Alexander Khri'pher (4) "Trent, remove your paw emidiatly," Alexander warned the stubborn wolf. "I don't want to hurt you but I will if I have to." Not to Alexander's surprise, Trent didn't relaese his wrist. "Oh, come off it you stubborn jackass!" Trent yelled, finally loosing his cool. "You wouldn't hurt me or any other of your friends and fammily." Alexander snapped his head around, staring at Trent with his demonic red eyes. "You fail to remember that I took another to oath for my father! I was to erase all tiyes to everything, to make sure that I succeded in killing the fucker that took my father away from me! That means that I have no friends or familly!" Without further ado, Alexander grabbed Trent's arm and twisted it, forcing Trent to let go of his wrist. He then spun the wolf around, pulling his arm up and behind his back, eliciting a rather loud yelp. Alexander put his other arm across the back of Trent's shoulders and slammed him muzzle first into the post the his hoarse was tied to. He then let go of Trent, allowing him to fall to the ground. "Trent, I told you, that damned childish pact is not going to keep me from what I promised my father." Trent tried to object as he laid on his back in the dirt, blood dripping from his nose, but Alexander knew exactly what he was going to say as he had said it many times before. "I don't give a rat's ass if you think I was seeing things when I saw my father's ghost. It's your problem if you don't believe me. You can take my word as a knight that I didn't want to hurt you, but I warned several times to leave me to my bussiness. Farewell, Trent." Alexander deftly swung himself up on his hoarse and didn't eaven think as he left Trent lying in the dirt behind him. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Spirit of vengeance; that's what Alexander was known as for the longest of times. Bards from all over spread the tails from village to village of a Bengal Tiger with firey red eyes that were said to be a gift to him from the devil, hell bent on the destruction of a one Veren Duthjack and every fur that was on his pay role. Weather it be in the past or present that they served him, they were sure to die. His sword, named Soulroth, was just as famous as he was. It was said that the sword was indestructable, and more deadly then a thousand angry dragons when weilded by the legendary Alexander Khri'pher; the Spirit of Vengance. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Almost five months after his departure from his home, Alexander Khri'pher, now known from coast to coast as the Spirit of Vengence, was coming closer and closer to acheiving his life goal. That goal was to avenge the untimely death of his father by making every fur who ever did or still served under Veren Duthjack pay with their own lives. You see, when Alexander was only 16, Duthjack had come to his village searching for young warriors and everything of any vallue that he could find. As you could have expected, the Draconis Village didn'y give this up without a fight, and battle was enevatable. In that battle, General Dolmen Khri'pher whom was the beloved father of Alexander, found Duthjack and fought valiantly. But to everyones dismay, he was killed. Duthjack disavouled him on his very own sword, the sword that Alexander now uses to exact revenge on Duthjack. There has only been one story on all the bards tounges for some time now. That story goes bye the name of Alexander Khri'pher: The Spirit of Vengence. A great Bengal Tiger hell bent on the destruction of Veren Duthjack and his forces. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Alexader finished tying his hoarse up to the post and walked towards the tavern's door. The streets of the town were almost deserted, except for the furs that didn't know about the Bengal tiger with demonic red eyes, dressed in street garb, silver gauntlet breclets on both arms, and the mighty Soultroth slung across his back. Alexander didn't really notice this as he was quite used to the reaction, all he noticed was that he needed to get out of the rain. He padded into the tavern and the room came to a stand still, everybody trying there best not to look at him but not having much luck. Everybodies eyes followed him as he walked up to the bar and ordered a pint of the finest ale they had. The small fox behind the bar was shaking so bad in fear of Alexander that he could barely poor the drink. As he handed Alexander the ale, his paw shaking so much that he almost spilt the drink, he avoided making eye contact, mostly because one very brave bard decided to change the story to make himself look better then all others. He had verntured as far as to say that if one looked into his blood red eyes for more then a second, you see the way that you were to dye, and it almost always turned out that you dye by Alexander's sword. Alexander