[Sixpence]

This is mostly a starting out bit combined with an intro. It's designed to flesh out my character (personality/species history/physical appearance/personal wants&needs) and it's mainly for my own purposes, but if someone really wants in on it I don't think I could say no. Just PM me beforehand if you'd be so kind.

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    //Yet another fine molt// he thought to himself in tired ecstasy as he lay cushioned by the loam and sweet grasses which ringed his favorite, bubbling spring. Dappled gold and green sunlight dripped through the elm leaves above, shifting patterns of shadow across the breadth of his body as delicately as the brush of a gossamer dragonfly's wing. In a haze of contentment he lifted his head up a few inches to look down the length of his own body, admiring its beauty, its newness, its potential. Not far from where he reclined lay his old shell; a translucent mass of bio-architecture, resplendent with the afternoon sun softly accentuating the flying buttresses of its legs and the wide cathedral's dome of the abdomen from which he had burst forth.

    He wanted to laugh, so he did, a velvety laced laugh giddy with equal parts exhilaration and exhaustion. Lovingly, he ran a hand through the soft, downy fur on his thorax letting it linger there for a moment before bringing it back up to caress the carapace which covered the entirety of his back and wrapped over to snugly hug at the edges of his hips. Gently he applied pressure to the segmented plates, marveling as he always did at how their bone hard rigidity softened to flesh-like elasticity after a molt. It would be important to do exercises over the next few hours to ensure the plates would be stretched enough to allow for movement when they hardened, but he couldn't bear to leave his supine position just yet. Not when the best was still to come.

    Nearly trembling in excitement he flexed his tail and brought it forward to cup the tip of it in his pale, slim-fingered hands. His lips parted in childlike glee as he leaned forward to drink it all in - the powerful tail muscles encased by beetle-bright armour, the dark thorny spur gracing its club-like end, and the single pearlescent drop of venom, redolent with power, quivering at the very tip of the thorn like a half-formed thought. Catching the droplet on one oval nail he slowly brought it to his lips, the poison heady on his tongue as he licked it away. The sheer delight of it made him smile so widely that two of his three rows of sharp little teeth could be seen.

    Finally feeling he might be able to stand up, he set each of his six slender legs into motion. Despite a sudden wave of weakness that threatened to overcome him, he made his way over to the babbling pool. Tying his long, dark hair out of his face with a leather thong, he inspected himself critically in its reflection. His long-lashed, almond shaped eyes and their six little eye-lets blinked as he drank in his new body. His fur was more sable than he remembered, richer now in color and complexity, with little tinges of opalescent green where the fickle light struck it just so. Although he knew many of his people sported more eye-catching coloration than himself, he wasn't bothered by its relative plainness: its subtleties matched well with his pale skin and fine features. He was disappointed to find his nose was still larger than he would have liked, but he had to admit that the haughty look it affected suited him, even if he didn't find it attractive.

   Spinning around once more for himself in the pool's reflection he stretched his arms upward, taking care not to tangle his forearm spurs in his hair as he stood as tippy-toe as he could manage on his legs. Relaxing from his stretch he leaned forward and caught his reflection in the pool once more. Jauntily he gave himself a half salute and said, "Has it been three months in molt already, you fine thing? We missed you you know. Welcome back, Nkchitil??tl."

[Sixpence]

 

He rocked back and forth a little in amusement at his own silly gesture. He was really getting quite big, he noted admiringly of his form. Long gone were the days when he had been a scrabbling, white-bodied little nymph fighting for protection with twelve other brothers and sisters on his mother's woolly back. Now, with six molts already accounted for, he was nearly a full-grown adult of his kind; a chimerical, nocturnal, ground-bound predator armed with a sac of neurotoxin, forearm spurs and a generously armored body. It was always at these times, in the afterglow of a molt, that he felt a oneness with his body, and an uncharacteristic, kindly kinship towards his people who had helped to shape him.

Bending low, he brought his finely shaped hands down to cup at the spring's cool water, lifting it to his lips as he lazily reflected on where his people might be now. His kin, on the whole, preferred to keep to themselves, and they generally viewed societies in which the members lived grouped together as stifling and grating. Instead, they embraced a lifestyle of oneness and solitude and most outsiders would agree that this isolated existence was for the benefit of everyone.

The love affairs of Nkchitil??tl's kith were notoriously passionate, brutal and short-lived by nature, and some of the more emotionally stable creatures of the world would hesitate to label the emotion that springs up from these affairs as love at all. However, their biases are deeply seated in tales of the past which tell morbid  stories of lovers consuming lovers in the heat and height of passion. This practice, which certainly did not burn brightly then, has been all but stamped out, and suffocated down to a mere cinder by the march of time. Even so, rumors of cannibalism are not to be taken lightly, not even when they refer mainly to an age long since buried in dust, and so, these people remain labeled as a impassioned, intense and cruel folk of which many remain wary.

In this respect, Nkchitil??tl was rather unusual. He enjoyed the company of his kind more than most, and he found the company of others unlike himself to be not irritating, but intriguing. Although he harbored little desire to try to live in a communal group, he found the idea an interesting one, and thought it something to be pondered over, not reviled. In addition to his already relatively gregarious nature, Nkchitil??tl's body was only one more molt away from official status as an adult. Despite this, or perhaps in anticipation of it, his entire body already reverberated with a hot kind of energy that coursed through his veins and goaded him to seek out company for its own purposes, whether he was aware of its pull on him or not.

[Sixpence]

Stretching and arching his back, relishing in the feel of articulated plates conforming their shape to fit his, Nkchitil??tl shimmied back and forth a few times before crouching low to the ground, brushing his thorax against the earth as he ran his fingers through the newly sprouted grasses. Methodically, he widened the area of his search bit by bit until at last, with a little 'ah' of satisfaction, he grasped a silken cord and lifted it from its hiding place buried in the mast of the little forest.

Tugging at it, he loosened the trapdoor from its bed of tree-litter and peered into the rough earthen-walled secret space he had dug and carefully concealed when he had been just a nymph. Reaching in and fishing about for a moment, he retrieved the rucksack he had hidden there three months ago. In it lay various useful implements he'd learned to carry with him after finding himself wanting and weak after his first molt; a flint and striker to produce reliable fire, fishing line and a bone hook to sustain himself when he couldn't afford to expend energy on a hunt, a large square of water-resistant intestine which was useful as a poncho or a water bag or other various purposes...the list went on.

After checking the sack to make sure everything was in its place, Nkchitil??tl swung it over his shoulders, then groped around once more in the hole. After a moment's search, he withdrew a pair of sharp, gilded shears. Holding them reverently, he made his way over to the place where his newly shed exoskeleton lay like an ancient sentinel, and with utmost care began cutting it into precise pieces. The task was an exacting one, for each piece had to be cut just so, and it was only many hours later that he had finished disassembling it. The day had nearly passed, and the shadows had grown long by the time he unfolded his legs from underneath his belly, and he congratulated himself on his neat timing. Twilight was nearly upon the little grove, which meant he could soon venture safely out of its shade without irritating or potentially damaging his highly photosensitive eyes.

Carefully, he stored the finished pieces back in his little dirt hollow, laying them lovingly upon the pile he had already harvested from his previous five molts. The time was nearly ripe for him to begin assembling them into his birthright, just as every one of his people crossing the threshold from adolescence to adulthood had done since the beginning of time. The interval between the sixth molt (the penultimate molt) and final molt was traditionally reserved for meditation, contemplation and the fashioning of a most singular 'human skin' using the shimmering, delicate pieces of exoskeleton and golden or scarlet thread.

Imbued by craft, ritual, and the shape changing power of their seven molts, each of his people were able to don a complete human shape when wearing their unique suits. Before their official initiation into adulthood, they would be allowed to wear the fruits of their labor for the first time and foray into the world of humans as a rite of passage. Upon return they would be accepted as a true adult where they could then choose to seal the initiation with a tribal branding mark.

Nkchitil??tl, more than eager to begin his task, hefted his pack on his shoulder and set off into the growing night, setting each of his six legs in easy motion, one after the other. His tail cocked high and proud over his head, he made his way out across the small forest in search for an appropriate place to conduct the ritual.

