The Last Stalker- The Tale of Owen's Revenge

[Tim a la Mod[e]]

This is my story. I shall post this one chapter at a time, when I get them done. You can find this in a more edited, complete, and organized form at:

fictionpress.com/~biblioholic

Please, don't hesitate to post a review.

Thank you for reading ;D

[Tim a la Mod[e]]

Prologue: The End of Peace, and the Beginning of Exile

The forest was quiet. Not one sound, for no squirrel, bird, wolf, or bug would have the stupidity to come out tonight. They all could feel it. The Stalkers were about.

The first thing you might see would be a glimpse of a dark, humanoid form, a rustle, just maybe a glimpse of an unusually brightly colored foot. This would be if you were both supremely observant and incredibly lucky.

They all came alone. No couples. It was just their way. They broke from their parties before they got to the forest and hurried on for themselves. This way, no questions. If you met with someone here it was unknown if you knew them out there. It was simply the way of the panther people.

Eventually they all ended up at the heart of the deep dark forest. By their simple, deadly, and secretive nature, it was brighter there, but not in a way to attract attention. The light simply would reach curious eyes from within and not without. They were invisible, and to people who could have passed through, it would have looked to be a knot of darkness.

When you finally penetrated their visual barriers, you would be amazed. The first impression of them would probably be the vast color ranges. That first glance would be confused with humanoid shapes that were, one and all, distorted with vibrant colors. New growth green, Brick red, deep mountain lake blue, and here and there the odd yellow. They were mostly natural colors, but there was also a couple of unnatural colors. There was one woman that stuck out that was a most beautiful mix of bright green, sky blue, and fire red.

The next impression would probably be embarrassment. All of the men and women, thickly furred, walked around in various states of bareness. Not a one had on any sort of foot coverings at all, though some had charcoal smeared on their feet so that they were less visible. Five or six were naked but for their silken and diversely colored fur, which was nevertheless not at all revealing but for shape, much like a diver's suit. Nine or ten somber ones who were hanging around the south edge of the clearing wore black leather from ankle to neck that almost completely covered their bodies. Those looked uncomfortable, but they showed not any sign of it. Some were in loincloths, some in tights. The majority wore dark colored and loose fitting shorts of various materials.

When you took a closer look, you would be put off of your thoughts of cute furry people. The way they move is usually what you first notice. They move incredibly gracefully, to the smallest child. As if they were one and all acrobats, moving with complete balance and perfect posture. The way that they moved faintly suggested to the mind of a predator's prowl. It gave the feeling that they could act with the terrible speed of a snake's strike, quicker than you could see, quicker than you could imagine.

Their forms were all on the shorter side, never going over five feet two inches at the maximum, and most of them were lean. Their eyes were those of the pinnacle of successful predators, slitted like a cat's and self-superior by the very shape of them. Their front teeth were all pointed, with only four molars in the back for chewing. They had no fingernails. Instead they had razor-like claws that popped out of their fingertips when they flexed, and retracted when they relaxed. Their feet, when you got a glance at the soles, were padded, much like an animal's paws might be. Claws also occasionally showed themselves from within their toes, peeking out with any tense movement.

All in all, they were humanoid, but not human.

They were the Stalkers, the immortal nocturnal race of panther folk that could and would hunt anything. They were the top of the food chain. Nothing could catch a fleeing Stalker if it did not want to be caught, save for another Stalker.

Nothing could stop them, not even old age, for they aged very slowly. Once they reach one hundred they stop completely at the peak of their health. One could usually estimate the age of the younger ones by multiplying their approximate age they appear to be by four. What looked to be a twenty year old man would most likely be a youthful eighty years old. They mostly act how they appear however, for they had the leisure to. If pressed, then any Stalker over age twenty could look after themselves with ease.

They were the top of the chain, there was no doubting that, not even now. But this crowd was uneasy all the same. They had overstepped their bounds, enraged the far too numerous humans with indifferent killings of innumerable kin. They had stopped their human killings, but it was too late. The elves had, for some reason, decided to rouse the humans and eliminate the Stalkers.

This was no casual meeting. This was a war gathering. A meeting to ensure the defense of the Stalker's holy land, the place at which the Stalkers had originated. The last remnants of the proud race had all gathered here. From the far corners of the world they had assembled. Their only common language was the ancient language of the Stalkers. The language called itself the Prien'thaoran. The Language of Stealth.

There was no sound but for the wind. Stalkers were quiet. Deathly quiet. From birth they trained to be silent in all things. For silence meant remaining unnoticed for those fading forms. Unnoticed meant surprise. Surprise was their ally. Silence was the key to keeping Surprise.

A smaller figure, what looked to be an eight year old child, came into sight, wandering through the crowd. Unlike those around him he was jet black. He had a small, pointed nose, slanted and slitted, green, catlike eyes. His name was Owen, and right now he had a confused and lost expression on his face. Owen brushed a low hanging branch away with a midnight black furred hand, looking odd with the absence of fingernails. Small glints of white showed at the end of each finger. Retracted claws. His teeth were sharp in his slightly open mouth.

Owen walked aimlessly among the shades of gray, blond, green, blue, and white. He was looking for the ones that were the same midnight color as he, the Black Furred Ones. He was looking for his mother.

