Bowcrescent and Kid

Bowcrescent

Bonded to: tan F Flashfire

Age: 680 Sex: Male
Soul Name: svaal Known By: himself
Mate Status/Sex Preference: lovemate (deceased), straight | Recognizes Apogee (which is definitely a surprise to her far more than him, a fact which he knows only because they Recognize)
Children: ... kid? nah! | his amazing daughter is Soulbind
Parents/Relatives: plains elves tribe, scattered
Height: 4'6" Build: long, very wiry
Hair Color, Length, Style: dark brown-black, short, headband
Eye Color, Size, Shape: yellow-brown-orange, narrow
Skin Tone: very brown-dark
Voice Quality: average speaking voice, beautiful tenor-style singing
Clothing -- Summer: green tunic, leather boots
Clothing -- Winter: adds dark brown leggings and sleeved leather brown cloak
Jewlery Worn, Made: headband, choker in leather
Tatoos/Markings/Scars: probably scars from hunting
Pets/Animals Kept: none
Notable Posessions: bow and arrows, that's it
Holt Function: archer, scout
Magic? How Powerful? Sending 7/10, Magic Feeling 3/10, Finding 5/10
Climate/Locations Preferred: Flat lands, tall grasses and warm weather; slight fear of truly open desert with no trees
General Likes: shady areas, water holes, tall rocks to shoot from
General Dislikes: responsibilities, crowds, things that can't be killed with two or three arrow shots
Fears/Worries: Kid - who is he? Why's he following me? What if he gets hurt?
Special Strange Info: Rescued Kid from humans, and is now headed to Bald Mountain to leave him there...
Basic Personality: usually carefree, but subtle and witty, charming around ladies
How they feel about
Humans: disgust, a little fear
Elves -- herders: very clever and very useful!
Elves -- magic users: it has its place, but certainly not all high and mighty
Elves -- bond-riders: travel faster, can pack more, and hunt bigger things. All around, good!
Trolls, etc: good for trading when they're not interested in killing elves!
Bond Animal Info if any: none yet

***

Kid

Bonded to: Silver M Fienn

Age: 14 Sex: Male (?)
Soul Name: rrazk Known By: self only
Mate Status/Sex Preference: none, straight? maybe? | eventually Recognizes Farfire
Children: is still considered a child by any tribe's standard | daughter Sparkle
Parents/Relatives: possibly plains, but more likely a half-breed Goback/Plains, Goback/Blue Mt, or even child of a high one. Doesn't remember who they are nor where they came from.
Height: 3'4" Build: small, but relatively strong (will grow to about 4'0" in height)
Hair Color, Length, Style: strawberry blond/yellowgold, very curly, short
Eye Color, Size, Shape: one grey (right), one lt blue (left), large, oval
Skin Tone: fair and rosy cheeked
Voice Quality: high and sweet, but rarely speaks
Clothing -- Summer: silken smock and leggings, leather shoes
Clothing -- Winter: what's 'winter'?
Jewlery Worn, Made: none
Tatoos/Markings/Scars: none surprisingly
Pets/Animals Kept: none
Notable Posessions: his life, and freedom
Holt Function: none yet, never lived in a tribe!
Magic? How Powerful? Sending 8/10, Magic Feeling 5/10, Levitation 4/10, Fireshape 2/10
Climate/Locations Preferred: doesn't know what else there is beyond light woods and scrub desert
General Likes: sending with Bow, trust, the open sky, small animals
General Dislikes: humans, bears, slightly afraid of the moonless nights (rare on this world of 2 moons)
Fears/Worries: that he will be captured again, that his parents are no longer alive
Special Strange Info: Kid should have a real name. Once he earns it, he won't let it go again! Also, he was found in Wrapstuff by Humans. Meaning - he could be very, very old, or very young indeed. No one knows.
Basic Personality: sly, cute, impish at times, but when around any serious threat is absolutely guarded and deadpan
How they feel about
Humans: angered, a bit afraid but not terrified - after all they only wanted to own him, not kill him
Elves -- herders: oooh they do that?
Elves -- magic users: magic is easy, see?
Elves -- bond-riders: only has heard of them from Bow, wonders what it's all about
Trolls, etc: never seen one of course, but the stories Bow tells are fascinating
Bond Animal Info if any: none yet

He hadn't even known that Humans treated elves like this. Bowcrescent was a bit angry, but more with himself that he trusted people to be kind. Well, Trolls were like this, so Humans and them shared a lot in common. Bowcrescent cut the tether which kept the young elf locked down, and was glad when the little red-headed kid floated free quietly.

