>>44135100
>[ ] [Gently]
Wake up, human. If you're asleep you can't spend time appreciating how awesome we are.

>>44135100
>[X] [Gently]

>>44135100
>] [Stubbornly]
we don't know when to quit

>>44135191
>>44135243
(Gently then, writing.)

You trot into the small hallway and turn left to the sole bedroom of the house. It’s a small, cozy room of soft earthy colours, lit by sunlight filtering through a green curtain. The small square window is, other than the door, the only glass window in the house, with the others having wooden shutters that can be pulled open or closed.

To the left of the pile of messy notes and strange objects that your owner calls a desk is a small bed, upon which a mess of blankets and grey-black hair is bundled atop, slowly rising and falling rhythmically in sleep.

You hop onto the bed and try to figure out where her head is under the swirling chaos, and end up just yanking the blanket at random. Vague sleepy murmurings allow you to pinpoint your target, and you find your owner’s face half-planted in the wool-stuffed mattress. Little more than unintelligible noises sound out when you begin prodding and pushing, so you start pulling her cheek.

Humans are always so soft, you think as you stretch her skin. And when you pull her mouth distorts and her face looks really funny. Up, up.

>>44135712

“...What are you doing?”

You look back down and notice her left eye, the one not planted into the mattress, is half open and looking at you. Her normally smooth voice sounds weird like this. You think you’d be giggling if you could.

You let go of her cheek, and wave at her with your paw as she brings a hand up to her face.

“Good morning. Perhaps you could consider a more mundane method to wake me next time, little one.”

You give her a quizzical look and she responds with short laughter, the kind that always makes you think of a ray of sunshine, as your owner Rinalet shakes off her drowsiness. She pulls herself into a seated position and stretches her arms up, scrunching up her face, her frazzled black hair cascading down her dusk-coloured shoulders.

“A fine point. Well, allow me a moment to get dressed before I join you.”

Right, clothes. Sometimes you think humans are weird for not having fur, but that isn’t something you get to decide. Though, you wonder briefly, maybe her hair’s long enough to wrap around her?

Rinalet only wears her bracelets and headband thing when she sleeps. She has a few outfits, but for some reason most of them leave her shoulders and stomach bare, even in this chilly season. You asked about that once, and she said “if I’m up, I may as well be alert, no?”

You think she’s just weird.

Rinalet takes a light tan top and long skirt into the bathroom as you head through the hallway, which now has that slight stuffy scent about it courtesy of the candle that sits on a small circular table at the end of the corridor, and plop yourself back on the kitchen table.

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>>44135783

It only takes a few minutes, punctuated by the sound of splashing water, for Rinalet to join you, a familiar youthful grin appearing on her face as she glances at you lying on the table.

“Will I need to plant another tree for you, little one?”

You raise your head and watch as she takes a knife and slices your apple into eight pieces, placing them on a clean wooden plate in front of you before finding her own plate of food.

The two of you waste away the remainder of the cool, peaceful winter morning, and it’s close to noon when your owner grabs a leather bag small enough to fit in her palm and straps it to her skirt around the waist in preparation to leave. She looks at you as you pick up and place a wooden cup over your remaining three pieces of apple, saving them for later.

“The lake today, little one. It has been over a week, I think.”

Oh, right.

Her expression softens when she sees the pause you didn’t make.

“It will be quick, and likely only thrice more visits before we are done,” she says in a light, reassuring tone.

> What did you do?

[ ] [Lake] Tagged along. Didn’t have a reason not to.
[ ] [Wait] You didn’t like the lake, but you still followed. You hung back while she worked.
[ ] [Wander] You really didn’t like the lake. You decided to explore a bit on your own.

>>44135861
>[Lake] Tagged along. Didn’t have a reason not to.

>>44135861
[X] [Lake] Tagged along. Didn’t have a reason not to.

>>44135861
>[ ] [Lake] Tagged along. Didn’t have a reason not to.

