Tigz, Vampira and myself RPing here, lurkers are welcome, no declaration needed. Vampira you know the drill XP Tigz I know you'll catch on practicly instantly.

Nat plowed forwards through the orchards, the heavy scent of oranges filling his flaring nostrils, his wide golden eyes were fixed skywards where the shilohettes of the three young adults he'd been with were heading towards home, their naked tails whipping through the air and their wings beating lazily for their speed. His own thickly furred tail was clogged with ashy mud, churned up by the rain that had just finished poring down. Behind him something crashed through the trees, and he glanced over his shoulder, past his stunted white wings, something long, dark and with far too many limbs was still slithering after them and catching up far too fast...

Nathaniel, stumbled, fell, looked up at the side of the dormant volcano that he called home, and silently cursed as one of his peers backflipped, hovered hesitantly, then with a flip of his long wings, hastened back towards the village. The shadow creature howled and Nat jumped back to his feet, and fled down hill as it was easier going. Through the orange trees, down the bare hillside, and into the suphurus marshes before he plunged into the lake, eyes shut tight, cheeks bulging as he hid benith the smoky yellow waters.

Nathaniel raised his head once he was out a few yards into the water, his long blonde hair, now bedraggled and tangled, and the water burned his eyes, but he blinked it away and peered around, the shadow creature's backend was vanishing back into the trees behind him, he cast around and saw shapes in the trees around the shore, or one large shape, there was a shadowy bulk by the water falls from the lake in the volcano vent, praying it wasn't more shadow beasts from the darkened east he paddled back to shore and shook off. The mud gone from his furred tail, but his old clothes sodden.

Nat froze at the deep voice, the hairs on the back of his neck pricked up and he turned slowly, swallowing, "... I, I, I..." he stuttered, and froze up, "Don't eat me!" he suddenly cried falling to his knees, "Oh great Shadow!" then he jumped to his feet and ran off, though he stopped only a hundred yards off, behinds some trees.

Nat blinked around at the creature, "Doesn't look like a shadow beast..." he breathed, and almost called out, but fear got the better of him and he scuttled off, not even noticing the lithe dark creature in the broughs of the larger trees above him... It's pale eyes trailed after him, then snapped back to the creature that had scared the young Jatthow, "Who are you?" he asked, and dropped down.

'He' was a slender dragon, shorter than this female, dark scaled with pale horns and red and blue highlights on his belly and back, "When I came here there were no dragons, now there are at least three, including my self," his voice was hissy, somewhat gravelly.

He smirked when the female jumped, having turned her back on someone she hadn't known was there.

Badr thrashed his long, whip-like tail, "Maybe not," he hissed, "But you scared that boy, but did not hurt him," he bowwed his head, "And that makes it my buisness, so long as that boy is my buisness."

Badr blew out a tiny jet of blue flame as he turned away, a stip of bark on a tree caught in it's path, charred instantly, but he ignored it and loped away, following Nat's trail.

The young Jatthow had slowed to a halfhearted walk once the village had come into view, constantly brushing his wet hair behind his ear, he was listening hard, nervous now that both a shadow beast and what he thought might be a dragon was in the area.

Nat screamed when with a snarl a streak of darkness leapt over his head from the side and crashed into the undergrowth, he didn't stop to look, just fled into the village, where he got strange looks from the adults and the young ones pointed and laughed for more than the normal reasons. He dived through the bead curtain of his home and past his ill looking mother and into his small room.

Nathaniel didn't see Badr rear up from the writhing, dieing, body of the shadow that had been stalking him, so he didn't stop to ask why. Instead he just hid under his covers until his mother came in and stroked his shoulder until he stopped shaking.

Badr sat back on his haunches and watched the body of the shadow beast fade away until only a gaunt strange thing was left, not much bigger than a starved wild pig, and this he devoured.

Badr threw back his head and snapped his lightly curved jaws once, twice, and his neck bulged as he swallowed, then he turned and blinked his eyes, one milky white, the other pale brown and orange, at her, "Taken to scavenging? There's no food here. Or have I done something to intreage you?"