#and now everything but yhe cloak is just gone

[marenwithanm]

I was trying to get procreate to ungroup a bunch of layers I didn't mean to group and I accidentally hit delete and when I tried to undo that procreate shut down 🫠

[problamaticparagraph]

The old hunter:

Fanciful notions never appealed to Boris.

He much preferred what was in front of his face.

Up to now anyway.

The snow collected on his cloak, making it heavy and hard to move his shoulders.

There was a time he would have cared about that, the time when at a moment’s notice- he’d need to heft the weight of his sword.

But not now.

Now he was an old man and now monsters where more frequent, but impossible to fight.

Boris sat by his smouldering campfire, watching the flames. Occasionally he’d throw a lump of wood on the embers that would catch and prolong his only source of warmth. Boris liked fire, it hurt of cause. If you were stupid with it. Then again if you were smart it could cook a meal or dive away wolves or light the way. Boris liked fire.

He didn’t speak. There was no one to speak to, so he didn’t but Boris enjoyed the sound the bards sometimes made. So, he hummed a tune. Short and simple sounds that didn’t really have much of a structure, but it made the landscape feel less lonely.

He’d make it to a town in the morning, he’d have to see people and if no other option presented itself, talk to them.

Boris didn’t like people, they… where difficult but for now Boris had the evening. The howl of the wind made Boris think of the cry of yetis, how guttural they were, the power, the violence. Boris took a deep breath and for a moment could almost smell the stench of their hide.

That night, he happily slept under the vail of the stars dreaming of frost covered beast trying to tear him limb from limb.

----

He woke with the sun in his eyes and about a foot of snow around his body, his louche warm flesh left unfrozen by the layers of furs from rare creatures.

Begrudgingly Boris gets to his feet and begins walking toward the distant coeloms of cooking fires.

As he strides through the deep snow, after about thirty meters from is buried camp, the cracking of ice comes from under Boris’s feet.

“River… Fuck…”

The icy water closed over Boris’s head, for a moment he imagined massive pair of jaws about to close over him.

No churning water. No razor teeth. Just freezing water and the bed of the river lit by dull grey sunlight through the ice.

Holding his breath, Boris sawm under the ice to the far bank, drew is well aged sword, and plunged it into the ice, carving a hole that could accommodate his bulk.

Should anyone have been watching the frozen over river bank, which no one was but if they had been they would have seen a section of snow covered ice sink out of sight and then followed a large blank faced man lumbering out of the freezing water as if this near death experience was more boring than tax filings.

Ice formed in Boris’s hair and in the pelts covering his body as he entered the small town. People watched in confusion as this massive man covered in ice tracked ice onto the cleared area of snow. This man was clearly a barbarian but he wasn’t screaming for drink and women, nor money. He just walked into town and asked where the nearest inn was in an old language.

After several people not understanding him, one old man was able to point him in the right direction.

Then Boris sat at the bar, the man behind it took some time before asking but inevitably asked if he wanted a drink. Boris, his furs steaming gently in yhe warmth looked confused and mined chugging an invisible glass, the barman nods. Boris shook his head and reaches to a coin pouch, placing three of its coins on the counter.

Boris bit his lip and tried out this new language, “SSStories.”

The barman raised an eyebrow.

Boris try’s a further faze, “Bar, Hear, Everything.”

The barman looked around the empty room and starts rambling about various rumours. Boris let him talk without really listening until the man got to a word he knew. He raised a quieting hand, “Say, Again.”

The word repeated but covered with other drivel.

“Grateful.” Boris sits up and leaves the Inn.

Boris made his way to a leafless tree at a small way from the town, far enough that they were unlikely to try and talk to him but close enough to not be inconvenienced should he need return.

Boris sat at the base of the tree and pondered about the word.

“Dragon.”

It was an old word, older than him and that was something. He’d seen them, great hulking things, swarming like wasps and tearing at towns like they’re great walls were made of sand. He hadn’t fought them though. Not once.

Everything else yes. Trolls, defiantly. Ogres, sure. Gorgons, difficult but yes. Leviathan, with enough planning.  Fay, one or two. Giant spiders, absolutely. Orcs, by the dozen but never a dragon, not one drake. Monsters where getting fewer and further between. The last thing he’d slain had been an elk. The last vagally interesting thing was a damn nymph. Hardly a challenge for a dagger, let alone his well-honed blade.

The man had mentioned the new name for a distant peek, a foolish thing; no Drake ever dwelt there.

Nevertheless, hope burned is Boris’s soul. Hope that perhaps this tall tale was true. That perhaps he could finally find a Darke, that he could find a path forward, away from all this strangeness.

----

Boris sat under the tree for a long time. After a few hours a woman from the town came and tried to ask Boris something. He gave her an impassive look and tried to deduce what she was talking about.

“Need. No. Food.” He concluded waving a dismissive hand. After some time spent with her standing passively.

The woman looked confused and repeated her question.

Boris’s brow creased. “No. Roof. Have many pelts.”

The woman repeated herself again.

Boris stood up in mounting confusion. “Not. Understand.”

The woman reached into a bag at her side and withdrew a piece of parchment and a quill.

Boris took a step back, his eyes locked on the paper.

The woman tentatively stepped forward and tried to press the evil fiddley tools into Boris’s hands.

Boris in a moment of shock took them and found himself staring at the page.

Perspiration pored of Boris’s brow as he looked uncomprehendingly at the first line. Then those areas around it, decorative. Completely unnecessary. After a moment even colder than the snow, Boris whipped his face on his sleeve and quietly handed the two items back. “Have no use for such things.”

Boris left after that.

He’d considered buying some food before going but this place was too odd and there would be wolves on the way, he had made a plan now anyway.