>>44135861

[ ] [Lake] Tagged along. Didn’t have a reason not to.

>>44136082
>>44136034
>>44136010
>>44135921

(Easy, haha. Already writing)

You leave the house together and stroll towards the east. Rinalet’s humble wooden cottage is at the edge of a large forest, and the lake is somewhere between an hour or two’s walking distance.

You know today’s trip is as usual related to Rinalet’s job, though you don’t really know many details. Your owner is unique; a “Blessed of spirits”, she once said. Apparently this means she can deal with special things that no-one else can see or talk to, so she gets a lot of other people asking her for favours.

You can’t ever help her with this, which bugs you a bit, but you do tag along whenever she attends to an errand.

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>>44136613

Your walk is quiet, and Rinalet has no trouble navigating the forest’s undergrowth. Every now and then you point out or retrieve a strange plant or animal you haven’t seen (that weasel-thing’s second tail looks like a mirror!), and she would laugh in that light way as the two of you pause to enjoy the novelty of a brief distraction.

The discovery of new things in a place you’ve been before should probably seem odd to you, considering it has happened for the entire six months you’ve been with Rinalet. She’s told you of places past the forest, further to the east where humans live, and where the air doesn’t hum with magic. To you, though, the ever-changing Realm is normal, and you’d be surprised if you didn’t find something completely new if you came here tomorrow.

You like the changes, because you can find all sorts of things you’ve never seen before, but another part of you just wants your favourite things all the time. Either way, this primitive, restless, yet always familiar place is your home.

After about an hour and a half, though, you reach a place that somehow feels truly alien.

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>>44136676

The rustling of wind against leaves and distant chirping of birds is different here from the rest of the forest, and somehow feels akin to dead silence; the kind that makes you aware of every movement, of every act that could cause a disturbance. This, of course, makes your ears follow every step your owner takes.

Before the two of you is the still surface of a vast lake.

> What did you do?

[ ] [Stay] You watched.
[ ] [Walk off] You looked for a distraction while she worked.

>>44136755
[ ] [Stay] You watched.

>>44136755
>[ ] [Stay] You watched.
also
>ears
>lizard

>>44136828

(.... oops.)

>>44136828
Lizards have internal ears. Those holes in the side of there head are the opening to them.

>>44136755
[X] [Stay] You watched.

>>44136828
We're not just some ol' regular lizard. We're an AWESOME lizard thing. That comes with certain perks such as invisible ears!

>>44136910
>>44136953

(The lizard would definitely have totally normal lizard ears! I've just been avoiding the word in past threads because it makes me picture them as external, which is really weird.)

(And yeah [Stay] is happening.)

You’re looking around as you walk a few paces behind her; at the tree trunks, the branches with occasional brown-grey leaves defying the winter, at the cloudless blue sky, at the dirt and grass at your feet, and anything else that can catch your attention.

You know what Rinalet’s doing, having seen it before. She opens a small leather pouch, withdrawing some coarse powder that seems to glint with weird light as it moves, then steps forward and reaches out over the lake’s surface, sprinkling her offering down. You can hear her making words in a language you don’t know, with sounds that you never seem to be able to believe a mouth, human or Wild, can make.

The syllables are light, high, floating in the air, like musical notes at the very edges of your consciousness.

As she does this, she’ll take a waterskin from her waist, and fill it with a very small amount of the lake’s water.

It never takes long, which makes you feel a little better.

>>44137397

Rinalet crouches in front of you and places a hand on your head.

“Done, little one. We’ll be going straight back home.”

You spend the return trip sitting on your owner’s shoulder. Though she says little, you feel like the air is a little more chilly this time around, and you’re glad when the shape of her cottage shows through the thinning trees.

The two of you enter and you hop back to your place on the kitchen table, starting on your remaining pieces of apple from the morning. Rinalet’s fingers trace lightly across your back as she walks past into the hallway and out of sight.

