"Whither wilt thee wander
With those blue and tragic eyes
To hither come and yonder
Watch those vast and antique skies
And whether thou dost wandereth
D’pends on whom ye meet
And whether thou dost pondereth
On which road to place thine feet
And verily the truth be told
As sacrificial rites
Of paths and treks so great, so olde
So borne from days and nights
So wander, ever, wander
As thine days go on and on
For soone ye’ll meet your rest, my friend,
Ever and anon."
Pristine devastated the dummies. It didn’t matter if they stood stock-still, moved like machines, or even moved as though they were alive, she ruined them. She broke them, killed them, destroyed them. Here, she was using her bastard sword with one hand, slicing cleanly through ten dummies in record speeds, paying no attention to strategy or consciousness, just demolishing. There, she was spraying a fountain of purple magical death toward the dummies, reducing their numbers before thought could take hold, her goal annihilation. When it was over, she stood in the center of the destruction and panted. Sweat drenched her fur and made it flat against her skin; her lavender hair slid in wet waves across her shoulders as she bent forward, then fell to her knees. However, her fists were still clenched around the hilt of her sword. Its point had just before been shoved into the dirt, and now she kneeled with its hilt above her head and her hands on it as though she were praying. Her hair shimmered, shivered as though it were hesitant in the face of her wrath, then fell forward again, around her head, to create a curtain of protection from the outside world. Her eyes were burning red… they stared almost lifelessly at the ground, their black pupils been helplessly devoured by ravenous flaming irises. Pristine wanted to rend all things in the world lifeless, and this need transcended all she had known. It was beyond dislike, beyond hate, beyond even the damnation she’d wished upon so many dealers of pain. Her fury was not even fury; it was a loose animal, dangerous and solitary, living as it could, surviving where it couldn’t, ruining all in its path for life, howling forever at the eternally ominous black moon. It had begun before time and would never end. Having caught her breath, Pristine, a simple host to the everlasting beast, stood. She began again. Days and nights flew by as though they were faster than a mix of wind and rapids, swifter than light or even darkness. Pristine played the game of living when she had no plans to do so, and continued her destruction. When her body gave out, momentarily another victim of the beast, she fell to the ground and slept for more days, and when she awoke, it was only to continue. To go forward. To carry out that endless annihilation that the beast asked of her. Soon, her consciousness began to work, carefully and in small quantities, at first. It was toward the back of her mind, a little imperfection in the vibrating web of a spider whose thoughts focused merely on the death of the fly in the web, and not the imperfections of the web itself. As though she were the spider, Pristine could only passively feel her thought returning, and when the thought had gathered enough forces and snowballed for long enough, it washed over her mind, drowning the beast, driving it out and blocking all entrances. It was then that Pristine fell to the ground in her weary state for the last time. Sleep called to her and fell around her like warm waves around a shell on a white, sandy beach. It was time for rest, then. When she awoke some days later, no more haggard of a woman could there have ever been in the annals of history. She stumbled out from the training dome, into the piercing sunshine, and she found a lunch had been left for her. Lunches had been left for her for many days, it seemed; a tall pile of these lunches greeted her vision. Only a few were still unspoiled. She ate these.
After the beast, everything took on a sort of pointless sheen. The trees, the grass, the birds, the lunches, her clothing, her hair, her self. The beast was higher than all of that, and had not driven a path of ruin through it, but had demolished all of it with meticulous care. She tried to fathom what her life had been like when these things had mattered, and could not. She slept, ate some more, then slept again.On the third day that she was out of the dome, she remembered why she had gone in in the first place. She hadn’t expected the beast, but it had come. Her reason for going in seemed an unimportant one. At least, she thought, it would be unimportant to everyone else. It had meaning for her, but no one else could see it. So it was nothing. It was unmentioned. And when her apprentices came to bring her more food and saw that she was out and asked her questions, it remained unmentioned. When her apprentices left, Pristine looked up to the sky. It shone the way the sky always shines when it has no clouds and the sun is the right tint and in the right place, and it seems like heaven is at the doorstep. Pristine stared long and hard at it, and inside she debated whether or not it still held any meaning for her. She decided it didn’t, but it was still pretty to look at, so she looked at it. And it seemed as though that’s what life became for her. She looked around with half-lidded eyes, and all things were insignificant; she remembered the higher level she had attained and could do no more than look back at. She saw the trees and stared at them lazily, because sometimes they were pretty. She stared at all the people, and listened to them once in a while, because they were occasionally amusing. She didn’t watch the buildings; they were ugly and dull. She watched the grass. And she always liked the sky.