took the drink before the fox could spill it and handed him a gold coin, probably worth enough to buy the tavern three times over. The bar tender tried to tell him this but found himself short of words from fear and shock of holding something so small that was worth so very much. Alexander smiled and simply said, "Don't bother even trying to make change for that, just start a tab. I'll be here long enough to use it all up." He didn't even wait for an answer, he just took his ale, pulled a small book out of his chest pocket and headed for the huge chair near the fire in th far corner of the tavern. He took one look around the tavern before taking a seet. The room was rather large, but that was to be expected as it was also a three story inn. There was a flight of stepps on the right side of the bar that lead to the two floors of rooms. There were several brick pillars periodically placed throughout the room to encrease the structual support for the entire building. Besides the large chair and fire in one corner, the rest of the room was filled with round tables, probably big enough to seat four furs at each one. Pleased with his observations, Alexander unstrapped the sword from behind his back, leaned it against the padded chair, and sat down, and began to read. He would periodically take a sip of his ale, which had more taste then he had expected from a small town tavern. After getting a few pages into his book he noticed a sweet smell on the air. Taking an experimintall sniff just to be sure he slowley reached down and clutched a dagger at his side, trying to make the most suttle of movements. Still looking at his book, he said, "The next time you try to sneak up and kill a knight, use an encantation to mask your scent." With the answer to this came a huge surprise to Alexander. "But I wasn't trying to sneak up on you good sir," a sweat and sultry, almost angelic voice said fom behind him. "I was only coming over to see why all the other people here were afraind of you." The owner of the voice walked into view, standing just in front of the fire, giving her a beuatiful siloet. She was a goergeuos Arctic Fox, tall and slinder, and to Alexander's surprise, she was wearing an outfit that was impossible to hide any kind of weapon under. At the first sight of her, especially the slit up the side of her dress that exposed her long legs, Alexander's head began to spin. He was almost getting dizy before he finally came back to his senses. "I'm sure you've heard the stories...miss?" he said, in a very chivalris voice, trying to keep his eyes locked on hers instead of looking down south at her exsposed stomach. Her white fur seemed to glow with radiant beauty even though the light from the few lamps in the tavern was horrible. Finally breaking the urge to stare at her, Alexander looked back down at his book, releasing the clutch on the dagger at his side. "Miss. Lutra," The vixen answered quickly. "And yes, I have heard the stories about the Spirit of Vengance, which by seeing your eyes, eye can see that atleast one of the stories was incorect, I havn't seen the way I dye yet. Your eyes are quite beautiful actually." "So, if you allready knew who I was," Alexander started, taking a second to grab a short sip of his drink. "Then why did you come over here, take the chance of getting killed by bothering me, and on top of it all, dress like that in a place like this?" There was a short moment of silence before Lutra's wonderfull smile faded. "Actually, I was wondering if you could help me with a little... problem I'm having with somebody. I'll pay you if you wish." "I'm sorry to disapoint you ma'am," Alexander said quickly, still engrosed in his book. "But I don't kill people for money." "But you don't understand, these three guys that work for Veren Duthjack are following me..." She kept on talking, not even taking the time to catch her breath as she pleaded with Alexander but she neadn't say anything more the what she did in the first sentence. "Whoah, whaoh, whaoh, slow down there." Alexander said shortly, snapping his book shut and standing up. "Did you just say Duthjack?" he asked, just to make sure that he wasn't hearing things. Lutra nodded once and pointed at a table in the obosite corner. As expected, there were two furs, a bear and a wolf sitting at the table and a mustang leaning against the nearby pillar. All three of them were in black armor, marked several times with red "X"'s. Alexander reqognized the insignia all to well. It was that of Veren Duthjack, he just didn't understand how he could have missed them when he walked into the tavern. Without another word Alexander strapped his sword back on, this time at his side instead of behind his back, and walked over to the table were his life long enemies were. Though he was teaming with rage, the only thing that showed it was his eyes that