:Form:
Name:
Technically, he has no name. Ardent (check the link for rider info) isn't one to give names to creatures-- Mirala only got one because Marcella happened to be around. Besides, Ardent would argue that he is still a wild animal at heart, and no wild creature has need of a name. She usually just calls him Stag, though others of her unit have taken to calling the elkrin Scout, due to his endurance and sharp senses. Breedable:
Yes.
Short Story:
Ardent ground her teeth together, doubling over and falling to her knees, wrapping her arms tight around her stomach. Her rations had run out fourteen days ago. The meat from her horse lasted six days after that, but repeated freezings and thawings had left it so putrid, even Mirala would have refused to touch it.
Gods be kind, she needed food. Anything; a bird, a fox or hare, she'd take a bite of grass or frozen berries or anything. The Commander groaned softly, tearing up a fistful of snow and biting into it, desperate for liquid and hoping the solid snow might help the pain in her belly.
She shivered, another spasm wracking her stomach.
'Stupid woman. On your feet, you'll die if you let yourself sit here,' she told herself. Ardent took a deep breath, the freezing air stabbing at her lungs, and hauled herself up to her feet and took a step forward. Then another, another and another, focusing simply on moving one foot in front of the other.
She had to live.
Had to get home. Carry on the news of her unit's destruction, let them know of just what roamed the forest and would surely be bearing down on Ordance before the sun rose again.
'Of course we get sent out during the sunless days', she thought bitterly, for the thousandth time. It was important, she knew that, to know what might be lurking in the black, and perhaps they should have been better prepared; other rangers had been bringing back terrifying news over the past few months. Great, feral dire wolves and blizzard runes twice again Borealis' size, and thrice as violent; banshees, wraiths and ghouls and gods knew what else. Such tales had existed as long as Ardent could remember, but tales were one thing. Bodies frozen so solid they shattered, torn to so many pieces they couldn't be identified... those were another.
A reason to keep moving, above all else.
-----
The sun never shone, but sometimes the moon would. It glittered and sparkled over the iced branches and frozen ground, showing that not one speck of life could be found-- even the trees, Adrent thought, surely had to be dead and frozen to the core. The needles looked black, the trunks blacker still, the snow painfully white. No color, no sound save her own shaking breaths and the crunch of snow beneath her boots--
and something else.
The Commander's hands were numb, but she still had enough movement in her fingers to grip her sword as she took a defensive stance. Something else was prowling through the trees, the sounds were light-- so light, if there had even been a breath of wind, she wouldn't have heard it.
The source soon made itself known, though at first she couldn't believe her eyes. Surely her exposure and starvation were finally taking their toll.
There amidst the black-and-white forest stood a creature furred in rich greens and golds like fleeting springs and even shorter summers, with an impressive rack of sharp horns he used to scrape ice away from the trees. True, Ardent had only seen the does owned by Simon and Marcella, but she knew what it had to be.
"Elkrin," she whispered.
The stag paused, meeting her dark eyes with his unfathomable golden ones, and held her gaze for several long moments.
He then lowered his head, and charged.
Ardent's reaction was too slow-- the stag hit her hard, an antler catching on her cloak and sending them both to the ground. Without a second thought, Ardent unclasped her cloak and got to her feet, just as the elkrin got up again. Somewhere in the scramble, her sword had fallen and vanished under the snow, leaving her without a weapon. The elkrin charged again, but this time Ardent got out of the way in time, feeling a sharp pain in her ribs as she turned away. The stag rammed into a tree and she lunged at it while it was still dazed, grabbing it around the neck and squeezing her legs tight around its body as it tried to throw her off, intent to hold and and wrestle the stag to the ground, find her sword and slit this beast stem to stern and feast on the meat no matter how raw it was, how rare the creature might be; if it let her survive--
The stag grew still, and Ardent loosened her grip as a strange sensation flooded her body. It felt like the summer sun shining down on her, warming her through her frozen bones.
