Kida

[Cretin]

They always used to tell me I was born to do great things. They could see it in the stars, they said. Great things.


Maybe they were wrong


Kida woke from his reverie spitting the sand from his lips and casting about the deserted beach that had been his three-day home. He fished around in his pockets for another of the wild mushrooms and settled the wide brimmed straw hat more firmly over his ears. The wind was warm here, and there were none to order him about. No, there were none left to do any ordering.

I wish these scars would heal quicker. They blasted itch.

He scratches at his trunk through his shirt, not fond of the scars or the memories they bring.

She said something to me, then ... but I couldn't hear her. I should have tried harder to stop screaming. I had a feeling it was important. Something about the way she looked at me.

He climbs to his feet and shambles down into the surf, feeling the tide come in against his ankles, his shins, his knees.

She was so beautiful. If only I could have stopped ...

Well? What do I do now?

Kida sways in the wind like the tall palms. He lets life wash past him now, from the end backwards. Searching for ideas, he supposes. The damned cannibals in the belly of that creaking ship. Their shining, pointed teeth. The assault on that ship, where he lost the men he commanded. The screams of those who followed his order, his whim.

I didn't think there'd have been so many. Still, there's no challenge in a thing if you know all about it.

The demotion that had put him in the field, in charge of those few men. Recklessness. Conduct unbecoming of an officer of the legions. His father's letters. The anger in his words.

And the sadness, too. He always had high hopes for his wayward son, didn't he? Serves him right, the arrogant bastard.

His twenty-first birthday. The last day of his free-ranging ways, his father had said. His mother had beamed at him, congratulating him in attaining a post in such a noteworthy legion.

They don't call it the Red Piss Legion for nothing, mother. Scoundrels and cutthroats, all.

The neverending river of parties, dances, taverns, women, pipes ... The faces, the voices. They all blended together after a while. None of it meant anything.

They always said I was destined for greatness. Time of birth ... the stars don't lie. Maybe they were wrong.






Maybe they were right.


What's to follow is the story of Devar Kida, son of a gem merchant, destined by birth for great things, Chosen of Luna, and sometime bum. More to be revealed of his life prior to his battle with the Lintha, that which resulted in his Exaltation into the ranks of the Lunars. But chiefly it will be a chronicle of his deeds, so that they may not go unsung ... you know ... in case he has a few too many mushrooms one day and dives off the deep end.

[Cretin]

The Hunter looked at the stars above him, getting his bearings as they moved through the water. The island, his home, his place of power, was a moving manse. Currently they were bearing south and west. Always further west, he sighed. Still, he felt the import of the journey and the task the Lady had given him. He knew the end of it before he began. It would be as it should have been all those years ago.

Around him, the newly reborn Lunars he had gathered. Gurahl, curious and strong, bore the sign of the Changing Moon as was his caste. The other two were yet unmarked by the tattoos that would bind their flesh from the twisting and warping influences of the Wyld. The watered-down chaos held a certain lure for their kind, and on the other end of that lure was madness. The other two had no names yet, for they had not earned them though their trials drew to a close.

The Hunter looked ahead again, seeing in his mind's eye the place of the fourth he sought. These ones will be trouble, he thought, I can smell it already.


------------------------------------------------------------


Kida woke on the cold stone floor of his manse. It wasn't the sound of the gently trickling water from the fountains or the tide coming in that woke him. It was a great crashing noise, one he hoped he'd imagined. He clambered up from the floor, pushing the sleeves of his coat down over the bracers he'd found in this new place. He'd known they were special by the way the moon shone on them. They glowed with a brilliant white fire.

The way her face glowed. All pure and bright.

He meandered outside to find the beach had developed a new arm while he had slept. A small island jutted out from the beach not far from the hidden entrance to his manse. He was almost certain that hadn't been there yesterday.

Then again, I did find an excellent crop of mushrooms yesterday ... maybe it was there.

Kida set one foot firmly on the "new" part of the island and shoved. It stubbornly refused to move, although the sand was semi-cooperative. He stepped fully on to the island, and walked around in a slow circle. While he pondered, his hand snaked into a pocket and he began to nibble on yet another mushroom, making sure to wipe the sand off. As he stood there, several things approached him. Most of them, he was sure, were men. One of them, he knew, was a shark. The shark in the water, he saw, swiftly became a great tyrant lizard and tromped a ways onto the beach. Kida blinked a few times, just to be sure, and pulled his hat down a little lower.

"Gurahl. This one needs to be tested. Attack him." That from one of the other men further down on the "new" island. Kida was pretty sure he'd heard that. He stared obstinately at the remnants of the mushroom in his hand, tossing it away and walking down off the "new" island and away from the giant lizard thing. The lizard thing looked at him, seeming to think for a moment. Then, with a grunt, it came at Kida at a dead run. Kida backed into the surf waste deep, hoping to slow the thing up, when the thing changed again. A river dragon swam at him now, head sideways and jaws wide below the water. Kida's lips twitched as he waited for the perfect moment, crouched and leapt from the water. The metal claws that had suddenly appeared strapped to his hands flashed in the noon sun before slicing into the dragon's hide. He used his arms to flip over and past the long dragon's body, landing lightly in the shallowest of the surf and backing on to the land.

Kida emptied his pockets of the left over mushrooms and started walking down the beach, away from this strange new happening.

The Hunter sighed, as he often did these days. Trouble. Then, "Gurahl, kill him."

