The Hippogryph hefted the long spear in his right hand, and the great coiled rope in the other, swinging it over his shoulder. With keen ears he cocked his head, and was pleased to catch the distinctive whoosh of a whale breathing at the ocean surface.
This hippogryph, victim of terrible magic, was not like others: half eagle, half horse. Rather he had been a man; now behind his human shoulders he bore eagle wings, and below his human waist, his two legs were like a horses', with great heavy hooves, and shaggy fetlocks of dark hair.
He had come to the coast to escape; somehow all folk found the coast for that reason, weary from long warring inland; with scars, some that would never heal, and a terrifying new body that possessed strange instincts all of its own.
Dunimir had been his name: The Jewel of the West. Perhaps he was still that man, in a way. Perhaps he was more now, but sometimes he felt less. He was certainly changed.

Like old men streching their gnarled backs, the pines that surrounded the Hippogryphs' home sighed and groaned, and Dunimir walked noiselessly over the rusted red neddles. In this way he came to the precipice of the cliffs, and beheald the mighty ocean below. A thin band of beach stretched to the edge of sight in each direction, and the water turned the darkest green only a short way off the shore. Moving peacefully on their own business the pod of whales where visible only by the blasts of their breath. Dunimir watched them long enough to guess their movements.
He tied his rope to the greatest tree, and with a leap, he wrenched himself heavily into the air; and his wings strained and groaned to bear his weight. But he caught the ocean airs, and was borne away, hovering patiently in his desired direction.
Far below he had singled out his whale, and he shifted his hold on the spear now, and pinioned his wings about himself, so that like a shot he plummeted down.
In the nick of time he unfurled his wings, and shot away toward the shore, but not before he had hurled the spear more than half its length into the whale, right beside the blowhole. Losing altitude rapidly, and too exhausted already to make more height, he landed on the beach with too much speed, and tumbled badly. But he grinned through the pain. For his hunt was successful.
Dunimir knew what a sad thing it was to hunt the whales, but they were his only supply of good meat. And he left nothing to go to waste. Every last sinew was needed to provide for his life upon the inhospitable cliffs. Already the poor beast was weakening, and was soon dead. Dunimir nodded gravely, still aware of the sadness of what he must do. Then he got to work.

Outside his house were many racks, where he dried the meat in the ceaseless draughts from the ocean; and much of it he smoked with the timber of the pines. With the long labour of years he had fashioned a goodly cottage, of mortared stones, with a shingled roof. The shutters, for Dunimir rarely felt the cold through his horses-pelt, and feathers, were swung open wide. Inside hung his old weapon, the sword Arcalagon, kings'-iron, which he had been given in the wars.
It had been long since he had held it, and its blade had begun to show traces of rust, but it would never truly corrode, not that one. It was forged by hands too craft-weildy. It would outlive many generations of owner.
Dunimir looked at his hands, stained black with the blubber and blood of his prey. He had indeed become a very different person.
He stretched back, for behind him came the sound of footsteps. His house was no secret, nor had he taken any pains to conceal it; not with the great hearth of his kitchen ever smoking. Nor was there any furtive sound in the rhythm of the footsteps. It was just someone walking steadily on, if a little weary.

He turned, and waved to the approaching figure, and waited.

Terebenior hunched deep into his gray cloak, and willed himself onwards. The journey to the coast had taken far longer than he'd expected, and the weather had been worse than any of them had imagined.
Then there was the ambush, at dawn four days ago brigands had assailed them, suddenly and violently; with murder in their eyes. In the fog they had all become separated. Terebenior was beset by two men, one of them was dead, the other had withdrawn, injured as gravely as Terebenior himself.
The ranger stopped for a while, leaning against the silvery pine, and looked at his side, the blow had certainly cracked his ribs, or worse. Thankfully he was not developing a fever, not yet at any rate. But he needed to find his company, if any survived, as soon as possible. He strength, regardless of what stamina he'd begun with, was failing him.He listened for any sound of his men, there must have been other survivors, possibly injured worse than him.

Over the throb in his ears he heard a great rushing noise, and he beheld the most remarkable creature imaginable taking to the air. It was a man, but with wings, and horse-like legs below the waist, hoofs and all. In a moment, the creature was lost to sight.