She’s going to head through the back door to that tree behind the house, of course. The one that rises too smoothly out of the ground, barely a metre tall and maybe ten centimeters thick; the last time you saw it anyway. You know she’ll slowly pour out the small amount of lake water she retrieved, just like she has been doing for a few weeks now, then examine the tree before returning to you.

Another part of her job. Something which you can do little to help with other than keep her company, though she has said before that that is plenty.

You find yourself watching those hanging twisted ropes again, feeling oddly lonely, and realise that Rinalet didn’t come into the kitchen to have lunch or take you along for another errand as she normally would. It’s quieter than you like, and you find yourself moving through the stuffy hallway into your owner’s bedroom. She has an elbow on her desk and a hand supporting her head, covering half her face. You absently notice some papers have fallen to the floor. She turns towards you slightly, head still in palm, and wears a small smile.

“We won’t be leaving again today, little one. I may be unwell.”

>>44137512

Something about the scene before you gives you pause. Rinalet has fallen ill before, of course, but this time around it’s somehow different. You hold the eye contact, and something other than concern slowly starts to creep into your thoughts.

She opens her mouth, and speaks.

“In fact, do me this favour. Go to the lake and retrieve some of it. More than we did earlier.” She gestures towards the bed, where some of her things have been thrown haphazardly, “fill the waterskin for me. I will rest, and wait.”

You wonder, has she ever asked something of you so directly? You thought you’d be overjoyed at the occasion; the prospect of being able to do more to help her. Yet, you only feel uneasy as you watch her pale face and listen to her flat, halting speech.

That’s what it is. The other times, even while weak your owner never lost her infectious cheer. This is different; something in her eyes is missing. Something in her voice has changed.

Even so, you move towards the bed and take her waterskin as asked, and walk through the kitchen and past the glass-windowed door, heading alone in the direction of the lake.

> Why did you listen?

[ ] She was ill, and you wanted to help in any way you can.
[ ] You trusted her. Rinalet always knew best.
[ ] She was your owner, so you listened.
[ ] You owed her your life. This was small in comparison.
[ ] You don’t know. You simply did.

>>44137547
[ ] She was ill, and you wanted to help in any way you can.
[ ] You trusted her. Rinalet always knew best.

>>44137547
>[ ] You trusted her. Rinalet always knew best.

>>44137547
>[ ] She was ill, and you wanted to help in any way you can.

>>44137547
>[ ] She was ill, and you wanted to help in any way you can.
>[ ] You trusted her. Rinalet always knew best.

>>44137557
>>44137585
>>44137591
>>44137719

(Right then!)

You do want to help. You’ve always wanted to help.

Holding the leather waterskin in your mouth, with enough care to not rip it, you move on all fours through the forest. It has changed again, ever so subtly in your very short time away, but you remember the path well. At your pace, the way forward doesn’t take as long as it did a few hours earlier, and you reach the familiar clearing in the forest quicker than you’d like.

Before you is the still surface of a vast lake.

Stepping to the edge, you open and lower the vessel into the waters. It fills the empty space eagerly, and you withdraw the filled waterskin. You look up, and the orange sunset sky steps down into the disturbed waters, reflecting in colours somehow unexpected, as if the mirror surface had drunk some of the light’s hue. You blink, glancing once more over the undisturbed lake, and leave.

>>44138202

The return trip takes much longer, having to traverse the forest with mostly just your legs as you handle the now full waterskin. The spiny branches and odd flora of the place starts to cast stranger shadows as the sun hides behind the horizon, and you make as quick a pace as you can.

You trust her, you tell yourself as you run. She always knows what she’s doing

You make it back as twilight sets in, and carry the waterskin into the bedroom. Rinalet isn’t there.

You easily deduce where she’d be, and there’s a sense of tension as you move.

You walk through the hallway, past the opened back door and towards where you remember a certain tree grows.