The stag turned his head, once again locking eyes with her; and this time Ardent could see something in them. Determination, a burning refusal to give in and die in the cold. She could feel that he too was starved, his ribs poking through his magnificent fur. The longer she looked, the more she saw-- small scrapes from brambles and branches, larger wounds staunched with frozen blood and moss that could only be the work of predators, a few spots on his antlers where a prong had broken off.
"Been through hell too, huh?" she asked weakly, burying her face in his mane and gripping the fur tight as a wave of pain washed through her body. The stag gave a soft snort, followed by a soft, warm swipe of his rough tongue over her cheek. She only just registered when the stag began to walk away, she gave no thought to the cloak and sword still lying on the ground. The only thing she could focus on was the howling wind, and the little pellets of snow striking her face.
-------------
She had no memory of falling asleep, but it was clear that she had at some point; one moment she was in the forest and the next... somehow, by some miracle, they were in a place she recognized, a large cave where the rangers often camped before setting out into the woods. She dismounted, biting back a scream of pain (the damnable stag had surely broken at least one of her ribs) as she laid a hand on the elkrin's neck, leading him into the cave.
It didn't surprise her that it was deserted, no matter how she had hoped that perhaps there would be someone; as long as it kept them out of the snow, she wouldn't ask for more.
'Well. We could both do with food,' she thought, biting her lip and laying a hand on her stomach. She wasn't sure which hurt worse, the hunger pangs or the broken ribs. She glanced at the stag again as he sniffed at the floor, wondering how much meat remained on those bones and how hard it would be to get to it, when he let out an excited snort and started pawing at... something.
The stag backed away as Ardent crawled over and started feeling around. Her eyes went wide when her fingers brushed against a lumpy package wedged behind a rock, her mouth instinctively watering, the damn beast had found a ration pack! She tore into it, immediately discarding the long-rotted fruits and making for the tough dried meat. It was still frozen, it felt like rock on her teeth, but it was meat, the faint salty taste better than anything she had tasted at one of the king's feasts. She glanced back at the stag, giving a faint smile when she saw him devouring the fruit. Even if it had broken her, it deserved better.
"Dunno if you'll eat this. But it's a lot better than that crap," she said, offering up the last strip of beef. The stag stepped over, sniffing it for a moment before tearing into the strip-- in the dim light, Ardent could see its teeth weren't only flat molars, there were sharp canines as well.
"Made to eat anything, huh?" she asked with a soft laugh, propping herself up against the cave wall. The stag settled down beside her, giving what sounded almost like an amused snort. The Commander smiled, a pleasant, sleepy sort of warmth settling over her. Even if she wasn't well fed, her belly was full and they were out of the snow. As soon as the storm let up, she'd take the lead and get them back to the castle, give proper warning and get the rangers better equipped and trained... things would work out, the gods were kind after all.
She yawned softly, removing a glove and scratching the stag behind and ear. "And I'll make sure you get treated too. Maybe armored... I could use a mount, and you seem like the only thing sturdy enough to bother with," she mumbled. Her eyelids grew heavy as the storm quieted down, letting up enough to let some moonlight shine through, spilling over the elkrin's head and her hand.
'Funny,' she thought, before her mind grew too tired to sustain one for long. 'Almost looks like there's gold on my hand there, too...'
(1481 words, according to this site. I decided that this is a sort of elkrin that wouldn't accept a rider that didn't share his own will to survive... and, I thought it made sense that something so hardy would be able to eat plants and meat. If this doesn't work, please let me know and I'll change it.
I do intend on giving this elkrin a prominent role in either a roleplay or some stories continuing off of my entry here-- I've had a lot of fun developing Ordance as we've learned more about Eldemore, and coming up with this stag's entry form has finally solidified what I want to do with it
)Extra writing:
(Since you said I could do this instead of an art piece... xD)
Stop.
Wait.
Scent-listen
wait
safe.