Visit me at my VCL Gallery! I moved all of my art but the opening image there, and decided to keep my fanart section on this page. If you like the image of Pristine up there, you'll most likely want to go there!
"Pristine - by Oraclese": An art trade I did with Oraclese produced this piece of artwork. I love Ora's style; doesn't Pris look just chock-full of spiffy mysticalness? Yay. Artwork is © to Oraclese.
"Pristine - by Thobold": I once roleplayed almost regularly with Thobold, a seafaring dog-ferret mix. Pristine fell in love with him, at which point he fell in love with someone else (talk about the story of my life x.x). Pristine left the two as they were. Thus the picture was created... "I Hope She Makes You Happy." Unfortunately, Thobold's wife left him soon after, and he ran away to find her... and never came back again. Ah, c'est la vie. In any case, Thobold had a great comic-y style to his works; Pris looks a little buff, here, but that's my fault for not specifying when I told his user "muscular." Hah.
"Stylized Pristine - by 'Heather'": It's a rather simple picture, surely, but I can't get over how much beauty is captured simply by the perfection of the flowing black lines. (Erk... I've turned art-critic.) It's interesting, though... this was just randomly done for me when the artist had little else to do. I don't even remember who it's from...! I'd like to get a Furcadian alt name of the artist up here, but I guess that's not possible. In any case, it's something great. Thanks, Heather.
"Pristine - by Siana Myste": Siana isn't around as Siana anymore, but she and I did an art trade that I think we may have both benefitted from. I enjoy this picture of Pristine getting ready to do some magic-y thing. I especially love how smooth the colored pencil work is, even if it only took a few minutes! Thanks, Siana!
DO NOT TRY TO USE THE "BACK" LINKS ON THESE STORIES. I have them set to connect to index.html, which is still in the works! If you use the "back" links, they WILL bring you to an UNFINISHED PAGE. So DON'T USE THEM.
Naivete - One of the many short stories I have written about Pristine... a mere vignette, meant to outline her background and feelings more fully, and hopefully the first of many stories I will put up on this website.
The End - A story previously on the front page, one of the first ones I've ever written and, some people say, the best. A must-read if you know absolutely nothing about Pristine.
Married - I wrote this story after thinking about how many men Pristine had loved. It's really melancholy; all of my stories are. In any case, I guess it's pretty darned true, too. Sometimes, when I list my writings about Pristine, I forget to list this one, because it was never really anything significant, just a ponderance.
Wanderer Lost - I felt particularly inspired one day, I suppose. The scenery was hard to describe; do you think I did a good job? In any case, I like the ending note... it has a cadence to it that makes me feel better about my writing. Not sure what everyone else thinks, but I like the story. It's about Thobold, by the by.
Portraits- Furcadian portrait commissions; some of my most recent artwork. Unfortunately, they're saved as JPG's so the resolution's a little under par. A Chat with Ruina- I had a fun little chat with someone who called herself "princess" one too many times in the mirror. It was too early in the morning for smart comebacks, but at least now you can see what I have to deal with every day. Sorry I didn't code it and put it up as a site... too lazy, I suppose.
My Furcode:
All names and characters are © to Kim Hanning and FoRLoRN MiSTS, Inc.