Come on, let's go. They won't know you're missing until the smoke clears. Bowcrescent sent to the child, and numbly the strawberry-blond haired elf followed.

He'd been traded once, from the rough hands of Humans on the forested side of the plains, to the ones who wandered the wide flat grasslands. They both somewhat treated him well, at least, they didn't beat the elf and certainly didn't want to cook him or kill him!

Though they warned clearly - in their dirty, gutteral language - that there were men who would scream at the sky and proclaim all things different were against their god Gotara, and burn whatever they could find.

It was tales like that which kept the child subdued, more than any other threats they could muster. Mostly because the girls and the women were really kind to him. In fact sometimes the girls would dress him up, have him play with them. That ended when he was traded away, but still the women thought he was adorable, and kept him healthy.

Bowcrescent had wandered about the plains long enough to know there were trade routes long established, he'd been traveling them for hands and hands. He didn't like dealing with Humans, they were smelly and rude. Their crude crafts were often heavier and sturdier than elfin wares but they rarely contained anything of beauty or artistry.

Bowcrescent knew that his deception would be blamed on the rival Human clan that had wandered down from the north lands. The wet swampy ground had begun taking its toll on those, and they had moved in on the territory of the traders. And were unfriendly at best. So they burnt things, he burnt them with one of their own torches. It wasn't a big fire, and Bowcrescent wasn't so callous that he allowed any tents to catch on fire. He didn't want to kill them, he only wanted a distraction while he took the Kid away. A cart filled with dung would burn for days, and he laughed at that.

While the Humans were busy putting the fires out, then, he smuggled the little boy elf away.

That was two turns ago, and they'd kept to the open plains longer than Bowcrescent really wanted to. He knew there was an encampment of elves, special elves, distantly in the hills to the east. He headed that way, hoping for more information before he really got there. Would they take the hostage elf? Could they teach him better? Well, Bowcrescent wasn't a good parent, at least he didn't think himself such, so he didn't want to gloat over any of the young elf's achievements on their way.

They saw the cook fire of an elf group, they had a wolf rider pair and some others - odder elves than Bowcrescent or Kid had really met. Of course, Kid hardly had met any, they'd found only one trade camp on the way east, while they wandered carefully. Bowcrescent wanted to avoid too much discussion - because many of those elves would be heading back west, and if they mentioned a fair skinned flying boy... the Humans might take out their ire on the elves once more.

Archive and Dreamwhisper, Moontwin, Shrike and Cinder... They were good people, able to hunt, able to survive, with their own stories. Kid soaked in their tales, as they walked toward the bare, chilly looking mountain to the east.

***

Kid appeared young, they guessed he was only in his early teen years, when they arrived at Bald Mountain. Bowcrescent was twice the age of most of the group, younger than Archive - but who wasn't. That elf was positively ancient, according to most accounts. Even if he was only just passed a thousand...

Bald Mountain held other elves - young and old. From all over, indeed there were elves which could have been tribemates of Bowcrescent's but were likely from another splinter of the plains elves. And while Bowcrescent really did want to leave... Something made him stay.

Kid developed friendships with his age-mates - or those who appeared to be his age-mates. For it was Awlvon the tall-elf (now there was an ancient elf, he and his two companions... they'd been born shortly after the elves even arrived to Abode, but spent much of that time asleep in weird coccoons... ones which when Kid saw the coccoon's creator the little preserver named Honeyhat, it triggered a weird memory) who realized that Kid had been preserved in a coccoon just like the near high-ones had. So... where was he from? Who really were his parents? No one could say. He was small, which meant he was probably descended from those who had scattered, and he couldn't have been preserved too long before.

He had no wolf or other animal blood in him, which relieved the other tall-elf, Yasheel. She harbored a weird mistrust for half-blooded elves, and in general? She wasn't much liked. Bowcrescent certainly thought she was full of herself, anyway. If there was a wolf-blooded elf that could stand his ground on the plains between a bear and a human? Well so much the better! No pure elf would try!

