(no subject)

[cog_nomen]

That, and the chimera's leg was quite broken, as were several of it's ribs. Surveying the damage, the alchemist sighed. It would take some time and equipment to repair the magical bindings, not to mention a leyline.

Distractedly, Conlan realized his hands were shaking only when he started to gather up the shattered remains of the chimera's leg and nearly dropped it in his quaking. He settled heavily on the edge of his bed, all the strength gone out of his limbs. Carefully, he turned the attack over in his mind, what short part of it he'd been witness to. Likely, once he got Thenotay back up on his feet, the chimera could tell him more about it.

He could understand, at base, the reasoning behind a Thusswolv attacking an alchemist. But he'd been careful to cover his tracks, and keep his past hidden. He hadn't practiced alchemy in at least twenty years, not since loneliness had driven him to create the patchwork companion that had been hastily unassembled. How could anyone know?

"They've tracked me down," He explained aloud. He could rationalize much more easily if he spoke aloud, a sort of dialog with himself. Thenotay had given him an excuse for this minor quirk in his sanity, but even he wasn't fully convinced. He roused himself - he'd have to get his chimera back together, and he would have to move. Thusswolv worked in packs practically always. When the creature returned, it would not be alone.

---

"Conlan! Hey, old man!" The voice wasn't entirely foreign, but the name of the man who approached him escaped the alchemist. His breathing beginning to rush, he stopped on the path, balanced on his walking stick and slightly bent legs. It had been some time since he'd had this sort of exercise - the bag on his back was heavy, no denying it. Surprisingly, all of his important possessions had fit in it, and he'd had to leave nothing of value behind.

"You're headed out early." The farmer leaned over the edge of the fence he'd been fixing as Conlan came up the road. He gave a glance up at the sky as if he might have lost track of time while he'd been hammering away. Ascertaining that it was still a young morning, he didn't amend his sentence, but added. "A bit late in the year for a trip. You lost?"

"I was going to spend a couple of days in the woods." Conlan lied, the motions of a smile coming easy to his features. He ran a hand through hair that had lost it's original dark to a peppering of dark silver, feeling the sweat on his scalp from the short trip. Internally, he berated himself for getting this out of shape. "It makes me feel young again, good for the soul."

"Oh, sure." The farmer laughed. "Bathing in icy streams and eating the scrawny deer. You just watch out for the Wild. You know the woods go deep." He made a brief warding gesture, forefingers crossing back and forth in front of his mouth. He crouched again, taking up his hammer, and Conlan continued on.

True, the influence of the leylines worked in odd ways on the world, turning travelers around to lose them forever, sending beasts mad, and turning plants into a thick, impassable wall as they scrabbled upward seeking contact with the lines they could never touch. It was no reason to truly fear the Wild - as it had come to be called - except that so few understood it. They knew that the Leylines affected everything they touched - even, villagers whispered, the alchemists who had thought they could bring life like they were gods themselves.

It had been twenty five years since the tragedy. Conlan had already left Tura when it had happened, but word had reached Mezzan quickly enough that he was glad he'd ducked his head and pretended to be other than what he was. Disaster, and the alchemists had caused it. Suddenly, everyone had known what they were up to was no good. Conlan found a bitter smile rising up, thinking of the townsfolk here denouncing the alchemists, but keeping their treasured technologies for as long as the items continued to work.

When the tragedy had ended, an order had been put forth to hunt out the alchemists. Witch hunters, they had called those mercenaries that had rooted out the scientists that had fled Tura. Thusswolvs, freed from their slavery at the hands of the alchemists, had gone forth with these sanctioned killers. All of it combined had meant a swift end to the alchemists. Conlan hadn't seen another in twenty years, not since the one that had been ridden down in front of the Merry Sow.

Helpless, Conlan watched justice done as his beer turned over in his stomach, reminding him of exactly how easily it could be him there, bleeding in the dirt while the chimeric dogs turned him into ribbons. He'd sworn off of alchemy on that day, vowing never to practice again. To cover his past.

Of course, it had found him again. Men such as Conlan did not just disappear, no matter how much they might want to. He shook the thoughts clear of his head, and looked up at the wall of trees that rose up ahead of him, breath quick in his throat. He had some hiking still to do, and it wasn't going to get any easier, he supposed. lowering his head, he pressed through the brush and into the forest.

Sunlight still penetrated the leaves here, and he looked up, finding his voice rising up in his throat to urge himself onward. He glanced to the left, then to the right. Nothing.

"Well then, on I go." He hefted himself over a deadfall, letting his voice go on as he did. He wasn't sure where the habit had come from. It was a sign of something, he was quite sure, that the only person he could talk frankly to was himself. Certainly, he'd had the chimera until very recently, but Thenotay was far more philosophical than one would expect for an animated tangle of bone and metal.

