door which he just noticed he'd left open, Train glanced left and right down the pews. Near the back, he had no warning when a brown and white living cannonball appeared out of nowhere, shooting out of the aisle of pews. It collided with Train's hind legs, cleanly knocking them out from under him. With a yelp, Train went down to the flagstone floor, at the last second having the presence of mind to roll a bit so he didn't crush whatever had collided with him. The air was pushed out of Train's lungs in a quiet huff of breath when he hit the ground but he was able to save himself from smacking his nose on the floor which he was grateful for. For some reason nothing bothered him as much as a sore muzzle, it was just inconvenient. BLINKING a bit and raising his head to reorient himself, Train looked around for the flesh and blood meteor that had swept him off his feet. Looking over his shoulder, he found it. A pup, a few months old, fluffy with sort of short legs. Before he could stop himself, Train laughed. It wasn't a mocking or cruel laugh, in fact Train was known for having a very nice laugh. It was one of those deep belly laughs that echoed and bounced off the stone walls, echoing off up to the ceiling and back as he tossed his head back and just let himself laugh. The reason Train liked younger animals was their ability to make him laugh because he enjoyed laughter. He believed it a fine cure for many ailments and in his life with the Tempest, he hadn't done nearly enough of it. With the Lexis, Train had discovered a fine love for laughter and enjoyed making others smile and laugh. Now though, the whole situation just struck him as funny. Here he was, a tall muscular labrador retriever weighing in just at seventy pounds, swept off his paws by a well placed living cannonball of fur, fluff and short legs in the middle of a dark, ominous church. For some reason the whole thing just tickled his funny bone. WHEN he was finally able to stop laughing and just grin, the taller canine picked himself up. He'd landed rather oddly, his hind legs facing one way and his head and front paws facing another so, he decided to straighten himself out. Standing, he gave himself a shake and reclined on his haunches. "WHAT'S your rush Scamp?" Train asked, a smile still on his lips and warm amusement coloring his tone. "Some sort of demon hiding in this old place? A dragon to slay maybe?" OKAY, maybe he was being a little silly but Train didn't mind. Diffusing situations was one of his specialties. Especially when it involved someone being afraid. Humor, a little laughter, a kind smile, those sorts of things made the darkness slink back to its lonesome corners and leave room for light and warmth. Train hated fear. He didn't hate a lot of things but he hated fear. Hated feeling it, hated inflicting it, hated seeing others feeling it. He liked to chase it away with companionship, the whole family and friends deal. It was his experience that things stopped being frightening if you had someone with you that meant no harm, that just wanted to lighten the air. Monsters didn't like groups, at least none of the ones Train met while living with his family in the Tempest Pack. Monsters got scared of groups leaving that age old saying of their being strength and safety in numbers to be true. Tagged;; Pendragon Word Count;; 1084 Background Song;; NA Notes;; ^^ hopefully pen doesn't get the wrong idea from train laughing

[sorcerer]

Pen heard a loud grunt from whatever is was he had run into, then found himself careening off to the side to bounce off one of the benches. He spent several seconds panting and trying to get his too-big paws back underneath him, managed it, limped around a bit, and turned to do furious battle with whatever he had run into. Even if it was a dragon, maybe if he was really especially fierce, it would go away again..
The snarl died on his lips. It was just a dog. A black one, lying on the floor looked as stunned as Pen had. The puppy pricked his ears slightly, returning to his usual way of standing - tail up, legs firmly beneath him, nose sniffing. The black dog smelled funny. Pendragon narrowed his brown eyes, snuffled a bit more, and found himself completely not paying attention to anything the black dog had said. This was just too different for him to care about talking. He took several steps forward and reassured himself that this was, indeed, a black dog, and not an evil cat diguised as one or a dragon or something.
Seemed legitimate.
He quit sniffing and turned his head to one side, staring at the other animal curiously. Pendragon had seen black dogs of course, like his siblings and father and them, but he was still interested. The stranger didn't really look like any of his family. The puppy panted slightly, realized that the dog, who didn't look mean, was laughing at him, and scowled again. Stupid grown-ups. He didn't like being laughed at just for being small and falling over.
"I'm not afraid," he managed to growl, which wasn't entirely true..Pen was always afraid, which he hated, but it wasn't fair of the bigger dog to ask him questions just because he was running. Also, right now, he wasn't scared of all, and especially not of this stupid black dog who laughed at him, be he ever so much bigger and older.
He was, Pen realized a moment later, a great deal bigger. The puppy tried to wrestle down a sudden nervous feeling in him. His paws were backing away anyhow, of their own accord seemingly. He forced himself to stop and stand still, black nose pointed straight at the other animal.
Why did he have to be such a coward all the time?

