Pt. I - Silenah
Part I - The Birth. (Silenah)
My first furry (Or scaly) themed story.
Memories define who we are. In a warped sense, the memories others have of us define who we are with respect to ourselves. The opinions and thoughts others have of us when we are gone... Define and colour what we were, what we are. And can leave an indelible scent on other personalities and societies for years after we have left... Gone. In all forms of the word. Passed from the world, or simply walking a different path. Our footsteps always remain...
One such, Silenah, walks the road of memory. Tasting all that remains of herself, in the minds of those she left. Dust swirls, grit blinding her eyes, laden with memories...
Borne on midsummer's eve, into an unremarkable existence. Her father, distant yet close. Hardworking, as to provide for her and the rest of the family. Pride sorely won through years of struggle. Her mother, kindly and worried. Unable to understand the viridian glare deep in her daughter's eye, nor the lassitude evidenced in her existence.
A lonely child, as firstborn often are. As the years passed, she searched for acceptance. For someone, anyone, to understand her. Accept her. Her lovers were often indifferent, blind to her needs. Seeking only physical union, left drained and scared. The colours of her personality and aura scarred those not strong enough to match her.
In one violent surge, her soul within bit at the mortal coil. Stretched, ripped. Tattered. She walked out of her home, with nothing but the clothes on her back. Left without a glance backward, the cold tears of frustration and loss no comfort to those she left. Seventeen, and alone. She knew the answer was there, could feel it drawing her. Reshaping her soul with every step, weakening the fragile bonds holding her.
The leers of passing truckers brought only snarls of human helplessness to her angular face, framed with a mane of fiery crimson hair. The yellow glare of the streetlights bleached her skin under the twilight sky bone white, her thumb standing against the wind as a testament unto futility.
A grain truck pulled aside, haunted by better days and better paint. The driver, balding and fat. A sloth, sucking what he could from the edges of society on his own lonesome journey to oblivion. Soulless bastard. She paid for her endless ride to an unknown border town... Slimy kisses, sweaty hands in her hair, on her neck. Marking her with wafts of self-loathing only the uncaring rain could wash away.
The town was marked on the map only as a waypoint, bearing its own memories of lighter days. The throngs of humanity had mostly left for the big cities, only farmers remaining to eke what they could from the dust. The dunes moved ever forward, seeking to reclaim their own. Seeking to put distance between themselves and the heart of the desert.
She walked, her feet hurting, blood pooling in her ankles. Gasping and hungry. Weak, yet unassailable. The spirit within spreading wings, stretching and shaping her. The haunted aura colouring her fading, her humanity leaving.
What she sought was not on whim - There were rumors, vague hints. Lost old men spoke of the heart of the Sahara, men whom went seeking riches and found nothing but dust and phantoms.
Hints of awakening, of bone littered canyons. Places where careless men walked, and careless men dreamed. Dreamed of gates, of places they could not describe. Places that left them aged, places that sent them running in unbridled fear.
The deep canyons guided her ever to the pulsing heart, the fields of bone. She could hear the water that once flowed over the land, abundant and free. Taste the scent of highland shrubs that once flowered and vied for life, now nothing but patches of dust and scarred ground.
She lay on uncaring earth, her legs no longer able to carry her. Blazing light claimed her, scarring her flesh. What was within kindled, caught flame. The coils snapping, yawning back into the abyss as her spirit fought for the skies. Fought to fly.
The last rays of dusk lit upon her mangled form, drawing forth the viridian beast. Screaming into the mortal realm, tasting age and death during the passing... Passing into eternity. Into places we cannot go, or comprehend.