When he'd bought the cottage, he was told it had been owned by a washed out lordling-knight. Long forgotten by his land-inheriting brothers and well-married sisters, he'd settled in Mezzan to keep the peace. And a piece of every foodstuff he could get his hands into, and a part of Mezzan's single prostitute's bed reserved almost every night. Conlan was unclear on what had happened, but the villagers still laughed over whatever version of his extremely inebriated death they remembered.

Most versions involved a pitchfork buried in a pile of hay that he'd meant to have some young girl on, poking up as a bit of a last minute surprised. No girl would come forward and admit to being her. Some stories involved him tumbling drunkenly from his horse into the hay, but Conlan could discount this version of the story. He'd found the horse buried, armor and all, beneath the dirt floor that comprised the cottage floor. He wondered what sort of debauchery had lead to this.

In a moment of his own weakness, he had studied the bones with a critical, scientist's eye. His mind began forming a way to bind them together magically, fusing everything into a functional combination of magic and material. It was this nature that had gotten him into so much trouble in the first place, but he'd been younger then.

Much as he was now, he'd gathered up the materials that he could find - though he was short many of the horse's bones, he found most of it's armor. This he supplemented with whatever he could find - that was part of the beauty of alchemy, it was a scavenger science - cat, dog, lion, and oxen, whatever bones could be fit in were. It was only at the very last second, while he was deep in the woods with the leyline pulling him along like it had fetters on his arms, he'd decided to rework his theory of the alchemical inorganic brain. To this day, he questioned the action, but what was done could not be undone.

Conlan shook the thoughts from his mind, and kept going, though he had to stop mid-day and catch his breath, he went on without stop until evening sent shadows mottling down from the leaves over his hands like a leopard's spots. He was slower now that he was older, and would not be able to make the Leyline without pressing on in the dark.

----

It's head ached. The beast remained in the woods, just out of sight of the cabin, though it suspected the alchemist was no longer there. After watching the aging alchemist putter about his cabin for almost two days, it had hardly expected the fight that the man had put up. Meaning to put him out before he even woke up, it hadn't counted on the interference of another chimera.

Roan was somewhat regretful at having to destroy the other creature. He'd met many organic chimera in his time - their blood continuing on in the way of most animals, carrying their lines on. Though he had never been human, his pack sang of a time when all Thusswolv had been part of the race of Beast-Bonded. Their sin had been that they were too curious to the Alchemists, who had subjected them to all manner of magical twistings.

Roan hated the alchemists, furiously. It was his his test, at coming of age, to hunt this alchemist. It had been the one right of the Thusswolv granted by the council of Ovemrages in Tura. Each one that came of age must kill an alchemist to prosper in their tribe - though the number of Thusswolv had grown, and the alchemists had long since faded to nothing, no one would interfere if a Thusswolv simply claimed a life of someone he claimed to be an alchemist. The world seemed to hate them almost as much as the Wolv did.

As night fell, he forced himself to stir, shaking out his strong limbs though it made his skull throb. The inorganic chimera had done him no kindness with it's claws, he lifted his hand to explore the wound, wincing. It had torn fur and flesh beneath, but certainly wouldn't kill him. The hunt could continue.

He moved silently through the forest, paws shifting dexterously over the underbrush to leave it undisturbed in his wake. When he gained the road, he lowered to all fours, eyes and nose tracking footprints and scent that the Alchemist had done little to hide. He was carrying a heavy pack - oh, all of his belongings. Were they worth more than the alchemist's life, Roan wondered. They would only slow him, and his age would too. Setting all four paws to the earth, Roan moved quietly over the road, mouth open to taste the wind of his passage and nose drinking in the scent of prey.

---

Sleeping was a difficult matter. The alchemist had propped himself against his lumpy bag, and covered himself with what remained of his bedclothes - just a woolen blanket now that his sheets had been hopelessly shredded, and stared up at the stars for hours. Every time he began to drift, a night-noise would cause him to startle back into sudden wakefulness. Though he berated himself, he still could not relax enough to sleep with the memories of the attack on his mind.

Thenotay's head lay in his lap, his hands folded over it protectively. He could afford to lose all other parts of the chimera, and still restore it to almost unchanged life. Certainly, Thenotay would have to get used to the way a new body functioned, but as long as his brain was intact, he could be restored to life.

"Do you enjoy living?" Conlan had asked him one morning, when he'd woken up and found the very first gray hair he'd ever gotten, shining there in his hand mirror as he'd shaved. "I suppose for it to truly mean anything, you must die someday."