InsaneJournal

Current mood:	determined
Entry tags:	orig

for mpatient dreamer (orig, mature)

note: outtake/snippet of longer entirely original work in progress floating around here.


Drake Raines frowned at the intense spike of energies. What the hell? A fucking TEAR in his apartment? He scrabbled out of the shower, taps left on and no thought spared to drying or covering himself. He summoned his dagger even as he sprinted into the large open main room of the loft. The small ball of black grew, pulsing and with it the almost unbearable force of the energy behind it.

He slashed the dagger across the palm of his hand, the black blade smeared with blood as he gathered up his own power ready and sent bolts of warning to Griff and Li.

The man that staggered through the thin line of nothing...goddamn. Drake hoped to hell he didn't burn down his apartment as he formed the flames from the blood running from his cut palm.

“DOWN!” he shouted. The strangely dressed man was the least of his trouble as a talon tried reaching out of the tear and whatever two shrieking things that were more wispy bands of black mist somehow held together. None of them seemed to like BloodFire. And thank god the BloodFire was doing what the stories Nanna had told said it would; sealing the tear. The black-mist things burned away to nothing no trace of whatever they had been could be felt and...that was just gross. About a foot of grizzled greenish-black flesh attached to the talon evidently sliced off by the sealing of the tear. The jet black talon was probably seven foot long three foot in diameter where there was a little bit of flesh attached at the base of it and laying on his floor and...thank freaking hell that whatever that talon had been attached to hadn't gotten through.

“Fuck, I scorched the bar.” he murmured dazedly as he stared at the breakfast bar that sort of cordoned off the kitchen area of the large loft. At least he didn't have to explain that to a landlord. Well, he did, but Shad owned the building and his cousin had been raised on the same stories he had been.

Of course, that wouldn't save him from his cousin having an absolute shit fit, but at least he didn't have to try to make something up. And possibly he'd even get the damn counter fixed before Shad showed up.

He'd forgotten.

He'd completely forgotten what BloodFire felt like, how hot it was, and how much it fucking hurt and left you completely wiped out. Supposedly with practice it was easier, or his grandmother had assumed, but Nanna had only created BloodFire perhaps a dozen times in her life. And most of those the summer they spent on the small private island in the Caribbean and she'd attempted to see if any of the nine of them had the ability.

Drake had been the only one of his brothers and cousins that had managed the BloodFire-once—and nearly killed them all doing it. Enough that he could, enough that they all knew the how of it that they could at least pass the tale on or Drake could demonstrate if there was one in the next generation or two that could call BloodFire.

He fought down the wobbliness and pain in his body and forced his attention away from the talon and the scorched breakfast bar, turning it instead to the other thing left by the Tear. A normal enough looking man. Well, at least not weird colors or fur or pointed ears or wings or anything like that, which considering the tales they were raised on, he supposed anything was possible, especially with that talon on his floor.

The guy was tall, very tall. He had at least three inches on Drake's height of just a hair past six foot. Auburn hair that was a bit odd in it's darkness and the amount of red, even more attention drawing with it being in a braid down to his ass in the back and three thin braids with bits of leather and beads worked in from each temple pulled back into the thick braid that started at the base of his skull. Dark brown eyes, which was good. There was nothing too freaky about dark brown eyes. Drake realized he was assessing on how well he could get by with passing this man off as your normal everyday human. The golden-bronze of the man's skin, well Drake couldn't guess if it was a tan from obvious large amounts of time out doors or if that was his natural skin tone. It could get by. It was a bit dark of a “tan” for a someone with that much red in their hair, since any kind of natural redhead and suntans didn't seem to often go together, but at least his skin wasn't a bizarre color or something.

The clothes...well, clothes could be gotten. The guy looked like he'd stepped out of some fantasy novel or something. Leather boots and pants, a leather vest over a rough cloth tunic. There was a wide leather belt around his waist, leather straps and sheathes for one, two, three, four swords. Four? The guy only had two hands...Drake decided it was best not to speculate what he needed four swords for, or the two daggers poking out of his boots or possibly four other knives? Drake was tired, woozy and his body still burning with pain from calling up the BloodFire, counting took too much effort. Lots of knives, that's all he needed to know.

“I am Kal'danek Na Ta'darek of Clan Da'Natanearek, Seventh Level Blade Master of the Black Wolf Order. I am your Oath Bound servant, Drakken Mage.”

Drake wove a little on his feet. “You're who?”

The man repeated his name. That really didn't help much.

“Do you have a nickname?”

“A what?”

“Short name? Something else people call you? Like my brother Lionel usually gets called Li by the family or my brother Griffen gets called Griff. My cousin Shadrach gets called Shad...”

“Kal.”

“Cool. I'm Drake. I think I'm gonna pass out now, Kal. Don't use your blades on anything. Shad's gonna shit a brick as it is over the scorch mark let alone holes carved in the walls.”