The Night Stalkers he passed were of all professions. Farmer, blacksmith, poacher, tanner, and wildmen who lived off the land were all here. They usually took on the shades of the environment around the place they called home, so you could usually tell where they live. One that was a light gray, almost white, was most definitely from the north. The wheat colored one was either a farmer of wheat or a lion hunter of the plains. That dark green one must be a native to the dark towering monsoon soaked forests of the Orient and the lands surrounding. That one with gray shot with red… must have been a city dweller. Before all of this….

Owen saw a flash of darkness ahead and broke into an almost silent run. It was by far the loudest noise among them. People glared at him as he ran flying past making the windy swishy sound of grass shuffling sound to their ears sensitive enough to pick up on bat's conversation. He didn't care. He could now see that flash of dark in the crowd. Black.

The person he was running to turned and lit up. Her jet black face was soft and loving. Owen's mother.

"I felt fear for a minute there. But here you are," Owen whispered softly as a breeze. "Please don't make me go alone again."

A look of utter sadness crossed her face. What she would do next she would never forgive herself for. With a sigh of hate for herself, of sadness and suffering, his mother took Owen's head in her gentle midnight hands and looked into his face, tears in her eyes. "I must ask you to do much more than that." She breezed back. She paused, steeling herself. "We will stand and fight the Elves and their... pets. The humans. No more running. We will fight."

Owen though for a moment. He squared himself up and bravely, but still quietly, proclaimed "Then I will help."

She shook his head gently. "No…. You must go. You are the crown prince. If we fall, then you will be responsible for gathering the remains of the kingdom. No, you must flee so that should we fall, we will live on."

She sighed. "There is a mountain roughly north from here. There you will find a dragon. She is a friend of the tribe, and has been for a while. You will meet the other we shall send there. You must go. Stalker's must live after we die, or we will have died in vain. Now go! North! To join the other we sent! To join Riedre!"

And with that, she turned him west and shoved him hard to get him running. Even as he did this he noted the distant clanking and clicking of fully armored warriors approaching with all the weight of doom. Almost a roar of clanking and excited voices talking in foreign tongues. At that moment he knew that his family would die, that all of his people who had so courageously gathered from all corners of the world would perish in a sea of lusterless steel and pointed ears. He looked back and saw... horrors. He looked back no more, but he smelled smoke and blood scented winds, heard hard crackling of fire, clanking of weapon on armor, weapon on steel, weapon on flesh. He heard screams. Nightmare screams.

He began to run and, after a few minutes, blacked out.

When he came to he was alone. It was uneasily quiet. Too much so.

He ignored that for the moment. He knew what he had to do. He could never go away without knowing. He checked the sun. It was up and according to the it, it was mid-morning.

He ran, much more silently this time, the way he had came. What he saw on that bloody field that was no longer home was something that killed a large part of him. On the inside.

Owen couldn't believe that Riedre had escaped this, when his father lay there, the greatest warrior of the time, dead.

He wondered who was responsible for this. He had no idea. And he wouldn't be able to help if he knew anyway. He was useless. His only use was to survive so that Stalkers had some remote hope to live on.

He turned south and began a long journey, fading from all sight as he ran silently and undetectably forward, the shadows embracing him as a son, as an equal, as a lover, as a home.

[Tim a la Mod[e]]

Chapter 1: An End to Silence.

3000 years later

Owen stood outside a city. He had no idea what the people of the city called it, as he had not talked to any of them. Owen sighed.

After thousands of years alone, and after the memories of the latest depressing decades still strong in his mind, the countless rejections in those twenty or so years, he was not very hopeful. In fact, he had been delaying the inevitable for many days now. Yet it was better than the Silence.

He had hesitated at the edge of the trees, almost revealing himself over and over again before his hurt and rejected mind talked himself out of it. For weeks he had done this. Now, he got angry and impatient at himself. He was pacing angrily. Silently.

To himself, he thought I am sick and tired of being rejected. I will go up and demand to be let in right NOW!

In a very calculated gesture, using his anger before he could stop himself, he stormed out into the clearing and, slowing to a walk, strode up to the city guards.

*****

The guards were joking between themselves. "Why do they even bother to have us guard this gate?" One asked the other.

The second guard shrugged. "No idea. Nothing useful has come from this direction for at least a hundred years, since the fall of yonder empire." He pointed down the road.

And so they were looking down the road as a figure burst out of the forest not two hundred yards away. The second guard jumped a bit.

They exchanged a glance. The figure was covered fully with a cloak, dragging on the ground a little, hood drawn down so that the face was obscured by deep shadows, the sleeves meeting as if he was holding his hands together like some monk. Paired with the fact that he had seemed to appear from nothing from the direction of wilderness, a very suspicious person.

As the mysterious figure drew closer, they straightened and crossed their spears in front of the gate, barring the way.

*****

The guards had noticed Owen right away. Good. It would be for the best if they were very observant. As he drew nearer, they crossed their spears, creating a barrier that he could have gone through with barely a thought. He stopped in front of them anyway.

"State your business," one demanded.

His anger melted with this voice. Replacing it in a heartbeat was uncertainty and sadness for the rejection to come.

Owen suddenly felt tired. "Please, don't turn me away."He asked tiredly but clearly. "I only want to make an honest living for myself."

The guards exchanged another glance, this time one of confusion. The soft, almost a purr, of a voice was foreign to them. Certainly not human. "Why should we turn you away? Are you some kind of felon? Or a demon?"

Owen felt an adrenaline rush course through his veins. He prepared himself to run, but in a way that the guards would not realize. "No." He stated clearly. "I am no felon. Never have I committed any crime, not even trespass, with knowledge of the law in question. You might think of me as a demon but I am not that either." Owen hesitated. Then he sighed. With a toss of his head, he removed his hood, revealing a face that seemed to be the exact hue of the shadows that had been there a moment before.

The first guard jumped back, startled and scared of Owen's face. It seemed to him that he had seen this face before, in his nightmares. The second guard brought up his spear crosswise in a defensive position with the exact same thoughts.

Seeing the stream of agonizingly hurtful hate coming after this initial fear passed, Owen fell to his knees, adrenaline gone utterly, and put his hands together in a pitiful pleading gesture. His sleeves fell away from his hands, revealing his tar black hands, claws visible but not extended. "Please. I do not want to eat anyone, I do not want to hurt anyone. Please don't make me walk away. I will die if I must walk away from this place, being chased by hateful words."

By this, the guards were again calm. On the outside. They studied Owen's pleading, striking blue eyes, his midnight black hands, the claw tips just barely visible on each finger, the way the light played off of his fur, the small terror that his very shape gave them.

The first guard slowly turned his spear back towards Owen, suspicious. Seeing this, Owen thought that the guard meant to kill him. He collapsed on all fours, hope gone, will gone. "Do it." His voice was dead, for the hope was gone. "I have no place to go. I have no place I can live sane. The silence is no longer bearable, and death is preferable to insanity." Down on his hands and knees, head hanging, his chest hitched in a sob. For the very first time in his life, tears stained his cheeks. Voice cracked, he murmured "Do it."

The guard, balancing his feelings, was trapped in indecision, primal fear and waves of pity battling for his attention. Just as slowly as he had been turning his spear toward Owen, the guard reversed his spear's course. After a few minutes of looking down on this dark legend, this terror, this sad ancient thing, and seeing it cry, he turned towards his fellow guard. With a couple of looks, the kind of looks that only best friends from birth, twins, and people in love can make, the second guard turned and hurried into the gatehouse.

For five minutes Owen cried in frustration, sadness, and hate of himself.

Owen was dead to what was happening around him. The guard watched him warily and with much pity.

Then the second guard returned with the Master of the Guard, both of them somewhat out of breath. Seeing the furred creature right in the open, the Master of the Guard swore and beckoned for the two guards to take Owen into the guard house. "God knows what it could do out in the open like this." He stated gruffly. "Bring it in here so that we may have a private discussion." He went over to Owen and hesitantly touched his shoulder. "Whatever you be, you seem at least something close to human. Come on inside out of this chill, so that we may better acquaint ourselves

Owen, having lost all hope, looked up, and suddenly finding hope restored tenfold, a childish look of hope spread across his face. They were going to give him a chance to explain himself! He might be able to live in a city of people who talked and gossiped and lived together in harmony, all working and buying their food from money they got from working, making an everlasting cycle of harmony.

He was directed to a small room with two chairs in the middle of the room, separated by a sturdy wooden table. The room had no windows and only the one door that he came through. From a brief sideways glance, he found that the door in question was incredibly thick, a whopping solid foot in thickness. Made of oak by the smell. No way of a human getting out of that. He could, but he most definitely would not. He was politely directed towards one of the two chairs in the room, the hard uncomfortable one. He did not care though. He was being given a chance.

Sitting in the chair opposite to Owen, the Master of Guards held the silence. The two guards, new ones, moved in flanking positions behind Owen. He gave them a pair of glances quick enough to be undetected by them, and deemed them no threat. He turned and regarded the Master of Guards with a calm look.

After a few minutes of silence, his composure faded into uneasiness at the silence. His mind was going. His instincts were coming back. He struggled mentally, but more and more of him was being taken over, for he and his body both knew that if he stayed alert too long in the silence.... Physically he began to fidget and twitch. The three in the small room stared at him in an odd way.

Finally, in a desperate measure to stay in control, he burst out, deafening in the stillness that fled his powerful voice. "No more silence! Three thousand years of silence! No more!" All three of the humans jumped and held their ears at his clear language and voice that seemed to be louder than if it had been screamed through a magical speaking trumpet, a hundred times amplified.

After a minute or two of recovering from the surprise, as well as his temporary deafness from the too loud shout, the Master of the Guard gave a little chuckle. "My apologies. I was merely thinking of what to do with you."

Owen sighed. "Whatever you wish. Put me to work as a slave, interrogate me until death, I no longer care. Just... no more stillness."

The Master of the Guard's mind was as active as a beehive at this. "Well, that isn't our aims…." he mumbled. Then he snapped his fingers. "I know what would be a good place to start." He pressed. "Tell us how you got to be here."

Owen took a deep breath. "I was born to the royal family of my tribe. I was raised to be a king, the king of the stalkers. I was trained in the ways of Stalker politics, and trained in all weapons. Then the humans got scared of us, made a deal with some greedy elves who wanted our land for what it could grow, and they banded together and exterminated my race. I was sent away to wander forever to carry on the stalker legacy. To find a girl child that was supposed to be sent at the last moment possible, and restore the race. Three thousand years I searched, for her and others. Not one utterance directed at me in that entire time. No whiff of another stalker, even another male. I almost went mad. Indeed, there were years that I do not remember at all. Then I began trying to find a place to live, as the dwarves do. As the Elves do. As the halflings, gnomes, fairies, and scanth have in their time. Yet... your people are not very receptive. Thousands of times I was thrown away with barely a glance. Now I am here, in your clutches. This is my life story so far."

The guards and the Master of the Guards stared at him in amazement. A few moments passed. Then the Master of Guards extended his hand and murmured, "Well, I've heard three thousand years of history compressed into one breath. I've now heard it all. Except for your name. Mine's Jarsh. Jarsh Anderson, Master of Guards here in Vallensdale."

Owen eyed Jarsh's hand suspiciously, leaning back a bit. "Owen…." He faded off and thought hard for a second. With a shrug and downturned eyes, he murmured five words, five words that hurt to say. "I forget my last name." His ancestors might kill him for that. He wasn't sure he wouldn't welcome it.

Jarsh leaned forward and patted Owen's shoulder. Once. Then he found himself thrown back on the ground, wind knocked out of him, his throat hurting a bit and his gut feeling like it had been hit by a brick from three stories up. There would be a bad bruise there later, he caught himself thinking, a bit detatchedly. I should probably get that checked to see if anything was crushed.

Owen stood between the guards, backed against the wall, suspicion and paranoia in his eyes, his surviving instincts hard in control. Then he took a second and reined in his instinctual self and stayed perfectly still. Good thing too. The guards, recovering from their surprise, grabbed both of his arms, blissfully ignorant of the fact that Owen had just barely restrained from ripping their arms off. They began herding him out, but from the ground came a windless, wordless grunt.

From the ground, Jarsh groaned, "No. Didn't know… what to do… been in… exile… alone…." Jarsh slowly rolled up to his feet. Massaging his throat and chest at the same time, he croaked "Sit down, sit down, I'm fine, I'm fine. Misunderstanding is all. Some lack of manners are expected from a person who's only experience with people was them turning on him like rabid dogs."

Owen was mortified at himself. He couldn't have possibly pulled that punch to the diaphragm, but he had, by half an inch of willpower, stopped himself from crushing Jarsh's throat and killing him. It hadn't been conscious, it had been acting out of instinct. He opened his mouth to offer some kind of long and heartfelt apology, but the best he could say was a horse and sorrow laden "I'm sorry."

Jarsh waved his apology away. In a voice that was gradually rising to it's normal tone, he absently said, "Accepted, not as if you were at fault. Hell, if I had gone through with what you have, I myself would probably be completely insane, scaling the wall and going on a murdering spree or something similar."

Owen was puzzled. Humans were odd mannered. This one, who seemed like a good fellow, after being punched twice in an eighth of a second, was now somehow joking about killing innocents, as if it had a coralation. Owen made no more move to continue the conversation after this, only silently thinking.

Jarsh also sat in silent contemplation. He thought long and hard. After a while Owen begun to fidget and, rather loudly, hum a song he had heard a long while ago, in a place far from this place. It didn't seem to bother Jarsh, so he did not stop filling the stillness with hummed song. After seven or eight minutes, Jarsh snapped out of his gaze and regarded Owen with a solemn stare. Owen stopped humming. "I don't think I can figure out how to deal with you on such short notice." Jarsh said solemnly." Let me sleep on it." He frowned. "In the meantime, you are not decided to be a prisoner, but you cannot be allowed free with you lack of self control and etiquette. So you shall sleep in the lord's guest rooms in the top of this tower. I won't put the servants in danger to serve you, but other than that, it is as comfortable rooms as I can give you."

He addressed Owen's guards. "You two will take turns to watch his door. If he chooses to leave, well, escort him out of the city but do not let him wander about the place. And answer any questions he might have on the city and his rooms and such and such." He turned to Owen, an apologetic look on his face. "Its not as if I do not trust you… but, for truth, I have only known you for nigh twenty minutes now, and already I feel that you could kill us all with barely a thought and a twinge if you were but wanting to. As far as I see, you have a good heart. I say you should be able to settle down here as long as you stay in the tower for a few days and be tutored in basic social skills. As a start."

The Master of the Guard turned and headed out of the small, sturdy room. "Don't prove me wrong!" he called over his shoulder.

Watching him go, he thought. He was eventually brought out of his trance by a clearing of a throat and a couple soft clunks as one guard cleared his throat and the other rapped his spear on the ground impatiently. They were different than the ones he had first met, now that Owen looked. And now that he had looked, he looked again, thinking he had seen wrong. He had not. Mirror twins. The first, the one who had cleared his throat, beckoned to the door. "Your room…?" he hinted.

Owen thought, and then stated "Go then. I will follow."

A little put off by this oddness, the twins led. When they got to the door, they tuned a ninety degree left turn to a narrow staircase, one falling behind slightly so that Owen was surrounded going up that staircase. Then they began to climb. And climb. And climb.

[Tim a la Mod[e]]

Chapter 2: A Time for Training

They reached the point where the stairs ended in a sturdy door. The lead twin looked back at Owen and explained, "The door was meant to keep bad people out, not keep things in." Behind him, the other twin nodded in agreement and possibly attempted comfort. Owen neither wanted comforting nor cared about it at all. So he ignored it, pretended he hadn't seen it.

They opened the doors and Owen stared in curiosity. The door opened to a room that was rounded slightly outward as if it was built adjacent to the outside of the round tower wall.

The next room irritated Owen in it's extravagance. It was filled with chairs. Big squat chairs with some sort of pillow filler stuffed in the seat, in the back, in the arm rests! It was a waste when so many chairs were put in one place just so one person can have an excuse to keep people waiting.

The twins both beckoned him over to a door on the other side of the room impatiently.

