Bound by Soul

The snow was falling quietly from the pale sky covering the whole valley. Not even the light of dawn could help differentiate the sky from the ground. The only thing that could be seen clearly were the big dark rocks scattered all around and the silhouette of a man walking on the snow. He was moving at a slow pace, trying his best not to fall asleep and holding dearly on the backpack containing his few belongings. If you saw him face to face you would notice tiredness in his eyes, but if you were more thorough you would notice that this were the eyes of a man that had nothing else to lose… other than his life.

His name was Oswald and despite his 19 years of age he had lived through quite a lot. He could still clearly remember the day he left his family and home to pursue his dreams, the roads he walked day and night, the hotel room where he questioned his motivations, the restaurant where he met the people that could help him achieve his goals, the dark alleys where he escaped from bandits, his visit to the most beautiful city of the country and of course he could remember that fateful night were everything went to hell. He had lost everything, there was nothing for him to go back to and nothing to look forward. Life had beaten him, and he couldn’t get up, not from this. That’s why he was currently traveling to the nearest town in hopes of start a new life in a place where nobody knew him and where he could live the rest of his days in peace. The chances of getting there alive were slim but he didn’t care. He just wanted to get away from the past, from the memories, from the pain.

His destiny wasn’t too far away, he could still make it. Unfortunately, he encountered a great obstacle in the middle of his way. A steep hill covered with enormous rocks that extended from left to right and seemed to go on forever. His only option was to climb it and so he did. Carefully and steadily he climbed the hill, placing each step carefully and making sure to grab on the rocks with defined shapes or on their gaps. Thankfully the hill wasn’t too high so it wouldn’t take him long to reach the top. He didn’t know that in the next seconds his life would take an unexpected turn when he placed his left hand on a smooth black rock to steady himself. When he made his next movement, he was suddenly stopped by something that grabbed his arm. He realized with horror that his hand was fused with the rock he touched, and it seemed to slowly be absorbed by it. In a desperate attempt he started to pull his hand repeatedly out of the rock, but his efforts only managed to sink it deeper. In a matter of seconds the rock had already absorbed past his elbow and he started screaming when he felt something touching his arm on the other side, he thought he was going to lose his arm or worse, be absorbed completely by this damned rock. Through his desperation he didn’t notice the strange glowing symbols that were forming on the strange rock, these were growing and forming new patterns until the entire rock was glowing in a blue light. When Oswald finally noticed this, he made one last effort to free himself by pulling with all his strength. But the rock abruptly stopped glowing and revealing a white surface that used to be black and with this sign it finally released him. But Oswald didn’t register when this happened causing him to be propelled backward with the sudden release of force. Before he could realize what just happened he was at the edge of the small rock he was standing on, about to fall directly into the rocks at the bottom, he didn’t have to be a genius to know that at this height the fall would be lethal. And so, he was ready for the worst when something stopped his fall, he felt a tightening on his neck, he tilted his head to see what stopped his fall only to be shocked at seeing a black hand coming through the rock that trapped him seconds ago grabbing his scarf. He tried to process what was happening, but before he could think clearly, the pressure on his neck disappeared, the scarf came off his neck leaving him to fall to his death.

On the way down he saw all his life pass in front of his eyes in milliseconds, his triumphs and failures, the people he loved and the people he hated, the places he visited in his journey, the dreams he once had and failed to make reality. All of that converging to this moment, the end. Maybe it was for the best, after all, he wasn’t even sure if he could live a quiet life after everything that happened. It was time to leave his all problems behind and rest. He closed his eyes and waited for the impact that would finish everything. Three second passed… nothing, five seconds passed… still nothing. Something was wrong, he could still breathe, feel the chilling cold and his heart pounding wildly. Was he already dead? Then why he didn’t feel anything change? Was this how death worked? No, that can’t be. Something else happened. But what exactly?

He decided to open his eyes and what he saw took his breath away. He was floating mere centimeters from the ground. He slowly moved his hand to touch the ground and when that happened his body fell to the ground. Now he was freaking out, he started to back away until his back collided with a rock, he sat there panicked trying to make sense of what was happening to him. First it was that strange rock, then the hand that came out of it and that something that stopped his fall. But as much as he tried, he couldn’t make sense of any of this. He was convinced he had finally lost his mind. Until he heard something.

“Master!?” Someone yelled with concern. “Are you alright!?”

Oswald remained in silence for a few seconds. A lot of questions were flooding his mind; “Who is this? Did they call him master? Could this person be…?”

He finally responded “H-hello? Who is there?”

The mysterious voice immediately responded “Wait a second, I’m coming down there”

“Down there… that means” He tilted his head up but he didn’t spot anything else in the hill other than the usual snow and rocks. But suddenly he heard something near his position. He quickly looked around and he finally saw it, the stranger that was talking to him.

It was some kind of… dragon, standing mere meters away from him. It was naked, however, due to the anthros having internal genitals and female reptiles lacking breasts, he couldn’t identify their gender. Their body was of slim constitution, but with a well-defined musculature. They had digitigrade legs with three clawed toes on each foot and five clawed fingers on each hand. They had a long and pointy tail that swayed from side to side behind him. They had a pair of long black horns on their head, these were slightly bent on opposite directions. They lacked scales leaving their skin exposed, however their skin was smooth and shiny, like it was made of porcelain. While most of the body was a ebony black (including the claws and the horns) there were white patches here and there; the palms of their hands were white just like the soles of their feet, a great portion of the upper part of their body was white; starting by the lower jaw, following the front of the neck and going all the way down their until reaching the belly and the proximal part of the thighs was covered in white. Both of their eyes had cyan irises that glowed brightly. Something strange about his body was how uniform it was, there was no clear frontier between the flesh and the claws or the horns, it was like they were fused together forming a singular piece. However, the weirdest thing about them was the strange glowing mark on their forehead, it looked like a rose, for lack of a better word and just like their irises it glowed in a cyan color.