Also Mature Content (body image)
Images may contain artistic nudity | Candidate at Caer Mystrach
** 2025 note this was across 3 different pages, carol, carol2, and cardiv,
will have repeated info on diva's pages
Diva and Carol only truly become outwardly Triptych after leaving Alskyr**

Triptych Character

Name: Carol Walters
(Caroline, sometimes spelled Carrol or
with a y but both incorrect whoops)

Gender: Female, age 13 at search

Height/Build: 5'8 at adulthood / extremely thin, see below

Appearance: Her skin is medium in tone, and often has a light down of hair on it due to her poor diet. Her hair is pale brown, and almost completely straight, often cut to just her shoulders. Her face is long, and somewhat pretty, with brown eyes. She thinks that she is ugly, though this is untrue: if she were to put weight back on, she might be someones idea of perfection, but she is very slightly too skeletal for comfort, she brings out the concern in everyone around her

Prime One

Kangaroo Rat

Size: ~6"+tail

Abilities: Jumping, Stealth

Prime Two

Grackle

Size: ~2' long

Abilities: Flight, Communication

Prime Three

Oryx

Size: 3' shoulder

Abilities: Desert Survival, Horn Attack

Triptych

As Shown

Size: 5'10" fully standing

Abilities: Survival in harsh conditions

Shift: technically able to shift beween each Prime quickly but hesitates, thinks the Triptych is 'best'

Quirk: weak and rarely used Primes, spends far more time as human

Mental: Obsessive about her weight, and the fact that her mother and sister (both deceased) were remarkably pretty. She loves clothing and style, though she has to alter most dresses to fit her bony body. Her mental state is somewhat fragile, and she does need solid friends to show her the way to health.

Skills: As a seamstress, Carrolyne is quite talented. She is also good at weaving and dying cloth, and is good at selecting plants and oils for those dyes. She is still learning other skills.

Her best friend is Diva, though it seems hard for her to keep friends - they would like to get her healthy, and that to Carrolyne means "fat".

"I just can't even believe everyone wants me to get fat like that..." Carrolyne muttered. She stuck her needle into the ball of yarn nearby and flopped back into her chair. "I mean, I'm big enough as it is, and I can't even see why anyone would like a chubbo like me to begin with..." Growling to herself, and ignoring the growling in her long-empty stomach, Carrolyne tried to concentrate on her sewing but it wasn't working very well.

The dragons out on the hill had at least made it possible for the clan to settle for longer than a few weeks in one place, but Carrolyne knew they'd be moving along again, to one of their other secluded rest-spots soon. Their goats and few cattle needed better grazing apparently.

"I might as well go out and graze with them," Carol groaned, clutching her bony fingers to her hips. It was not fat that her fingers felt below her dress, but she had convinced herself that the bony protrusions of her gaunt hip bones were indeed covered with chub. Every time she thought about the words her elders would ply her with - you've got to eat more, you're so skinny - you should see one of the medics about your weight - she blew them off with a nod and a false promise.

Instead of griping to herself, or risking getting in trouble for not working more on her chores, Carrolyne decided to head out to the goat pen. She would check to see if there was any chance of getting some shed fur, which always made some good thread even if it was a bit stiff. She loved being out in the sun, but her skin was getting more sensitive to it. Plus, she had that odd kind of "fur" on her skin that stayed there even when she ... well, when she could change in and out of her private shape, it remained.

She guessed that others of the Triptych clan had this ability. And she knew that her parents had been captured and killed by the Faustas people - probably for their Tpowers. If that was why the Faustas house kept chasing the Triptych, they'd be chasing the clan forever... Everyone she knew had some kind of secret. Some of them could telepathically speak to one another, some were able to lift objects with their minds, and some could even spray fire by waving their hands.

Carrolyne could weakly shapeshift. She kept going back to the goats, because that seemed to be her "chosen" shape. It had horns, anyway... But she'd only been able to do it once or twice, and even one time she collapsed and couldn't rise again in her human shape - so she slept in the pens with the other animals that night.

"Pathetic idiot, I can't even control my special powers..." She hissed to herself, as she climbed over the short fencing that had been erected around the goat pens. The goats behaved better when she was around, they rarely tried to escape. She brought out her fur brush and waved it in the air. "Anyone got shed?" She called. "I'm sure you don't want to itch so much..." Several of the elder goats approached her, bumping up against her thin legs and almost toppling her.