With one glance he knew he was never going to be able to sleep in such a room. He noted that there was even more fluffiness inside than in this room of waiting. Too much for one person. There was a desk with a stack of fine paper and a jar of ink. Too much paper for one person. The entire room was too extravagant to even bear. He shook his head and told them heatedly, "I will stay in here. You can go ahead and keep your idiotic waste in that room. I will not hog all of that when I saw people living on the streets with not even so much as this!" He waved a cushion from the chair next to him for dramatic effect. He brushed some cushions from a hard wooden chair and sat down stubbornly.

Looking at one another in confusion, the twins shrugged simultaneously and sat near the door. By silent agreement, one immediately fell asleep and one sat watching.

It was quiet. The Silence began to descend upon him.

Owen panicked for a second. Then he had an idea of what to do to distract himself from the Silence. Then he reached into his deepest pocket on his calf. He pulled out a diamond the size of a fist. It was cut perfectly. When he held it up, the guard's face was visible through it clearly, if distorted. Owen ignored the sudden greedy look on the guard's face.

Admiring it for a second, he thew open the curtains and let in the light. Holding the diamond delicately in the sunlight, he began practicing.

He made a pulling motion with his hand. A silent whirlwind of light came to his hand and put itself into a ball. He shook his head and released it in a flash. He really needed to find out how to mask that. It would never work if he made a spectacle of himself from the beginning. He did it again, slower. It was the same.

He released again and thought, Why is it visible when I pull the light? What makes it so that I see the light? Should it not all come to me instead of some escaping to irritate my eyes?

He heard his fathers voice, distant as it echoed through time from memory. Soon, a long gone memory resurfaced, clear and bright.

Owen was in his father's study. It was a simple house, with a few papers and a very small ink jar on the table with many letters and maps showing the gathering humans. His father was both regal and tired. He was wearing his crown, looking all the role of king and father both.

"Heed this." The king said. "This business with the humans is going bad. I think, despite it being early, it will be wise to try and teach you the finer points of bending light.

His father cleared his throat. Owen sat quietly on a pillow on the floor, waiting like a good student.

"By now you know the basics. Yet it is best to keep everything in context. So I will summarize." Father nodded once, then made a small waving motion with his hand. A ball of light appeared over his hand. He made another motion and it very quickly reversed himself, fading from sight and then darkening further until it was a ball of utter darkness. Quietly, Father began speaking. "All Stalkers can bend light. It is a gift that we have praised and wondered at for eons. Yet it has been so since the dawn of our race. With this innate ability we can manipulate the very flow of light itself. We can darken, brighten, and illusion our way into invisibility. We have trained ourselves to be as silent as is physically possible, but that is only selective breeding and hard training." He began to pace, deep in thought, smiling a bit. "So far you have shown proficiency in the basics. You can move undetected by nearly all. Stalkers can see you when you wish not to be seen, but little else. Well done. But now we will show you what the very pinacle of this ability gives.


The king flourished his hand and in it appeared a rock similar to the one he now held. "This is a diamond. A perfectly cut diamond. No enchantments, just a diamond. This is an essential tool to a Stalker in a predicament." His regal father strode across the room and opened the door, letting in dim sunshine from the sunrise. Then he made a quick and firm grabbing motion at the light, then a slow and careful pulling motion. The light seemed to disappear, making the room again grow comfortably dim. Owen was perplexed at this. Where had it gone?


Suddenly, the gem began to glitter. It sent out faint rainbows. The rainbows were faint, but even they disappeared, leaving nothing but that odd glitter to it. Then, quite suddenly, a female Stalker child sat in front of the king. She got up and walked to Owen, looking coyly at him. Owen, now completely dumbfounded, hesitantly reached out and tried to touch her head. His hand fell through. The apparition was not disrupted. Then, she seemed to disintegrate from the head down, breaking into tiny little dust sized pieces and seemed to blow away through the open door. The light that had dimmed now returned.


Owen's father chuckled at his son's confusion. He waved the diamond at him. "Used for this purpose, this is a prism. I will show you slower what I did."

He made a slow, grabbing motion with a tight fist, carefully showing Owen the motion. "This is to make a slow, invisible grab for the light. You will not help yourself if you make a show."

Then his father directed it into the diamond. "Partially shield you eyes. There is no other way to show you this slower, and it will be uncomfortably bright."

Even as he spoke he directed the light through the diamond. What ensued was a rainbow brighter than any in nature. It was almost opaque. And how bright! It hurt his eyes, even though he was squinting he could see it clearly and terribly bright. Then it faded, but not disappeared. The light was directed away from the bright rainbow and woven together into a shape. the rainbow faded to something more acceptable. Colors mixed and made a homely brown. A tad of bright green was there too. Then the vague shape was there. Small, delicate arms, a thick furred chest, long, awkward and beautiful legs, and loose shorts down to her knees. Then the image slowly turned opaque and Owen was looking at the same girl as before. She waved.


Again, she disappeared. The king, despite now sitting in his chair and breathing a bit hard, said regally "This trick will take a long time to train. You cannot be told anything more than this, for you must teach yourself most of it, or it won't work. And I am not giving you a diamond. You must seek your own."

"Now, if this gets too far we will not survive. Already they have enough to wipe us out easily. They do not know that, most likely. But that is not your concern. For if we battle, you will..."

The memory faded and Owen was sitting in the waiting room of the castle again.

