Creative Corner

This has been up for many months now, with only a handful of comments. It feels like I`ve been giving a speech to an empty room, and its getting very frustrating. So please, if you take a look at this, let me know that you exist and leave a comment(even just to say you read this)?
Greetings!

Tearings, as I`m currently calling it, is a sort of prequel story in a world I`ve been working on on and off for a few years. By no means is this finished, more of a really rough draft, but this is what I`ve officially done thus far.
The world itself is pretty large, and also not so much complete as a bunch of ideas thrown together. Still, I decided I might as well show what has been written and see what people think of it! Hopefully I will be updating the story fairly often, but I can make no guarantees yet.

As a warning: The current main character, Yight, is by no means going to grow up the be a protagonist. His story is not a happy one, and I anticipate some blood/gore and mild horror coming up from time to time. The story won`t always be bloody, but whenever Yight is the one telling it, his character makes it somewhat inevitable.

I am completely open to comments/critique/questions about what I`ve written or on the world itself, so please feel free to ask!



Contents:

• Intro(here)
• Tearings, as I have so far written
• Artwork relating to Tearings
• Lore (has anar lore and a quick character guide)

Latest News

• As stated, Tearings has been an on and off project for me. I am not currently wriying anything, but don`t think that this is forgotten! Even in off phases I doodle the characters and write bits and pieces if random stuff, just nothing cohesive yet-
• I have more pencil sketchesto put up, just need to remember how to scan them ;)

Without further ado: Tearings!

Emporr`s wings made vast, powerful sheets of silver around him, but could do little to stop his fall now that they were torn and were dotted with arrows. The tiny hatchling watched in horror as his father`s talon`s lost hold of the precipice in front of him. Beside him Gemethston howled in response to her mate`s defiant roar, and she pulled her son closer to her in desperate hope to shield him from further projectiles. Emerald scales block his vision, and the hatchling squeals in protest. He wanted to see what was happening!
After a few moments Gemethston seems to decide that no more arrows were coming, and turns to look her son in the eyes.
“Stay here,” she tells him hurriedly, words that were lost on his limited vocabulary. Then she lunges after her mate, leaping nimbly down indents in the cliff-side to compensate for her lack of wings.
Left there with both his parents fading from sight, the small hatchling soon began to cry out. His voice came out as feeble squawks, far from the roars that had resonated from his parents. He had never been so alone in his short life, and didn`t like the cold feeling that had started creeping inside him. With a whine he backs farther away from the edge. Something about this place bothered him, his instincts telling him he shouldn`t be here, and certainly not alone.
The cold feeling centers itself icily around the base of his spine. He stops moving, frightened by this new sensation. Suddenly a freezing tremor engulfs every morsel of his body, and the tiny anar yelps in surprise and pain. It floods his senses until the blood roared in his ears and his vision blurred. The hatchling feels as though something else was now on the cliff with him, billowing its frigid breath through his veins and wrenching through his body. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. The moments were starting to feel like eternities.
At one point through the emptiness and chilling pain he hears a long, low note echo at the edge of his hearing. Instincts tell him this is important, but it feels distant, as though coming from another world. He feels powerless to respond.
The frozen feeling assaults him with one last lance that cut through his spine and rattled in his skull; sending his vision to a thin blur and making his knees buckle underneath him. Slowly the pain starts to recede, leaving him feeling numb, drained, and heavily disoriented.
Flashes of green enter the hatchling`s vision, followed by a more familiar presence beside him.
“Oh, little one,” says a gentle voice, cutting through the blurs that were supposed to be his senses and echoing through his skull. “We never should have come here. Come, it is not safe to stay any longer.”
Gemethston picks him up like he was a kitten and padded hurriedly along the unforgiving mountainside. But where is Emporr? The hatchling thinks, or comes as close to the thought as he could without a firm grasp on words. Because try as he may in his dazed state, he couldn`t detect any sign of his father traveling with them.
***

Tearings has been updated today, 9/5/14! This second scene is a bit longer than the first, takes place the some time after the first (maybe a few hours?), and haS a setting that I hopefully explained a little better than the first. Enjoy!