"Okay, okay, there's enough to go around I guess. Take your turn next Pilo!" She nudged the big male, who sulked but waited dutifully. Carol swept the stiff brush across the goat's belly and back, up and down the neck, and over the legs once or twice. Then she collected the full brush worth of hair, and went on to the next goat. In the short time she was out doing so, she'd gotten enough to create a small spool of thread all by itself. Thus, her next activity was to begin spinning the hairs into the long preliminary threads.

Eventually, over the next day or so, Carrolyne spun and sewed until her fingers were raw. She barely ate, and she usually slept hard and for the entire early morning. The sun woke her, and she'd only a tiny bit of work to finish her latest dress.

It was a happy dress - the material was a pale yellowish shade, and she'd embroidered many colored flower shapes onto it in patterns. She tied the waist hem again, testing it on her narrow hips and frame, and was finally satisfied. Whe she was done, Carol put it on and danced over to Diva's temporary hut. The black-haired girl was always there, with her nose in some kind of project.

Carrolyne looked around and ticked her tongue, "that's where those scissors got to," she said, and carefully pocketed the small pair of sharp scissors. She knew that Diva had 'borrowed' them, but never could remember her asking what they'd be used for. Many people would find things they had lost in Diva's hut.

"Do you like it? I just finished it up!" Carol said, spinning around in a circle and fluffing out the hem of the dress. "I think I need to take it in a little more - there's always so much material left over."

Diva looked up from her 'work', and grinned. "It looks great!" She said, and before she realized it, or caught herself, she said, "you could fill it out a little more, get some meat on those bones --" Then she clamped her dark fingers over her mouth.

"MEAT?!" Caroline yelled, suddenly quite angry and her head spun. "Meat? You want meat? Here- nobody likes me the way I am, how about this?" She concentrated and in her anger she managed to shapeshift into a half-human half-antelope creature. Her dress, with so much hard work into it, slid to the ground near what appeared to be hooves instead of Carol's bare feet. Diva knew her friend was a shifer - but she'd never seen her do it so abruptly before.

But then, as Carrolyne's horned head turned on Diva to angrily look at her, oddly sounding words came from the muzzle-mouth of her friend - "oh... I don't feel so--" and Carrolyne dropped to the floor in a bony heap - still shaped like an antelope-person.

"Carrolyne!" Diva yelled, and lept to her side. It was all her fault, if she could only learn to control her mouth as well as her darned hands - always saying the wrong thing or stealing something else -- "Carrolyne, please be okay! Wake up!"

Barely aware, Carrolyne looked at Diva with dark horizontally-slitted eyes, and whispered, "don't tell..." But then dropped into unconsciousness.

(from Diva's page)

Diva frantically moved around Carol's inert body, and finally decided that she'd get her into the bed. Hefting the strangely-shaped girl up to her shoulder, Diva muttered, "Well at least you're easy to lift this way. Too light. Oh, girlfriend, what is gonna happen to you..."

In Diva's mind, there were few things she could do to help. She was no healer, no medical skills had been taught to her. She was a thief, and the worst kind too - the kind who couldn't even control her urges to take. There was nothing to remove from Carrolyne's body. She drew her fingers across her friend's furry brow, and whispered, "hold on Carol, I'm going to get some help."

She bolted from the hut, hoping that no one entered it and found a half-human creature there...

"If Drake were here -- oh why did you have to go to Talor?! Drake!" Diva yelled, as she stumbled around the rocky terrain looking for someone to help. She gasped when she heard someone else's voice.

"Drake's still at the Caer, Diva. What's up? Why are you so--" It was Wade, known as Buck to some of the people around but he only allowed his 'closest' friends to call him that. The big black man looked worried.

"Wade! It's Carrolyne!" Diva blurted out, "she..." dare she say it? Well, they were supposed to all be hunted for a reason anyway - "she shapeshifted and then passed out! She can't shift back to human!" Her voice rose high, squealing, "what are we going to do!?"

Wade stood there blankly wondering what in the world she could mean, and then lowered his head close to hers. "Show me."

They arrived back to the hut to see no one else nearby. Out of breath, Diva panted and sat down near the bed again. Her friend had not really stirred, and had not come back to her human shape. If it startled Wade, he made very little deal of it.

"She's breathing, so shallow," Diva said, "do you think ... she'll die?"

"Not while I'm on guard duty," Wade announced. "Stay here. I'm going to get Angela. Maybe she'll know what to do. If I can't find her, I guess we'll have to figure something else out..."