>>44138276

She’s crouched in front of it, the thin brown trunk protruding out of the ground with no signs of roots or widening at the base. You see her mouth moving, but cannot understand the soft muttering that hangs in the space around her. She turns at your approach, and you hold the waterskin towards her. She’s as pale as she was when you left. A smile creeps on her face, though you feel that her unfocused eyes are not looking at you.

“Thank you. Give me a moment now.”

She takes and unties the waterskin and walks a slow, deliberate circle around the trunk of the tree, pouring out the lake water as she goes. Her slow muttering grows light and high, but still too soft for you to understand.

You’re still held by the strangeness of the scene when the container becomes empty. Your owner’s brow furrows.

“Was it too soon? There might be another...”

She turns to you, that blank upward twisting of her lips in place.

“Little lizard, do me a favour and bring me the knife from the kitchen. Come on now.”

You don’t understand.

>

[ ] [Listen] Rinalet always knew best.
[ ] [What] You didn’t know what to do, how to react, what was going on.
[ ] [Bed] She didn’t seem okay. You thought she needed rest.

>>44138310
[ ] [What]
[ ] [Bed]

>>44138310
[ ] [What] You didn’t know what to do, how to react, what was going on.

>>44138310
>[ ] [What] You didn’t know what to do, how to react, what was going on.

>>44138310
[X] [Bed] She didn’t seem okay. You thought she needed rest.

>>44138383
>>44138406
>>44138456
>>44138473

(Mostly [What], some [Bed], and no [Listen]. Right then, writing)

You don’t understand, but you do know she isn’t well. She needs to rest. You don’t know what she’s doing, but her health should come first.

You would try to beg with her, but there’s a certain something in your swirling emotions that stops you from moving forward. You look into eyes that don’t look back.

“Come on now. You would help me, would you not?”

Before you notice, you’ve left her and moved into the kitchen, taken the apple-scented knife in your claws, and are walking back out to where she stands next to the tree. You’re in a daze, your actions automatic, your mind in complete confusion.

You still don’t understand. But you trust her, don’t you?

>>44139026

You walk with your thoughts in turmoil and return to your owner’s side. She turns at your approach, and with much hesitation you hold the kitchen knife towards her. A smile creeps on her face, but her unfocused expression is strained.

“Thank you. Give me a moment now.”

She takes the knife in her right hand and makes a deep cut in the palm of her left. She walks a slow, deliberate circle around the trunk of the tree, dripping crimson drops as she goes. Her slow muttering grows louder, and you hear a melody of unsound at the edges of your consciousness.

You’re still held by a primal emotion you’ve not felt in a long time when she stops. Your owner’s brow furrows as, still holding the knife, she rests her chin in her palm, paying no attention to the blood that drips down her forearm.

“Was it too little? Or perhaps it was simply out of phase…”

She turns to you, that blank upward twisting of her lips in place.

“Little lizard, do me a favour and give me your tail. Come on now.”

You don’t understand.

>

[ ] [Listen] Rinalet always knew best.
[ ] [What] You didn’t know what to do, how to react, what was going on.
[ ] [Bed] She didn’t seem okay. You thought she needed rest.
[ ] [Dear God What]

> What thoughts were going through your head?

>>44139060
[ ] [Dear God What]

>>44139060
>[ ] [Dear God What]

PANIC!

>>44139060
>[ ] [Dear God What]
Plz no, master.

>>44139060
[X] [Dear God What]
[X] [Bed] She didn’t seem okay. You thought she needed rest.

Master, please get some rest. You are not think thinking straight.

>>44139060
>[ ] [What] You didn’t know what to do, how to react, what was going on.
>[ ] [Bed] She didn’t seem okay. You thought she needed rest.
>[ ] [Dear God What]

>>44139085
>>44139092
>>44139123
>>44139198
>>44139235

([Dear God What] with a hint of others.)

You don’t understand.

You don’t understand, but you know your owner isn’t well.