That page really bothered Boris. The strange curly things inscribed there on, Nothing like that of his mother Tung. He could read, not very well it was true. Not very fast either, but at least in the old days people wouldn’t thrust sheets of paper at people clearly minding their own busyness.

The snow started falling again a few kilometres. Somehow that was comforting. It showed that at some level the world was still working. Tung’s change, people change, everything changes but snow will always fall.

Boris wore many skins. They were trophies of his kills, marks of pride but Boris liked the cold; it remined him how good warmth was.

That made him think about dragons. Most of them couldn’t breathe fire but they all loved the stuff. Polished there scales up really good, everyone knew they were vain as cats.

Some people said they hadn’t died, simply- left. Gone somewhere else, some far undiscovered land.

Boris didn’t know where he stood on that. Maybe they did. Maybe they didn’t.

Boris went over the horizon in pursuit of this supposed peek. Headed west.

After days of snow, ice and old dreams of fighting in-human evils. Boris spotted a coelom of smoke.

As Boris neared it, music flowed over the snow.

Boris stopped, listening. It was an old song. Played amateurishly but Boris had though it good enough to insight some nostalgia.

And then a discord. Nostalgia died. The wind blew cold.

In the same tune, the same key something new echoed out over the snow.

Boris Approved the small lodge, the familiar feeling of twigs raking over his skin making him think of great Ents trying to smash him into the dirt. He stopped and waited in the lee of a great pine; it’s needles reminiscent of spines in Boris’s mind.

After some time, listening Boris approached the tiny log hut. He loomed as the approached, the music faultered into silence.

“Song. Change. Why?”

The young man opened and closed his mouth in panic. Boris looked at him for some time. After a while the boy seemed much paler than when Boris hard first seen him.

“WHY?” Boris repeated.

The boy’s flute fell from his shaking hands. He ran inside his tiny shack and slammed the door behind him.

Boris stood as the bolts of the door shot home.

“Rude…”

Boris left after that, there was still a smouldering fire but he didn’t want to scare the man anymore then he already had.

----

The remainder of Boris’s journey was largely uneventful up until his destination, funnily enough people don’t tend to question a six-foot six man with a great sword on his back.

He’d had wolf the previous night, they were mostly genital creatures and he’d felt bad about killing it, but winter was reaching its peak and hunger drove them to hunt anything that moved. That and waste had no place on the road, he��d buried the bones properly after his meal; as a thank you.

Boris traipsed up the side of the mountain. His stride slightly diminished then from the start of his journey.

He neared the mouth of the cave and stood, outlined against the white of the snow; a clear target to anything within.

The snow blew.

Boris drew his sword.

The snow started to collect on it.

For a several minutes, Boris waited for something to happen.

The wind howled.

Boris sagged.

And sheathed his sword, turning his back.

“What do you want, little ape?” The voice was alien, old and rumbling, it was deep and regal. It was that of a beast of imagination.

Boris’s eyes lit up. Slowly, as to not insight hostility, he turned.

A black mussel protruded from the darkness of the cave, two meters from Boris; above its scaly black maw two blue-gold eyes shone in the shadows.

Boris very calmly, sat on the snow looking up at the thing.

“You are a warrior? You desire gold, I have none. You desire maidens, none are here. What for have you come? To slay me. You may try.” The drakes voice booms with gargantuan menace.

Boris pats his knee as he thinks.

“I want no gold, no women, no men, no blood. I come for other reasons.” Boris says thankful to be speaking to someone versed in his old language.

“Then why, ape? Answer.” The dragon withdraws slightly, as if preparing for something.

“Your people where evil but you only sought dominion. To rule all you saw. There is a new evil, more oppressive then you ever could be.” Boris says with uncharacteristic splendour.

“Taxes.” Boris says flatly.

There is a moment in which the dragon weighs its options. It cupped is jaw in its massive hands, “Tell me of these, ‘Taxes’.”

“Tithe. Penance. With no gods or kings. Can run from gods, can run from kings; cannot run from taxes.” Boris spits at the dirt.

“This evil has many allies, more than gods and kings?” Asked the dragon visibly intrigued.

“There minions have many names, ‘Secretary’, ‘Deputy of Hace RRR’, ‘Dave from accounting’…” Boris trailed into silence.

The dragon ponders for a few moments, “Some men with slips of paper came by a few months ago. Apparently, some lord owns this mountain now, they said I was… I believe ‘evicted’ is the word they used. Whatever they wanted I ate them on general principle. A few weeks later some other men collapsed part of my cave. It took days to dig my way out and when I did my gold was gone. It would seem these ‘Taxes’ can over-power even a drake. Perhaps I will burn them to the ground.”

Boris crosses his arms, “No. No blood. No more. We are both of the old world, the world before taxes and paperwork.”

The dragon cresses its scaly brow, “So? That makes us what? Obsolete?”

“Allies.” Boris reached behind him and allowed snow to collect on his hand. Then brought it around so the fresh snow was under the dragon’s nose. “We are of the same time,” closing his palm forcing the snow to melt and drip to the ground; “We no longer fit.”

The dragon’s voice emotes it rising boredom, “And what do you suggest?”

Boris wipes the damp from his palm, “I have travelled much, even with raiders in my youth. They had ships, good ships. I have seen distant lands, places that resist the grasp of taxes and building permits. No ‘Census’, no ‘most recent address in the last five years’; a place with no more ‘sir, ‘cave’ is not a recognised street address’.”

The dragon huffs hot steam in Boris’s face, “Interesting. How do you suppose we get there?”

“You can fly yes?” Boris says standing with a wide grin on his face.

The dragon stretched like a cat that weighed fourteen tones. “You intrigue me ape, very well; let us find this land.”

And they flew.