[bast]

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[atrb=background,http://i55.tinypic.com/r1bpu1.jpg] AS the young pup picked himself up, the older canine eyed him up and down. Quite young, obviously a mix breed and obviously Tempest raised. Train could tell because the Tempest pack had quite an...aura around them, of sorts. Tempest soldiers and others were taught to be proud, confident, self-assured. They were taught to then project that persona onto the rest of the world like some sort of oppressive blanket smothering a fire. For a long time, Train had thought nothing of it, it was how he was raised and taught to carry himself. Always with the head high, tail held proudly and limbs stiff and braced as if waiting for some unknown enemy to charge out of thin air and engage in battle. Even after not being around them for many months, Train would still catch himself standing that way, hard as he might try to break the habit. Most often he found right after particularly violent nightmares or when he thought too much about his old home Train would start walking and holding himself the way a Tempest soldier would. STILL the pup was young and obviously clumsy on his feet. His paws were too big for his small body, fur too long and still smelling of his mother. Train grinned as the pup puffed out its chest and insisted it wasn't afraid. Typical pup talk, and not just Tempest pups either. "Really?" Train asked, cocking his head to the side and twitching his folded over ears. Leaning forward to peer down the dark aisle the pup had run from. "That's a shame really. It's good to be scared sometimes. Keeps you alive. It's a good dose of common sense that can keep you from getting eaten or worse by the things that lurk in the dark." Peering over the pup's head with interest, Train gave his tail a few wags. "Let's see what's down there that got you a'runnin'." SIDE-stepping the younger dog, Train strode toward the pews he'd run from. He had to wriggle his way between two pews that had been knocked asunder at some point in time leaving a very narrow path between them. The little pup had run with ease between them but for Train it was a snug fit but he managed. At the end of the haphazard pews, the labrador retriever found a statue that he hadn't noticed when he'd come in, tucked away in a shadowy corner as it was. Stepping closer to the stone, he found what looked like a broken arm holding a sword laying on the floor just in front of the statue. Tipping his head back, he assumed it must have fallen off the statue since the winged human was missing an arm. Apparently this had made the crash from earlier. Twitching his ears and angling his head curiously to one side, Train regarded the statue. IT was odd indeed, odder than the humans with circles around their heads that were on the windows. This one was a human with huge wings, looming over some twisting demon-dragon monster. When lightning forked somewhere outside, the flashing light made the eyes of the dragon demon flicker almost like the stone beast was going to come alive. Of course it didn't necessarily frighten Train since he knew enough to know for certain stone couldn't possibly come to life and that dragons weren't real but it was definitely creepy enough to put a spook to a pup. Reclining on his haunches, Train sat in front of the statue, broken arm not but a few paw's widths from his right, turning his head left and right as he regarded the statue. "UGLY things , dragons," Train said, not all too sure if the pup had followed him or not and half not caring. He talked to himself a lot, it helped him think sometimes. "But the humans weren't much better I guess, though I don't know why this one has wings." TRAIN didn't remember a whole lot about humans. His mother used to talk about them sometimes, when he was very young. She used humans almost the way humans had used monsters, to get her rowdy pups to behave. "Behave or the humans will come and get you!" That sort of thing. At the time it had been frightening enough, until Train had grown up and faced worse. Frankly his first battle was more frightening than any story about some cruel fleshy two-legged creature that had no hair and blunt teeth. He'd never understand his mother's fear of them returning. To Train they were just myths, their towns and pictures just leftovers from a dead world. Occasionally he'd seen pictures of humans with wings but only in places like St. Mary's, in old empty churches and such places. Maybe they had been myths too? Myths to the humans? Huh. All the things dogs and cats alike would never know. OVERHEAD, a mighty crash of thunder so loud it seemed to make the building shake rocked the sky. Without really thinking about it, the young lab turned his head back and gave a howl that bounced off the swooping ceiling and dark corners of the stone church. It wasn't anywhere near as majestic as some wolf howls he'd heard in his lifetime but it did well enough. It was something he used to do as a pup, when thunder had frightened him. He'd howl at it. Now he just sort of didn't think about it. Of course thunder didn't scare him now, he just howled more or less for fun, just because he could. Stopping the howl, Train listened to his own voice bouncing around in the confined space, tail wagging slowly over the dusty flagstones and weird statue looming over him with some Tempest pup somewhere abouts. Funny how none of this bothered him in the slightest. In fact, he felt mildly amused, a little smile tugging at the corners of his dark lips. Tagged;; Pendragon Word Count;; 1033 Background Song;; NA Notes;; not my best, it'll get better