My Writer's Contest Submission: Sanura & Company

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My Writer's Contest Submission: Sanura & Company

Postby Terastas » Tue Jul 22, 2008 10:21 pm

A strong wind blew from the west, carrying the scents of the Great Rocky Fields across the plains, into the Eastern Forest and straight into the den of the blue sphinx Sanura; a better wake-up call she could never ask for. She yawned, stood up on all fours, padded out into the opening to her den and stretched her wings out as far as she could. The wind blew through her feathers and into her nostrils, invigorating her, and she set her first paw out onto the blue-green grass to begin her day.

Sanura herself called her abode the Eastern Forest (or if she was feeling particularly proud of herself, the Sanura Forest), but the area could only be called a forest by the standards of the Fields. In the center stood the Mother Oak, a massive white tree which towered over her twenty-odd children that had not fallen far from their mother’s shadow. A single tree out in the fields was an oddity by itself, so for all intents and purposes, the Mother Oak and her children were the closest thing to a forest the Fields would offer.

Sanura walked among them, the children of the Mother Oak, until she could see clear out across the Plains true. Waves swept along the sea of blue grass, carried along by the wind as far as the eye could see. Far off in the distance she could see the grey silhouette of the Sandfall Maze framed against a gentle grey sky. Dark grey clouds carried by the wind moved along in waves which mirrored the grass, lighting up from time to time from distant lightning, from which the thunder resonated to Sanura’s ears as a gentle lullaby.

Alas, her pleasant musings were interrupted, and her picturesque view on this beautiful day became distorted with the dark silhouettes of two rock harpies circling in the distance, coming from the West and gradually approaching.

Blue sparks emanated from clenched hands and paws dug firm into the dirt. Every bone in her body wanted to take to the skies and send them to the ground, but experience told her otherwise. Many times had she fallen beneath the harpy’s talons and been lucky enough to only suffer the indignity of it all. She folded her wings down against her shoulders and stepped back amongst the trees again so not to draw attention to herself. By no means in the mood to quarrel with the harpies this early in the morning.

Once she was confident they would not see her from their present distance, she squinted her eyes, straining to try and see what exactly it was that the harpies were chasing. Whatever it was, they were taking their sweet time trying to catch it. If they waited too long, their intended prey would reach the Eastern Forest and evade them, at least long enough for Sanura to claim them for herself. Sanura smirked and licked her lips with that thought. If she couldn’t fight the harpies, she could always outwit them. If they didn’t catch their prey soon, the harpies would be serving Sanura breakfast in bed.

She brought her tongue back into her mouth just in time to keep herself from biting it off.

Just as one of the harpies swooped down to make the final catch, a burst of lightning shot from the ground up and into the sky, one so strong that even the harpy, with all of her magic to protect her from such things, was thrown back from the bolt of electricity striking her in the chest.

The struck harpy fell back and crash-landed on the ground half a mile away from her intended prey, while the other one flapped her wings wildly to gain altitude just in time to dodge a second burst of lightning that had been intended for her. The one that had been struck stood up, but staggered about and flapped her wings irregularly, unable to take to the sky again, and the second one still circled, but now from a greater distance.

And whatever their intended prey had been, it was still too small for her to see at such a distance. Why they were even bothering with something that small and yet that formidable, she could not fathom.

“I think I’m going to pass on this one,” she said to herself and stepped back towards the Mother Oak. “Shame. It was such a lovely day too.”

She turned her back on the conflict and ducked her head down low into her den, a hallowed opening amongst the massive roots of the Mother Oak. She sprawled out in the darkest corner of her den and only listened. To her dismay, the sound of thunder grew nearer as their intended prey did indeed try to evade them amongst the trees. She could hear the harpies’ claws scraping amongst the sturdy branches of the Mother’s children, which were eventually accompanied by a string of profanity. The typically arrogant and childlike harpies had become outraged by their intended prey.

And whilst the two harpies squabbled amongst themselves trying to find it, into Sanura’s den they came.

She could smell two of them, but only saw one at first. A tiger, 7 ft. tall, 15 ft. long not counting the tail, white fur and black stripes. She became tense at first, but after daring to take a closer look at the beast, she saw that it lacked the antenna of the dreaded vortex tiger and allowed herself to become relaxed again. Granted, the tiger was too big to be her potential prey, but she felt at ease knowing it was still small enough to overpower if she had to. If their difference in size and her complete immunity to electricity was not enough, she was reassured of her advantage when she saw that the tiger was limping. Whatever it was, it didn’t scare her anymore.

The tiger limped into her den and sprawled out against the wall near the entrance, and only then did Sanura finally see that the tiger was not alone. Sanura’s curiosity peaked at this point, for the tiger’s accompaniment, and no doubt the source of the devastating lightning attacks that had done damage to even the natives of the Fields, was a human.

He perplexed her from the start, seeing as he had ghostly pale skin and snow white hair, yet not a single wrinkle upon his seemingly youthful skin. Granted, Sanura knew little about humans, but she was fairly certain these features were contradictory and made his age impossible to determine.

His indeterminable age, however were the proverbial chip off the iceberg. He wore heavy black boots that appeared to have steel toes and buckles that looked far too heavy for them to be practical for travel across the Plains, and his long-legged pants were a camouflage pattern of grey and white, which would have practically been a beacon for predators against the dark blue-green grass of the Plains. He only wore a black bulletproof vest over a plain white short-sleeved shirt to cover his chest, and he wore a black rectangular backpack, seemingly made of metal except for a cloth lid which was bulging upward, indicating he’d stuffed it to the brim.

And most striking of all was his gun. It was huge, a cannon more accurately, black and silver in color and almost half as long as the human was tall, but he held it aloft in one hand by the trigger handle as if it weighed nothing at all. He held it upright and let it rest up against his shoulder; Sanura could see blue and yellow sparks emanating from the barrel.

The human hugged his back against the wall stone near the entrance, listening to the harpies outside cursing and threatening each other (as is customary, not that he would have known that). When they fell silent, he went straight up to the tiger, set his cannon aside and knelt down to examine its hurt paw. They were quite an odd couple to be certain; the tiger stood almost two feet taller on all fours than the human did upright. Forget the harpies, the tiger itself could have swallowed him whole if it wanted to. But for some reason it tolerated him and waited patiently while he inspected a wound Sanura herself could not yet see.

“Doesn’t look serious, but I wouldn’t go out with them out there anyway. We’ll wait here until you’re feeling better.”

He stood up, once again taking his cannon in his left hand, and with his right, he removed what Sanura had presumed to be a second handle but turned out, in fact, to be an ammo clip. He reached behind himself into one of the side pockets of his backpack, took out a seemingly identical clip and loaded it into place. With this accomplished, he took aim at the one and only entrance into Sanura’s den.

“Even if I wasn’t in here watching you, it still wouldn’t be that much safer,” Sanura thought to herself. “If they figure out this is where you’re hiding, they’ll just use their magic to suck you right out of here and into their-“

She didn’t get a chance to complete the thought. Rata-tat-tat went the cannon and a spray of white crystals shot from the barrel and into the wall of Sanura’s den, solidifying as ice. The ice crystals stuck to the walls and each other, hardening upon contact. Within less than a minute, the human had blocked off the entire opening with a solid wall of ice, unknowingly trapping himself and his feline friend inside with the blue sphinx.

Sanura’s curiosity had been perked. His physical traits, his clothes, his weapon, his pet tiger, everything about him was completely foreign to her. Suddenly she wasn’t thinking about breakfast in bed anymore, and now knowing that he had an alternative to electricity, she found herself genuinely concerned for her own safety.

With the threat of the harpies at least temporarily neutralized, the human once again returned to his tiger’s side. He set his cannon down and took off his backpack to rummage through its primary contents. Whatever he was looking for, however, he didn’t find it. The ice wall had set the tiger at ease as well, but only until it first focused on the scent of its surroundings and detected Sanura. It glared at her through the darkness and growled in the back of its throat. This alerted the human, who once again took the cannon up at the ready, unable to see Sanura for himself, but ready for anything.

“Someone there?” he asked, trying to remain calm. “Show yourself and state your intent if you are.”

Sanura tensed, and she could do nothing to keep her own internal electricity from sparking in her fur. That was all he could see: her electricity, but her location had been betrayed.

“My intent was go about my day quietly,” she said, trying to replace her caution with frustration in her voice. “I live here, and I had absolutely no interest in you or your tiger until the two of you came barging into my home and sealed off my only way out. Now what about you, what’s your excuse?”

The human stepped back cautiously. “To take cover, what else? I apologize, we didn’t know anyone lived here, so it seemed safe enough.”

He tilted his head to the side thoughtfully. “Is it?”

Sanura took a deep breath, trying to calm her nerves and to reassure herself. No doubt he was powerful, but she was a sphinx; she would not back down, especially not to a human in her own home.

“That all depends. Let me show you and you can judge for yourself.”