[Cretin]

Gurahl was of the opinion that the Hunter's order was probably not necessary. Then again, the man that trudged away from him had seen him shapeshift and, if the man wasn't a shifter himself or wasn't brought to heel, that would be trouble for Gurahl. Should word get out that shifting Anathema were in the area, the Wyld Hunt would be after them faster than the tide.

Gurahl resigned himself to kill the man in the hat. After all, Hunter had never steered him wrong, had he?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kida was fervently swearing off mushrooms to whatever god was listening as the shark-lizard-river dragon thing became a man and climbed from the surf onto the beach.

He told it to kill me. F*cking nuts.

The man-thing stopped and regarded him, his expression seemingly regretful but resigned, and dropped into a fighting stance.

Oh well. May as well die fighting. Never fought a thing like this before. Should be fun.

Kida grinned to himself, feeling the adrenaline begin to flow as the man-thing named Gurahl charged him. He'd felt, rather than seen, it coming and bided his time with the man-thing as he had before. A short second before he would have been knocked over, Gurahl broke the charge and slid in close to Kida, aiming for his groin with a large fist. Kida shifted slightly, lifting his back leg up and over Gurahl's head in a hooking motion intended to drive Gurahl's head into the sand with Kida's knee embedded into his back.

The man-thing's quickness surprised him. Its head dropped down as its arms wrapped around the leg that held all of Kida's weight and fastened on tightly. Throwing its weight backwards and up, it heaved Kida's body and flung him with the might of the bear it took as its totem. Gurahl thought his aim was rather good as the other man flew through the air towards a rather large palm trunk.

[Cretin]

His world spun and the overwhelming sense of vertigo pulled him in all directions. He felt the back of his head smack into the tatami mat of the training floor, the thick, hard sound of meat against meat echoing in his ears.

"Get up." His sifu commanded, no room for argument in his voice.

Kida tried to get up, told his arms and legs to move, told his lungs to breathe. His body didn't seem to be listening. He felt he'd been buried in sand.

"Get up." Master Okina repeated, his tone filled with danger.

Kida's limbs began to tremble and shake, his eyes tearing and burning as his lungs finally filled with air sweet with incense. He placed his hands below him, so slow, so damnably slow. He knew he'd receive a blow for his torpidity, but he would not allow himself to fall back down. The beating for that would be ten times worse. He struggled painfully to his feet, feeling every inch of space that his throbbing head ascended. He stood, looking his sifu in the eye, straightened his stance, and bowed.

"Can you take any blow, you young braggart?"

"Yes, master."

"Then take this, fool." The hard bamboo rod came down on Kida's head. He wanted not to flinch, but his aching body rebelled. His face burned as the rest of the class laughed at him.

"Can you take any blow?"

"No, master."

"Good. Now I will show you how you can."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hard lessons learned can always be depended on. Kida focus sharply, expelling all the air in his body, tightening his muscles and forming his chest into an impenetrable wall. All this in the space of half a second. His body impacted the tree as he had planned it, he struck with his chest and torso, limbs wrapping around the smooth palm trunk. He barely felt the impact, but he did hear the creak and crack at the base of the trunk. The whole tree began to tilt, and the world with it.

Kida launched himself off the tree, hitting the ground running. He skid to a halt, turned back and ran back towards the trunk where it lay on the ground. His quick eyes saw the position of Gurahl, made quick judgements and decided on angles. He grasped the trunk of the palm, heaved it up over his shoulder with his augmented strength, and ran it back up as he walked his hands down it.

The Hunter watched the display. He saw Kida begin to run up the trunk as it passed it's equilibrium and began to swing back down towards Gurahl. He watched as Kida launched himself from the very head of the palm and dove at the torso of the bigger man with fighting claws extended. He saw Gurahl intercept, and then turn the blow, stunning Kida and knocking him to the sand.

Gurahl hammered Kida on the chest and face with closed fists, drawing blood and pain and life away in equal measure. Kida vaguely remembered something thick and cold coming between him and the fists. And then he remembered no more for quite some time.

[Cretin]

Tea. he thought, muddily. He clambered out of the dimness in his head, groaned slightly, and tipped his shabby hat lower over his face. His long, feral ears peeked out from under the edges when he wore the hat this way, but he was beyond caring. He tucked his chin into his chest and felt the sand crumble out from behind his neck. He was laying down.

Tea. he thought again, wondering why the word kept popping up in his head. He breathed a little deeper than he had been, testing the soreness in his torso, checking for broken ribs. He found a delicate weight centered perfectly on his chest. The bone cup balanced there, filled with hot tea, the fragrant steam rising from it and tickling his nose. Kida reached up and gingerly tipped his hat back off his eyes, grabbing the cup with three long fingers in the same gesture. He sipped at it, then downed it eagerly. He eyed the strange looking man before him. He seemed to be waiting for something. It clicked.

"Thank you," Kida said, raising the cup, "for the lovely tea."

The Hunter did not look the sort of man who would care for such a thing as tea. He looked the sort of man that would drink blood fresh from its flask of skin and bone. His skin was tinted faintly blue, in the manner of those from the far seas of the deep West, and covered in silvery tattoos. His face, long and angular, followed down to a chin that split down the middle into separate parts. These parts trailed down, and might have been mistaken for a beard had it been really, really dark.

He looks like a bug.

"You," The Hunter stared back at Kida, "are most welcome."