You try to beg with her to rest. You have no idea what she’s trying to do, but you’re certain it isn’t something someone should do while ill.

You try to beg with her, but your sense of dread and fear and wrongness has grown. You can’t move forward, you can’t try to help her.

What was that about your tail?

>>44139574

“Why did you dodge?”

A flash of polished iron imprints itself into your eyes. You did indeed jump back, though you thought yourself frozen, and in front of you is the kitchen knife, thrown and stabbed into the dirt.

You don’t understand.

You feel cold.

You’ve lost something.

You’ve had something taken from you.

You’ve been taken by something.

You look up into twin orbs the colour of amber, searching for something you once found in them.

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>>44139626

And for that moment, you sense them in every meaning of the word.

You are assaulted by scents indescribable, intoxicating, like a thousand different perfumes. You see them sing floating melodies that vibrate ticklishly through your bones; light as laughter, innocent and childish; unplaceable, familiar; a tune you’ve heard a thousand times before.

They move and act in ways unthinkable, and exist in ways that mundane thoughts clearly fail to comprehend. Instead you fill in the blurring fading gaps with swaths of infinite colour and shapes of impossible form; approximations inadequate in every way, yet you find twisting stretching patterns in them that might look like faces to a mind close to madness.

They all somehow flow, all melding and warping into a tree not rooted in known ground, and standing next to that stream of swirling substance that drags your eyes along is a certain figure you’ve never seen before.

It all disappears when eternity ends, and that figure with that blank upward twisting of her lips moves forward and takes the kitchen knife out of the ground.

“Come on now. You would help me, would you not?

>>44139716

You have no breath to scream with.

Some instinct makes you run back into the house, and the same instinct makes you run through; past the hallway filled with strange, suffocating scents; past the kitchen where twisted, beaded rope circles hang and twirl sedately in the absence of wind; past the door where stained glass perverts the orange twilight glow.

The humid air rushes and clings to you as you chase refuge into the forest, and that voice follows looming above, barely understood words casting blurry shadows all around, immense and all-encompassing. They question and plead, and you know you run from a home, a family, and a debt unpaid.

Yet you still flee, the thin spiny branches of the forest seeming like claws, and the strange flora and undergrowth rustles, cracks, and snaps as you bound past on all fours, their vibrant colours rushing past you as you run all the faster. Twilight and dusk barely show through the forest canopy, thinned by the sparseness of leaves in the season, and eventually the voices disappear into the distance

But when you close your eyes, you can still see the colour of sunset, and hear the strange melodies that live somewhere in unknown memories, and find that you cannot bring yourself to stop.

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(AND WE'RE DONE)

Thanks fellas for joining me for Weird Lizard Thing Quest, ep 4 to ALTQ and oneshot-ish flashback thingy!

ALTQ will return for a half-episode the day after tomorrow, so 44 or so hours from now. That's almost certain, so I won't do my normal 12-hours-before announcement unless someone cuts the internet cable again.

Thanks everyone!

>>44139823
Oh boy, this was treat. And for once, I managed to make it to the thread. Just got to say, I'm enjoying what i'm reading.

Oh and previous eps and this one can be found here: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?tags=Awesome%20Lizard%20Thing%20Quest

You can follow me at @boxofmithril for announcements when this thing goes live.

This episode was also a big experiement, so I'd love any feedback/critique or anything that can help me improve.

It's only 1pm for me so I'll probably be here to respond as well.

>>44139860
Haha, welcome, and hope you enjoyed your trip with Mithril Railways.

>>44139910
I liked it. I was a bit lost during it but at the same time so was our lizard friend so it worked in favor here. I like that quite well.

>>44140249
>>44139910
I do not know what the fuck just happened, and that deeply scares me. Its not even that he didn't make it clear, he did, I just... what the fuck, somehow the fae did this! Thats the only sane explanation I have, it was the fae, somehow!

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>>44141661
>>44140249