She stood up to her full height, spread her wings out wide and focused her lightning element into her fur, lighting herself up, and with it the cavern around her.

The tiger rose to all fours and backed away slowly.

The human didn’t budge.

“Okay. Okay, fair enough. So. . . Is that a yes or a no?”

She tilted her head at him and tightened her jaw with some level of frustration. Life among the centaurs and harpies had accustomed her to being looked down upon, but never by someone that had to look up to her at the same time.

“Ordinarily, a human like you would be a light snack for me,” she crooned at him, words at which his tiger snarled and became defensive. Sanura chuckled at that. “But then again, you’re not exactly an ordinary human, are you?”

The human calmly stepped in front of his tiger to keep the it and Sanura apart. “I’m not sure what the typical human would be. But no, I guess not.”

“Hm.” She smirked, sprawled out in front of them again and let her wings rest at her sides. “Well as long as we’re stuck in here, why don’t you indulge my curiosity. Why don’t you tell me about yourself, where you’re from and what you’re doing all the way out here?”

The human gradually eased his hand off of the gun, and after exchanging a glance with his tiger, put it down.

“You sure? It might be a long story.”

“Well if we’re stuck in here until that thing melts, I’m sure we’ll have time for it. Why don’t you start with your name.”

The human once again checked with his tiger before responding.

“2nd Lieutenant Anakin Foley.”

“Hm. And what about your tiger. What’s his name?”

“Her,” Anakin corrected. “Her name’s Teresa.”

“Hm.” She smirked. “Sanura. Nice to meet you.”

*****

They spoke for hours, and during that time, she learned more than she ever thought there was to know.

Anakin hailed from the Miratan nation, a large but reclusive race of humans living in relative isolation beneath the appropriately named Frost Peak (which explained the many layers of extra clothing his backpack had been stuffed with). He identified Teresa as a snow tiger, a breed also native to the Frost Peak. He claimed to have assisted in the domestication of Teresa’s clan over ten years ago when he was just a boy, that the two of them were inseparable and that he trusted and cared for her more than any human he’d ever known. He also had to confess that even after all this time, he still did not know if Teresa was sentient or feral; he could only say that if she was the former, she had no qualms about being treated as the latter.

Anakin’s military rank had been misleading: their entire society was military and thus just about everyone had some rank or another. Anakin actually claimed to have once detested violence and chose science as his calling. That calling took him away from the Frost Peaks and had him placed on board the Jewel 1, an experimental “submarine” developed for the purposes of traveling down the full length of the Jewel River, updating their maps and collecting samples as they went. Against the odds, the Jewel 1 took them all the way down into the Lake of Illusions, where they met, made peace with and spent several weeks living amongst the Raizas, explaining well enough Anakin’s strange capacity to calmly look Sanura eye to eye when they first met.

Last Anakin recalled, the Miratans and the Raizas were enthusiastically diplomatic with each other. Specifically, the Raizas had promised to allow the Miratan humans to build a fortified settlement on one end of their island if the Miratans in turn allowed the Raizas safe passage across the Lake of Illusions, both to and from neighboring islands and the mainland (following the construction of a vessel large enough to accommodate them, of course). How those plans were proceeding, however, Anakin could not say for sure.

The captain of Anakin’s expedition thought it best to survey the full extent of the Lake of Illusions before they committed to it, so a small fraction of the team, including Anakin and his faithful feline friend, set back into the Jewel 1 and proceeded towards the western corner. Shortly after Anakin and Teresa made landfall, however, the mist rolled in and they completely lost sight of the Jewel 1.

He did not rule out the possibility that they may have had to push back into open waters to escape a land predator, but felt it more likely that the Jewel 1 had been lost and the rest of the expedition team left stranded among the Raizas. It didn’t matter; he didn’t have time to wait. The native predators moved in and Anakin had to abandon the drop point, and with it, any hopes of ever seeing his homeland again.

Based on his tone, she figured, the Lake of Illusions and his subsequent flight all the way into the Great Rocky Fields had quelled his stance on violence. As he neared the end of his tale, she couldn’t help but stare at his cannon.

“And that?” she said, pointing to his cannon. “I would be VERY interested to know how that works. You said yourself you were a scientist, so I know it isn’t powered by magic.”