Terebenior guessed from whence it had alighted, and made towards there. He felt a good burst of new strength, and was determined to make it count. In this way he steadily approached a steeply gabled cottage of timber and stone, surrounded on all sides by racks of fish. The smell was quite strong, but Terebeniors' mouth watered, more than half-starved as he was.
Standing, half as tall as a man again, was the creature, the vast expanse of his wings pinioned behind his shoulders, the gold-brown feathers ruffling in the fitful airs of the seas.
Terebenior made an effort to walk straight, and easily; so as not to appear like a beggar. The beast raised a hand in salute, the salute of the royal guard, which was a marvel, and waited.
"Hail good host. I have come in search of food, and rest, though I am sorry to beg it of you."
The beast caught Terebeniors arm, saving him from stumbling. "Come now, I see you are hurt. Come inside."

Dunimir could see now that the traveler was injured; he moved quickly, and had soon seen the bruised side.
"You're lucky, I think your ribs are only cracked, and you will not suffer a fever. But I suggest you try and sleep for a time, in a day, we will see if your strength returns, and we have nothing to fear in that case."
Dunimir swung a ladle into the pot over the hearth, and steeped a tea, half for drinking, and half for making a poultice. "Both drink and poultice will reduce the sweleling, that is the cause of half the pain. If we can soothe your wound, it will heal very quickly. Tell me, have you traveled alone? I see you have no pack, no provisions."

Curin slept fitfully, for a dank fog had rolled inland from the coast. There was a tension between his shoulder blades, a threat-under-shadow was growing in his mind.
He dreamt briefly, a thing of flashig colour and violence, and he woke suddenly, his heart hammering; and the vision of it was so violent he leapt to his feet. So it was he saw the brigand.

Curin made a mistake then, which would cost his friends and companions dearly, all of whom were still asleep, for with a roar he unbelted his lesser-axe, Maborth, the Mountain-hand, and launched himself across the space between the brigand and himself.
Suddenly the camp was agog with the murderers, and many of Curins' companions were slain in their sleep.
The brigand fell with Maborth biting through the shoulder down into the depth of his chest. He wore an amazed expression as he dropped.
Clear as a horn the voice of Dunior, their Captain, went up in the fog; and Curin, hurled himself in that direction. His thigh was cut deep into the flesh by a stray arrow, and a brigand bearing a staff smote him to the ground, but Curin was as a man possesed, he was frothing at the mouth, and his breath came as a moan with rage, as Maborth whined and sang about him. But the brigands were too canny, and they leapt aside, he could only lock two others in combat, and brought them down, and when this was done he realised he was alone, and could hear no sound around him. He was drenched in the blood of his foes, and the cold bit deep inside. A terrible shaking weakness took him.
Curin bound his legwound and reigned in his desire to call out for his companions. Far off he thought he heard the call of a horn, but it sounded unfamiliar. He waited an entire day, and the fog still hung over the land. He risked a fire then, and tended his wound more carefully, a nasty wound that put him at terrible risk of perishing from infection.

A day later the fog thinned, and Curin warily traced his steps back to the camp. The tracks were completely confused, and he could make no guess which were his friends, and which were his foes. He buried his fallen comrades beneath a cairn of stones, and he wept bitterly then, and wracked his heart with guilt, for if he had but acted calmly, and moved silently, the outcome might have been very different.

Over the next day Curins' face changed forever, it became gray and grim, and lines were graven in it that would never smooth away. He studied the tracks over time and time again, and chose a direction he thought his Captain would have taken. The legwound was already healing, and he found a good store of provisions scattered nearby by the brigands. So he made off without hope, but with a dark fire smoldering within that filled him with a terrible strength. He would find his captain, and his comrades, and he would spend the rest of his life atoning for his mistake; he held Maborth up in the angry light of an oncoming storm. "Or may it come to pass that you take my own head, and I die in shame, for there is no other way I can regain my honour."
The axe glittered, as if with laughter, for it was a grim weapon, and cared little of men and their brief lives. "Yeah!" It seemed to say. "I will take your life if you can not take back your honour."
So it was that Curin set out, far in the distance he saw the land rise up, and it was covered in the silvery green of a forest of pines.

Dunimir quickly ate as much as he dared, as he would need the energy. Then in his haste he quickly took down the rusted sword, which felt all too sweetly familiar in the hand, and went at a run towrd the cliffs.

He plunged off the cliffs and out into the air, unfurling groaning wings, and let the winds bare him up and inland.

He searched with far-seeing eyes for the other men, and hoped to come to their aid if any were still beseiged.

Curin was aware that he was being followed, and when suddenly he was faced with a brigand, he perceived a trap immediately. They would want him to be turned, to try and avoid more fighting, that way they could muster him where they wanted him.

Instead he breandished his axe, adn advanced without a single word.

The brigands' eyes widened in disbeleif a moment, before he remembered the bow in his own hands. He hastily fired an arrow, which Curin only narrowly fended off, and had half the axes blade in his midriff before he could do another thing. He fell silently, his lungs emptied of breath.