He recovered. He made, instead of a pulling motion, a grabbing motion. The light dimmed and gathered invisibly in his hand. He guided it in the diamond, keeping his fist closed tightly. The ensuing rainbow was totally invisible. He gathered the green and made a ball on the table. It was translucent. He focused more and put more green light into it. It darkened a bit but was still slightly see through. He focused as hard as he could, and as he began to break a sweat the ball, just a ball small enough to put in his hand, went completely opaque. But there was something wrong. The shadow! There was no shadow! Oh well. It was taking him this much to make a uni-color ball a third the size of his fist.

With a sigh, Owen released control of the light. The ball remained.

Owen scratched his head in confusion. Then he remembered that he had to unbend the light leading to the diamond. He did this quickly, but was instantly sorry about it. The diamond flashed as bright as the sun before going dark, leaving Owen blind and in pain.

It was a full five minutes before Owen's eyes reaquired their day vision. Even then, an irritating purple spot would not go away in his eye. It was always in the exact spot in his vision, where, if he tried to look at it, his vision would slowly turn left and down. Owen growled in frustration and threw the diamond. It hit the wall with a resounding crash. The wall had an imprint of the top of the diamond in it now. The diamond was unaffected, not one little chip off of the perfectly polished surface.

Owen brooded grumpily on his lack of control of this. He must get better!

Then he heard a rasping of cloth and looked to see the awake twin edging to the diamond, obviously trying to pick it up, perhaps pocket it.

Owen, with blurring speed, jumped up and ran to his precious rock and snatched it up, giving the twin a dirty look. He stowed it back into his calf pocket and returned slowly to his chair.

He nodded off for a while. When he woke up, there was a twitchy fellow talking to the guards quietly. Then the nervous looking fellow came up to him and said in a strange tone,"Hello. My name is Nicholas Anderson. Pleased to meet you." He stuck out his hand.

Owen tumbled out of the chair backwards and landed in a crouch, staring at Nicholas Anderson's hand in supreme suspition.

Nicholas sighed. He had a lot of work to do.

He held his hands up in a peaceful gesture. "Peace, Owen, peace. I am here to teach you the basic manners that everyone uses. I should have guessed that you wouldn't know what a handshake is." He shrugged, a little quickly."That is what I am here for, so you need not concern yourself with that."

Owen didn't like him already.

Nicholas, taking silence as a go ahead, began his lesson. "When I reached my hand out, I was not threatening you. I was offering you a trusting acquaintance."

Owen snorted. "Then why does it look like a threat? Surely if I were to do this," He shot his hand, rigid, to his throat, and stopped it when it was touching Nicholas' adam's apple. He withdrew it and continued. "Surely that is threatening? That you are slower in your movements makes no difference. It is a threat to me."

Nicholas shook his head. He had a long night ahead of them.

*****

Four days later, Owen was tested on his manners. For some stupid reason.

Nicholas, having told him of the test, walked in and pretended not to see him.

Owen, feeling stupid, walked up to him cautiously, arm extended at waist level the entire time, and said rather stiffly, "Hello. My name is Owen. How are you this fine afternoon?"

Nicholas mentally took off marks for the condensation in Owen's tone. He grabbed the offered hand and tried to shake it. It wouldn't budge at all. Not a millimeter. He glanced from Owen to their hands and again wondered at the arm strength that the black furred person possessed.

The reminder of what to do made Owen stifly move his forearm precisely three inches down and three inches up precisely three times. He let go as soon as he could. This is stupid. Why is this even necessary? It should be that you can simply make yourself known by stating your name and then get right down to the point. Who decided that small talk was necessity?

Owen suppressed a sneer and asked about the weather, almost laughing.

Nicholas rolled his eyes and moved away. "This is not working. You are looking down on me one minute, laughing at me the next!"

Owen chuckled out loud at the foolish man. "I laugh because this is pointless, not necessary, irrelevant, redundant, stupid." Well, he certainly picked up vocabulary naturally. He had been speaking in heavily accented child's vocabulary. Now his tone mimicked Nicholas' own high cultured one, and his vocabulary was rivaling Nicholas's also. Somehow, he still didn't like conjunctions (like don't and cant' and shouldn't) so much though. "Why can we not go to the next thing? Table manners perhaps? I know that you are certainly shocked at my table manners, and I would certainly like to know what I did wrong."

The small man shuddered to think about it. That entire turkey had been gone in thirty seconds flat, and Nicholas had not had any at all. When he had reached for a leg, his hand had been playfully hit away. The large splotchy bruise was still there on his forearm.

Owen made a pointy grin at Nicholas, sure that he was thinking about the swat on the arm thing. That had been a joke, and quite frankly it was still funny.

Nicholas shook his head and pointedly ignored the grin. Instead he answered Owen's question. "We must get this down right, or you shall be socially stunted. Small talking is at least half again as important as saying your vocabulary right."

Owen sneered, now angry but concealing it. "You are now going to lecture me on vocabulary? I have litterally read entire libraries. Five of them. Not exaggeration, simple fact. Five entire large libraries. I know one hundred ninety seven languages in their spoken AND written forms. And you dare to even begin to lecture me on... vocabulary." He spat the last word. Perhaps not concealing his anger well....

Nicholas was undaunted by this. Nothing new, he had ranted about that before. Nicholas resisted the urge to yawn. "Feeling resentful of learning manners at such an old age are we? Well you must learn sometime, and you have all of eternity ahead of you. You have to learn this. And nothing is gained by getting flustered at your teacher. Whether you are wiser in other matters is not relevent right now."