Anakin shrugged. “Actually, you’d be wrong. It is powered by magic. Well, elements with magical properties, more accurately.” He delved into his backpack and pulled out an assortment of containers shaped like the ammunition clip wedged into the side of the cannon. “The default setting is an electric-based cannon powered by a rechargeable battery – that in itself is not magical. However, depending on what it’s loaded with, it could be used to fire all sorts of magical properties. The ice cannon, for example, is powered by the shed scales of an ice naga.” He set all of his clips, identical in appearance except for identifying labels, about in front of him. “Just because I’m a scientist doesn’t mean I don’t believe in magic. It only means I believe there is a science to magic.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “Fair enough.” She pondered over his other containers. “What else can it do?”

He frowned. “I’m. . . Not really sure.” He began to put away the containers. “Most of these are samples we collected along the way. I’d have to test them before I could know for certain what they would do, and. . .” He sighed. “Well, based on some of the stories I’ve heard, it’s not something I’m comfortable doing outside of a controlled environment.” He picked up the last one and held it in his hand idly. “Maybe if I ever made it back to Ur-Sagol, I could ask about the places we collected them from and make some deductions.” He pocketed the last one. “But until I have at least some vague idea of what their properties include, their just nicknacks to me.”

She rubbed her chin thoughtfully and nodded. “I see. Understood.” Ordinarily she would likely have made an offhand comment at this point, but everything about him was so foreign to her that she doubted he’d understand. He was still only human after all.

Anakin set his gun aside, leaned up against Teresa’s side and started scratching behind her ears. “So what’s your story?”

Sanura twitched her ears. “Mine?”

“Mm. If you don’t mind my asking.”

Sanura yawned, sprawled out on her side and propped herself up on an elbow, more eye to eye with the two of them now. “I’m afraid there’s not nearly as much to tell. I lost my parents when I was too young to remember them, I was found and raised by pantaurs-“

”Who?”

“Pantaurs. Think of them as sphinxes like myself, only smaller and without wings. A whole family of them used to live here in the Mother Oak, but after I came of age, the lust for wandering returned to them and they joined up with a tribe of neko nomads as they were passing through.” She shrugged her wings. “And since then, I’ve been living here, fighting with the harpies and snacking on the humans that try and hide here. Mind you, none of which were quite as fascinating as yourself.”

“Hm.” He exchanged another glance with Teresa before looking towards the ice door, which had taken on a more fluid appearance as it was finally just now beginning to melt. “Are there many humans out here?”

“None that live here, but they try to travel through here all the time. Supposedly there’s a big city out far to the west, and the only ways there are either across the Great Rocky Fields or through the Fairy Kingdom.”

“The Fairy Kingdom, huh?” Anakin rolled his eyes. “Sounds horrific.”

“Laugh all you want, but fairies are indeed dangerous,” Sanura insisted. “They may be small, but they can use their magic to shrink you down to the size of a pea.”

Anakin’s eyebrows lifted at that. “Really?” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he mulled that over. Sanura didn’t give it too much thought though. After the silence settled in, she reflected on how Anakin had said he cared for Teresa more than any human he’d ever known and tried not to chuckle at the thought of them as a romantic couple.

“Do you always just sit around waiting for the ice to melt, or do you do it yourself when you’re ready?” she asked, if only to break the silence.

“It’s ice created magically, so it only melts under force.” He and Teresa both sat up, the tigress’s paw evidently feeling better now. “Are you asking us to leave?”

“I’m asking if there’s any way I can leave myself. These wings aren’t just for show – I need some air.”

“Fair enough.” He stood up and hefted up his cannon. “This will only take a min-“

”No need.” She stepped over them, set her hands and forepaws up against the icy wall and focused her internal electricity into them. Her forelimbs lit up with energy and the heat she generated gradually began to melt the ice, which cultivated into a nice puddle, one which would water the Mother Oak nicely.

“Don’t go far you two,” she cautioned them. “I’ll be back for you.”

*****

It was noontime by now, though one couldn’t readily tell as the clouds from the once distant storm had rolled in, permitting light to seep through their crevices but blocking the sun itself from sight, and the once thunderous lullaby now drummed in the air directly overhead like centaurs galloping across the sky. She only took five steps away from her den, now finding herself uncomfortable with the idea of leaving Anakin far behind. In one simple morning, her eyes had been opened to so many new things, and she began to understand why her foster parents, the canopy pantaurs, had been so eager to see more.

Not that she was by any means eager to leave the Mother Oak herself. She just understood why her foster family had chosen the alternative once she finally stood over them. It wasn’t like her family had abandoned her; they’d invited her to come along and she rejected the offer. It was more interesting to hear Anakin speak of his travels than to write her own.

She considered the possibility of keeping them, both Anakin and his tiger, and making them her pets. Just as the harpies of the Sandfall Maze had their nekos, Sanura could have a tigress and a mad scientist to keep her entertained.