[Sixpence]

 

The moon began to wax crescent on the horizon as twilight descended into true nightfall and the shadows lengthened from streaks of charcoal black into puddles of dark pitch, which started underneath the bases of the trees and grew outwards to cover the whole ground with inky black pools. Warm fingers of the young night's breeze wafted along on the otherwise cool wind as the ground offered up the last of its daytime warmth to the encroaching night. It was yet too early to see the full splendor of the milky star belt overhead, but a few solitary planets already burned high and bright in the sky like celestial overlords, courageously braving the empty heavens to coax their subjects out of hiding by way of their example. Down earthwards the night was just beginning to come alive. Nocturnal creatures of every persuasion and form were stirring in their beds, each shaking off the last vestiges of sleep like cobwebs as they sallied forth from their dens, setts and nests to greet the new night.

Nkchitil??tl, who had been traveling before true dusk and was eager to welcome the night in his own fashion, shrugged the little rucksack on his back more securely into place and gave readily into the music of the crickets as they began to conduct their orchestra. He bowed and jigged with awkward movements, sidestepping and interweaving his own legs as he dance-scuttled his way past the edge of the elm forest and out into the fields beyond. Every so often, whenever he found a harmony particularly moving he would weave his hands high into the air or ramp up onto four legs out of pure enjoyment. Eventually, his strange little dance took him to a dip in the field about ten feet across in which sat a little stone well. It had fallen into disarray long ago, and many of the outermost stones had fallen into piles around its perimeter as the mortar which held them together had crumbled into powder-fine dust. Prairie grasses and purple thistles grew out of its empty chinks, but, incongruously, the overhead beam on which the winch and chain for the water bucket lay looked as though it had just been set yesterday. Flopping down onto his belly, Nkchitil??tl heaved a great sigh of contentment out into the night and settled down expectantly.

Although he had been prepared to wait for hours, there was no need, for not too long after he had hunkered down into the grass, the stars - which were just now peeking out - were blotted away by the sweep of wings against the sky. He cocked his stinger at the ready, just as a precaution, but there was no need for it, for he recognized the brown, furry body as it alighted on the wooden crossbeam of the well then settled itself comfortably upside down, peering at Nkchitil??tl with an expression that could only be described as one part fondness and two parts annoyance.

"You're a terrible dancer, you overgrown beetle," it commented in a dry voice.

[Sixpence]

"I brought what you wanted, ugly pill bug," the new arrival murmured, her deep, cavernous voice reverberating through her chest with obvious irritation. As if to underscore how foul of a mood this encounter was putting her in, the newcomer shifted restlessly from foot to foot, gouged her claws deep into the poor well-wood for good measure and with a prim snapping sound, folded her wings about herself, trapping the night air next to her woolly body for insulation as she glared at Nkchitil??tl. She missed the warmth of the press of bodies that had been around her only hours ago as she and her sometimes rookery had roosted until dusk in the treetop crowns of her most favorite, broadleaved forest, and it made her irritable. Nevertheless, she was here to honor her promise to Nkchitil??tl and she eyed his insect half in the moonlight, wondering in a gleefully morbid tone how tasty and tender it might be now that it was newly out of molt, and whether she could consider their pact fulfilled by eating him.

Although Nkchitil??tl and his kind were too large and dangerous to really be considered viable prey for her kith, the two separate species held a long ingrained enmity that had slowly petered out over the generations into a more palatable mutual, if unspoken, agreement - they ignored each others existence. While it was true that her and Nkchitil??tl's brand of relationship was antagonistic at best, particularly on her end, the fact that they had any type of relationship at all was something of a marvel in and of itself. That a relationship had reared its head (no matter how ugly a head) at them might have had something to do with how young and curious she had been back when she had first laid eyes on him, or perhaps it had more to do with Nkchitil??tl's affable, disarming nature- so unlike that of the majority of his kind.

Whatever the cause, she mused, it had thrived in the poorly cultivated soil it had been given and still endured, long after she had outgrown her youth. Nkchitil??tl had charmed her despite her coarseness and gruff exterior, and she found she couldn't harden herself quite so hard whenever he was around, a truth that soured her to no end. She bared her fangs in a gargoyle-like grimace at the thought of it, and glared at Nkchitil??tl as though it were all his fault which, in her mind, it undoubtedly was.