Curin looked about him quickly, his eyes wild, and his breath cming in short sharp gasps. And ran through the low scrub, trying to keep behind cover where he was able.

Dunimir struggled, with increasing frustration with a wind that was bearing him too far northward, when he wanted to be brought south. His eyes spotted every moving thing below him, as he allowed the wind to lift him ever higher; there in a clearing was a doe, with twin fauns; the bright scintillation of the rapids of a river; a harrier cruising the grasses well beneath; and there, in a sudden gout of dark blood, a man dressed as the wounded captain, charged a bowman outright.

Dunimir pinioned his wings, and began the pelomel descent to the earth, the blade of the rusted sword, Arcalagon, whining in the wind of his speed.

Curin ducked, grinning grimly at himself as panic settled at the edges of his mind. Arrows were skipping at his feet, and whistling past his head. Slingstones and a crossbow bolt that could bring down an elk. His only comfort was that the brigands would likely spend their last arrow within a moment at this rate, and thusly, they hoped to bring him down now, he deducted, and would give up on him if he could make it a way further.

Looking back he missed a boulder in his way, which he ran into full pace, crushing the wind out of himself. He staggered awkwardly, in shock, and fell to his side, his ears buzzing.

The next thing he knew he was surrounded by brigands, the leader of which was a great swarthy brute, with an ugly bow of dark horn. He knocked an arrow to the string and drew it back menacingly, aimed at Curins' stomach.

Curin stood, his sword out of reach a step away. He stared down the line of the arrow into the brutes eyes, but the brigand had been distracted. His eyes filled with panic and terror. He dropped the bow outright, and ran.

[ooc, slow down brother, I can hardly keep up with you. And you shouldn't have made it so the brigand knew I was coming... I guess it's alright, but leave some of the excitement to me.]

Dunimir would have seemed no more than a blurred shadow, but for the whining of Arcalagon in the wind, and the gasp of a particularly swarthy brute as he was nearly cut in half. An all too real shadow, which banked to the east, and came about, cutting off the escape of the main group of the brigands. Landing in a storm of dust as he backwinged. His vast chest filled with breath, rearing up in size like an enraged rootster, his wings raised aloft, seeming to shadow the sun. Then the hippogryphs' unimaginably muscular chest contracted, and the breath boomed. A terrible shockwave of air, that left the ears ringing.

"Here in the wild I have you lads!" Dunimir moved like lightening, and when he moved, a brigand died. "And this time you've wasted your last arrow!"

Curin winced, and settled weakly upon his knees, where he beheld the forms of the brigands being hurled through the air by a creature that was like, and had the face of a man, but who was also more than half eagle. Whose great gray wings cast up clouds of dust, and struck the forms of the brigands as if they were made of paper, crushing, and bending them in un-natural directions, where they fell lifeless. And a terrible sword flashed angrily here and there, and whence it passed, gouts and showers of the brigands' lifeblood issued.

Curin might have tried to escape, but all he could do was to gingerly lie upon the ground, breathing the dusty air, heedless of the grass and twigs that were drawn into his gasping mouth.

Dunimir was at one with the truely grim side of himself. He punished the brigands with all the fierce wrath within himself. Their bones were as twigs to him, and the more he felt crunch before the onslaught of wing or fist, or the cleaving edge of Arcalagon, the deeper his warped satisfaction.

It wasn't unitl he realised he stood within an otherwise lifeless clearing that the crimson rage of his long withheld retribution passed from his sight. Then Dunimir remembered the man he had come with the intent of delivering.

he found hi sprawled in his anguish on the ground, with pinkish spittle a the corner of his mouth.

Dunimir frowned, and lifted the injured soldier as carefully as he was able.

The Captain tossed and turned in the empty house, for a queer fever had come upon him. But there was no one to hear his ever weakening struggle, as his voice broke and was not renewed, and his breath laboured until it was but a last rattle.

So it was the the captain passed.

Curins' shock passed from him after a long while, and whenhe roused, he was being borne on foot, as it were, by the part-eagle had had seen wreaking death amongst the brigands.

He was carried, instructed to be silent with a stern expression, beneath the shade of the pines at the crest of the long slope. And much of his discomfort passed as soon as the shade of them fell upon him.

Curin saw a tall, steeply gabled roof, with a homely smoke rising from the heavy chimney of mortared stone. Then he let sleep take him, and if he slept for a week or a day, he was not sure.

Dunimir layed the second soldier down, filled with an unhappy tension, which was confirmed when he approached the Captain. The poor man had perished, and from the appearance of his throes, from a slow-acting poison.