Owen rolled his eyes and canned his anger as best he could.

Nicholas rubbed his hands together. "Very good. Let's start again."

Owen had a bad feeling that he would be doing this for a long time yet.

[Tim a la Mod[e]]

Chapter 3: A Job That Was Made For Him
*****One Week Later*****

Nicholas came on Tuesday with a sad sort of look. "You are now ready for society. But is society ready for you?"

Owen was shocked for a second or two. Then he cautiously inquired, "Ready for society? Does that mean that I will be allowed into the city?"

Nicholas nodded gravely. "But be warned. People will be suspicious of you, no matter how polite you are."

He paused, as if in thought. Owen thought that it would be unwise to interrupt him. After a moment, Nicholas seemed to realize something. He snapped his fingers and asked excitedly, "Do you think you could track down specific people in this city? We are in desperate need of someone who can do that. Crime is not hard to find in this city, but people who want to join the guard to help fight them is rare indeed. You wouldn't have any problem convincing Jarsh that you can do that. He trusts you enough. What about it?"

Owen considered. Fighting crime.... A noble thing indeed. It would tell the citizens exactly how he saw the world. And good must prevail over bad. His father had told him that. All those years ago....

He nodded. "Thank you, Nick. I am in your debt."

Nicholas frowned. He had never liked being called Nick. That was a child's name. But it didn't really matter, as he didn't plan on hanging around Owen for long. "I guess this is farewell. I will have to work hard to catch up on all the paperwork that's piled up at the castle. Farewell." He extended his arm to shake Owen's hand one more time.

Owen, by now used to how much Nicholas insisted on shaking hands, extended his hand as if it were natural to him. It wasn't, but you could learn anything. As they heartily shook, he murmured, "Farewell."

And, in a flash, he was up next to the guards, grinning hugely. "Did you hear what he said? Jarsh has let me go. I need no more guarding. Don't worry about me, I know the way. Farewell. Have a pleasant day!"

He was down the stairs at a speed so quick that he blurred. He was down in the bottommost floor in less than thirty seconds. He appeared right next to the guard outside the tower door, still smiling. "Hello! My name is Owen. Do you know where Jarsh is at the moment?"

The guard jumped and squealed, surprised. "W-w-where did you c-c-come from?" He demanded shakily.

Owen chuckled a bit. "The stairs of course! Do you know where he is? I must speak to him."

After about ten seconds of gathering himself from the nasty shock, the guard pointed at the castle in the middle of the city. "He said that he had to speak to the mayor about something. You can meet him on the way back."

Owen, still wearing his smile, calculatingly patted the guard's shoulder. Well, he wasn't going to be able to do this naturally without practice. He could seem like it through sheer concentration though. "Thanks for the advice. Farewell." And then he set off at a brisk walk. To the center of the city, grinning. His mouth soon fell open in awe though.

He had never seen a city from the eyes of a the rooftops and alleyways, yes, but never openly walking in the streets. People might shrink away from him, but he didn't care. He was walking in a city!

It was bustling. Soon it was too crowded for everyone to suceed in not touching him. He got bumped many times. It was almost peaceful, the bustle, the constant noise and action, the sounds of footsteps, of voices, of hawkers shouting how good their product is, of people shouting to others to let them through. Owen loved it.

But in that he never forgot where he was going. He headed steadily towards the castle.

About twelve minutes of walking had him free from the market and onto a more sparse populous. He looked behind him and was shocked to discover that he had picked up a couple tails. Oh, they weren't obvious, but they were for sure following him. The frequent glances in his direction made sure of that.

Owen forced himself to walk even further into less populated area, into what looked like an industrial area. Owen smiled as he swerved down an abandoned alleyway. As soon as the shadows touched him, he gave a little chuckle. The fools thought that he would go easily in his own home. The fools followed into the alley. Owen was not in sight. They glanced around uneasily for a second, then jumped violently, one screaming like a little girl, when Owen clapped a hand on their shoulders. "You were looking for me?"

They backed away from him, now unsure if they wanted to do this. Owen chucked darkly and looked at them, no longer smiling. "You were either going to try to mug me, or try to pickpocket me." He stated this precicely as if he knew it to be utmost truth. He did.

One of them stammered denials, but he was silenced with a wave of his hand and a sudden angry look. Now in a dangerous tone, Owen whispered, "Shut up. Don't take me for a fool. Everyone present knows, so why would you even bother stammering out your lies." He gave an entirely humorless chuckle. "You know, I wasn't going to take you to the authorities. I was merely going to give you a lesson and send you on your way. But now that you have decided to lie...." He gave a shrug. "Not much difference to me."

The two petty criminals looked at each other, and turned tail and ran.

Bad decision.

The first was knocked out on his feet. He made a right loud noise. The second criminal heard this, and , terrified out of his mind, was taken right off his feet and lifted by the scruff of the neck by one hand. The man took one look over at his enemy's furred and smirking face and passed out from sheer terror.

Owen laughed. He whistled a passing guard over. "I caught these two trying to mug someone. I incapacitated them. They are yours now."

The guard started to ask him a question, but he just faded out into shadows that he shouldn't be able to dissapear so thouroughly in.

Owen did not dally any longer. He took the short way to the palace. The rooftop route.

Six minutes later, he was standing at the gates of the palace. He asked the guards politely if they could send word for Jarsh. One went to get him.