Diva sat with her hands clenching around each other, concern for her friend destroying any hint of composure that she often wore. Within minutes, Wade had returned with Angela in tow.

The pale skinned woman with the big red birthmarks stood with her eyes wide, and Diva slid out of her way. "Can you help her?" Diva asked, her voice shaking.

"I'll see. It's not..." Angela knelt beside the bed, and placed her fingers on the furry shoulder. There was only a flicker of amazement in her blue eyes when she saw the odd inhuman girl. She furrowed her silver-colored eyebrows and said, "this is not a wound. I cannot do anything for her, Diva." Angela whispered. There was sorrow in her voice, more than anything.

"But she'll DIE!" Diva yelled, standing frantically. When she did so, one of the local elders threw open the flap to the hut. There was a moment of stunned silence, as everyone realized that he'd be seeing Carrolyne in her half-human form.

"What's going on here?" He asked sharply. He was clearly related to Dave and Dane, with his blond hair and striking blue eyes. He looked at Carol, and frowned when Diva explained what happened.

She did so carefully, and used simple words - but she left nothing out.

"How long has she been like this?" He asked.

"More than an hour," said Angela, "she's sleeping, or in a coma."

The clan elder nodded, his medical experience was obvious. Dean looked at Carrolyne as the others held their breath. "Diva, Angela, relax. I have an idea." He rose and left the hut, and came back quickly enough. He held a long rubber tube in one hand and what looked like a funnel in the other.

"Go get some broth, there's always some cooking in the gather-yard," Dean instructed Diva. She was loathe to leave her friend - especially now, but... She did as he asked. It seemed like the only solution - to get food into Carrolyne's stomach they would have to actually put it there themselves. Force feeding her sounded so ... barbaric. But...

Diva bolted out, and ran to the center of the Triptych caravan gathering. It was true, there was always something brewing. She decided that colder was better - hot liquid going down Carol's throat might hurt her too much, and that would probably end their friendship. Diva grabbed the first jug of it she found, one which was placed on a sill to cool, and she heard a vague yell from the inside of that caravan. She didn't care. This time, she wasn't stealing it, she was using it as per Dean's request, and if she got into trouble it would be on his head this time, and not hers.

Diva came back, breathless, to the hut, where Dean had pushed the finger-thick tube down the still-unconscious Carrolyne's throat. It looked horrible, but they'd only this chance. As he attached the funnel to the other end, Diva opened the jug of broth - it smelled quite good and it obviously had only been made hours before - and handed it to him.

"Pour it, carefully," Dean said, not having enough arms to go around. He instructed the others to hold Carol's head up, and Angela was certainly interested in this all from a medical point of view - plus she could tell if Carol was choking.

"She's doing fine," Angela said, a moment later, "she's breathing all right." Her eyes were closed, there was a strange tingling sensation coming from her. Diva felt it, probably everyone there did. She carefully started pouring the liquid into the funnel, and they waited for the results.

(had been carol2)

Carrolyne woke and immediately thought she was better off dead. Her stomach ached, and her mouth - there was something in her mouth?!

She gagged hard and tried to sit up and yank this THING out of her mouth - but then she wasn't moving very quickly. Plus - she didn't have hands. She still had hooves at the end of long stiff leg-limbs.

Her panicky eyes and distressed sounds must have alerted the others, but to one member of the room Carol's movement was a bother.

"Keep her from moving," Dean said, professionally calm. "She's got to get the rest of this in her, and keep it down somehow."

Carol felt hands gripping her ankles and wrists, and she knew someone was actually holding on to her horns keeping her head straight while Dean poured something down her throat. Her big strange eyes teared up and she wanted to die.

She could see Diva there, and the elder Dean, Angela and Wade... What, had EVERYONE seen her shape now? Great... She closed her eyes and shook with a sob, but continued to swallow the liquid which was going straight into her throat. It bothered Carol that she was breathing AND swallowing, but... She wasn't going to complain right now. Later, maybe.

Carol waited it out. It was awful, her eyes kept tearing and she heard Angela say something about her being 'just fine'.

When it appeared they'd poured half the Triptych Clan's supply of stew broth down her poor throat, she saw Diva cap the jug and abruptly turn when they heard someone at the hut's door.

"I know you're in there, you've stolen for the last time you little--" someone yelled, an elder woman's voice. But it was Dean who stood and intervened. He handed the funnel and -- that was a rubber hose? -- to Angela, who carefully pulled it from Carol's mouth.