Dunimir hung his head, and his wings moved of their own volition, wrapping themselves around his shoulders, so that his was cloaked in the gray feathers. He should have detected the poison. It seemed like a long while before he breathed again. Reaching down to close the poor souls' eyes. His whispered a quiet preayer, though more for himself.

Thusly he watched the second soldier, like a hawk as it were. The man slept a lot, having done himself soe terrible bruising within, but perfectly able to heal himself with good speed. After a week of deep sleeps, and fits of hunger, the man roused.

Curin realised he was laying in a good wide bed, beneath sweet smelling blankets of dark wool.

He was inside of a house, where only a single lamp was hanging at the opposite side of the one-room cottage from the, also softly glowing, hearth. A blakened kettle was beginning to softly sound. Outisde was the whump, and tinkle of dry timber being split with an axe.

Above the hearth was the terrible blade Curin had witnessed being used at the ambush of the brigands. Though now it had no trace of rust, as if it had replenished itself with the blood of the winged-man's foes.

Curin swung his legs off the bed stiffly, and stood; and realised with a snort of self-derisive laughter, that he felt fine, he felt terrific!

Dunimir stared out towards the sea, as a lively breeze picked up, bringing to endless rushing of the ocean, and the sharp scent of water and sand. The pines all about them shivered, as aged scholars might, and the wind moaned and sighed amongst their bows and needles. The last gold of the day was cast upon Dunumir, so that his gray plumage, which covered his entire body, but for his two horse-like legs, was lit like the ashes of a fire.

Dunimir considered his life, the endless waging of war, and his long exile here on the eastern coast. Turning back to the cottage he heard the kettle begin to sound. Quickly he cut the last rounds of the nights firewood, and carried the stack indoors.

The winged man blotted the fading golden light gleaming through the doorway, his hooves sounding sharply on the timbered floor.

"Hail master." Curin bowed, with his sword-hand held over his heart. "You saved me, for that there are no words of thanks I can ever hope to equal what you have done for me."

Curin bowed deeply, and awaited the creatures answer, noting with a tiny measure of nerves, that perhaps they didn't speak the same language.

Dunimir put the stack of wood beside the hearth, and went to the man. Taking his chin in his hand, turning his face both ways, and peered deep into his eyes. He lifted up his arms. He twisted him at the waist in both directions.

"You are fit. The healing has been more than effective." Dunimir said, pleased, and clopped back to the hearth. "There is something you can do for me, welcome guest." Dunimir looked back at the man, with what must have been a strange smile, but an honest, and humourour one. "I have prepared my own dinner for years beyond recall. To have something made by another hand would be such a blessing."

sorry, wrong topic

Curin froze as the huge creature approached him and reached out a great hand, the same vast hands that had thrown the brigands about like dolls. After what seemed nothing other than a brief medical inspection the creature spoke, a deep voice that rolled out of the vast chest.

To Curins' considerable surprise the creature did not bother with the formality of exchanging names, but rather came quickly to the simple request of a meal cooked by someone elses hand.

Curin, still buoyed with the unbeleiveable feeling of fanastic good-health positively bounced to the hearth. In earthenware storage-pots were wild-foraged cloves of garlic, and spring-onion, as well as last years fully ripened ones. There was a young hare there, and hanks of freshly harvested cress. Curin got quickly to work, finding his boning knife exactly where he kept it belted, and as he prepared the vegetables, brewed a hasty stock from the bones of the hare.

The huge creature hovered over his shoulder, watching him with enthusiasm and relish, and when they sat at the table, there was a warm smile on the beasts face. Curin smiled back, if shyly, through his beard. "My thanks again, master...?"

Dunimir was well pleased that his guest did not remotely hesitate to fulfill his honestly given request. He watched the man take a quick account of what ingredients were available, before he swiftly had drawn both skin and bones from the flesh of the hare Dunimir had trapped that morning. The cottage was soon filled with the fragrance of the stock, as the soldier turned the bones into simmering water, with the peels on onion, the straggly wild carrots, and the woodier stems of the cress.

Dunimir eagerly awaited the meal at the table, as it was served, a hearty stew, thickened with an over-boiled potato, with the cress thrown in a moment before serving. The man then casually enquired as to Dunimirs' name. The hippogryph hesitated. The momentary silence drew into a long silence.

"I am Dunimir, son of Elduin." He said, and waited.

Curins' spoon dropped from his hand. The realisation of who this was could hardly be beleived, even if the man was speaking the truth. "That must make you a hundred and fifty years old, or older still. Elduin was the captain of my regiment in the dark days."