had already turned a deeper red then usual. Very calmly he stepped right up to the table and said, "Gentlemen, I do belive you know who I am and you also know what I want, so why don't we make this easy and go out side, shall we?" The only thing that came from the knights at first was a burst of hostaricall laughter. When they finally started to calm down the wolf smirked up at Alexander and answered. "I don't think so, Mr. Spririt of Vengance," he said sarcastically, still chuckling a little bit. "You may have killed some of our comrades, but I don't think you can take on three of us at the same time." With out further pushing, Alexander reached for his sword, and one swift motion he drew it, continueing the stroke by hitting a pillar. Now, most would think that the brick pillar would have stopped the blow, but instead, it shattered into thousands of peices under the shear force of Alexander's attack. Still moving in one motion, he reached forward and flipped the knight's table, sending their drinks and belongings everywere. As he did this, the Knights finally had time to draw their swords and stand up. They were pretty surprised at Alexander's reaction, but they were now ready for anything, or atleast they thought they were. "Fine then," Alexander snapped shortly, his anger now taking over. "If you don't want to take it outside, I'll just kill you here." Without hesitation Alexander lunged for the Wolf whom was standing in the middle of the other two. Before the wolf had the time to react Alexander turned his sword around backwards and hit the wolf in the face, knocking him out cold on the first blow. Now Alexander was standing in between the other two knights. The hoarse stabbed his sword at Alexander but the tiger was quicker. Alexander sided stepped out of the way, grabbed the hoarse's wrists and guided the sword directly between the Brown Bear's shoulder gaurd and his chest plate. Alexander, still holding both of the Mustang's wrists in one paw, placed the tip of his sword at the Hoarse's throat and drove it straight foward, hilting the sword in the equines throaght. The hoarse dropped to his knees, gaspind for air thoagh he could find none. After about a minute he finally died and Alexander pulled his bloody sword out of the now lifeless body. It had ended as soon as it had begun. As the wolf at his feet began to stir Alexander pulled a rag out of his back pocket and wiped of his blade, after which he then sheethed his sword and picked the grogy Wolf up by the throaght. This sobered the wolf up rather quickly and he was now strugling for air. His tail was tucked tightly between his legs as he was dragged, coughing and sputter, across the tavern and out the door into the rain. With a flick of Alexander's wrist, the wolf found himself flying about twenty feet before hitting the muddy ground with a small splash. Alexander walked up to him and bent down, grabbing the front of his armor and pulling him so close that their muzzles were almost touching. "Give this to Veren Duthjack and tell him that Alexander Khri'pher has come back to make good on his chalenge," he said, pure rage filling his already deep voice. He then stuffed the bloody rag into into the front of the wolf's armor, stood up just slightly and brought his now empty fist straight down to the side of the knights face. The wolf fell back to the ground with a very loud yelp, but needed no more incentive. He hobbled to his feet and ran down the muddy road, clutching his snout in both paws as he did so. Alexander walked back into the bar and over to his corner. He didn't even notice that everybody was watching him in amazement and fear after his little show. Before he sat back down he picked up his drink and took a deep swig. As he sat it back down on the little side table he could feel himself getting dizzy. The room began to spin slightly and he grabbed the side of the chair to keep him from falling. Lutra, who was still in a bit of amazement but didn't seem to be scared of him at all, put his arm over her shoulder and her arm around his waist to hold him up. "Alexander, are you okay?" she asked worriedly. As the room began to stabalize he looked down at Lutra, noticing the worry in her eyes even though she barely knew him. Still staring into her beautiful blue eyes he answered her in a whisper. "Yeah, I just don't know what brought that on. It's not from exhaustion, that little escapade was barely a workout." "Come on, let's get you to a bed so you get some rest," Lutra suggested, leading him towards the stairs. "What the hell did this to me?" Alexander thought to himself, still not knowing why he was so grogy. "I didn't do nearly enough to exhaust me like this." With some difaculty they finally got up the stairs and into one of the many rooms. Grogy or not, Alexander still noticed that the room was absolutely huge. On the far side