Jarsh saw Owen and yelled a greeting. "How are you? Did Nicholas letcha off? He's a twitchy guy ain't he? A good man, though. So whatcha doin here?"

Owen smiled shyly. "Nick... pointed me in your direction and suggested that I ask you if I could join the guard. You know, rid this town of crime, prove myself to the humans here. I would be honored if you would accept me.

Jarsh grinned hugely. "We'd all be honored to have someone as good as you on the guard.

They shook hands on it, both grinning.

[Tim a la Mod[e]]

Chapter 4: The Recession of Evil

A bright day. A fair sized manor. A basement. And a heavily guarded meeting. A dark crowd. All faces around have been labeled with at least one big C shaped scar. Scars made by claws. Claws of a certain sneaky guardsman.

They were criminals, and branded as such. They were all thinking about the one who had done this to their faces, to their professions.

One man stood up. He was scarred with no less than five C's. His face was livid with pure anger.

"Three. Stinking. Years! Three stinking years he's prowled this city! Three years of no profit at all! I've been eating a loaf of bread every day! Nothing else! I want the good things back! I want the times where you could just go mug someone and nobody'd care enough to help! I want the days back when I could have MEAT with every meal! No more stinking bread! No more bleeding sleeping on streets! No more damned Stalker!"

The others were already shaking their heads when he finished. They muttered answers that were meant to console.

"We can't face him. He's worth at least three hundred humans in battle. Remember that uprising we started a couple years ago?"

"Are we sure that we don't want to be good?"

"Give him a break. He's the last of his kind."

The man stared around with a thunderous face. "Come on people! This man has taken our livelyhood from us because it's a little on the sneaky side. But he hasn't touched the lawyers, the business owners, any of those people! They were all five times more theives than we ever were! Why should he go for the petty criminals?! We don't do much. It's unfair!"

They only shook their head. They would not risk it. Not with this.

***************

A shady type of man glances around uneasily. He sees nothing, but that doesn't reassure him. He quietly picks a lock, intent on getting into the back room of the jewelry store. He got halfway when he felt a heavy hand fall onto his shoulder. The man shrieks and whirls around. Nobody is there. He shakily turns around, only to find himself face to face with a midnight black face. He jumped a couple of feet back, then dropped to his knees and begged.

"I'll stop I swear I only wanted to feed my family please don't put me back in that cell next to that guy he rapes me please don't oh please."

He went on like this for at least a full twenty minutes. Then he petered out, awaiting judgment.

Owen cocked an eyebrow. "Done yet?"

The man nodded bitterly, knowing what came next. He had been captured by this... guard... before.

Owen chuckled. "Well, lets get something straight first. You can't lie to me, so why bother Ishy?"

The man's eyes widened. How did this guy know his name?!

Owen continued. "I know you have no family. You're a runaway. And you've relied on crime for no reason than you feel like it. So why would you beg for mercy when you don't deserve it?"

Ishy slumped down in resignation. "Fine.... Can I please just get my own cell this time?"

Owen smiled and shook his head. "Too many criminals, not enough cells. And why would I miminize your suffering when you made other people suffer for your own lazyness?"

Ishy shook his head in denial. "I'm not going back there man! I'm not!"

Before he could even start to swing his fist, Owen had Ishy in a full nelson. He continued talking in a conversational tone, as if he didn't have the other fully at his mercy

"You struggle for what? For nothing. I could kill you if I so felt like it. I can deal with Jarsh if he finds out. But would he find out? Do you really think that if I did not wish you to live anymore, that you would live another moment? If I were you, I would be less miserable that I'm going to jail and more happy that I am alive."

And he dragged his claw on Ishy's face, making an angular C. "That is your reward for trying to escape after you were caught. It's less painful than a brand, no? People will know what you are now, which is no less than you deserve. Personally, I would kill you all, but Jarsh says that most of you can be cured of your stupidity, of your selfishness. And so jail and a mark it is."

Ishy screamed in the horror of him being cut and struggled harder. Then Owen sighed, remarked "Well, I guess you leave me no choice. I guess Jarsh will understand," and put a razor sharp claw under his chin. Ishy immediately stopped struggling, terrified.

Owen took a pair of manacles and locked them onto the criminal's wrists. "Come on. I have not all day to waste in taking you back."

They both walked away down the street, heading toward the prison tower in the middle of the city.

***

Owen walked into the tower. The warden greeted him heartily. "Jesus Christ Owen! Back with another already? That's the fourth today. Hell, that's the thirtieth this week, and the hundred and seventeenth this month! How do you do this Owen? I mean, some of them are the same one caught doing it again right after they're released, but definitely not all of them! The streets haven't ever been this clear of crime! Not since the beginnings of this city! My god, your the best thing that's ever happened to this city!"

Owen nodded stotically. "It is the least I can do for what this city has done for me," he stated simply.

The warden shook his head in stunned dissagreement, unable to formulate an argument. Nothing they had done for him could equal what he'd done for them. He took Ishy back to his old cell.

Owen thanked the warden and headed back out. He could probably catch some more of the idiots today, when they thought he was sleeping.

I will clear this city of crime. It is the least I can do if I am to live here for many centuries yet.

***

The man again addressed the band of thieves. It had been four weeks. There had been, of all things, an increase of arrests. Their number, the very elite of the criminal world, was diminished by half. The man spoke to them, and they all agreed somberly in harmony.

"Do ye still stand against me?"

"Nay"

"Will you aid me?"

"Aye."

The man smiled widely. "Then let us begin."