Excerpt: The Varient

Drawing the conclusion that she was the first one home from the silence that answered her, Ryl decided to retire to her own room and see what Shadow had been up too.

She heard the faint but distinct sound of a pigment pen in eager usage, and expected to see Shadow bent over her book, hard at work learning her language. The last thing she expected to see, however, was what she saw.

Shadow was standing with his back to the door, carefully putting the finishing touches on the picture he had drawn on the opposite wall. He had pulled the bookshelves and bureau out of the way, even, as he inked in more detail, glancing occasionally at Ryl's book on the history of the Fringes for reference.

Ryl had never seen art before- it was often reguarded as taboo, a byproduct of emotion, and something that was not encouraged in the Puran society- and so was totally in awe of and unprepared for the scene that unfolded itself on her bedroom wall.

It was of a Surin, a female, who was almost stumbling on her six legs as she carried a pup with mere nubs of horns in her mouth, water dripping off of both as they entered what looked to be some kind of massive underwater cave where air had become trapped, perhaps, in a volcano eruption. A male Surin, distinguished by his pronged anters in comparison to the gently curving spears of the female, raised his damp head wearily from the other two pups that were pressed against his side on the dry sand on the far side of the cave.

Shadow turned suddenly as she entered, eyes glowing an intense green that quickly faded into the more typical gray shade, but Ryl was too transfixed by the image to really notice until the spell the art had cast over her dissapated.

"Shadow!" She hissed, with all the unhappiness and scolding a loyal rule-follower would show a rule-breaker, "this sort of thing isn't allowed in here, and certainly not on my wall! Here, " she yanked the sheet off her bed and, standing precariously on a bookshelf, covered the picture with the sheet and held it in place with some thumbtacks she found on the surface of her desk "See? It's still there, but we have to hide it or you'll get in trouble. If you must draw, please," she picked up a sheet of the untouched paper and a new pigment pen, " use this!"

She made a wriggly line on the paper, and Shadow dipped his head as Ryl sat heavily down on her bed and sighed, forcing the stress out of her young body and brushing her hair out of her hazel eyes with the back of her hand.