She purred at the back of her throat and looked skyward, her dirty little mind already envisioning all sorts of fun ways to experiment with the two of them, but instead found herself looking straight into the eyes of a fast-descending harpy. She came down so fast that when she landed on Sanura’s shoulders, the impact sent her face first down into the dirt and her hind paws straight up into the air, pinned beneath the larger avian.

“Good afternoon, stupid hairball,” said the harpy, punctuating her statement with an insult as was customary.

Sanura’s fur crackled all over with electricity as she pushed herself off the ground. When she looked over her shoulder up into her assailant’s face, she noticed the harpy had singed feathers all along her wings.

“I am so not in the mood for this,” Sanura hissed. “What do you want?”

The harpy smirked smugly down at her. “Did you eat the human my sister and I worked oh so hard to catch? We saw him run into your little rathole and didn’t come back out.”

Sanura gripped her furry hands around the harpy’s legs and tried to throw her to the ground, but to no avail. The harpies were three times her size and would not be moved so easily.

“Why would I remember every single human that’s ever entered my den?” Sanura bluffed. “They’re quite delicious, and very easy prey for supposedly sentient beings. I’ve had hundreds in just the last year alone.”

“Oh even a hairball like yourself should remember this one,” the harpy crooned. Then she spread her scorched wings. “He did this to me.”

Sanura had no words for such. Of course, sometimes actions speak louder than words, so when she looked at the battle scars of the harpy and considered her claim that a human had given them to her, she did what she would have done before she had met Anakin Foley:

She burst out laughing.

The harpy tightened her jaw and seethed through her teeth. “Insolence!” One clawed foot came off of her shoulders and came down on Sanura’s neck, planting her face into the grass again. “You did eat him, didn’t you! I’ll carve you open and take him ba-“

”Don’t bother, idiot, there he is now,” said another voice, the sister that had been alluded to earlier. “I call dibs on the tiger.”

Sure enough, there was Anakin, with his trusty tiger by his side and his cannon in hand. The one pinning Sanura down looked up just in time to get shot in the face, not with ice or lightning, but with a red light straight into her left eye. She gasped, staggered, and lost her grip on the blue sphinx just long enough for Sanura to straighten up, rear back onto her hind legs and swat her across the face, sending her toppling over.

“Arrgh! Again!” roared the harpy. “What the hell was that?!”

The second harpy finally abandoned her hiding place among the thick branches of the Mother Oak and descended right on top of Anakin and Teresa. Teresa’s ears perked ahead of time and she pounced Anakin out of the way just in time to keep him from being flattened by the harpy’s huge talons. Anakin took aim over Teresa’s shoulder and flashed the red light at the second harpy’s chest.

The second harpy looked down at the red light flickering across her breasts and glared down at the human. “I fail to see how this is supposed to be intimidating. Did you honestly think we would ever be afraid of an insignificant little snack like yourself?”

Anakin turned the light off. “No, I know you two will never give up. That’s why I just finished the job for myself.”

The harpy tilted her head down at them, just as perplexed by the little human as Sanura had been when she first saw them.

“You honestly think you could kill us?” asked the harpy.

Anakin shook his head up at her, remarkably brave in the face of his better.

“No. I already did.”

Sanura could literally see the chill go down the harpy’s back.

“He’s bluffing,” the harpy told her singed sister. “He doesn’t have the means; if he did, he would have used it by now.” She lifted one of her talons up to grab at him again. “Stand still and I’ll make this quick.”

Anakin stood his ground. “You think I’m bluffing? Then tell me, where’s your sister?”

Her talon went back to the ground again. “Huh? What are you talking about, she’s over-“

She looked over into the spot her sister with the burnt wings had fallen and gasped. The singed harpy staggered to her feet, but stood only at half her previous height. They both looked at each other, and for the first time in Sanura’s life, she saw genuine fear reflecting from the eyes of a harpy.

“Son of a-“

The smaller harpy with the burnt wings panicked and started to flap her wings, but Teresa charged her and pounced at her chest, and the tiger that was now only two thirds the harpy’s height brought her crashing down.

“Sister, help!” she cried.

The now larger harpy rose her talons to strike at Teresa, but looked down at Anakin and saw his menacing glare rising up from the ground at her, getting closer and closer by the second.

“Sorry!” she yelled as she took to the sky. “You’ll live to regret this!”

But those would be her last words to him. Sanura spread her wings and ran along the grassy plains, following her, and once she was running at enough speed, took off after the still shrinking harpy. The harpy continued to shrink, down to Sanura’s size and still falling, finally so small that she could not continue flying into the wind and was blown back into Sanura’s waiting paws.

