Chapter I
Thirteenth Hour (0:00 mst)
Great Temple of Hoopa
Glenwood City, South Pepos
There was always one thing about my life, past or present, that I had no doubt of. And that was everything had gone to hell with a single explosion.
No matter how far back I try to go, my beginning is always a bright flash of light and loud noise. There is no rhyme or reason to it; it just seems whatever deity above that decided to start jerking around my metaphorical leash also decided it didn’t want me to really remember who I was or why I was here. So, when I opened my eyes to rubble on that fateful night, I was only aware of two things: my name was Cyrena, and everything hurt like the dickens.
Of course, I could piece together what had happened the more my vision slowly focused through the dense cloud of dust. For one, I was in a building. A religious gathering place of some sort, though I couldn’t quite place the belief. Images of icons flashed briefly through my addled mind: crosses, six pointed stars, an idol with an elephant head and eight arms. But nothing seemed familiar to me, nor did anything match the looming gaze of the silver, pink and horned genie staring down at my crumpled form with a wicked grin on its face. It's cut-emerald eyes stared through the haze, the statue itself peppered with dings and scratches from the debris that had rained down upon it. The eyes cut into my soul and made me feel as if I was in a tremendous amount of trouble, long before I heard the scream that yanked me completely into the situation I was in.
The sound seemed to rip through my brain like a dull knife through meat, sending agonizing bolts of bright color through my vision as the throbbing sharply increased. I cried out in pain, grasping at the sides of my head as I tried hard to shield my ears from the offending sound. However, a new panic shot through my aching body as my hands instead scrambled to find purchase on a slick, warm and utterly alien surface. Had I somehow lost my ears upon being caught in an explosion? A brief flash of a news report crossed my mind, talking of an explosive whose blast was powerful enough to vaporize skin from flesh...had I somehow lived through something that agonizing?
The shouts were angry, now; though they were all still as painful as the first scream. These were coherent words however: orders, barked in a language that sounded both foreign and familiar. There was the click of a gun's hammer, the prick of a bayonet poking my lower backside. Immediately I raised my hands to the skies in surrender, not willing to fight unarmed against whatever faction of soldiers had gotten me at gunpoint.
"—not sure where it came from! I'm telling you, officers; that all I heard was a crash and a tremendous explosion, and there that...that...lizard was there!"
Lizard? My head was still swimming, but that word was something I'd picked up well enough. I didn’t understand. My mind scrambled to find a name, to find something to identify myself with...but I was most definitely not a lizard. Of all the insults my mind was unhelpfully returning to my pounding head, that was not one of them. So then...why use it? What would be the point? Was I supposed to be offended by it? Because I couldn’t be offended by something that most definitely did not apply to me.
I was starting to see flashes out of the corner of my eye...colors of gold, lavender, black and peach. Colors that seemed too vivid to be natural, but the silhouettes didn’t match the shapes of people that I recognized...or people at all. I believe it was then that that sense of dread that something was wrong really began to creep up on me, and when I turned my eyes to the ground, the small pinprick of panic soon turned into a horrible, agonizing bullet of sheer terror running through my body.
“Look, I don’t want an explanation! I don’t want apologies. My temple is utterly ruined and it’s all that dragon’s fault! Arrest her! Kill her! Do something with her, but I don’t want to see her around me again!”
What the hell am I?!
Despite my pain, I screamed. I began to frantically scoot myself backwards through the debris, abrading my now toughened, decidedly reptilian skin on the crumbled metal, wood and stone of the aforementioned temple, as if trying to break free from this horrible, slimy hide of an animal that someone had placed me in. My now-clawed hands went to my face, my chest, my belly, more pinpricks of pain shooting across my skin as I tried to pluck off scales one by one in my frantic haze. The strange figures ran to catch me; I noticed that their gait was awkward on the ground because their lower bodies ended in a black-colored gourd, carved as if a Hallow’s Eve decoration, and their legs no more than pegs protruding from the rinds of the fruit. Shortly after these strange pumpkin creatures started after me, I could hear the report of gunfire echoing through the destroyed chamber. I cried out in pain as my leg caught one of the bullets...no. Musket balls. I could tell from the sounds these weapons were making that these...things, were not using repeating rifles. There would be a singular volley of shots, then a pause...apparently, whatever place I was in, they were centuries behind the technology of my era.