Kid was quiet, observant. Even the other two who were around his age, Crystalstorm and Chamomile, thought he was a little odd. He would stick around more with the adults, particularly the ones who would craft using magic, and watch them endlessly. Apparently his ability to see magical auras was much stronger than most, so he was actually entertaining himself more with the pretty colors he (and only he) saw, than the fact that the object was being made into something.

So he was a little surprised, when Apogee and the other elders gathered him together with Crystalstorm and Chamomile, and decided to send them all to a weird place beyond Abode. Beyond the world!

But it would be an adventure! Bowcrescent looked happy about this - finally, he'd be able to really fend for himself if he bonded a dragon.

A... a dragon!

Kid was still quiet, demure around the adults. He acted so oddly - childish glee sometimes making him giggle, and then something serious happens and he's just as stiff as a log. But he wouldn't need to be so serious all the time, not with a dragon to protect him.

"No dragon would let you be captured again," said Apogee. "Trust me." Squall up in the back nodded, she'd helped train Kid a little to fly better under his own power. He would never quite be as good as her - but he could skate above the dangerous rocks, or save himself from getting hurt in a fall. Or, perhaps... glide up to the shoulder of an elegant dragon and fly with them!

***

"So, where to?" Apogee said, nudging Bowcrescent. He liked her, she was open and friendly and fun - she liked to cliff dive, and he liked to watch that. She was lifemated, to Squall, who was dangerous and moody and beautiful. They were actually part of why he remained on at Bald Mountain after delivering Kid. They intrigued him.

"What?" He asked, "... what?"

"I mean, where to? You need to find yourself a dragon, Bowcrescent. After all, how can you keep up with us if you're not on dragonback?" Apogee tilted her head, and her huge white dragoness somewhere behind on the ledge of the aerie gave a chortle.

"I... I don't know!" He said, "and why do I need to keep up! I can run just fine, I like it on the ground."

"There are ground dragons, you know," Squall said, "just like there are water-born ones like my own."

That intrigued Bowcrescent but he didn't dare let on. He'd become part of the Tribe, but... he always wanted to return to the plains! It was there where he felt safest! Not up here among the tall peaks! It was true though, that there were grounded dragons, ones without wings or who didn't fly with them anyway. Could he find something like that? Or ... what?!

"Well I don't know, you tell me! You're the experts with dragons!" Bowcrescent said.

It was decided that they'd turn to a place known as the Valley of the Sky, which had secretive, magical dragons of tiny size. Well, they might not all be tiny, apparently they were breaking into other breeds but still, magical, and colorful, and looking to bond or at least, find a friend.

"That sounds okay," Bowcrescent said. "If I don't have to be tied down to one thing or place, I like it best."

"I thought that too, once," Apogee grinned. "We'll see what happens there, it sounds like a good place for you."

Bowcrescent was a little nervous, but not because he was on a new planet with bizarre creatures around him, about to find a bond-friend.

It was more because Yasheel had come with him, and Yasheel was ... a bit of a bitch. And not the nice wolf kind. But, their attentions were diverted when everyone noticed some of the adorable hatchlings coming from their shells. Apparently there was an issue with who their sires might be, but it was clear enough to Bowcrescent that they had multiple fathers. Several had hatched and bumbled around already.

The three following hatchlings began their trips out to the candidates, a little tan one with flaming fur down her back tripped up to Bowcrescent, peering up at him hopefully. "You like to run? I like to run," she chirped, doing a somewhat wobbly lap around his feet.

Bowcrescent laughed, warmly, what an odd sensation to have in his mind. The little female drew on his own memories, and knew him that well already? It was almost like Recognition! He knew her name, Hakoha, pronounced it silently within his mind, and knew she'd heard him.

But he had a better name for her, "Flashfire," he said, and she nodded eagerly. After all, she'd run like the wind, and spread warmth like fire!

Sponsor/Bond: Bowcrescent
Name: Flashfire (Hakoha neEikida-naCieyuni, buLliyani)
Gender: Female
Type: Merideti/SaaShiyovi Hybrid
Adult size: 5'1" at the shoulder
Parents: Eikida x Cieyuni neYeuki-naTier, buIsotu
Abilities: Humanoid-Draconic Shifting, Verbal Speech, Telepathy, Spell-Magic (with bonded piece)
Basic Personality: Cheerful, helpful, energetic

** 2022 note: with access to the image I am really not gonna wait for this, if you really want the image taken down I'll take it down, but... it's been 15 years