Glory beyond the battle

[Pendragon]

The waves licked his toes, but he couldn't feel them. As he lay on the beach, bare chested with his eyes closed, he looked at peace. Looks, however, can be decieving. At first he was happy, happy to be truly alive again. Happy knowing all was well with his world. Then his mind was taken by darker thoughts. Sure, I saved my home, but where's my heroes welcome? I'm stuck on this back water place, with nowhere to go.
Time passed, but Pendragon couldn't bear to open his eyes. He'd come to hate this desolate beach with a passion, and couldn't bear to look at it. The image of his mother appeared in his mind, she was full of bullets, and Pen was holding the gun. He shook his head, trying to clear his mind. "I did what I had to" Pendragon said aloud "But now what?"
I don't belong here Said the voice in his head, his hand reached up to his forehead. He brushed his grey hair away, searching for something. And I'm not about to get out any time soon.. He reached into the red coat that lay beside him, and drew out a pistol. His hand shook slightly as he brought the weapon towards him. I've danced my last dance The thought was final. He'd decided, and yet... His hand still shook.

He pressed the gun against the side of his head. A single tear escaped his eyes.

[Señor Sunday Friday]

A tall, slim figure looked at Pendragon- "Someone else screwing around with the past..." she said with a sigh, her hair flaxen blonde and in a large, loose braid down her back, a few stray hairs hung in her face. Her brown eyes looked down at the stranger, "I should take him to TMA... that's probably for the best..." She thought outloud. Her voice was like this place, serene and eerily calm, as well as a hollow emptyness that couldn't be hidden no matter what.

She was dressed in a long, brown leather jacket and black pants that were tucked into knee high brown leather boots. Her jacket buttoned up to form a shirt as well and her small, soft, delicate looking hands glimmered for they were touched by strong magic. She looked down at Pendragon and something odd could be seen, half of her right iris was a deep red hue.

Her name was Sa, just like that. She didn't have a last name and she came upon Pendragon on accident. She was one of the teachers in Twilight Moon Academy and she guessed she could take this stranger back to the Academy, who knew what might happen. She seemed to be in her twenties due to appearance but who knew how old she really was- it was hard to tell when dealing with magical beings.

Her facial features were soft and soothing, her lips like light pink rose petals. She was slim without being skinny and looked somewhat like the kind of being seen in art where every aspect was perfect in it's own serenity. Her movements were with a precise grace and she seemed completely ethereal with everything she did while standing there. Such things though didn't hinder her from looking threatening in a fight, her hands as previously mentioned glittered with magic and there was so much knowledge in her gaze it was completely and utterly daunting to behold.

"I'm not so sure..." came a voice as a large wolf walked up behind Sa, it's fur steely gray and it's eyes an eerie golden yellow, his voice hard and strong. His paws left no footprints and he seemed to not disturb anything, not even the water. The wolf was named Adoff, which meant noble wolf. His tail was still and showed no signs of a happy canine who wagged his tail, in fact it seemed to make no hurry to move whatsoever which might lead one to believe that it was frozen in place, that was atleast until it sweeped to one side gallantly as he looked up at Sa, his black wet nose twitched as he scented the air, his maw open only slightly.

[Pendragon]

Pendragon's finger rested on the trigger, but the moment passed. He became felt Sa's eyes upon him. Another person? Do they even have people here? He wondered. Pen's hand stopped shaking, but he kept the pistol pointed towards himself. Curiousity won him over, and he decided to listen in on them. Still pretending to be unaware.

[Señor Sunday Friday]

"Obviously some random silver haired suicidal loon wouldn't be exactly the kind of person that would be considered into the Academy." The Adoff said as he glared at Pendragon, his yellow eyes seemed to bore holes into him.

"Come on, you know he's destined for yet even greater things! I can even see that!" Sa said to the wolf, already aware that Pendragon had decided to listen in and some odd feeling in the air would let Pendragon know that she already knew what he was doing.

"But we just don't have enough teachers to just voulinteer one to teach him!" protested Adoff with a growl.

"I can teach him, you know I can. I haven't had a student in forever so of course I can do it." Sa remarked sardonically, an edge caught in her smooth calming voice. She then walked towards the odd stranger.