“Stop! STOP!” Cried another voice. This one was different than the one that had been crying for my death not moments ago. This one sounded at least vaguely female. “What are you doing, you idiots?! Don’t kill her now! We still need to talk to her!”
Something came up behind me and smacked the back of my head with the stock of its weapon...I suppose to knock me unconscious. But, of course, my new form--whatever it was--wouldn’t be that merciful. My new skull took the brunt of the blow and left me with nothing more than a ringing in my ears and an inability to see straight again...though I did slump to the side and let out a small moan if only to satisfy the soldier. At least it was a valiant effort.
“Sheriff, the target has been neutralized. I will stand by awaiting further instructions.”
There was a moment of tense silence as a pair of blue and black, three-toed amphibious feet stepped in front of my face, the owner apparently taking her time looking down at me before making a “tsk-tsk” noise and jabbing me hard in the gut with a swift kick.
“You made a horrible mistake coming through here.” The creature said softly, crouching down so that I could see its face. Honestly, if I wasn’t already in an immense amount of pain...I probably would have struck out at this “sheriff” too. “She” was an ugly thing...some sort of two-legged, anthropomorphic frog with sickly yellow eyes, and no discernable feminine features anywhere save for her voice--which even then sounded low and throaty due to her anatomy. “You’re deep within enemy territory, you know, and when I’m done with you, the rest of your little buddies will be surrounded by Pepan forces. None of them will stand a chance, and I’ll take great pride in seeing you all executed one by one for violating the terms of our treaty with you and your blasted military state.”
She lowered her hand to my neck, never breaking my gaze with her and running slimy fingers down my skin, now bloodied from my attempt to de-scale myself. In my periphery, I saw that she only had two fingers and a thumb...the third position, right in the middle, appeared to be less of a finger and more of a stiff, sharp barb. This barb was colored bright orange and had a strange sheen to it...and all it took was one swift nick and I was soon down for the count.
1 Hour from Sunup (06:00 mst)
Glenwood City Prison
Glenwood City, South Pepos
When I next opened my eyes, I was in a prison cell, and it was light outside.
The only way that I could see anything was solely due to the light of the moon shining from a single barred window above my head, and the flicker of torchlight coming from the other side of a heavy, wooden, iron-reinforced door. My mouth was dry, my head pounding, and my stomach was twisting itself into knots with nausea, but I still managed to peel myself upright from the awkward prone position I had sprawled out in on the floor.
What had happened to me? I was still reeling from the realization that I had woken up so suddenly and into this utterly alien visage. Even the fact that everything about this land, from the religion they seemed to practice right down to the fact that they were talking monsters all paled in comparison to the fact that I was now a bloody reptile… both quite literally and in the metaphorical sense. I had to get out of here, get out of this body, and find some way to get back to where I was supposed to be.
Wobbling to push my thick, awkward dinosaur legs back underneath me, I fought to keep myself upright as my head felt as if it was filled with cotton. God, everything felt so...foreign, I suppose was the best way to put it. Now that I had at least a little time to myself I could fully feel how different it was to be this lizard: my senses were magnified threefold, leaving me reeling with overstimulation on top of everything else that had happened to me...not to mention, I could feel my body seeming to almost tingle with something else I couldn’t quite place. It was something I’ve never experienced before...this feeling that felt like every cell was vibrating, from my head to my feet, and through my teeth and my claws. It couldn’t be the blunt force trauma that was causing that, was it? It almost felt like I was filled to the brim with power that I couldn’t unleash, a bit like having a word you wanted to shout on the tip of your tongue, to lose it at the last moment. It was enough to make one go absolutely mad.