The tiny anar blinks open his eyes, waiting for the world to come into focus. He was lying on his side in the center of a dimly lit cavern, with his black forepaws stretched out in front of him. Along the wall before him rose openings in the rock, from the floor up to a domed ceiling. At the edge of one of these sat Gemethston, a silent sentinel watching the sun set. Her emerald scales glittered in the softly orange light. As the hatchling watches her he notices a stone-like orb nestled at her side. He had seen this object many times before, and knew it was precious to his parents. What had they been calling it? Eg? Bruthr?
Suddenly Gemethston swivels her neck to face him. Something was oddly different about her; her posture seemed to droop more than usual, and her eyes looked hollow and peculiarly shiny. Traces of red mar her beautiful scales, though he has no idea why.
“My dear Yight,” she murmurs. Her voice was warm as ever, but tense as though about to break. The hatchling erects his ears at the new, harsh sound. He rolls it around in his head, what was yight?
Gemethston lowers her head and a low note vibrates deep in her chest, a sound he had never heard her make before. Then she stands up, delicately curling her tail around the orb to pick it up, and steps toward him. Her head swings down to him until her nose brushes his chest where his heart would be. The hatchling purrs in response to his mother`s touch. He reaches for her muzzle with his forelegs, tiny talons clinging to emerald scales. Gemethston`s lips curl up into a small smile, though not even that looks the same as it used to.
“I never though this day could really come… I know you are far too young to understand, but try to pay attention, little one.” The hatchling presses his ears to the back of his head, recognizing the seriousness of her tone, if nothing else. A trickle of liquid slips down his mother`s face, gleaming orange in the fading light. “Your father is gone now. I`m on my own now, and when you grow up you`ll have to rule all too soon. He`s never coming back to us.” Gemethston seems to choke for a moment; then continues, “But he left us with one last wish, which I am obliged to follow. He gave me your name.”
Gemethston gently shakes her son off so she could rise back to her full height, and his eyes widen. Even in his youth he recognizes this as important. His mother looks stiff and tense to him, like she`d give anything not to be doing this.
“My firstborn son, I proclaim to you that your time has come to bear a name of your own. You are indeed young for it yet, at less than one season old, but it has come to you still. A name is a powerful thing and a staggering responsibility, and as our ancestors` wisdom tells us we must take what time we need to get it right. Auorigh weaves its own way into the destinies of all anars, for we are a race born of magic. Young one, your sire was Emporr, the woven crown and twilight of the mountainside. Your ma is Gemethston, grace born of gleaming stones. Child of regal blood and deepest night… I pronounce you Yight; you are reaper and the avenger, he who will rule like tides of fire. So Emporr ordains.”
The hatching continues to stare at his mother even after her voice fades. Behind her the fading sun is finally leaves the world in darkness. The names Gemethston and Emporr were familiar to him, but yight remained a new and fierce sound. Was that what he was now? Yight? He snaps his jaws, wondering how to replicate the sound his mother had pronounced.
Without warning the cavern changes from dark to bright, filling with bursts of color. Newly named Yight yelps in response, folding one wing over his face like a shield. He feels one of Gemethston`s paws gently slide underneath him.
“No need to hide, little one, it’s an aurora. Come see it.” She lifts her paw encouragingly, and Yight stumbles to his feet with his wings raised high, as he would while facing an enemy. At his mother`s insistence he follows her uneasily to the edge of the cavern, where the windows in the rock had been carved out. When he sees the sky he cowers in fright. It looked like it was on fire, blazing with a myriad of bright colors. The light formed enormous stripes and loops across the sky, towering above them.
“No, little one,” says Gemethston as she lowers her head to him. “The auroras are nothing to be afraid of. They are of great beauty. Some believe the lights come from Auorigh itself, a reminder to us that even in the deepest dark hope is not abandoned.”

***
Update Sept. 18! I`m not sure if this will be the whole scene yet, but I`m not yet entirely sure where to go here, aside from trying to add a dream sequence, so for now this will have to be good enough a stopping point. Enjoy?
This scene also adds a new character! (one I hope to add to my sig. when I have time)