[Sixpence]

This disconcerting family history didn't seem to daunt Nkchitil??tl in the least, for he sidled forward and, without reservation, carefully buried his arms in the deliciously thick, sable colored fur around the arrival's neck and murmured gladly, "It's good to see you again, Hatora. How are your pups this year?" He didn't bother to inquire after her husband. It was only the females of her kind who looked after the young of the season, and in truth, most males were so short-lived and inconsequential that indeed, Hatora and the other females of her colony would be hard pressed to recall who the sire of that season's cloud of pups even was.

Eagerly, Nkchitil??tl pressed his nose into the surprisingly soft guard hairs of Hatora's ruff and breathed in the scent of her, remembering fondly the unique blend of woody, sweet breath - courtesy of the Hawkmoths she loved so much - and that unidentifiable, comforting scent of her person which he couldn't put a name to, but which he could only describe as the innate smell of her mammal-ness.

The bridge of Hatora's snout rested heavily on his right shoulder and he marveled at the weight and heft of it. "You haven't stopped growing at all have you," he laughed softly into one velveteen ear, swiveled precisely in his direction to catch every nuance of his voice. Her head alone was almost as long as his forearm, a size almost unheard of for her race since ancient times. Looking at Hatora, whose stock was descended more purely than most from their ancient forebears, Nkchitil??tl could easily see why their brethren had been fierce and evenly matched rivals since the dawn of time. He eyed the hairless tail that had snaked subtly about his waist without apprehension, but with intense appreciation - he had no doubt that in this position, should she choose to, she could shatter his ribs black and blue with one powerful constriction of that whip-like appendage.

[Sixpence]

Hatora, demonstrating a predator's almost preternatural intuition, picked right up on Nkchitil??tl's grisly thoughts and didn't miss a beat, "All the better to flay the succulent flesh right from your bones," she deadpanned, tightening her grip on his waist and taking pleasure in the way his breath came suddenly short and his face contorted in discomfort- no discernible trace of amusement anywhere in her voice or face. Her mouth, long and black lipped in her lean snout pulled itself back into an impossibly wide grin, feral and savage and utterly humorless. "I believe," she drawled, taking care to let her chin-beard fly blindingly into Nkchitil??tl's eyes as she talked, "that you asked me how my pups were, Niko. They're hungry. They're mewling so loudly that the very caverns echo with their cries for blood. Can't you hear them?"

Unfurling her wings to their maximum, she snapped them out and enclosed them about Nkchitil??tl in the space of a heartbeat, dragging him bodily forward, her claws splintered and tore the wood of the well's crossbeam as she concentrated her strength on crushing him to herself and smothering him in her powerful embrace; a technique used by many a hunter to capture prey. "Fear my pups hunger, Niko. It may be that their urging will be your death knell. I cannot resist my whelps."

So saying she let loose a loud blast of sonar into the night, but remained still anchored on the punished crossbeam, her body taught and hear mighty ears straining, as though listening for some invisible voice.

[Sixpence]

The sonar blast, which Nkchitil??tl was able to hear, although with not even a tenth of the acuity Hatora and her ilk were capable of, still rocked him on his feet and he would have fallen over from the sheer force of it had he not already been pinioned to Hatora's stifling side. She had bound him well, making special assurance to run her wings afoul of his tail and its poison so that he couldn't get a clean shot at any of her crucial points and were she truly intending to consume him, he would have been hard pressed indeed to even attempt to struggle, let alone free himself.

As it was, however, Nkchitil??tl put up not one ounce of fight, letting her unforgiving wings buffet his body as they pleased, only keeping his head down so that her claws wouldn't be in danger of taking out one of his eyes. His tail, too, hung low, the wicked tip of it dug into the ground; a customary sign of both defeat and peace. Within the cruel cradle of her battering wings, Nkchitil??tl seemed content to simply twine his fingers into Hatora's woolly fur and hang on tightly as his body was crushed and thrashed about.

[Sixpence]

No sooner had Nkchitil??tl gone limp, all resistance fleeing his body like a newborn lamb, then Hatora ceased her assault, opening her wings to release the other back into the moonlit night, where he stumbled and fell onto the ground, each of his six legs twitching and jerking reflexively. Even though he was partially obscured by long grass waving gently in the night breeze, she could sense it - his gaze upon her - dizzied but trusting, and it went right to her core, although she could not say to what effect.

