Strangers (Open/Desi'Andrea)

The sun sank across dappled leaves and grass as dusk approached.
Graal had been more or less hiding in this park, licking his wounds from the dark forest north of the city.
As he closes his eyes, the pale violet street lamps begin to turn orange.
"Not long now." He thought to himself, stretching his legs out in front of him with an extended grunt of relief.
His legs had cramped up earlier, and with the night, there was less risk of being seen.
He softly sings as he opens his eyes.
"Pry the darkness from my eyes..."
The bush around him was dark, spots of light reflecting to create a dimness rarely found.
"Divided, let the light seep in..."

He steps out, smiling a little as he looks towards the street lamps, squeezing his eyes almost-shut to avoid destroying his vision, accustomed to darkness that it was.
"Trees devoid of branches and hollow hives..."
He steps onto the empty path, black Tarmac to contrast pale sandy pebbles strewn tastefully across the park in small pools.
"Endless black and empty beds..."

He loved these songs, humans had a talent for building, controlling and changing the world around them, although often to the disadvantage of the creatures who HAD lived there prior, but humans always regretted it.
Their songs all-too-often reflected their emotions, and this one suited him right now.
"It's not the same, something's changed, I never use to be able to see past the trees..."
It's true, this wasn't his own land, so much was similar, but nothing was the same. The humans in his land had cities similar to this, metropolises teeming with humans at all hours, but never quite this barren, the lack of trees on every street, long rows of bushes proving the city with a sense of health and contentment, this city had little of that. It was almost stifling.
"A thousand unfamiliars are lying thick on the air and I can't breath..."

Memories of Graal's adolescence roil through his mind as he steps quietly but unafraid across the street, heading westwards. Another city park lay this way, One with a small pond or fountain with which he could drink from.
He spent a lot of time alongside humans as he grew up, both in training and in friendship, his native tongue made by fearsome Gouru, wolves and humans alike could vocalise it, even if they missed the finer cues of eachother's body language, meanings and concepts could still be shared.
He had come to admire humans, and humans had often come to admire wolves and their ascetic ways.
He wondered how they shared ideas here.
"Do the humans speak Common?" He mused, following his nose further.
Crunching leaves in an alley behind him alert him and he turns quickly, eyes scanning for danger.


"Graal's Speaking."
"Graal's Thoughts."
-GRAAL'S MEMORIES-

The sound behind Graal had been a rat, nothing more, and although his ever-empty stomach grumbled at him, he'd not sink so low as to eat a rat living on human lands.
The rat, on the other hand, had a seemingly opposite idea, half-opening its mouth to show huge teeth as it approached him.
Graal sighs, stepping back. -BONES BREAK AS THE MACE HIT'S GRAAL'S LEG, LEAVING THE WOLF HEAVILY INJURED, THE HUMAN STANDS, SHOULDERING THE MACE AND SHAKING HIS HEAD, "HOW WILL YOU EVER LEARN TO DODGE IF YOU KEEP YOUR CENTER OF BALANCE SO LOW AND DENSE?"-
Leaving four faintly glowing blue footprints hovering above the alleyway's gritty floor, he smiles a little.
As the rat scurries towards him, screeching its battlecry, but as it treads on one of the prints it suddenly stops in place.
Graal crushes its skull with a powerful paw before looking up to the moon and seeing...
"Another Grasht..."
His hackles raise and a growl escapes his mouth as he steps away from the silhouette.
"Another parasite..." he spits, teeth baring as fear flutters in his belly.
He wasn't so sure he could survive another clash with a monster while he was injured from only the previous day's fight.
"Are you here to hunt children too?" he snarls, "Or will you sate yourself with more adult humans, destroying the lives of so many innocents?"


"Graal's Speaking."
"Graal's Thoughts."
-GRAAL'S MEMORIES-

Upon closer inspection, he could see her moving her hand away from a hilt of some description.
"Why would she need weapons?" the thought occurs, "Surely she can kill without them?"
A more chilling thought came to mind.
"What would she need weapons to kill? Is there something in these lands that can kill an unarmed Grasht?"
In an instant she was in front of him, her towering presence only hardening Graal's resolve until she speaks.
"I do not walk in the same shadows of my Kin, Wolf" she says dismissively, a spark of disdain in her soulless eyes.
"She thinks she's different?"
-THE DISEMBODIED VOICE BOOMS DOWN AT THE SCARED GIRL, HER FEAR RISING AS THE VAMPIRE INCHES EVER CLOSER TO HIS PREY-
"No. They're all the same..."
"I doubt it, Grasht." he growls, eyes narrowing as he drops his weight a little, though not evenly, he favours his front left paw, the one with a deep scratch down its side.
"The only Grasht I've met in this land tried to kill a youngling human stranded in a forest. If it wasn't for her guardian, she would have perished at his hands." he growls low in his throat, "I've no reason to assume you're any more merciful. After all, why would you approach me if not to hunt?"



"Graal's Speaking."
"Graal's Thoughts."
-GRAAL'S MEMORIES-