I turn once in place, trying desperately to rid myself of the maddening energy, only making myself dizzy enough to crash into the bars for my efforts. I yelp in pain and stagger back...and that’s when I hear my guard yelp as well, followed by the clicking of a flintlock hammer being pushed back. My rolling eyes go wide at that and I immediately raise my hands to the sky, really not wanting to add a bullet wound to the myriad of things wrong with me at the moment.
“Stop!” I cry out in terror, my voice cracking from lack of water and from the rawness I felt from doing all that screaming earlier. “Stop, goddamnit! Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! I didn’t mean to hit the bars!”
Once I was able to focus, I see my guard isn’t one of those pumpkin-things...instead, it’s a shivering, round little shrew-like animal, almost as scared to death as I am as it haphazardly points an old-fashioned pistol between the bars with shaking paws. Whoever they were, they seemed to be much lower-ranking than the “sheriff” I had seen earlier, but despite their fear, they knew how to use their gun. Aside from the wobbly paws, their grip was good and their trigger finger ready in case I made a wrong move. “Don’t shoot!” I repeat one last time, making the round creature lower their weapon just a little bit.
“You...why are you giving me orders, Dragoon?” The guard replies, quickly revealing that it was a male from its voice. “What sort of mind tricks do you want to play on me? Are you trying to get at something?”
Goodness, the guard still thought I was something to be afraid of, and still thought I was whatever a “Dragoon” was supposed to be. Despite my pain, I manage to roll my eyes and reply somewhat irritably. “No. And for God’s sake, I’m not a Dragoon. I don’t even know what a Dragoon is. I’m not here to hurt anyone. Can someone tell me what the hell is going on?”
From the silence I got in reply, I had a feeling the guard still thought I was probably talking out of my head and, even more possibly, insane. That said, I would rather be considered insane than considered a threat...maybe if they wanted to put me away in a sanatorium somewhere I could at least request some books that would tell me what I can do to go back to the way things were. This had to be some sort of nightmare or something, where maybe if I found the right words or did the right things I could wake up…
“What do you mean, ‘you’re not a Dragoon’?” The guard replies, lowering his gun further and shaking his head. “Yes, you are. You’re a Fraxure. There’s none of your kind on this side of the Southern Range. You were caught red-handed desecrating a temple to the Trickster God, and you tried to fight when the temple guards tried to arrest you. You can’t bluff your way out of this one, lizard.”
If I had more of my faculties about me, I would have slapped my palm to my face. It seemed as if they had taken all of my actions and reactions and interpreted them in the worst possible way. Wonderful...this is completely working in my favor, I whisper facetiously to myself.
“Dear, I can scarcely make sense of what you just said.” I reply as slowly as I can, as if I was talking to a child. I don’t know how I could possibly voice my confusion any more simply. “What is a Fraxure? What is a Dragoon? How can I be both, and for the last bloody time, I’m sorry I tipped over a statue or something. I don’t know how I got here. I don’t know why I’m here! I don’t mean to cause such a fuss but all I want is some bloody answers!” I cry out in exasperation, not even fully realizing how loud I was shouting until I saw the shock on the guard’s face.A little embarrassed, I clear my throat and raise one of my clawed hands again, stating softly, “Look...I’m not here to cause harm. I...I think I may have crashed here on accident, actually. I don’t know why or how, but I’d like to figure that out. But...please. At least can you tell me what I’m accused of being?
While the male’s expression didn’t change (unsurprising, as he probably still thought me mad), there was a flicker of uncertainty that crossed his face after my outburst. I don’t know what my expression must be like, as I can’t hardly imagine what sort of expressions a lizard could make, but after some stretch of awkward silence, the guard managed to lower his weapon completely and lean against the bars of my cell door.
“...You really don’t know, do you?” He asks, his egg-like body leaning against the metal and making a very soft, hollow ring as he moved to adjust himself. “Did you hit your head or something? What is the last thing you remember?”
“I don’t remember anything. Either than the fact that this isn’t the body I had when I was born.” I reply flatly as I wander over to the rough, wooden plank of a bench that served as one of the scant pieces of furniture in my room. “I am not a lizard...or a Dragoon or a Fraxure or whatever it is that you want to call me.”
