<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><br><br><br><div dir="ltr">AN: Finally can post more now that I'm done editing my last stories. How does the dialogue sound? I'm mixed on it.</div><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div dir="ltr">ANN: Sent this once tonight and Misha said it didn't appear, trying again.<br><div><br></div><div>Life I: What Came After - A</div><div><br></div><div><div>To my friend in the North</div><div><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></div><div>Where do I start on this story? Because it’s not just my story. It’s one day, and it belongs to everyone who lived it. What’s interesting is that I doubt most people would remember this particular day. It was just another in a long procession, all the same.</div><div><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></div><div>But for me this is when things changed.</div><div><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></div><div>It’s a series of small moments that I have tried to record for posterities sake. It’s been years since this happened but I can remember it. The cold air, the people milling everywhere and...and the cold air on my bare scales.</div><div><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></div><div>Eli how wonderful it was to survive. To be young.</div><div><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></div><div>Pardon me, I know I ramble. I just feel so many emotions being back in that time. Fear, horror, sorrow, misery, ecstasy, hope and an endless joy.</div><div><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></div><div>I know in a story with Peccavi that endless joy seems impossible. But on this day everything can happen. This was the day I became fully summed. Today the Ragman returned for me.</div><div><br></div><div>Above all else this is the day I met the woman who would define my life for years.</div><div><br></div><div>Wonderful isn’t it?</div><div><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></div><div>May Eli bless this venture, as I delve into this tale.</div><div><br></div><div> </div><div>Shortly After Midnight</div><div><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></div><div>My mouth felt stuffed with cotton. And my head like it was stuck in a bowl.</div><div><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></div><div>I cracked my eyes open. Dark as always. My room had a window, which to my knowledge it hadn’t when I first arrived. 'In Isenport the rooms stay the same. My room never grew a bed out of the fucking wall.'</div><div><br></div><div>My muscles were just lumps to mirror my aching head. I began to become more aware of my changed body as my mind emerged from the fog of sleep. I could feel the claws at the end of my fingers that hadn’t been there a month ago Then the tail hanging over the bed, that hadn’t been there two weeks ago.</div><div><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></div><div>And then something new. I reached up for my mouth and found it further out then it had been a few days ago.</div><div><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></div><div>Once this would have sent me into a crying fit. But right now I felt nothing. Just one though; So that’s it. I’m fully transformed.</div><div><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></div><div>“Therrrroooo!” I spit a wave trying to speak. 'Ok this is a lot harder than I expected.' My mouth felt like someone had jammed extra bones into it. I ran my tongue over my changed teeth. 'How do lizards talk with these fucking things? They don’t dumbass, they’re fucking lizards. Why couldn’t I have become a hawk? Like a beak would be much easier.'</div><div><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></div><div>My nostrils were different too. They felt like tears on the upper part of my mouth, not nostrils at all. They were actually a lot closer to nares. It’s funny I had had a nose five days before and somehow missed it disappearing.</div><div><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></div><div>'I’ve had a real fucking long day. So of course I fucking missed that and I...' Now I started to cry again. 'Fuck me I killed someone. I fucking killed someone. I’m a murderer and I fucking killed him and he’s dead and it’s my fault and fuck fuck fuck!'</div><div><br></div><div>And again I was in the woods and that boy was charging at me. His face looked like a babe, no he was a babe. The biggest I’d ever seen, grown to my size. His eyes were so scared, so why were his hands around my throat?</div><div><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></div><div>'I could have let him choke me to death.' Was I still crying? 'I’d have been better off if he did. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t fucking do this and I can’t be a lizard and I fucking killed him andfuckingshitfuckmeifuckingki<wbr>lledhimikilledhimiamabastard.'</div><div><br></div><div>I screamed. No words, just primordial emotion. I sat up and screamed more. I slammed my fists into my bed until they ached and screamed. But it didn’t do anything. I collapsed back onto my bed, no better off than before.</div><div><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></div><div>'I killed him. I fucking killed him. But if I didn’t he’d have killed me And I’d have still vomited on Sir Egland and still crushed those fucking crackers and still fallen off that fucking log and still be here.'</div><div><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></div><div>I couldn’t see. My eyes stung so bad I couldn’t hold them open. I can’t be here anymore. This place is everything that’s fucking wrong with my life. If I stay here I’m going to fucking die. It’ll kill me or I’ll kill myself.</div><div><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></div><div>I shook my head. 'But where can I go? I can’t go anywhere of course. I’m dead remember? I wanted to be fucking dead, I want to be dead please kill me now!'</div><div><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></div><div>And then more screaming. You’d have thought someone could have heard me apparently my walls were quite soundproof. Either way it meant no one rushed into my room to comfort me. I had to deal with this by myself.</div><div><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></div><div>'At home I wouldn’t be alone...I wouldn’t be alone. There would be servants by the hundred here for me. And my father...would tell me to shut the fuck up because I’m in my twenties and crying like a baby.'</div><div><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></div><div>My father was an asshole. I know that’s not apparent, I’ve been rather subtle about it. But my father is quite possibly the biggest bastard who ever lived. And anytime I thought about home I thought about the bastard.</div><div><span style="white-space:pre-wrap"> </span></div><div>'People respected me there and I didn’t have to kill anyone.' I turned onto my side, only now noticing I had been on my tail. I pushed the ache away. 'How much did they respect you though? Your father is the Lord, your mother was a member of the Imperial family. You’ve got very powerful people watching over you.'</div></div><div><br></div></div>
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