They seldom return

[The March of Ides]

*Deep in the forest, a woodcutter's hut has been all but claimed by the recent fire. Abandoned by its owner, a squatter has claimed what is left. An middle-aged man, he is squatting on a table over a bowl. Raising the bowl to his face, he slurps from it - before pouring some of the soup into each ear, snorting some and licking up the dregs. Where there was a man, there is now a young woman. She snaps her fingers like castanets and hops happily off the table.*

Prick a wyrm, does it not bleed?

*Not soup, then, but

Dec 28, 2014 20:08:16 GMT Treguard said:

a bowl of dragon's blood*

A dipsiluscious meal indeed!

[OOC: Last seen in Discovering a new place.]

*In the corner of the razed room, a once proud firedrake tries to respond. But he is too ill to move or speak. Lokie hears the March of Ides smacking her lips, belching and then spluttering out the trace of vomit she has brought up. Were there more of it, it might overpower the days-old smell of urine that pervades the impromptu cell.

Part of the reason why Lokie tolerated Drago's daredevil antics, never quite trying as hard as he should to discourage them, was the knowledge that if the next dangerous escapade with his bold rider were the last, at least Lokie would go out with his dignity in place. But this... he could see his dignity fleeing like wisps of smoke, and his life would end with none of it left, and that made him feel even more ill.*

*The bowl is now askew on the March's head, which has changed with his body into that of a curious 11-year-old boy.*

Will dragon meat be to my taste?

*His age advances by half a dozen years but barely settles.*

I'm loath to see it go to waste.

*With a glint in his eye and on the assassin's blade in his 30-year-old hand, the March advances on the dragon.*

[Robin]

[OOC: So, I know I'm not a mod or anything, but with most of the characters having reached an endgame or else ventured into the unknown or settled down, the fate of this pair intrigued me. So I'm going to attempt to finish it... and, the date being what it is, this seems like the best time to! David, if you're unhappy with this, then by all means edit or remove my post.]

*After a half an hour of vaulting fallen trees and kicking rocks from the ground, Robin comes across what - to his eyes - was once a stone hut... and still is, apparently, although there is a hole in the thatched roof, as if something (or someone) had crashed into it a few days prior.*

A bothy? I wasn't aware there was one.

*At his words, there is a faint twittering from above, and spots of spring rain start to fall from the sky. Caught unawares without a shelter to protect him from intensified precipitation, Robin hunches forwards and makes for the hut, just in case a squall should reach him through the canopy of the forest. He's not averse, he reasons, to water - he just isn't in the mood to be soaked through right now.

He jogs through the drizzle towards the hut.

As he reaches the door, he is about to go through when he realises that the hut is occupied. The March of Ides, flicking rapidly through forms, is on her back, legs flailing helplessly in the air, but giggling apoplectically, as if she is having the time of her life. She adopts a more masculine form, and straightens up as an old man with a beard, making a grab for a discarded assassin's blade, lying on the floor by a chained firedrake. Robin does not recognise him.*

Excuse me?

*The March turns around and sees Robin. A mixture of malice and madness in his eyes, he turns around, and to Robin's general astonishment (although he would be more astonished had he not encountered floating girls, rotating rooms and servants with random emotions), changes again, into a handsome man in his twenties - reminding Robin of the Prince Anglia he met on the path towards Dunshelm - and begins to stride towards Robin, the blade still in hand.

As he readies his stance to defend, Robin notices that the firedrake in the corner is wounded - and quite badly. Unknown to him, Lokie had put up a better fight that the March had anticipated he would; as a result, the March's curiosity regarding dragon flesh had remained unsatisfied... but there are a number of sharp, deep wounds in his torso. Upon seeing Robin, an unfamiliar face but with an air of being friendlier to him than his erstwhile dragonrider, he attempts to roar a greeting, but ends up producing a hoarse wail.*

What do you think you are...?

*The March lunges before Robin is ready. He lowers his sword to parry the blow and just managed to glance off the blade of the March, who gives a great shout of laughter and fixes Robin with a terrifying glare.*

March: "Woodsman with his foolish sword, may your death be just reward!"

*And with that, he vanishes. No announcement, no lightning, not even a golden sprinkle in the air. Suddenly, there is no March. It is almost as if he had never been there.

It is the Ides of March. He has left this plane.*

Dragonsblood!

...Dragonsblood?

The dragon!

*Leaving his adversary's blade behind and re-sheathing his sword, he rushes towards the wounded creature. Lokie would usually be wary, even vicious, towards any human in his injured state, but he is too weak to lash out. He fixes Robin with a watchful eye as the Woodsman tries to find a way to release him. He settles, after a while, on working at what appears to be a basic lock with the head of an arrow. It takes a while, but there is eventually a click and Robin stands back, pulling at the hefty chain, releasing the leg by which Lokie was bound.*

There you go; I... I...

I've just released a dragon!

*He realises his mistake a little too late. However, in this case, it is no mistake. Lokie, realising he is free, summons the last of his strength and, taking a deep breath of the cooler air above him, travels vertically upwards, as fast as he can. His blood spatters the ground, and he moans in unmistakeable pain, but he is no longer chained, no longer in danger... no longer enslaved. Robin has been his unwitting saviour, without even knowing that death would have been his eventual fate.

Robin curiously peeks out of the hole in the roof via which the firedrake exited. The rain is heavier than it was, as he had expected... and through it, he sees the small dragon flying, unsteadily, off through the sheets of water.

Despite not knowing exactly what happened, Robin smiles at the sight of a restrained animal now free.*

Godspeed.

*And, as he watches, a thought comes from he knows not where...*

Beware, beware the March of Ides.

[The March of Ides]

[OOC/ModNote: The above post was made without notice, without my permission and without accurately depicting my character. Although it has now been 'unremoved' from the thread, I must ask that it be disregarded by all.

My previous post is effectively the last time we see the March of Ides, and can be regarded as a deliberate 'fade to black'. It is inevitable that the March will fall out of phase and disappear again eventually: the reader is free to mentally fill in the gap. Does the March of Ides kill Lokie? Does Lokie survive, recover and fly to freedom? It depends whether you are goblet-half-full or goblet-half-empty I suppose.

I had hoped that the Drago Lestrade character might become active again. He might then have been able to find and rescue Lokie, or I could have guided Lokie back to him. But with Drago abandoned, I felt no duty or incentive to carry on playing Lokie. A shame, because Lokie perhaps my favourite of Surrounds' ancillary characters, or NPCs as we tended to call them.

Since I don't expect to play the character again, I've edited the March of Ides profile thread to detail the link between his moods and his age-shifting. Perhaps I was more inspired by Doctor Who than I had realised. But I got there first with male-to-female regeneration...]