"How did you know," she snapped, her tail curling and uncurling against the wood beneath her feet in both ire and agitation. "What gave me away to make you think you could be safe in my presence? I am changeable, dangerous, and a lifelong enemy to your kin. I am no longer young and wide-eyed, but old and wild-eyed, with thought to feed my pups ever present at the forefront of my mind. What -dare- you to think I wouldn't rend you limb from limb whoever you are. Those who enter my presence do so at their own risk. My kind is no exception and yours, triply so!" Her voice boomed dark and echoing across the empty field.

"I charge you, speak!" At this last, she spread her wings once more in outrage and fanned them several times, using their effect to make herself seem even larger and more foreboding. Her hackles were raised and her bared fangs glinted in the pale light, her roaring words punctuated by cracks from the wood beneath her claws as she splintered it as easily as old bone.

[Sixpence]

Nkchitil??tl pushed himself back up dazedly and crouched low to the ground, eying the backplates he had been so vainly proud of a mere handful of hours ago. Three of them had been cracked by Hatora's strength - the pale hairline fractures spider-webbing out underneath the enamel of his exoskeleton like ghostly tributaries - and he shook his head ruefully, all too aware that the damage to his armour and person could easily have been much more severe.

He knew how vulnerable he looked, huddled in the grass with his foremost legs splayed out for balance and his hair tangled with burrs and seeds from his ungraceful fall, yet where others would be afraid for their lives (for who had ever lain prostrate at Hatora's feet whom she had not shortly slaughtered thereafter?) Nkchitil??tl merely looked at the face of the great beast's rage and watched it crest and break like the punishing tide of a maelstrom against the rocky shore. In the face of all of this he remained firm, the hint of a smile playing about his lips as she roared her fury at him, tail lashing in the night as she cried, "What DARE you to think I wouldn't rend you limb from limb? I charge you, speak!"

Looking up at her bristling, formidable form he blinked all his eyes from where he lay unguarded at her mercy and said simply, warmly "You called me Niko."

[Sixpence]

All the fight seemed to leave Hatora in one fell swoop, deflating her and defusing her anger. "You're right, even in my anger I still called you Niko" she admitted with a little growl, her hackles slowly flattening themselves back against her fur. She heaved a great long sigh, noting how the stars were beginning to fade in the aging night and beckoned to Nkchitil??tl, "Come here little one and show me your fine new features." She opened her wings once more, but this time gently, and reached forward to enfold Niko in their light, comforting embrace, just as though he were one of her little whelps shivering in the throes of a day terror.

She was far too proud to even consider apologizing, but she did eye Niko's cracked plates with something akin to remorse, commenting on how handsome they must have looked before their unhappy fate. Niko, swathed in her leathery embrace, opened up and just talked, releasing all the thoughts he had held pent up inside himself during his three month incarceration in a low, constant murmur.

Finally, as dawn was beginning to creep its first thin fingers over the edge of the distant horizon, Hatora bade him cease his babble and released him into the predawn light. "I came to you to honor my promise dung beetle, not to listen to your ramblings," she admonished, her gentle tone at odds with her harsh words. "The day is nearly upon us and I am as late to my pups as you are to your nest, ere you are blinded by the cruel sun. Come, feel underneath my jaw: I have brought the thing you had asked after."

[Sixpence]

Reaching down to dig in the stiff hairs that made up Hatora's chin-beard, Niko ran his fingers along the edge of her strong jaws until there, at the juncture where her mandible met her powerful neck, he encountered a mass of something that did not feel natural to his questing fingers. Bending closer, he carefully parted the fur there and found that Hatora had somehow encircled loop upon loop of delicate golden thread around her neck, twining it in and over itself quite a number of times until it looked as though she were wearing a finely spun collar made of rich, golden metal.

"I brought you the thread," she muttered almost sullenly, her low voice vibrating against his hand at her throat. "Sky knows why I do these things for you. I've heard it said that those of your dirt-crawling kind who use golden thread to cobble together their ridiculous skins are the ones most likely to become true manticores." She sniffed and grunted, "I seriously doubt the credibility of that old wives tale. You would do well to do the same."