Yight had watched the moons wax and wane several times since his father had left him; and the coldness had returned to him at least as many times. And even when the pain finally faded the dreams did not. Every night they haunted him, torrents of bloodlust and loss.
Now Yight was staring out at the night sky from the same cavern his name had been given to him in, as he had for many days now. His vocabulary had improved in those months, so now he knew the tiny lights to be stars, the large ones to be moons, and the huge ones to be auroras. He wondered tonight, as he long had, if the stars were hot like the sun and if the moons burned like fire. And the blackness streaking between the stars, would it be biting cold, or a different kind of empty? Was it like scars across the sky, or were the stars the open wounds? If he were to fly up there, would he feel the heat? Would it be hot enough to chase the coldness away?
He could not yet find out, however, for his wings were still too small and frail to carry him. Slowly Yight lowered his gaze, staring out at the untamed forests and ravines that flowed outward from the mountain, and the peaks of more mountains illuminated in the distance. Gemethston had kept him cooped up in the mountain that served as the anars palace ever since that fateful day. It wasn`t exactly a tight space, for the passages carved throughout the mountain seemed endless to him, but still he wondered what it would be like to tread on something other than stone.
The scrape of talons on solid rock catches his attention. No matter how far he explored, his ma always found him. Yight twists his neck to look at her, and immediately something seems to be off. Gemethston always had that orb with her, but now her serpentine tail wrapped meticulously around it, clutched close to her belly. And her eyes had a gleam to them, something he hadn`t seen in so long he had forgotten they could do that. She carefully laid the orb on the floor and settled around it, bringing something else to Yight`s attention: It had a crack in it. After all this time, had she broken it?
Curious, he leaps from his perch, padding up to the object. He steps over her tail to touch his muzzle to it, only to get bonked in the nose. Yight recoils with a huff. The orb was moving on its own, and rocking madly.
“Watch and remember well, little one,” While Gemethston made it clear his name was Yight, she hardly ever used it. “The life span of an anar is long, and true love ever rarer to find. I doubt you will have many chances to witness the miracle of birth.”
The orb`s rocking slowed to sudden jerks, as though straining for something. Yight watched in bewilderment as another crack broke along the surface, and then another and another. One incision split open wider with a flash a blue, and suddenly the whole thing fell apart. Yight starts backward, and Gemethston bends forward to push apart the fragments and lick what had plopped out. As he peers forward a more familiar shape comes into focus, with a head and neck and sweeping tail. It was coated in angular scales like gleaming shell of armor. Yight`s eyes widened.
“Welcome to the world,” Gemethston murmured, then glanced at Yight beckoningly. “Meet your brother, little one.” Leathery eyelids blink open below them, revealing glittering eyes the color of emeralds. Perhaps this should have been an awed, joyous moment for him, but for some reason a different emotion broiled in Yight`s chest. He had been Gemethston`s everything, and something burned in him to see her look at someone else that way. The whole situation made no sense to him, and he subconsciously felt his back arching.
10/31/14 And here`s the rest of the scene! I wrote this listening to a score called Suburban Legend by Two Steps from Hell, and I would suggest giving it a listen if you want to add to the mood!
“Little one” came his ma`s voice, gentle but persistent.
She dips her gleaming head underneath him, picking Yight up. Then she twists her neck back around and lowers her eldest son onto her back right behind her mane. Yight feels the rasp of her tongue on his own forehead.
“Never think you`re forgotten, little one. This has been such a long day; you must be tired….” Her words drifted away from him as Yight`s eyelid`s suddenly start to feel heavy. He pushes his face into her soft mane, giving into the sudden urge to sleep.
Dark, twisted shapes writhe before his eyes, as though the shadows had come to horrifying life. Such haunting displays were growing familiar to Yight, the blurry image becomingly clearer every night. One of these figures grows larger than the rest, lunging forward. The impression of an enormous set of jaws with long, razor-sharp teeth embeds itself in his mind moments before the image dissolves, revealing a sunlit forest. The ruddy colored leaves and trickling creek are beautiful, and yet the sense of cold dread lingers, eating away at the edges. An anar that couldn`t have been many seasons older than Yight saunters into view, with soft blue scales and an almost aquatic look to it. The youngling moves without a care in the world, gracefully leaping over the creek before eyeing it curiously and diving right in with a noisy fit of splashing. Somewhere nearby a twig or two is snapped, followed by the sharp scrape of metal that Yight would recognize anywhere. But the youngling either doesn`t notice or doesn`t care, playing with the water and blowing glittering bubbles out of seemingly nowhere. A word unintelligible to Yight is shouted, and suddenly his vision is washed over in bloody red. The cold sheen of metal, and such a shriek…
Images begin clashing into one another, as though racing to reach him. Mangled shapes and searing flames; foreboding mountains stretching from the earth like teeth; teeming forests torn to cinders; stone and metal carved to merciless points, and talons of equal ferocity; and most prominent of all: an adult anar rearing over a blood-soaked shape, roaring at the sky… Such were the consequences of hatred and pride… Such would always be-……!!!
Yight`s eyes snap open, his heart pounding with adrenaline. His mother was asleep beneath him, still curled around her newborn son. The dream was over, so how come he was still seeing red? He leaps off Gemethston and darts aimlessly forward; icy tendrils digging at his skull. The eerie light reflects off the polished stone wall beside him, and Yight recoils in mindless horror the moment he turns enough to see his reflection. His eyes… they were glowing. The hatchling sits frozen in blood colored light. What was happening to him?

Tearings Art Gallery
I don`t know how to resize them, so for now I`ll have to leave them as links.



For anyone interested in seeing a larger size of the Yight portion of the image in my signature, click here
And the other portion (his new brother), here

Here is a piece I spent most of October playing with. It represents a scene far into Yight`s future, and I`m rather pleased by how it came out!

Here is a rough sketch of Yight`s brother, sorry for blurriness, and the premature reveal of his name. This is his most modern design, and I use this for scale reference when drawing him.