While Carrolyne was gagging and sputtering, still shaped like an Oryx (for that was what it was, an ancient Earth animal - not even an Alskyran creature) the others formed a sort of barrier between her and the hut flap. Dean went outside, and they could hear him speaking in a low voice.

"We had to use it to force feed someone - you know how thin Carrolyne is."

"That was her going in there earlier... I see." The woman conceeded, "but the thief is--"

"Diva went to get the broth when I asked her to, Temlan. Don't cross me. It was a medical emergency, and I can trade you for your broth. You'll get your jug back later."

There was silence, for a moment, and then, "I had better." They could hear her stomping away. Everyone inside the hut breathed a relieved sigh, everyone but Carol.

Dean came back inside, his handsome face lined with worry and a bit of anger. "Now, Carrolyne, you've got to get control over this. And I don't mean your shapeshifting." He stared at her, and Carol was unable to tear her eyes off his blue ones.

She shifted carefully back, and Diva put a blanket over her since it had come off while they were struggling to feed her. Carol looked down, ashamed. "It isn't like you think," she muttered.

"It is exactly. There is no reason in the world why you need to continue starving yourself, and I will personally make sure you eat if you won't do it yourself. Is that clear?" He said sharply, and Carrolyne started crying.

"But I'm f-f-fat!" she bawled. "It's awful!"

Dean had had enough, apparently. The blubbering girl would live, and Angela's touch would keep her healthy if she was injured. He strode to her side and lifted the feather-weight off the bed. With both hands holding her narrow shoulders, Dean growled at the girl. "What is awful is seeing a beautiful young girl like yourself wasting away to a mere skeleton. Now I mean it - you and your friends will have to agree on something, but you're not to vomit up anyone's well made meal, and you're not to skip dinners. You work yourself quite hard, and you're very good at your tailoring," Well that at least made Carrolyne perk up - he of all people had noticed this? "But if you work yourself to death, what good will that do? I knew your mother, Carol," he said in a slightly more soft tone, "and she would never have allowed this."

"But she was thin! And pretty!"

"She was THIN, Carrolyne," Diva suddenly blurted out, suprising everyone, she had tears in her eyes and was clutching the jug of broth to her chest, "she wasn't EMACIATED! You're -- you're sick, and I will help you get healthy. We all will, if you need us. I mean, Carol, everyone wants to keep their secrets, but you'd DIE from yours!"

Dean set Carol down on the bed again, and wrapped the blanket around her bony shoulders. "She is right. Everyone in this Clan has some special feature. You'd let yourself die before exploring your own? I don't think so."

He straighened her mussy hair, and then gave them all an appraising nod. "I'll be around if you need me, and by the way, you might want to clean up a bit, after you're feeling better. There are search dragons from Caer Mystrach coming tomorrow, and there's a chance that they might select some Triptych children for their bonding."

With a half a moment of silence, and then another half filled with eyebrows-shooting-into-the-air, the group left in the hut all glanced at one another. Their surprise at Dean's statement was only a bit of it. Diva sat down next to her friend.

"Now, I'm not kidding. You're going to have to keep eating. This was nothing," she sloshed the jug contents back and forth, and the sound almost made Carrolyne queasy. "This was just to get you back awake so you could change your shape. Which is really - totally - cool, by the way."

"... Do ... d'you really think so?" Carol said, "really?"

"I think so," Angela said. "You might be much stronger and agile in that shape, but only when you're healthy and well fed."

"Okay - okay!" Carol said, annoyed. "I get it. Look, it'll... take some time."

"Not much time, I hope," Diva said, "I mean, you need to get well for tomorrow."

"I can't show up to a Caer! I'm --" Carol started to say out of habit. "... I give up..." She flopped down on Diva's bed, and sighed. "I'm totally the worst idiot in the world, why would any search rider ever want me to come to a Caer?"

"Possibly because you might bond a dragon?" Wade said, and offered his arm to Angela, as they left the hut.

"He's right," Diva said, with a smile. "I mean, I want to go, why wouldn't you?"

"Well, I guess... Caers need tailors too, don't they?"

"Of course they do. And they need thieves..." Diva winked.

** (Diva's page has their search)

The trip to Mystrach was windy and exhilirating. Neither girl showed any signs of fear from the height or of the dragons themselves, and that was a good thing. They landed on the coast of the isle, both girls were stunned to see this gigantic almost vertical peak towering over everything. They'd never seen a land like this, they had never been off Paniya.