Curin marvelled. "I know of you. They still remember you. What happened, you disappeared."

The hippogryph let his spoon rest against the rough-baked earthenware, and the sight of his eyes passed from the waking world into the depth of his memory.

He beheld a vast pitched battle, in which so many valiant soldier, and brave princes were gathered as a bulwark against the onset of evil. The war was won that day, despite the horrible defeat of that one battle. For the forces of the black tide were broken into parts, and harried further apart, so that their army was scattered and leaderless. But the cost was paid in innumerable lives of good folk. The success there could hardly be called a victory.

"The battle was not just one of sword and brawn; but sorcery was there, and the very air whined and groaned with the competing forces. I was not killed in the explosion that took me, though it must have appeared so. I was caught in a state where time seemed to lose its grip on me, as it seems to have. Now if I age at all, it is only as slowly as the hills. But I lay there on the battle field, amongst the abandoned dead, and when I roused, my body was changed, into what you see. Though the transformation was incomplete, and I must have been truly monstrous to behold."

Dunimir frowned, and shook himself free of the reverie. "I came here, and have lived here since."

Curin shivered, for in his imagination he too had seen the horrifying reality of the great battle. "Dunimir, we know what magic it was that changed you, and why you have ceased to age. That indeed was the cause for the second terrible war: for the sorcerers that changed you, what they were hoping to do was to suck all the life surrounding them into themselves for their own use. But some people, like yourself, whilst caught in the maelstrom, unwittingly did just what they were doing. You must have drawn in the essence of a harrier, and a stallion, and not being a sorcerer yourself, could not help but be changed, in part, into what you had absorbed."

Curin watched grim realisation dawn on the hippogryphs face. "They waged a long war to destroy those sorcerers, as their death was the only way to undo what their spells had done. Not all those that were changed retained their ability to think, or even to speak. Many that had been the most noble, were transformed into monsters of the most atrocious kind."

Dunimir stood up from the table. "COme, let us put this talk aside for now." HE said, adn it was plain how distressed the memories made him. He washed the crocks wordlessly, and again, without a word passed outside.

His mind flickered with the details, still undimmed, of the last battle. Perhaps it was his imagination, perhaps it was just the power of suggestion; but Dunimir felt certain he could remember the last two things he saw as a mortal man. As the fire of the sorcery set in, and as he felt certain he was dieing, Dunimir had looked about him, at his falling comrades. He had seen as mighty war-horse, riderless, still hacking at the enemy with his hooves, and far overhead, a great grey harrier.

Curin waited a long while in the darkening cottage. He put out the lamp and sat close to the hearth, so that its liquid orange light played upon his brooding eyes, and glinted from his beard. He listened to the pacing of the hippogryph outside, at times quick with the deep agitation of a trail of thought, at times slow and ponderous. At times there was no sound.

"What kind of guest am I?" Curin wondered aloud, suddenly angry and scornful of himself. He should go outside, and offer company to Dunimir, if he should want it.

Dunimir looked up at Curins' shadow blotted the light through the door. He nodded gratefully to the offer of company, and indicated with his hand they might walk in the direction of the cliffs.

High overhead a hunters moon reached silvered fingers through the whispering canopy of the pines, and the smell of the ocean mingled with that of the trees was invigorating. "Tell me, friend Curin, what of your home? Do you still have one that you can name?"

Curin leaned out of the door, catching the hippogryphs' eyes, who could turn his head almost backwards, as an eagle can. Offering what company he could offer. Dunimir made a visible effort to shake himself free of his concerns, and held a hand out toward the sea.

Curin noticed the trail of a stag as they went, headed due west, inland. He made a mental note to go hunting for it, for it seemed the hippogryph contented himself mainly with fish: smoked, dried, and salted fish; supplemented with the few hares he could snare. Far off, perhaps too far off to bother going on a hunt, as a second thought, Curin heard the stags' call, imagining it lifting its great muzzle to the stars.

Dunimir asked Curin of his home. "Aye, Dunimir, I have a home; though I can not bring myself to return there. There is an inheritance I am avoiding. It is a valley, on a high terrace above the sea, though far from here, on the Western coast. Neiruthaun we call it. Valley of the Red Pines. It is similar in a way to this place, but there is more rainfall, and the Neiruthaun allow for a lush undergrowth to flourish, as opposed to the black pines here, that blanket the earth in their heavy needles, and allow nothing to grow at their feet. There must be a thousand living things in Neiruthaun for every living thing here. It is a good place, and still safe. For it is naturally hidden, though it is no secret. The elves resided there, long ago, before they passed to Valinor the first time, and their mark has never left it."