“Well then, enlighten me. What are you?” The guard replies, rolling his eyes before he knocks on his chest with a free paw. “By the gods, I can’t imagine your lunacy. ‘Not the body I had’, indeed. Did you evolve? Is that why you’re confused?”
He is still mocking me, still thinking that I am either stupid or messing with him. At least I have to give him credit that he seems to be as thick as the green shell that seemed to enclose his fat body.
“No.” I reply shortly, staring at the gun-toting hedgehog-thing. “Unless somehow, a human can “evolve” into a reptile.”
That shuts him up. He pushes himself up off the bars and then stares at me with wide eyes, both paws gripping his flintlock again as he regards me with an expression that was either a new progression of his bemused, taunting look from earlier or something that conveyed his fear. I wasn’t sure what to think of his sudden change in demeanor, but I hoped it didn’t immediately worsen my situation.
“You’re not a human. Humans went extinct millions of years ago. No one, not even the ancient tribes of the Patchwork, have ever even seen a human. They’re fairy tales.” He states, though his expression didn’t change much. A few more uncomfortable moments passed between us, mostly as the creature before me firmly decided I was mad and the enormity of his words began to sink in for me. Extinct? Millions of years ago? Am I in the future or something? But if so, what am I? What are these things that surround me? I have so many questions and too few answers, and I know I am not likely to get any explanation from this guard nor any of his coworkers. I’m stumped. I’ve hit a dead end, and was likely going to die all due to a misunderstanding.
With a disbelieving snort from the guard and me resigned to my fate to be executed as an enemy of a people I had no idea I was a part of, we said no more to each other after that. He turned back around and I simply resigned to lay my weary, aching body on the splintery wood bench. I had quickly resigned myself to believe that there was no way out of this, and was simply beginning to brace myself for yet another period of darkness which I had hoped would follow a swift, merciful death.
That is, until I heard a small giggle off to my right.
My eyes shoot open at the noise, clearly startled as I had thought that I was alone in my cell, with only the one unhelpful guard to keep me company. My window was firmly barred and had no immediate means of escape, and the only other way in was the door...not to mention, the emptiness of the cell left very few places one could reasonably hide. I had thought I had seen enough of my cell to discern if I had any roommates immediately, but apparently I did not look hard enough, as sitting right beside me, on the bed that I was supposed to be occupying, was another strange creature. This creature was brown, with green curled horns jutting out of either side of their head and a comically large wad of what appeared to be raw cotton bolls stuck to her back. Orange eyes stared into mine and a wide, gentle smile lit up their face, which had a few slightly ovine features and led me to believe that this was supposed to be some sort of bipedal sheep.
Needless to say, if I had pants, they would have probably been soiled.
I sit bolt upright and let out a startled shriek, my claws scratching against the wood of the bench as the sheep-thing’s face fell. They seemed to float as they moved, as if they were lighter than the air and merely swimming in it, like one might through particularly deep water. Despite my desperation to get away, I have nowhere else to run and simply end up scrunching myself into a ball as tightly as I can at one end of the bench as the sheep lands at the other, her face having gone from smiling to one of concern in the few seconds it had taken for them to cross the room. Their eyes never left mine, but I refused to calm down until the sheep slowly, carefully, brings a paw to their lips.
“Shhhhh….” They whisper, which did little to assuage my fears. I end up controlling myself enough just to calm down to a quiet whimper, but that seemed enough for her (her timbre sounded female) to try and get a word in. “Don’t ya worry, missus. I need ya ta settle down a touch, or that guard might get th’ idea ta shoot ya an’ claim ye attacked ‘im. They can’t see me, not long as I will it, but yeer gonna soun’ like a madwoman talkin’ out loud ta yeerself.”
The entire sentence took me aback, as while this creature certainly could not have been from my era, she sounded like an Irishwoman. Even more so, her explanation only served to open up more questions in my mind, and I was left slack-jawed and disbelieving as she gave me a moment to at least quiet myself. Once I had finished, she continued.
“I know ya got a lotta questions, even more now that I managed ta pop up fer ya. It’s a long story that’ll take even longer ta explain, but why don’t we begin by me introducin’ meself, yes, Cyrena?”
She knows my name. The bloody Mick of all the monsters here knew my name. What sort of screwed-up mad world was this…? “O...Kay,” I reply, then look expectantly at the sheep as if I was waiting for her to continue. “Go on, sheep. Tell me.”
“First of all, I’m not a sheep. I’m a Whimsicott. Yeer guard over yonder is a Quilladin and ye are indeed a Fraxure...for now.” She replies cryptically, as if I was supposed to know what all of those words meant. My brain had long tied itself into several knots trying to make sense of all of this so I could only nod my head as she continued. “By the by, I’m Maaji. And I’m here ta make sure ye survive yer time here in this world.”
The…”Whimsicott”...thing then trails off, looking around the cell that the both of us were caged in. “Wasn’t me intention, nor the intention of th’ powers that be, ta go an’ get ye arrested, however.” She shakes her head, taking a momemt to mull over the situation in her head. “Yet if I break ye out, startin’ out a fugitive won’t do ya no good either. We gotta come up with a compromise.”
“Well, they won’t listen to me.” I state flatly, shaking my head and only making it throb harder, which in turn makes me groan as well. “They keep calling me ‘lizard’ and ‘Dragoon’ and think I came over some mountains or something. But, not like they’d believe me if I said I fell from the sky either.”
The Whimsicott taps her chin, nodding her head as if she could perfectly understand the string of butchered, semi-coherent words that seemed to be partly consisted of these monsters’ gibberish. “Aye, because ta them, ya are a Dragoon. Ya look th’ part, and ya didn’t do yerself any favors by managing ta steer into a temple’a theirs. Say what ye like about the Pepans, but they don’t like havin’ their idols messed with.”
She paces on the plank a few moments more, making me watch her as she feverishly talked to herself. Again, it wasn’t as if I understood what she kept saying to herself...but I hoped it was at least good news for me…
“Mercy me...I ain’t really well-versed in Pepan law, so I can’t defend ye. Regardless, denizen or not, I know right away ye did somethin’ that is automatically, one-hundred percent an excellent way ta piss ‘em off. Can’t claim yer me slave nor that I work for a lard who owns ye wantin’ ta sell ya off outta spite. First one wouldn’t work because Ardwinn don’t believe in slaves; second one wouldn’ work for th’ same reason and they’ll jus’ deport me ta Yosei fer punishment since tha’s illegal…”
Pepan, Ardwinn, Yosei...all of these words were just as confusing to me as the name of the creature I was supposed to be. The way she was using them, it apparently seemed that “Fraxure” may be a specific species and “Dragoon” may be a tribe. Considering she referred to herself as both a “Whimsicott” and an “Ardwinn” also seemed to confirm this. I still don’t even know how this perky ewe got in the bloody cell in the first place, but at least I was making a little bit of sense of the terminology being used. But in that case, what were the pumpkin-things that arrested me? Is “Pepan” their species name or tribal name? And what would that make the frog who was working for them?
“As I said before, can’ really break ya free, despite it bein’ the easiest option. They’ll have yer mug all over th’ next town ‘fore we even get there. An’ the likes’a ye ain’t gonna last two days in Pepos a wanted lass. They’ll be on ya like Combee to honey, an’ if they won’t kill ya now, they sure as shite will if ye outfox ‘em…”
That makes me perk up a bit, easing my fears a little as I had been sure I would probably be killed if not left in this forgotten cell to rot. That was still a possibility, especially the way she put it...but perhaps I could push for something else on my own accord.
“Wait a moment, you say that they may not kill me? Even if I did something to make them angry?”
Maaji stops, looking over and pondering my expression for a minute, then smiling a bit and shaking her head. “Aye...they’re right mad at ya, but I don’ think knockin’ over an idol, ‘specially if it can be fixed an’ wasn’t shattered completely, would outright get ya killed. Might get ye a fine an’ maybe jail or conscription. As I said, ain’t well versed in Pepan law but I’m sure if I go to th’ library in town ‘fore they see ye I can get some ideas…”
Conscription. That sounded promising. Part of me seemed to be thrilled at the prospect of something that sounded so...militaristic, and that seemed to be one of the enigmas of who I used to be. For some reason, though I know it was a far stretch to assume that would be the punishment I would accrue from this accidental damage to something I had no idea even existed, yet alone that it was sacred, I would be perfectly okay being conscripted into some army unit and paying a fine. Maybe it would expose me to more of this weird culture and give me some hints on who I was and why I was one of...these things.
“Let me defend myself. Read your books, but I want to make sure that happens to me.” I say, knowing I probably sounded mad but knew this may be my one and only shot. “If my punishment is what you say it is, then let me make sure that is my punishment.”
Unsurprisingly, Maaji looked at me as if I had spontaneously sprouted another head. Raising her paws, she seemed very quick--a little too quick--to dissuade me from my position. But, my mind was made up, harebrained or not.
“Aye, I’m not sure ye want ta do somethin’ of th’ sort. Conscription here, ya see, may be a bit different than what ye may have been used to before. It’s dangerous. Right dangerous. Ye go ta far-off places an’ do all th’ dirty jobs no one else wants ta concern themselves with. It may get ye out of a cell but it sure as hell ain’t a glamorous option…”
“But working even in such conditions is certainly favorable than rotting away while sitting on my arse.” I shoot back, folding my arms and staring hard into her orange eyes. “Don’t you agree? I’m sure you’d agree…”
“Aye, I agree. Good work trumps nonaction, indeed...but as I said, me job is ta make sure ya don’t get killed. No matter how or why. An’ I’m afraid doin’ this may result in me failin’ in tha’ regard. Trust me.”
“Maaji, with all due respect, I don’t even know how you got to me, how you know my name and why you want to help me in the first place. I have very little reason to trust you.” I say, shaking my head as I shake my throbbing head again. “I’m sorry...but this is my decision. My own decision, which I can’t say I’ve made a lot of since waking up like this. Even if you don’t think it’s that much of an improvement, don’t you think that maybe you can let me try it out…?”
The ewe pauses for a moment, obviously thinking of a way to rebut my statement, but in the moment it took for her to gather her thoughts and try and advise me against my current course of action, the sound of a large, heavy wooden door bangs open, illuminating a stone staircase nearby with a sudden beam of bright light that seemed to permeate the rest of the relatively dark dungeon surrounding me. Judging by the awkward, waddling foot-falls of the monsters that seemed to hit the stones first, not to mention the parade of black gourds that I could see shortly following the noise, I realized that the pumpkin-things had returned and were presumably ready to take me to my trial.
In the moment I had turned my head to the front of the cell to see the parade of gourd-monsters, a quick glance back around to the side showed that Maaji had disappeared as quickly as she had appeared, once again leaving me alone in my cell with nothing but a bunch of hostile mon staring me down. But this time, I didn’t back away. I wasn’t scared; not this time.
“Ohoho, look at that! The lizard is up and about! And feeling a little bellicose, it seems!”
One of the pumpkin creatures, which seemed to be wearing quite a bit of gold along with its armor as well as having quite an ornately-decorated stock on his weapon, laughs at my stoic expression and my clenched fists, shooing the Quilladin guard to the side after he had been handed the keys to the cell. Nonchalantly opening the lock, he throws the door open and orders several of his other soldiers to surround me, wrenching my arms behind my back and cuffing them together, along with my legs, which I thought was quite unnecessary. It was already far too awkward and painful for me to run away.
“Lock her tightly. I don’t want any chance we could lose her to the mountains. Carry her if you have to...I would also like to make good time getting to the Justice Building. We shan’t waste any more of Governor Tikki’s time if we have to.”
Affirmative answers came from all sides of me, and once I was securely locked and latched and leashed up for my captors, a hard shove from a hair-like appendage forces me to take a step forward or risk my falling on my face...and like that, I am marched out of the dungeon and out towards whatever fate awaited me before this governor in his hall of justice.