"It's huge!" They whispered, clutching each other. They were led into the Caer's lower underground entrance, and wandered a bit before finding where they would sleep. They could share a room, and they each even got their own bed!

It was while they were exploring after a tense dinner - tense because of course Diva glowered at Carrolyne every time she would try to get up and leave for the restrooms - that they located a little alcove with someone sitting in it. She looked old, out of place, and she had a basket.

"Here, here girls," she said, old bony fingers finally making even Carol wince with how thin she was - "this Caer don't have any good feathers... Them eggs'll only hatch dragon. How 'bout these?" She waggled her fingers at the tiny eggs in the basket.

"What are they? I mean," Carol asked, "they're eggs, but what kind?"

"You'll have to hatch one and see..." the old woman gave Carol one egg, while Diva declined. She would just be accused of stealing it anyway...

So while they waited the few days until the hatching, Carol intently watched the egg. Diva assured her that it would require actually feeding whatever came out of it, and not to spare any expense for her own meals - but not to share just because whatever hatchling would be hungry. "It should get its own meals..." Diva warned. Not too much later, and with a little bowl of scraps from dinner sitting nearby, Carrolyne watched as the egg hatched open to show a gangly long-necked alisGryph!

"You're so cute!" She exclaimed, and Diva handed her friend the bowl. "I wonder what your name is going to be..." Carol pondered for a minute, and then the little half-feline hatchling cried out in a honking hiss. "Honker- too loud! You'll keep everyone awake!"

Diva giggled, and they settled down to wait for the dragons to hatch...

(from cardiv)

Carrolyne drummed her fingers on the table, beside her plate. Diva had looked away and in the moment she did, Carol popped another piece of potato-crisp bake into her little Honker's beak.

The alisgrif gobbled whatever she had for him right down, and rarely got caught.

However, Diva looked at the bird-flit and then back at Carol.

"Next bite had better go into your mouth, my friend," Diva cleared her throat and waggled her eyebrows.

"... Fine... you win..." Carol muttered.

"Good. That's what I like to hear." Diva chuckled. "That, and the sound of your teeth chewing something..."

"I know... I know..." Carol ate the meal and found that this time, even though she *wanted* to refuse more, she was actually... sort of hungry. She still ate by picking pieces off her plate and slowly sampling each one. Honker on the other hand wanted anything it could get its beak or claws into.

The days went by at Mystrach, and Carol kept her promises to everyone. She worked hard on some of her clothing pieces, and took some comissions to do other skirts and cute dresses for the locals. Diva ... found herself in a room that belonged to a scribe, and her hands on something they shouldn't have been. She put the expensive looking pen set back where she'd gotten them, and hustled out.

When the bright sunny day came that neither of them would ever forget, the hatching started abruptly. The eggs were already shaking and riddled with cracks in some cases. Apparently Myrath had nearly forgotten to notice something like that.

The first dragon to hatch was a small green, who bonded to the big blue dragon who had been unbonded at his birth. Then, a brown and a brilliant cream hatched out, two eggs smashed into one another with their forceful wobbling. A bunch of sand obscured the pair of hatchlings until it settled down, and then everyone gave off a bit of a laugh.

The pair of dragons were piled together among the shards of their shells, hopelessly tangled. Oh dear, Carol heard in her mind, Carol, dear bond, I seem to be stuck.

Only she had heard this, and suddenly Carrolyne stopped laughing. She said, "Kathra!" knowing the name of her dragon instantly. She giggled a little more, as she carefully extracated the cream from her brown brother. Diva caught her broad grin and applauded loudly. This was Carrolyne's moment!

Another egg broke, a red. He bonded and then a bronze hatched. It walked toward the brown who had been left alone when Kathra bonded. A voice came from the bronze, yet it was very female in sound. Do not worry, One will come for you. But for now, I must find my bond.

She strode out to the other candidates, through the shells and eggs. She looked over everyone equally, but her decision was, Diva, no one will doubt your actions now. I will help you and together, we will be great.

Kneeling and taking in a surprised breath, "Saitra, you- you're bronze!"

Of course I am, silly. But you don't have to steal my metal.

Diva picked up the hatchling, a tough job for the tiny girl, and they went to find Carol and her cream. Both of them congratulated each other on a bonding well chosen, while their dragonets shared their first meal. They were ravenous, and for the first time in her life Carrolyne worried that there wasn't *enough* food for her dragon!

(obviously diva's dragon is on diva's page)