"Just because you failed before doesn't mean you can make up for it with another student." Adoff said as a slim cut in reality formed and he walked through it and into the Academy.

Sa bit her lip as she tapped Pendragon on the shoulder, "So, you wanna get out of here or what?" she said in a calm tone. Obviously something in her past was known as a major failure, in fact it made her believe that the school wouldn't let her take another student.

[Pendragon]

Pendragon's eyes opened, revealing two vivid pools of electric blue. His arm extended to it's full length, the pistol pointed inbetween Sa's eyes. Pen opened his mouth to say something, but something stopped him. Her eyes... Her eyes were calm, and serene. He closed his mouth, biting his lip slightly. Slowly, ever so slowly, he brought the gun down. "...Yeah." He said quietly. Pendragon sat up, and brought one hand up to his head, and grabbed his coat with the other. There were two long scars down his back, they looked like recent injuries. "Yeah..." He repeated.

[Señor Sunday Friday]

"Well then..." she said as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a red gem that had some odd fire encaptured inside of it, on edge was particularly sharp and she sliced it through the air, a dark, dank landscape could be seen through it- the ghost shipyard. "The Academy doesn't let anyone directly teleport into it because then it might get a little difficult to figure out if some undesirable personality decided to show up unnanounced." She said, explaining why they were going to the shipyards. She wondered if the stranger knew exactly was going on, "You do know we're headed to The Academy, right?" she raised an eyebrow as she asked the question, her right hand placed itself on her waist.

Through the portal Adoff could be seen and in a realm where things actually existed he was quite monsterous in size for a wolf- like a small horse or something of that sort. His yellow eyes glared at Sa, "I told you we shouldn't take him back to The Academy with us." he said, obviously more than a little miffed.

"Well I can't leave him there, so he's coming with us!" she said in response as she becconned for the silver haired boy to follow through the portal. The wooden planks looked as if they would collapse under the slightest weight but they kept Sa from falling through into the waters below that teemed with malevolent spirits and lonely souls desperate for others to join them in the murky depths. As Sa stepped through the portal a change came upon her and she looked oddly different, nothing in appearance but simply almost is if her aura had changed. She wasn't a being that belonged in the realm where Twilight Moon Academy existed so of course she would be somewhat weakened upon entering it. If one is locked in one realm or dimension for too long either it will kill them or they would have changed to fit the realm. Sa traveled between realms so that she was no longer able to stay tied to a single realm at one time. Strangely though she was tied to the odd place where she tried to pull Pendragon from, there must have been some story behind that but Sa was in no particular mood to bring it up.

Her normally silent footsteps led the planks to moan under her and brass bells could be heard clanging on bouys and boats in the distance, the smell of fish and unshowered men filtered into the air from the shipyards, even the sharp tang of tar came seeing as a crew was smearing the stuff over the hull of a gigantic drydocked ship with deep red sails.

A merchant was a ways away selling fish at a stand with unreasonable prices and was busy haggling away with a customer while a child that looked to be the same age as Pendragon was stealing a few fish that seemed particularly large compared to the others. The merchant quickly noticed and began yelling various profanities at the boy who was already running past the portal to get away from the merchant.

A large steel ship was in the distance, it's side bore a crest of some royal family or house, armoured soldiers were walking 'pon the deck and lights could be seen through a few of the windows as well as the shadows of the people who passed through the rooms. Sa forgot how much of a shock the ghost shipyards could be to someone whom had just been in such a state of torturous solace as what Pendragon had been through.

As people walked across the plank walkway they stayed well away from Adoff which was probably for the best, the wolf yawned widely which revealed his yellow teeth that were long and sharp like daggers. Some of the wolf's features made it seem almost dragon like but of course it was a wolf, though a potently magic one at that.

A woman dressed in ragged clothes looked towards Sa with a dirt smeared face but was quickly distracted again as she looked towards the two children who had suddenly begun screaming violently, apparently one had hit the other and she had to sort it out now. The woman barely seemed old enough to have two children who looked to be maybe five years old. She looked as if she was just into her twenties and her face was tired from many years, this was just part of the Ghost Shipyards and by far it was one of the worst.

A few beings were here and there that seemed to stand out, many of them had some kind of headress that shrouded thier ears which would lead one to believe they were elven in nature. One of these beings was doing the opposite with thier aura, he was nearly impossible to see as he clung to the shadow, dark purple blue skin and pointed ears- obviously a Drow.

