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--- sessions:worldbuilding:2021-03-07 [2022/07/16 20:52] – shyriath
+++ sessions:worldbuilding:2021-03-07 [2023/09/18 15:05] (current) – external edit 127.0.0.1
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 Shyriath stood staring at the two of them, but Evrith ignored them; she grabbed Shyriath's wrist in one hand and An-uxhwi's in the other and started dragging them into the alley between the houses, which ended abruptly at the wall. "Come //on//," she growled.}}
-[[wst>pinkgothic|Ax-uxhwi was about to gesture a kind of token apology and well-wishes when Evrith jerked him away from the scene. The time for niceties was perhaps over. He wasn't too worried about the xtauh making trouble for them - they seemed terrified, not combative, although the line between the two states was of course necessarily fluid.
+{{wst>pinkgothic|Ax-uxhwi was about to gesture a kind of token apology and well-wishes when Evrith jerked him away from the scene. The time for niceties was perhaps over. He wasn't too worried about the xtauh making trouble for them - they seemed terrified, not combative, although the line between the two states was of course necessarily fluid.
 The bigger problem was that Evrith promptly manoeuvred them into a dead end. An-uxhwi struggled for calm - it was there, quite accessible, but also palpably fragile, needing active maintenance. He turned, ready to physically defend Evrith - and, he supposed, Shyriath - if it was needed, even if he was still not the best-equipped for it, as he had long since sworn to himself he would.}}
@@ Line 218: / Line 218: @@
 The approaching guards saw it too, because their pace noticeably slowed; those in the air tried briefly to concentrate their aim on Evrith, but were soon unable to find her amidst the rainbow-edged blurs, and the stones, now dwindling as ammunition ran low, began to rain down in the vicinity of the cart without any great precision.}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|An-uxwhi could feel a sense of dread clutch at his spine that effortlessly drowned out the pain from his stone-struck wing. To his instincts, it felt like he was precisely in the wrong place, like a strange fire was about to erupt around him and engulf everyone, one he could escape as long as he leapt off //now//.
+Fortunately, he held onto his rational faculties, which insisted that Evrith would not spontaneously self-immolate; and if she did, she certainly would not be dragging in two unrelated xtauh into the process, who barely counted as as much as witnesses.
+But what //use// the rising spatial discord was to them, that he did not know, and the uncertainty about it made his heart race, threading a mute terror into his gut.
+If he had been less eaten by adrenaline, he might have had the presence of mind to ask about it. Instead, he simply endured his ignorance.}}
+{{wst>shyriath|From inside, it appeared that beyond a certain radius, everything outside was being... //flattened//, the very landscape being pressed up against and stretched against the surface of some invisible sphere, and there was a sound that An-uxhwi could only compare to a bowstring under unbearable tension, singing and creaking. And then-
+THWOMMMM. The tension was released, the string snapped, and there was a brief, terrifying moment in which everything beyond the sphere was a confused blur of movement-
+In the middle of the street, their various pursuers stared in horror as the shimmering sphere pulsed, contracted, and abruptly collapsed into nothingness, leaving behind it a crater in the street, as if some sharp, precise tool had smoothly sheared away a piece of the ground. Nearby, through an open window in the house that Evrith and Shryiath had recently vacated, several of the awakened inhabitants stared at the scene in astonishment.
+As they watched, a huge sphere of rock, meters across, popped into existence in place of the cart, dropping into place with a loud crash, landed in the crater, into which it seemed to fit perfectly.
+-----
+For those on the cart, there was suddenly complete darkness, and silence... or, at least, comparative silence. There was the faint sound of water trickling down stone, but this was drowned out almost entirely by the shrill shrieking of the two xtauh under the cart.}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|An-uxhwi jerked to the side, clutching at the side of the cart, blinking vigorously. Complete darkness, by its nature, was indistinguishable from blindness, and in his near-panicked state he wasn't sure which it was. There was no obvious, sharp pain in his eyes that would explain it, but the light had done strange things just moments before, so it seemed just as likely as not that it had, in a curt moment, overloaded his retinas, possibly permanently.
+"Evrith?" The question was automatic. 'Where are we?' was not - even if blindness were a factor, it seemed obvious they were somewhere else, but less obvious that Evrith would know where. So instead, he simply polled for her existence and hopefully by implication, her well-being.