Here is my first ever attempt at drawing Emporr! This is undoubtedly going to go through serious revision, but not bad for a first try. His crown of horns didn`t come out as regal as it should look, something I`ll need to work on.

And who else has ever wondered what Gemethston looks like? Like Emporr, this is my first attempt with her. I gave her more traits of mammals and eastern dragons then any of my other anar designs, traits that don`t seem to show up much in her children. Gemi (nickname I use for her) looks awfully intimidating in this portrait, though I intended for her just to look soulful/depressed.

Lore

There is a flow of magic in this world, one that flows through everyone and everything. It is a little like another plane of existence, or perhaps another force alongside things like light and gravity. Different cultures across the world have different ways of looking at this force, and in several there are rumors of particularly strong memories or souls being able to be stored within it, or even of the possible existence of spirits. None of these can be confirmed, however, and it is generally accepted that the force itself is not sentient. Though no doubt there are theories out there with a grain of truth, most cultures don`t know much for certain of it. After all, how does one study the enigmatic force that is magic?
It cannot be directly controlled, but races that live in areas of high concentrations of it start to gain a sensitivity to it. This sensitivity gives them supernatural abilities, sometimes even altering their genes or appearance, for the better or worse.
By far, the race that has gained the strongest sensitivity is the anars. They are a dragon-like race that evolved almost entirely in Aurora Range, a place with an exceptionally strong connection with Auorigh, their word for magic. Every anar is born with their own unique sensitivity to Auorigh, and their own abilities in it. Their appearance can change quite drastically from one another, even within the same bloodline. Sizes vary, but usually fall between the size of a horse to a couple times that.
Anars have longer live spans than nearly every other sentient race, and often see themselves as above other races, if only because of their closeness to the ethereal plane. This “arrogance” has raised a lot of trouble for them in the past, including a bloody war against the human races (yes, races plural,) that nearly turned into a world war and mass extinction before it was stopped. The war can`t be entirely blamed on the anars, but regardless they are now the only sentient race living in their borders, and it isn`t entirely safe for anyone to enter them, nor for anars to leave. I can provide more information on The Ancient War if people show interest, but for now that`s enough of the distant past.
The present culture of anars is a work in progress, but often gets complex and sometimes over-complicated. They have some sort of monarchy or royal family established, though how much power they actually have is debatable. They speak the common tongue that humans use, but with added words based on the system of writing they used long before language. These words, such as Auorigh and fairnrn, are exceedingly difficult to pronounce if you`re not an anar. The naming ceremony Gemethston uses is a small piece of their culture and use of these words. The heirs in the anoran royal lineage receive names that have never been used before, and will never be used again. Essentially this means the parents get to make them up, but usually this is considered something of great weight, so there has yet to be a leader whose name sounds like complete nonsense. Emporr and Yight are the only royal names so far featured in Tearings, and I think is awfully clear which English words I played with to make them.


Brief Character Guide: quick reference of information for characters that have been introduced, their status reflecting the most recent update and will be changed as they age/more is revealed. Probably not very important when I`m currently using so small a cast, but here nevertheless.
Unknown= not known to characters or reader at the moment,
Unrevealed= at least one of the characters knows, but not shown to reader yet

Name: Yight Meaning: “Reaper, Avenger, Ruler in tides of fire”
Kin: firstborn son of Emporr and Gemi, brother of ******
Age: Hatchling, few seasons
Brief Appearance: blood-red eyes; single horn atop head; fine charcoal scales that enlargen on neck/tail; lighter gray wings
Sensitivity: unknown beyond terrifying dreams and a vicious coldness
Temperament: curious, but haunted and easily irritated

Name:****** Meaning:”******* ****”
Kin: son of Emporr and Gemi, younger brother to Yight
Age: hatchling, newborn
Brief Appearance:deep-sunken emerald eyes; four symmetrical horns; deep blue, armour-like scales; no wings
Sensitivity: unknown
Temperament: unknown

Name: Gemethston (“Gemi”) Meaning: “Grace born of Gleaming Stones”
Kin:parentage unrevealed, mate to Emporr, ma to Yight and ******
Age: Adult, likely anar equivalent of middle-aged
Brief Appearance: gentle orange eyes; antler-like pair of horns; silky mane; small emerald scales; no wings
Sensitivity: unrevealed, but very intuitive
Temperament: very gentle and motherly, wise, hard to anger

Name: Emporr Meaning: “Woven Crown and Twilight of the Mountainside”
Kin: parentage unrevealed, mate to Gemi, sire to Yight and ******
Age:deceased, was adult
Brief Appearance: vibrant blue eyes; elaborate rack of horns; scales swirling a range from black to pale silver; silvery wings
Sensitivity: unrevealed
Temperament: unrevealed

Bump?

BUMP?

BUMP??

BUMP???

BUMP???? for update

BUMP?????