Sa smiled as she drew in the scents of the Ghost Shipyard, after being in such a place as where she was where the only noises heard were your own and the water's and the only smells were just the same way it was refreshing to be in a place where life was something impossible to escape. This realm had many places not like this in fact this particular area was very much a slum and it was odd how Sa chose this particular place to appear in.

Adoff curled his mouth into a snarl as a small child wandered too near, chasing after a coin that rolled accross the ground, when his hand reached out to grasp the coin the small shimmering object fell through a space in between the planks and plunked into the water, out of reach. The water let out a sigh as it recieved the coin as if it was an offering of sorts, the money now belonged to the lost souls within the water. It was believed that a large fortune existed beneath the dark, murky waves but nobody was brave enough to venture down to retrieve it, not even confirm it's existance.

A wall was erected to the left of the portal, various posters nailed to it, some for missing persons but the latter was for wanted peoples. Two of them seemed to stand out, one was so old, cracked, and faded that the writing was no longer legible but a picture of whoever it was could still be seen though barely, a Drow (though not the same one as before), a glint of madness in his eyes which were framed with a strong face, in all of it one might venture to call the person handsome in his own mystifying way but alas such a poster was from long ago and it was most likely such a person was already dead.

The second poster wasn't as old as the other but was still fairly worse for wear, it's paper desperately yellowed and torn, the text was still dark though and easily read:

'!!WANTED!!
AKIRAMERU IJIRASHI HITOTSU
for high treason, murder, theft, and kidnapping.
REWARD 600,000,000 GOLD!
WARNING- VERY DANGEROUS'

The picture in the center showed a tall, slim feminine figure dressed in flowing red and black clothes, her skin pale and her hair black as midnight. Her face held sharp features that had a menacing air to them and her lips were drawn back in a wicked, horrible smile as her eyes seemed to blaze off the paper in a bright inferno. In her hands she held two weapons that looked like scythes with the handles shortened and she indeed looked as if she could have been a grim reaper of sorts, her arms and legs seemed too long for her body which stood in a viciously presice battle stance, her feet bare upon the inked ground beneath her.

A small group of young men were gathered around the wall making vulgar comments about some of the posters, indeed this place really was a slum, even when compared to the rest of the shipyards. All of this was happening almost at the same time and could be seen as quite an overwhelming place to be that seemed to beckon one to always be on your guard.

(Meet Superpost Jr.!!! Yes, Jr. as in I've made a post longer then this one before... This also goes to show you the extent of my social life- zero. I've been up till past 11:00 at night just getting bored and adding to the post. Sorry about that, just so much going on in my head I can't stop and not add it on when I still can.)

[Pendragon]

(My god... I have no idea where to start!)

Pendragon climbed to his feet, and threw on his coat. "The academy...?" He asked, looking through into the ghost shipyard. Then he noticed Adoff, Pen raised an eyebrow. He felt tempted to open fire on the strange creature, but restrained himself. "Wait!" He called out to Sa, staying firmly where he was. "Where the hell are we going...? And... Who the hell are you? And..." He continued "What the hell is that?" Pen pointed at Adoff. "I'm not going anywhere, til I get some answers!" He yelled, swinging his arms. "I just..." Pendragon's voice softened "I just don't know. Anything...." He looked down "I just don't know... anything..." Pen took a few steps backwards from the portal, and fell onto his back. He winced at landing on his scars. Sitting up, Pen's hand glided over the injuries. "Wings..? I... I think I had wings..." His eyes had a fearful look to them "But...I..?" Pendragon covered his eyes with his hands.

[Señor Sunday Friday]

Sa looked back at Pendragon with a look of pity in her eyes, "Yeah, I know how you feel." she said as she stepped back through the portal, "See, you've been screwing around with time and kept yourself from ever existing. When things like that happen they end up here, this place is technically nowhere and doesn't exist either. I'm kinda wanting to get you outta here and teach you back at the academy if that isn't too imposing to you... though you don't seem to have much to impose upon." She said as she looked around the place again, her eyes sharp at the sight of everything, it was all so familiar to her and she shuddered at it all. Too many bad memories for her.