Sanura landed back on the ground with the harpy gripped tightly in one hand, now the size of a human. She held her up in front of her face, grinned and licked her lips. The harpy’s face went pale.

“You wouldn’t!”

She flapped her wings wildly to try and escape, and Sanura stuffed the once mighty harpy’s entire body into her mouth. She moved the screaming thing around in her mouth, licking over her entire body to savor her flavor, and finally swallowed her whole.

Sanura purred as she felt the harpy struggle, squirm, and finally come to rest in her belly, purred and licked her hands clean. “Yes. Yes I would.”

*****

She returned to her den, into which Anakin and Teresa had retreated. She found the two of them huddled together, Anakin rubbing some sort of disinfectant on Teresa’s paw while she licked affectionately at his face. They both stopped what they were doing when they saw Sanura again and both tilted their heads at the same time and at the same angle at her. Sanura couldn’t help but chuckle at how cute the two of them were together.

“Did you do what I think you did?” he asked.

“Mm hmm. She was delicious. Did the other one escape?”

Anakin bit his lower lip, then glanced at Teresa, who started purring and licking her lips. Sanura leand forward for a closer look and could see well enough for herself that Teresa had gained quite a bit of weight since she last saw her.

“No, she’s still around here,” said Anakin. “Sort of.”

“Ah.” Sanura laughed, sprawled out in front of the two of them and reached down to pet Teresa’s head. “Good girl Teresa.” The tigress grumbled a little at the condescending remark, but didn’t refuse the kind gesture and nuzzled back against her hand.

Sanura turned her eyes down to Anakin’s gun.

“You used one of your unknown components, didn’t you,” said Sanura.

“That I did.” He took the container off. “It’s a water sample we took from the Fairy Pond on our way to the Lake of Illusions.” He tucked it back into his backpack and stood up. “I got the idea from you, when you explained why people come through here instead of the Fairy Kingdom.” He shrugged. “That was enough for me to make an educated guess as to what would happen if I used it.”

He nodded to her. “Thank you.”

“And thank you for using it.” She smirked, laid down in front of them and propped herself up on an elbow again, now scratching and petting Teresa with her other hand. “You shrink the harpies, Teresa and I eat them, we could make a great team, the three of us.”

Teresa purred, most likely at the petting, but Sanura hoped she was also considering her offer to them. Anakin, on the other hand, bit his lower lip again.

“Are you asking us to stay here?”

“Well. . .” She shrugged her wings. “Well, here with me, yes, but it doesn’t have to be here under the Mother Oak.” She had noticed early on that Anakin often looked to Teresa for advice, so she reached an arm around the tiger and cuddled her up into her chest like a kitten, trying to win her over so she could help her win over Anakin. “You’re thinking of your kin, aren’t you. The ones left behind on the island in the Lake of Illusions?”

Anakin took a deep breath, sighed it out, and nodded solemnly. “I can’t help but think of them. But. . . Well, that was a while ago. I’d just about given up on ever seeing the Frost Peak again, and I imagine they’ve dubbed me dead and gone as well.” He shrugged. “So I honestly don’t know what to do.”

Sanura tilted her head and looked up at the ceiling and thought it over. Hmm. . . How about this.” She reached one of her wings out over him and used it to gently nudge him closer to his tigress, who wasted no time reaching a forepaw out to hug him. “Remember the neko nomads I told you about? The ones my foster family left with? They return here once, sometimes twice a year. I guess the Mother Oak is sacred to them, and I let them camp out here because, well, they’re not just feline like myself, they’re my extended family.”

She started rubbing Teresa’s soft belly even though it was Anakin she was trying to convince. “So since you don’t know where you want to go, why don’t the two of you stay here with me, at least until the tribe returns again.” She shrugged her wings. “If you don’t like living here with me, you can join them when they travel to the East again. That way if it turns out your people did go home without you, you can continue traveling with them instead and you won’t be left all alone again.”

She tilted her head and smirked at the two of them. “How’s that sound?”

As she expected, he bit his lip again and exchanged a glance with Teresa. To Sanura’s disappointment, however, the snow tigress seemed indifferent to the attention given to her once Sanura had presented an ultimatum to them and just returned the glance back at Anakin. A true pet she was. No doubt in Sanura's mind, Teresa would follow Anakin even to the grave.

“If I do stay here with you, will you stop eating humans on my behalf?” he asked her.