+With that out of the way with, he reached across the edge of the cart, feeling forward, gradually trying to determine if it was safe to clamber down to check on the xtauh that were clearly nearby. He hoped that they were only terrified by the change, but maybe the cart had partially crushed them. Maybe there was something below them now that they had fallen into. Maybe they had not fully been in Evrith's influence, and had been partially disfigured. "Xtauh friends?" he called for them.}}
+{{wst>shyriath|Evrith murmured something, faint and indistinct. Somewhere nearby, Shyriath groaned and muttered, "What in the name of the Eminent was //that//?"
+From underneath the cart, the shrieking, possibly in response to An-uxhwi's call, possibly to the lack of other imminent danger, settled down into panicked jabbering; at least they were getting coherent enough to use words. Out of it emerged Tikke's voice. "Friend! What magic-giant do? Why dark? Where world go?"}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|Some of An-uxhwi's tension dissipated; they did not, fortunately, sound hurt - only panicked.
+//I hope you weren't planning to be anywhere,// some part of An-uxhwi thought, grimly. Two xtauh whose only crime had been to speak to him had been unmoored from their lives. Could they be returned? He would have asked Evrith now, but everyone would have more pressing concerns now.
+"We're safe now," An-uxhwi postulated minimalistically, deducing that it had to be true. //For a while.// But he had no other information to share just yet.
+Then he looked toward Evrith - unable to see her, simply glancing toward where her voice had come by reflex - and said, again: "Evrith?" Carefully, using the edge of the cart to keep himself steady and his sense of orientation intact, he inched in her direction. "Are you all right?"
+There was no air movement. The scent of the air was the one of Oraa, but the general stillness made it unmistakable that they were somewhere else, even to someone confused about the status of their sight.}}
+{{wst>shyriath|Evrith murmured a faint, "I need... gimme minute..."
+There was the sound, from Shyriath's direction, of someone cautiously moving to the back of the cart and trying to get down off it, somewhat to the audible nervousness of the two xtauh. There was the faint sound of claws clicking on stone, then he spoke: "She... put us underground. Somehow. Hold on, I think we're not far from the surface..."
+Shyriath moved partway around the cart, and then there was the faint rumbling of rock being moved through whatever force he could exert on it, and after a minute or two a single finger of light - not direct sunlight, but more than bright enough - speared through the darkness. It was enough to bring in fresh air, at least, and to reveal an intact cart in the center of a perfectly spherical chamber... perfect, at least, except for for the center of the floor, which was flat. It appeared to be the same paving stones they'd been sitting on in Oraa.}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|That, then, solved the question whether he had gone blind. His eyes thanked him by closing in reflex - it wasn't a lot of light at all by any measure, but it was sudden and unexpected. But since it wasn't necessary to shield his eyes, they opened again just as quickly.
+He took a deep breath.
+Underground. It felt more like an accidental detail than a conscious choice. If Shyriath hadn't been here, or something had happened to him while they... displaced, it would have been their tomb.
+With the light spill now giving shape to his surroundings, An-uxhwi turned his attention to Evrith, driven by a fear that she might be hurt - that the effort of displacing them had been much like the effort of lifting a far too heavy weight, tearing a ligament in the process.}}
+{{wst>shyriath|Evrith looked... not physically hurt - she was still standing where she'd been when she'd done whatever it is she'd done - but she was swaying gently, and, as An-uxhwi watched, began trembling with the effort of holding herself up upright. She turned her head to look at him, her eyes unfocused, opened her mouth to say something, and then her legs gently slid out from under her, landing on the floor of the cart with a faint thump.
+This was enough, one way or the other, to draw the two xtauh out from under the cart, who peered over the edge at the Evrith's slumped form. [Tikke,] the one barked, [look for the medicine box, will you?] Tikke paused briefly, as if about to object, but clambered up into the cart and began rummaging around in the small stash of things directly behind the front of it.
+His companion then turned to An-uxhwi, and, evidently less comfortable than Tikke in speaking Imperial, said slowly and carefully, "We carry things. For sick. We find. Maybe help."}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|As Evrith slumped, An-uxhwi instantly jerked forward, trying to guard the motion she was making from doing something like knocking her head against the side of the cart.
+Then their chance companions spoke.
+"...please," An-uxhwi said to Tikke's friend, posture alert and peering toward him. He didn't know what medicine might help, or if it would, but it seemed better than simply accepting Evrith's collapse and doing nothing but naively hoping for her recovery.}}
+{{wst>shyriath|Shyriath, hearing the discussion, slid down from the little hole he'd made, which had been enough for him to stick his head out but not much more. He glanced at the scene around the cart, and somewhat wearily pulled himself up into it.
+Tikke pulled out a clay bottle which, when unstoppered, smelled both intensely herbal and rather alcoholic. "Here," he announced. "Good for what ails-"
+Evrith stirred slightly, and waggled her head. "Nnn."
