Subj: [ffml] [MW] Night Flight Date: 00-07-05 10:08:56 EDT From: larathia@mcs.net (Larathia) Reply-to: ffml@egroups.com To: ffml@egroups.com Nighthawk watched her people integrate with the human folk, an almost-smile upon her face. Although adapting to the presence of dragons, even non-hostile ones, was hard, her people had had faith in her words and adjusted. It had taken her many centuries to instil that faith in her soldiers; now, perhaps, it was all they had left to cling to. They must learn to adapt, or they will die before they can fulfil their purpose, she thought. The magic of this world was oddly unfocused; she had learned that most of her mages had the same difficulty tapping into this world's strength as she did herself; while their spells still worked, it took more concentration to cast them, and the effects appeared to be at half-strength. The priests, with their reliance on the Blue Lady's favor, were thankfully unaffected. She had noted an absence of religious figures among the human troops; perhaps the gods of this world were dead, or the humans had forgotten how to communicate. No matter - sixty healers would be as much boon to them as to her own kind. They would be a vital buffer, while the mages began the long process of learning the magic of this world. Not that she expected them to live another fifty years. From the high perch she had chosen on the Keep's walls, Nighthawk surveyed Lord Tim's troops at their training. There was merit in many of the approaches, but regretfully little that she could order her own people to focus on. There were no archery magics; everything was for close combat. The Blitz techniques appeared to combine magic with martial arts such as she had learned when she had world-walked to an Alternate Prime world called Earth. The sword-techniques were new, though. She watched both training sessions closely; although she intended to inquire of Lord Tim whether she might safely attend the training sessions, it would be best if she could follow them from a distance if formal permission was denied. *She* had no intention of dying on this barren world, and the techniques would stand her in good stead until her body/spirit had completed its adjustment to this world's magic, when her own spells would again serve her. Suddenly, a sharp pain struck her from her private thoughts - so jolting as to nearly cause her to lose her balance. A soul-pain; the bond she had forged between herself and her soldiers had just been tested...one of them was now dead. Quickly scanning the skies, she saw four of her soldiers, assigned to scouting and hunting, winging towards her as if half the demons of the Abyss were after them. They landed all around her, panting and breathless. "Captain, the moogles are on the move. Ashiant had just made a kill and was heading down to retrieve it when he was shot. They moved through the trees so we did not have sufficient warning to get away. When he saw he could not escape, he let them get close...and spoke the word, Captain. He killed six with the fireball, but there were many many more not far behind. We saw them as we headed back - there may be a thousand headed this way." Knowing one had died, and knowing *which* one, were different things; Ashiant had been a good soldier...young, but skilled and eager. Perhaps the relative quiet had been too lulling...he should have known to scan the foliage for more than game. She locked away her sorrow for him, knowing it would not be long before more joined him. She must not let that color her thoughts. There were moogles aplenty for vengeance. She nodded toward the four scouts. "You four - get back to your flights, and prepare for battle. Alert all that the time has come. We have only a day or so, at most...what did you observe?" The one who had spoken, a crossbow-archer called Corin, said "Roughly a thousand troops, captain, but they'll be here in less than a day. They had strange machines with them, and not all were on foot. If one of the humans can label the things we saw, perhaps more can be pieced together." Nighthawk nodded. "Good. You have a command of their language, then? No matter - if need be, I do have a spell to remedy that. You had better come with me, Corin, so you may personally explain your sights to Lord Tim. The rest of you - do as I have ordered." The other three saluted and bowed, and quickly split up to find their flights. Corin paled, somewhat nervous at having to address the human commander, but obediently followed Nighthawk down to the officer's quarters, gulping and hunching his wings nervously as they entered the Keep. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.mcs.net/~larathia --------------------------------------------------------------------------- There is always a reason. Whenever anything has been mucked up, whenever anything outrageous happens, there is a reason for it. You still have a mucked-up, outrageous situation on your hands, however, and explaining it does not alleviate it one bit. If someone does something really rotten, there is a reason for it. Learn it, if you care, and you learn why he is a son of a bitch. The fact is the thing that remains, though....Acts and their consequences are the things by which our fellows judge us. Anything else, and all that you get is a cheap feeling of moral superiority by thinking how you would have done something nicer if it had been you. So as for the rest, leave it to heaven. I'm not qualified. --Corwin of Amber, _The_Hand_of_Oberon_ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Was the salesman clueless? Productopia has the answers. Click Here! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Final Fantasy Mailing List: Now available in Cherry, Strawberry or Tofu ----------------------- Headers -------------------------------- Return-Path: <.sentto-5708-60215-962806088-raumkatze2=aol.com@returns.onelist.com> Received: from rly-yc04.mx.aol.com (rly-yc04.mail.aol.com [172.18.149.36]) by air-yc05.mail.aol.com (v75.18) with ESMTP; Wed, 05 Jul 2000 10:08:56 -0400 Received: from fh.egroups.com (fh.egroups.com [208.50.144.71]) by rly-yc04.mx.aol.com (v75.18) with ESMTP; Wed, 05 Jul 2000 10:08:31 -0400 X-eGroups-Return: sentto-5708-60215-962806088-raumkatze2=aol.com@returns.onelist.com Received: from [10.1.10.37] by fh.egroups.com with NNFMP; 05 Jul 2000 14:08:15 -0000 Received: (qmail 19629 invoked from network); 5 Jul 2000 14:08:07 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by m3.onelist.org with QMQP; 5 Jul 2000 14:08:07 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO fnord.i33.com) (207.111.105.32) by mta1 with SMTP; 5 Jul 2000 14:08:07 -0000 Received: from crainuser.crain (proxy-4.crain.com [12.2.194.4]) by fnord.i33.com (8.10.2/8.10.2) with SMTP id e65E83W27918 for <.ffml@onelist.com>; Wed, 5 Jul 2000 10:08:03 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <3.0.6.32.20000705090555.007c7e80@popmail.mcs.net> X-Sender: larathia@popmail.mcs.net X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.6 (32) To: ffml@egroups.com From: Larathia <.larathia@mcs.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Mailing-List: list ffml@egroups.com; contact ffml-owner@egroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list ffml@egroups.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: <.mailto:ffml-unsubscribe@egroups.com> Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2000 09:05:55 -0500 Reply-To: ffml@egroups.com Subject: [ffml] [MW] Night Flight Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit