Thrythlind

The girl was trying to look like a drow elf, that much was certain. It was equally certain that she wasn’t one. The skin color was pretty good, within the range of the underdark dwelling elves, but the bone structure was wrong. Everything was slightly off proportion for an elf, being too tall and giving a slightly enlongated look. Some inexperienced folk were probably fooled and maybe a few people here and there might assume that she was a half-elf that kept their elven parent’s skin color, but no one with much interaction with elves would be fooled. The keen eyed assumed that she was a young sorceress, changeling or other being with minor...

A young woman, maybe sixteen or seventeen years old, eased herself gracefully out of a bed, making sure that her hospital gown gave her enough modesty.  She was pale, almost albino, a diagnosis that was partially confirmed by the deep red eyes but countered by the vibrant black hair.  Her face was a curious mix of features with rather clear Mediterranean features, such as her nose, intermixed with Japanese features, such as the shape of her eyes. All in all, she was quite a bit more beautiful on first glance than most girls her age.At the moment, her beauty was hampered by the various healing bruises covering her throat and arms.  Several ...

A furtive movement out of the corner of his eyes attracted the attention of a young man of about sixteen years, perhaps a little older. He was already quite tall, with a lanky, wiry build that spoke of lots of physical activity on top of a diet that had oftentimes been less than sufficient. A half-circular scar was visible over his left eye but it was hardly the only injury that had left a mark on his body in his short but already full years. A fact which his choice of gym clothes today was making people aware of.Until now, the young man had been wearing a light but long-sleeved running shirt for the period of physical education. Since it ...

“In front of each of you is a steel bucket containing fifty pieces of metal,” the teacher explained as he walked up and down the rows of lab tables. “Five of those pieces are magnets. You need to identify those five magnets in the next three minutes.”The class full of nine and ten year old students, with one purple-haired eight year old, listened to the teacher quietly and without bemoaning the task set before them. The school didn’t tolerate much in the way of acting out and few students were willing to risk the teacher’s attention with either questions or complaints.“Get started,” the teacher instructed.The eight-year old girl, her long ...

“This is the fifteenth formula,” a man said clinically as the silent girl at his side copied down his words.  “Previous formula were either too strong or not strong enough.  The antivenin that resulted for formulae six and eleven killed the patient outright.  Formulae three, five and ten killed the host before enough antibodies could be produced to create an antivenom.  The remaining formulae produced no effect on the host, or else the antibodies produced were too few.  This formulae was potent enough to give the host a severe reaction, but they have already recovered completely.  Hopefully, the resultant antivenom will be strong enough.”...

Vollstahl was a port city, not the biggest port in the area, but certainly it received its far share of traffic. Given that port cities were along the water, they usually came with stretches of beach that were frequented by locals and tourists for any of a number of purposes. For the moment, one of those people, a local, was doing a little recreational scuba-diving about fifteen feet down from the surface. The silt filled waters around him were making his first attempt at spear-fishing rather difficult.He would have frowned under his mask if the breathing apparatus was positioned in such a way as to allow it. Granted, the air supply was ge...

Gaetana Trolleti stepped off the helicopter out into the Japanese night surrounding the landing zone. Her lavender hair whipped about in the strong winds produced by the spinning rotor. She held a briefcase tightly against her chest with one hand and the other straightening out one of her shoes. Dressed in the formal blue business suit, the pose made her slender figure appear all the more feminine and beautiful.“Be careful ma’am,” another woman said as she stepped out of the helicopter and stood beside Gaetana. “You shouldn’t get out of the helicopter so quickly.”The woman stood another five inches taller than the lavender haired strategis...

Róisín was perfect. There was little else that the man sitting beside her gently sleeping form could say to accurately describe her. Black hair hung loose down to just below her shoulders. Not just black hair, glorious hair that seemed almost as if it was a piece of the night sky draped over her head. The beads of sweat along her locks failed to mat the hair down as it would with any other woman, instead it enhanced the image of the evening spun shawl by glittering like stars against the dark.This was contrasted against alabaster skin that never seemed to tan. Lying beside him now, she seemed a fey ghost of snowy hills against the comparat...

The redheaded woman, Mao Semezou, kneeled at the edge of her room next to a case full of various tools used for engraving and marking surfaces.  Currently, there was a chisel in her hand which she was using to carefully cut a line into the concrete of her floor.  There was already a fairly wide network of lines across the floor, and the line she had just started was going to be intersecting several of those.  The rug that normally covered the inscribed concrete was rolled up and out of the way.Mao was youthful-seeming.  At the moment, dressed for dirty work, someone just glancing would probably have taken her for someone between nineteen a...

Hel woke up in her bed to the sound of Marsha slamming their door on the way to the showers.  A brief look to the desk at her side showed that it was around six thirty in the morning.  To clarify, it was around six thirty on a Sunday morning.  The one day out of the week for which they had no classes at all.  She should have been able to have another three hours of sleep before having to wake up.As usual, once she was awake, she was Awake.  Still she remained quiet and immobile on her bed, purposefully closing her eyes.  Closing her eyes didn't help, she had to pretty much hold them closed or else they opened to stare off at the wall lying...