[Pendragon]

"I just..." Pendragon moved his hands, and turned to her "I just want to go home... You know?" He picked up a stone, and threw it across the water "I saved the damn world. Doesn't that mean anything...?" Pendragon looked at the floor again, "C'mon, C'mon." He whispered to himself, over and over. "Pull it together..." A few seconds passed, then Pendragon shot to his feet. "You think you can take me!?" He screamed, staring up to the sky. "You think your better than me!?" He shifted he's weight backwards and forwards, crouching slightly in a playfull fashion. Pendragon returned to a straight position, headed tilted down "So what if this isn't my world.... I'll make it my home..."

[Señor Sunday Friday]

"Come on, I understand how you feel but returning to your old world could kill you since you don't belong there in any form, your essence cant sustain itself there. It's wonderful back at the academy and you'd fit in, anyone's world, my home now." she said, her voice got sad and quiet towards the end and she looked back up at Pendragon, "So, what are you wating for? The Academy awaits you." she said as she motioned towards the portal.

[Pendragon]

Pendragon nodded to her, and stepped towards the portal. He hovered on the edge for a moment, before stepping through. "Ughh..." The loss of his energy was so huge, that Pendragon doubled over and clutched his heart. He breathed heavily, shaking for a few seconds. His hand dipped into a coat pocket, searching frantically for a few seconds. Then a calm washed over him. His hand re-appeared, this time with a ring on his middle finger. He turned to Sa. Then, again he grew pale. Shocked, even. "I can't feel it..." He said weakly, looking down at his hand. It was still upon his heart.

[Señor Sunday Friday]

"You don't exist, you're one of the fortunate ones. You still have a mind, a mind which a bodily form can be built upon." She said as she put an arm around Pendragon's shoulder reassuringly as she looked around the shipyards, an underfed man in rags stumbled up to them, he smelled like smoke.

"A bit o money fo' a man tryin' to support himself?" he asked Sa his eyes glazed and seemed to stare into nothing.

"I'm not supporing your addictions! You want something to support yourself find a walking stick." she said back to him. The man gave no definate response but walked away, asking someone else for some money.

Adoff walked up to Sa and Pendragon, his eye cocked, "Well then, you're helping him adjust fine." he said, as he motioned towards Sa's hand which glimmered wich magic as it rested on Pendragon's shoulder. When a being tried to pull itself from nonexistance as Pendragon was before they might need help to exist. If Pen looked carefuly enough he'd notice the ground could be seen through his foot- he was only half existant at the moment. This is why Sa chose to come here, so many crackheads and drunkards here it'd be impossible to find enough people to actually pledge against them before a council.

[Pendragon]

"Yo, adoff dude." Pendragon called over his shoulder "Anybody ever tell you wolves don't talk?" He stood up straight, leaning slightly on Sa. "I didn't catch your name..." He said to her. Out the corner of his eye, Pendragon had noticed his half visible foot. He was freaked, and was trying to ignore it and change the subject. "And... Um, what's this academy p-place..?" He stuttered slightly.

[Señor Sunday Friday]

Adoff growled low towards Pendragon and sat down, his yellow gaze watched him untrustingly.

"Oh, it's wonderful." she said looking towards Pendragon with a smile, "they'll help you, they've certainly helped me once I left that horrible place for the first time." she said trying to make things as simple as possible, "It's called Twilight Moon Academy and there are classes from Dragoon to learn the art of aerial mounts to Samurai to learn to use your opponents abilities against them." she said with a smirk. Sa used to be a student so she knew the place backwards and forewards, "And if you choose to come then I'll be teaching you to master your powers whatever they may be- I might have to help you find your powers first, My name's Sa."

Adoff rolled his eyes, "Greeeeaaat..." he complained as he watched this all happening, Sa wasn't exactly the world's best teacher. Maybe that was why she was in charge of the Bestiary for so long.

[Pendragon]

"Sa..." Pendragon repeated "I'm Pendragon" He strained a smile "And I saved the damn world... Doesn't anybody get that? I don't need any...." He almost tripped taking a step forward "You know what? Take me to this school thing. Seems I'm a bit rusty..." He smiled, for real this time. "Heh, even heroes get rusty, right?" He took a few slow steps forward, taking a look at the wanted poster "Guess I'm not going to get bored... So, where is this Academy?"