Sanura shrugged her wings. “As long as they don’t press me, yes. I’ll extend the same hospitality to any of your kind that I extend to the nekos and others of my kind , with the warning that I expect respect from my guests and reserve the right to defend myself if need be.”

“Alright. Fair enough.” He sat up and reached over to scratch behind Teresa’s ears. “What do you think Teresa? How would you feel about having a sphinx as a roommate?”

Teresa sat up, nuzzled Anakin’s chest and licked his face.

Sanura laughed. “Looks like she approves if you ask me.”
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Terastas
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Re: My Writer's Contest Submission: Sanura & Company

Postby Kitts » Wed Jul 23, 2008 12:52 am

Bloody excellent! Great description, decently interesting characters, the whole nine yards. It all comes together to make a pretty nice read. Can't wait to see more. :3
"If I wasn't supposed to eat you, you wouldn't be made out of food."
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Re: My Writer's Contest Submission: Sanura & Company

Postby Svartvinge » Wed Jul 23, 2008 5:35 am

Really nice story^^ have to agree with kitts that i can't wait to see more of it^^
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Postby Karbo » Wed Jul 23, 2008 12:36 pm

Great story ^^
Very nice descriptions and it was well written and flowed nicely. The situation was also unusual and interesting.
Only remark I got is maybe Sanura wasn't very described herself.. I had slight troubles to visualize her..

Thank you for having entered the contest :)
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Postby Terastas » Wed Jul 23, 2008 1:41 pm

Karbo wrote:I had slight troubles to visualize her.

*nods* Yeah, me too. I pretty much wrote it using the article and drawing by 4ofswords in the Felarya Wiki as my entire reference, and I didn't know how much of that visual is accurate, nor how I could differ from it to make her more of an individual. That's why I wrote it third person limited to Sanura as opposed to Anakin: because it was easier to make him alien to her as opposed to the other way around. :P

Kitts & Svartvinge:
Thanks a boatload for the positive feedback. Usually I'm not very big on preds with human heads, but I have to admit that this was pretty fun to write about and I wouldn't be opposed to giving them a more defined past or bringing them up to present times (with Karbo's permission, of course).

Thanks again everybody. :D
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Postby Karbo » Wed Jul 23, 2008 5:20 pm

Terastas wrote: (with Karbo's permission, of course).


There is no problem about that ^^
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Re:

Postby GREGOLE » Thu Jul 24, 2008 9:41 pm

That was one of the few stories I've been able to really sit down and finish in a long while. In the immortal words of Darth Vader, "Most impressive." Though the racial prejudice against harpies DID kinda get under my skin...

I do have one issue that has very little to do with the story itself, but I feel like bringing up anyway.
Why is it that whenever anyone includes a Felaryan sphynx in their work, it's a good guy? I mean, if you read the wiki, sphynxes are generally high-strung, self-righteous, bigoted, fanatical, egotistical, racially prejudiced pricks. Now, I don't believe in using the wiki to define a race or character of that race, but so far no one has really portrayed all those qualities in a negative light.

I mean, am I in the wrong to be a little disturbed at how the wiki describes these guys as the biggest assholes since Satan, but no one seems to want to make them villains?

At any rate, this is a fair gem.
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Re:

Postby Terastas » Sun Aug 10, 2008 8:09 pm

First and foremost, let me apologize for taking so absolutely freakin' long to revisit this thread and reply to this. :oops:

GREGOLE wrote:Why is it that whenever anyone includes a Felaryan sphynx in their work, it's a good guy?
The reason I chose a sphinx as my central character was because I was not aware that anyone had ever written about them before. I based everything entirely on the Wiki (which I'm assuming Karbo has proofread), and of all the races available to choose from, the sphinxes were the only race (of those that I had read anyway) that had no "known" individuals listed in the wiki. After all, I was largely writing this for Karbo himself, so I wanted it to be somewhat refreshing.

I mean, if you read the wiki, sphynxes are generally high-strung, self-righteous, bigoted, fanatical, egotistical, racially prejudiced pricks.
The image I got from the wiki was that they were sort of paladin-esque in the sense that, while they are proud and self-righteous, they are more absorbed in ideals than just pure self-indulgence. I intentionally chose a blue sphinx, however, so I could give her more depth: Sanura is a sphinx that is proud, selfish and holier-than-thou to some degree, but is experienced enough to know not to let her emotions get the better of her; she originally makes peace with Anakin because he is strong, and allies with him more permanently for her convenience. As I said above, I wasn't sure how much of the visual I had for the blue sphinx was accurate, so I tried to compensate by defining Sanura by her character; she's not one-sided for better or worse; she's a deep thinker who rations and compromises as needed.