Niko hardly heard this last, for he was far to busy letting his mouth hang open in astonishment. "Hatora, this is -real- golden thread, isn't it? Not simply silken thread brushed over with gold dust? Where in Anansi's name did you find something like this? It's worth a small fortune!" He turned the thread over and over in his hands, lifting it close to his face to breathe in its scent in sheer astonishment; knowing what he would find but disbelieving it all the same. It was truly thread made of fine filaments of gold. It had the tangy scent of metal, true metal, not metal dust, and he could hear the faint but telltale difference in the way it sounded as he tapped it gently with one long fingernail.

"When I begged you to bring me thread for my molt, I never for a moment thought you'd ever bring me anything more than coarse cotton thread dyed scarlet. As I recall," he added, eyes shining, "when I pleaded with you to do this one thing for me, you were so infuriated that you knocked me so far head over heels that I landed in a nearby pond. You winged away immediately after that, shouting curses at me and roaring that the day one of your kind became a courier for the likes of me would be the day you would step down from your place on the High Moot." He frowned, "you haven't, have you?"

[Sixpence]

"Well your new molt hasn't filled out your brain at all, I see. You're still as idiotic as ever - a fine example of your species," Hatora spat acidly by way of response. Violently, she disengaged herself from her temporary roost on the well and launched herself into the air, her great wings toppling Nkchitilótl over with their fierce gusts of wind: an added bonus in her eyes. She was not made for hovering, but she managed to lock her vast wings into the over-and-back movements just long enough to hover for a moment before the stunned Niko for a parting blow.

"I fulfilled my end of the bargain, little flea, and now I'll be rid of you. My pups are mewling for their mother, and it's high time I left you out here alone. Hopefully, the prairie-jackals will come for you now that I am gone, " she added with a cruel laugh, bemused by the thought. "I don't want to see your poisonous little carapace around here ever again. If we happen upon each other some night and I recognize your ugly misshapen little face I will not hesitate to bring you home as fodder for my young. Be warned, Nkchitilótl!"

Unable to hold her position in the air any longer, Hatora strained her wings and slowly rose up into the early morning's light, circling for hight as she went. She saw no prairie-jackals from her vantage point, which was disappointing, but she consoled herself with the thought that daybreak was nearly upon them, and if he weren't quick about finding shelter, the sun would destroy his photosensitive eyes instantaneously. Nursing that thought and a dark chuckle, she winged her way towards the North, eager to get back to her newly demoted roost and the warm bodies of her wing-mates and their cloud of pups.

[Sixpence]

Nkchitilótl gathered himself together in the grass and made to stand, his head still in a wild muddle. The sun, which was just peaking over the horizon, had only been up for a handful of minutes, but already he could feel his eyes watering painfully. Clutched in his hand he knew, though he could hardly make it out through the tears swamping his eyes, was the hank of golden thread he had only just managed to snip away from Hatora's neck before she had thrown him off and flown away.

Bundling the precious thread into his rucksack he quickly set out in an easterly direction, fighting against the sun-migraine pounding in his head. All too soon, he had to throw an arm up across his eight eyes in a feeble attempt to block out the cruel light, leaving him to scuttle blindly about the prairie. His heart beat wildly in his chest in time to his pain, making him grow wildly confused with rising agony and panic. Still, he had no choice to stumble onwards in the hopes of encountering relief, for the only other option was to collapse under the sun's weight, completely blinded out in the middle of an open prairie where he would be easy prey for anything that came along.

He had no idea how long he had been running, the haze of intense pain clouding his sense of time and rolling it all into a single ball of never ending misery. Just as he thought he could bear the torment no more, he reached the cool shade of thin break of tall-standing trees. Their shadows weren't strong enough to afford him true relief from the murderous sun, but he was able to take away a single finger from one of his eyes to get his bearings. In doing so, he realized that the light, which was now flooding the world in an onslaught daybreak, had disoriented him severely. He had meant to head back to his little grotto in the thick woods, where an overhanging outcrop of rock and a canopy of leaves would have shielded him until twilight. As it was he had strayed wildly off-course and had no idea where his current whereabouts might be, let alone how to get back to his safe haven.

The one thing he knew was that he wouldn't be able to stay here for long. The little tree-line eased the light only but a little, and although it was welcome relief for the moment, it was not enough to save him from total blindness if he spent the entire day with no protection other than its hazy shadows. He could feel panic gripping at his chest though he made strong effort to quell its effect, knowing that stumbling around blindly was merely dangerous while stumbling around blindly in a panic was suicide.