+"Is good, I make by self," Tikke insisted. Evrith gave another vaguely negative sound and motion. She gave a slightly gurgling hiss, briefly curled up in pain, and then grabbed the side of the cart; hauling her head up and over, she started coughing wetly.
+An-uxhwi could not see what was coming out, which was just as well; but the faint scent of blood became apparent.
+After a few more coughs and a forceful spit, Evrith slid back down to the floor of the cart, red around her mouth. She struggled to focus on An-uxhwi, moving her mouth soundlessly as Shyriath probed her side with his hands.}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|The blood was concerning, but with no external wound visible, it was hard to stop any bleeding. If one of her lungs had been damaged, the best thing An-uxhwi could think of - absent healing magic that, as far as he knew, none of them possessed - was to lay her in such a way that it could escape from the lung, rather than filling it up completely and possibly spilling into the other.
+If both her lungs were affected, there was perhaps nothing that any of them could do.
+If in turn it was anything less threatening, it should be sufficient to keep her hydrated and well rested.
+But perhaps the best person to know how to deal with her pains was Evrith herself; there was, after all, a chance that she had experienced this before and recovered, either with or without help. "Evrith," An-uxhwi addressed her with a soft urgency. "What help do you need?"}}
+{{wst>shyriath|What help? Not to be cursed with the future would be best.
+The blood was bad. The pain, like glass shards shredding her insides, were worse. But both were passing, however slowly; and they were no comparison to the sight, in a thousand thousand futures, of it happening again and again, with increasing frequency, until on some horrible day-
+Evrith squeezed her eyes shut, as if it would hide the sight. She wearily opened them, raised her head enough to spit over the side of the cart again, then let her head fall back, looking at An-uxhwi's concerned and, from this angle, upside-down expression. "Need to just... not move, maybe, for a while," she murmured. "And a drink-"
+An-uxhwi's face was eclipsed by Tikke's clay bottle moving slowly into view. Evrith had, in fact, meant water, but considered that the dreadful concoction might help with the pain, at least; she took it with a trembling hand, and carefully sipped at it.
+Shyriath watched doubtfully. "It's just as well," he said. "We must not be very far from the city; I could see the patrols flying around at the edge of view through the hole."}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|An-uxhwi's antennae flexed with ambiguous uncertainty. Almost reflexively, he glanced up toward the scattering light, as though there were anything to see from this angle. "How long are they going to keep looking?" he asked, in a tone that made it clear he was not expecting more than a guess.
+Some small fragment of his psyche insisted that he ought to be asking why they were looking at all.
+As if to underline their inexplicable misfortune, An-uxhwi's wing abruptly pined for attention. He hissed softly, jaws clenched shut, and tried to inspect the damage taken by awkwardly twisting neck and wing to look.}}
+{{wst>shyriath|Shyriath peered at the damaged wing membrane. "Hard to see in this light," he murmured thoughtfully, "but I //think// it's just a bad bruise. If you keep that wing folded, avoid stretching it out-"
+He stopped abruptly, he view of the injury suddenly obscured by Tikke reaching past him to proffer the bottle - having retrieved it from Evrith - to An-uxhwi. The green demanded crossly, "Look, who //are// these people?"
+Tikke looked down his muzzle at Shyriath. "We friends of-" He paused, glanced at An-uxhwi, and continued, "-him. Who //you//, tiny giant?"}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|//Friends//. An-uxhwi found himself pausing at the term - even though he had used the exact same one before - to feel profoundly touched.
+It lasted three seconds before the pain in his wing pulled him out of his reverie. Dutifully chastened by the ache, he tucked his wing to the side, uncomfortable as it felt to fold it, and aspired to keep it tucked.
+"Friends," An-uxhwi said, cementing the relation in addressing them as such. "This is Shyriath." Then he glanced to Shyriath to say: "I would introduce you, but I honestly have no idea who these people are, we don't share any language you don't also speak. But they are clearly friendly, and I would appreciate if you could treat them with respect." The final comment came with the barest hint of a stern undercurrent.
+Said, he gestured thanks to Tikke and gratefully took his strange concoction, although he did sniff at it with curiosity before doing anything with it.}}
+{{wst>shyriath|The smell arising from the bottle was not unpleasant in and of itself, but strong. Most of the components he didn't recognize, but there was evidently enough alcohol in it to send the unwary drinker into unconsciousness.