One last thing that nobody mentioned but that I'd like to get off my chest anyway: Since Karbo said the character/story may be added to the wiki even if it isn't a winner, I didn't want it to be something that would in any way alter his own interpretation of the Felarya universe. That's why I left the fate of the Jewel 1 and the expedition to the Raizas island unknown, why Anakin doesn't know if snow tigers are intelligent but feral or sentient but unable to communicate, why the neko tribe Sanura references is nameless, and why Sanura makes an offer that will let Anakin make up his mind later if he stays with her or continues to travel. It's Karbo's mental property, so I didn't consider myself to have a lot of creative leeway here; any of the aforementioned questions and then some I leave open for the proprietor (Karbo unless stated otherwise) to answer.

So, um. . . Yeah, thanks for reading everybody. Kay, I'll shut up now. :oops:
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Re:

Postby Jacquelope » Sat Sep 20, 2008 10:24 pm

Smashing. Righteously smashing!

So the shrinking potion works against others besides humans, LOL!

As for whether sphynxes are generally high-strung, self-righteous, bigoted, fanatical, egotistical, racially prejudiced pricks... individual sphynxes may vary.[/quote]
Experiment: Will a grenade kill a giant naga by exploding in its belly?
Test #1: Inconclusive. Grenade exploded in naga''s mouth.
Test #2: Inconclusive. Grenade exploded in naga's throat.
Further tests delayed until another live specimen can be acquired.
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Postby GREGOLE » Thu Oct 09, 2008 8:21 am

As for whether sphynxes are generally high-strung, self-righteous, bigoted, fanatical, egotistical, racially prejudiced pricks... individual sphynxes may vary.


Yes, but the wiki still describes them as perfect villains, yet so far every single Felaryan sphinx I've ever met in fiction has been a good guy.
When a few sphinxes deviate from the established archetype, that's good writing.
When NO ONE tries to take advantage of the inherent flaws that the sphinx culture presents, it's just disappointing.

And the fanbase takes everything in the wiki so idealistically too. Just look at what everyone's doing to dridders! So a misunderstood, yet none the less frightening race is constantly portrayed as irredeemably evil, yet some bible-thumping, self-absorbed, honor-bound, idealistic knuckleheads

Blah. I'm probably just sore because the harpies are getting the dridder-treatment in this story. :P
Or maybe it's just because I hate cats. XP
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Re:

Postby Terastas » Tue Mar 09, 2010 6:45 pm

GREGOLE wrote:Blah. I'm probably just sore because the harpies are getting the dridder-treatment in this story. :P

I kept the storyline mostly restricted to the Great rocky fields and chose the blue sphinx (for the aforementioned reasons) as the "protagonist," which only left me with two (believable) local antagonist options: the harpies or the centaurs. The wiki section on centaurs described them as either ravenous hunters that would never stop just to catch one human, or as being approachable during the morning (zebra centaurs), so they didn't seem like suitable antagonists. Meanwhile, the section on sphinxes states: "Like one could figure, sphinxes absolutely despise harpies, their main rivals as the dominant avian race of Felarya. The two races have often waged war in the past." So they seemed like the better choice of the two.
Or maybe it's just because I hate cats. XP

:lol: :P

So, um. . . Yeah, I know that was a really old post, and I'm not resurrecting this just for that. But I did take a look through the Felarya wiki again just for kicks and it seems to have gotten. . . Well. . . Smaller than I remember it being. The visual reference to the blue sphinx is gone, the article on the Miratans is shorter than I remember it being, and the description of snow tigers is gone completely.

Reason I ask is because. . . Well, partly just out of morbid curiosity, I guess, but also because I'd said that I didn't really plan on writing anymore Felarya fics until I knew if anything was set in stone and needed to be specified (and if so, what) or if some of the questions I'd asked had no answers (and if so, if it could/would be left up to me to answer them). So I revisited the Wiki after all this time thinking maybe I'd have more to work with, but lo and behold, I couldn't even find some of the stuff I'd previously worked with. :P

No pressure Karbo: just curious to know if I missed anything. ^^;
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Re: My Writer's Contest Submission: Sanura & Company

Postby Karbo » Sat Mar 13, 2010 3:20 pm

Well yes the wiki went through a major overhaul a few months ago and is still is ^^;
Some entries have disappeared, some have changed and some others are being on the work table again
That''s partly in order to try and make the world more coherent or in certain case because of the contributor's wishes.
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