Elkrin had no need for names.
The Stag, that was what other creatures called him; though simpler creatures often called him 'Tree'. To larger ones, he was 'Meat'. To himself, right now, he was hungry.
He had no memory of how he had ended up in the long and frozen night, but such things did not matter to him. This was where he was, this was where he had to survive. He raised his head, hearing the scrape of tiny talons against ice, and saw a small songbird perched on a branch above him.
Too high above. Even rearing up on his hind legs only brought the tips of his antlers to the branch, and the bird fluttered away.
The stag gave an irritated snort, headbutting the frozen tree in a fit of frustration. He'd scraped out as much grass as the ice had to offer, eaten every leaf off of every shrub he'd come across and stripping the bark when he could; choked down half-rotted berries that made his gut churn and scavenged any carcass he'd come across.
There just wasn't any food to go around here. Not any more. He snorted and slowly made his way through the trees again; perhaps he'd overlooked something.
-----
Stopwaitscentlistenwaitsaf--
Not safe.
The stag whipped his head around, digging his hooves into the deep snow and lowering his head, alert for whatever might be lurking beyond the clearing. There was no suspicious scent, but the temperature had dropped dramatically and the wind was... not right. He wanted to bellow out a challenge to whatever dared intrude on his territory, but instinct told him to remain silent. Whatever this was, it was best to not pick a fight.
The enemy soon showed itself. The stag's eyes widened and he took a few small steps backward, torn between bolting and trying to hold his ground-- he'd fought against many predators in his life, but never anything like this. The beast was crouched, crawling along on two legs and two wings. The stag wasn't even positive it was a living creature; it seemed made of solid ice. The beast turned its head towards the stag, who bolted as soon as it saw the creature's eyes-- pitch black, but glowing a deathly blue at the very center.
The stag dodged between trees and over stones, as swift and agile as the wind. The beast behind seemed to take no notice of any obstacles though, lumbering and crashing through the trees and giving a cry that sounded like a shrieking blizzard wind. The stag tried to run faster, but his hoof caught against a hidden root, and he tumbled to the ground. The ice creature closed in quickly, opening its great gaping maw filled with teeth like jagged ice spears--
The stag rammed his horns against the fleshy roof of the creature's mouth. It screamed in pain, sending up a spray of ice and blood as black as its eyes. The stag backed away, panting heavily. It lived, it bled, it could be killed.
The creature charged, but the stag nimbly leaped out of the way, ramming his sharp antlers into the beast's side. A few tines broke off against the frozen skin, and the stag let out a cry of alarm when he realized that the creature's hide wasn't quite as weak as its mouth.
The beast's tail lashed out, and the stag cried out again as a searing cold pain shot through his body; the creature's tail ended in a spear of ice sharper than any stone that shone in the moonlight. The stag staggered, his footing almost lost, but somehow he managed to still half-run through the trees.
-----
Hide.
That was the only thing that the elkrin stag could focus on. Hide, keep under the brush no matter how the brambles dug into his skin. The ice creature didn't seem to have followed, it was warmer here and there was no blizzard-shriek. He slowly crept out from under the bush, shivering with cold and hunger and pain. He snorted softly, sniffing and pawing at the ground nearby. Moss. Inedible, he remembered this kind, it made the stomach itch and quake and eventually empty entirely... but it soothed and closed wounds. He tore up a mouthful, and with some difficulty, pressed it into the deep gash on his side and any of the smaller wounds he could reach.
Once the moss had frozen and closed the injuries, the stag limped towards the closest tree. The ice wasn't as thick here, he knew he could scrape it off and get at some of the bark, food at last.
He slowly began scratching at the ice with what remained of his antlers, but stopped after a few moments.
His ears twitched and he looked up, locking eyes with a creature taller than himself all furred in black, but not quite as tall as the ice beast.
It held a long, sharp thing that shone in the moonlight.
The stag lowered his head, and charged.