of the room was a gigantic bed with white silk sheets and a large window right above it. Next to the bed was a wardrobe connected to a desk that had a beautiful mirror wrapped in the intracate wood work. on the left of the room was a door that Alexander thought must lead to the bathroom. Lutra lead the still grogy Alexander over to the bed and helped him lye down, pulling a silk cover over him. Alexander could feel a cold sweat running down his face but he was already feeling better now that he had layed down. He looked up at Lutra to thank her but when their eyes met, something felt diferent. It felt as if they had known eachother for an eternity, even as if he was in love with her, though he had purposley kept away from falling in love as to keep it easier to do what he needed to do. The look in her eyes seemed so careing, yet they had only met just ten minutes ago. Lutra sat on the edge of the bed and leaned over so he could see her without straining his neck. She put one soft paw on his chest and began figeting with the buttons on his shirt, slowly oulling them apart one by one. When Alexander's shirt was half open she ran her fingers through his fur, rufling it and then smoothing it out again. "You know, that was a wonderfull thing you did for me?" Alexander looked into her eyes and found he coud stay there for ever, but nevertheless, his bad-ass atitude took over again. "I'm sorry to burst your buble Miss. Lutra, but I didn't do that for you. You know the stories about me, about how I'll kill anyone who serves under Duthjack," he said shortly, though his voice was in a soft, almost ramantic whisper. Lutra chuckled a little and shook her head, her paw still roaming over his chest. When she was eventually finished gigling she replied with, "I don't care who you did it for, it still made you my knight in shining armor." She leaned down slow, bringing herself to were her lips were just touching Alexander's. "And that can get you alot around here," she said before leaning the rest of the way and kissing him softly. The kiss lasted only a short moment before their lips finally parted. The two just sat there staring into eachother's eyes before Alexander reached up, wrapped his arms around Lutra and pulled her down into a much more deep, passionate kiss. Alexander expected Lutra to fight back against such a hard kiss but she only kissed him back just as deeply. When the kiss ended, (only because they both had to catch their breath), Lutra laughed a little and said, "Well, well, it looks like somebody is feeling better then before." "And I have you to thank for that." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Alexander woke up to the morning sun light shining in through the window above the bed. A small blue bird was perched on the window, singing happily at the start of a new day. Alexander tried to stretch and sit up but felt an odd weight on his chest. He looked down and lifted the heavy down blanket off his chest and finally remembered what had conspired the night before. Lutra was lyeing on his chest, her arms tightly hugging around Alexander's body. Her beautifull bushy tail was curled up beside her, entangled with his own, thiner tail. He couldn't help but chuckle at the site of her in nothing but her shining white fur. Lutra shivered a little bit so Alexander placed the blanket back over the both of them, leaving everything covered but her head, which had a very content smile on it. As Alexander continued to watch her sleep he noticed a feeling he hadn't felt for so many years. He felt love for the fox cudled up on his chest, love for the fox that had shared her bed with him, love for the fox that seemed to ador him even with knowing who he was and what he did to so many other furs. After not feeling like this towards anyone for so many years it seemed to be almost overpowering now, though not in a bad way. As he thought about Lutra it came to mind about how long he felt anykind of love at all, wheather it be romantic or love for his familly. It had been so long since he had even had a decent conversation with is best friend, or at least his former best friend. After what Alexander did to Trent Khan'tresh when he left home the wolf probably wouldn't even want to see his face again. Alexander carefully moved Lutra off his chest and covered her back up. He slowly stood, moving very carefully as to not wake up lutra. It took awhile but he was finally able to pad his way over to the wardrobe and grab a long robe. He slipped the robe on and headed downstairs to the bar. The only person downstairs was the fox that was behind the bar the night before and somebody in the chair next to the fire, (though alexander could only see his ears). As Alexander sat down on one of the stools the fox came up to him and asked, "Is there anything I can get you Sir?"
Copyright © 2004 Draco Streaver |