Scenarios

A Short Walk

Kyra and Rayne walk together down the beach of a large lake. Rayne— a tiefling with red skin, tall horns, and a long tail— just told Kyra— a mutated human with the eyes of a reptile and the ability to communicate with other reptiles— about his family and wife who he'd lost.

"Oh," is all Kyra says. "I'm sorry." She thinks for a moment before steering the subject away slightly, not wanting him to feel down. "I've never been married. Never even really had a serious partner. There were a few boys here and there, a girl too. Never anything serious. Just fooling around while I was young and alone."

He raises a brow and grins at her. "Is that way you tried to jump me back there?" He teases lightly, referencing her loss of control not too long ago. Teasing is not something he normally does but he's gotten a little comfortable around Kyra.

She blushes deeply, her hand on the back of her neck. She won't ever be able to look back on that event without feeling embarrassed. She had been hexed by a group of pixies and the result had been nothing short of her attempting to sexually assault her friend, who had been in just the wrong place at just the wrong time.

She looks back at her pets for help, but the looks on their faces are no help at all. She quickly looks away again. "I don't actually remember much of that," she says. "That's, uh, that's never happened before. I don't know what that was. It was strange. Everything was really hot. My mind was hazy. All I could see was you. My tongue..." In her moment of confusion, she actually sticks it out, trying to see it. She can't very well. Rayne laughs lightly at the display.

"My tongue felt weird," she continues, her tongue back in her mouth. In her moment of feral desire, her tongue had transformed into that of a serpent. "I could smell a lot better too."

"Well... all I can say is I'm glad I was born with red skin." He grins and chuckles softly. "If you don't mind me asking.... what happened to your family?"

Her embarrassment dries up and she turns serious. The dimetrodons behind sense the change too. They sober up just as fast.

"We, uh. We lived on a farm. Yeah, I know. Surprising that I was a farm girl once," She chuckles, but there's no humor in it. "We had a lot of land. Lots of caves. I remember I loved exploring them when I was little. My parents would always warn me not to go too deep lest I get lost. I'd never listen. I'd spend hours close to a mile below ground." She smiles fondly at the memory.

"One day some big boss and his goons showed up. They were polite at first. I didn't get the severity of the visit at the time, but my parents knew. He offered to buy our farm. He offered quite a bit of money in exchange for all the land we owned.

"But the farm had been in our family for generations. Generations of humans to run it, generations of dimetrodons to defend it. So, my parents refused. A week passed uneventfully. The night of my fifteenth birthday the mafia came back. This time they brought guns and fire.

"I watched as they shot both my parents and then burned down our house with them still inside." She stops of a moment, a dark look on her face. It covers up something more... vulnerable.

"I was running away with our dimetrodons on either side of me. Their sails were so big, they hid me from the people. To them it just looked like a pair of animals running from the blaze.

"We ran to the barn so I could hide, but there was someone already there, killing our cattle. He saw me at the same time I saw him.

"He turned his gun on me and the female— Sera— dove in front of me to save me. She died instantly. Raja— the male— roared and charred the man. He got one more shot off, but it was his last.

"Tears blurring my vision, I hid in the farthest stall. Now I was truly alone. I could hear more people coming. They must've heard the gunshots. I scrambled to the back of the stall, and stumbled over a mound of dirt. I dug up the mound, knowing what I'd find before I found them.

"A clutch of ten dimetrodon eggs laid before me. I couldn't be the last one. I don't know if I could've handled it if I was. I grabbed as many as I could carry, only three at the time, and escaped through a rear door before anyone saw me," she finishes.

She growls and wipes her face. A couple tears had escaped her while she told he story. Chen comes up behind her and nudges her thigh. She reaches down and pets his head.

"I remembered the land around the farm. I knew I had to get off our property fast. So, I did just that. I ran in the opposite direction from civilization and made my way deep into the wilderness.

"My dad took me camping a lot. He taught me everything I needed to know to survive alone, from what plants are safe to eat and what plants are poisonous, to the best kind of wood to make a fire with.

"I lived alone for about a week. I don't think I stopped crying at all the whole time. Not until the eggs started shaking. It wasn't the first time I'd watched something hatch. We'd had plenty of chickens.

"I watched as three little dimetrodons hatched, all slimy and screaming. Zim first, then Mari, then Chen. They were hungry. I'd prepared for this. I had some meat scraps ready. I fed them, and they imprinted on me. Their antics made me laugh for the first time in weeks."

"You're very strong and brave to go through something as horrible as that," Rayne says softly. "I am sorry for your loss. But I am glad to have met have you." He smiles at her then to her three pets. "All of you."

She smiles back. "I am too. I don't exactly know what happened, but I'm glad we came here and ended up meeting you," she says. They walk all the way to the end of he beach and beyond, talking all the way.