+Before Tikke could speak, with all the attendant possibility of some snarky remark, his companion did it for him, in his careful, deliberate way. "I  Unitti," he stated, touching a claw lightly to his head. "He band-brother Tikke. We pass outside book-giant house as you come out."
+Shyriath grunted noncommittally. He had clearly gotten off to a bad start with Tikke, who was still eyeing him suspiciously, but these two had evidently gotten caught up in something that they hadn't meant to be involved in. "It appears," he said tersely, "that we owe you an apology." //Though I don't know why //I'm// doing the apologizing, since stealing the books wasn't my idea.//
+He glanced at Evrith, whose gaze had unfocused in a way that suggested that she was either peering through time again or had been taken unawares by Tikke's potion, and added, "That's Evrith. Your friend's name is An-uxhwi."
+The two xtauh bobbed their heads in acknowledgement, though Tikke with somewhat less enthusiasm. "You magic-giants? We no meet magic-giants. We never see one of... xtauh... with them either." It was clear that Tikke was not very fond of the word 'xtauh', but had used it in the interests of being understood.}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|"Evrith helped many of us - many 'xtauh' - escape from enslavement. I follow her because I owe her my freedom; my life," An-uxhwi summarised for the benefit of Unitti and Tikke. "I may leave if the debt is repaid, but I do owe her a lot. And her concern is for the future of all peoples - but unlike you or I, she can //see// that future, to some degree, and thus has the unique opportunity of improving it."
+Said, he took a few cautious drops of the tincture into his mouth, letting the alcohol burn gently along his tongue. Maybe it would help his wing, or at least dull the pain. With a grateful nod, he returned the flask to its owner.}}
+{{wst>shyriath|Tikke took the bottle back wordlessly, he and his companion evidently contemplating An-uxhwi's introduction of Evrith. They both looked at the rusty-brown witch, who had stirred uneasily as An-uxhwi spoke. After an awkward silence, Tikke hazarded, "You see future?"
+"Many futures," Evrith murmured. "Many futures. And the past. The past is easier."
+She waited expectantly, and was not obviously surprised when Tikke then asked, "What happen on day I leave mother's home?"
+Evrith closed her eyes, and then, after a moment: "There was an eclipse of the sun. And during the darkness, waves of color appeared and moved across the sky, and you were told it was an omen of an important life-"
+Tikke had slowly pulled back from Evrith while she spoke, looking astonished and somewhat frightened; he muttered a exclamation in his own tongue. Unitti, meanwhile, peered at her curiously. "What you do to get us away from Oraa?"
+Evrith looked uncomfortable. "It... is possible to switch one place with another. I moved the place we were to here; there is probably a ball of rock sitting where we were."
+"And it hurt you?"
+Evrith looked away, and in a tight voice, replied simply, "Yes."}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|As the conversation unfolded, An-uxhwi crouched down beside Evrith, carefully extending his hands to rest them on her body, one aiming to hold her hand, the other to rest against a wing-shoulder.
+"Magic is still work," An-uxhwi explained, trying to piece together his own layman's understanding with the new evidence. "Some of it is harder than others. So this is like... pulling a muscle very badly from overstraining it." He paused, letting the metaphor roll around in his head while he looked at Evrith with some worry. "Is that right?"}}
+{{wst>shyriath|As An-uxhwi touched Evrith, he caught flickers of borrowed prescience; these were scattered, leaping from one to another as if trying to escape them. They were difficult to catch, but though in some of them he was there (in a few of them, he seemed very close to her), there was a general theme of Evrith with blood around her mouth.
+Through the visions, he heard he say, "Something like that."
+She seemed to stiffen briefly, and then the visions moved on to other things - or, possibly, were directed to them.}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|A sinking feeling gripped An-uxhwi: //There would be more.// He felt his features tense at the thought, but kept himself quiet. There was no use berating her for it. She would, he was sure, not choose those futures if she could avoid it.
+Maybe the best he could do was be there for her, just as he had always intended. Cautiously, trying not to be overbearing, he leant down a little further to lightly touch his head against her neck, meaning it as a gesture of tenderness and solidarity, as one might in brotherhood or other familial kinship.
+Then some curiosity finally ate its way through his demeanour and he straightened a little. "What was it that forced your hand? Something must have disturbed the future you saw. Do you know what it was?"}}
+{{wst>shyriath|Evrith relaxed... slightly; she had not been sure how much An-uxhwi had seen and had not wanted to talk about it at that particular point, at least not in company.
+That said, the question he //did// ask was disturbing to think about, in its own way. "I think we... the person who saw us at the book place..." She trailed off, then said, "I couldn't see him in the future. He appeared in the past, but not the future... and so he went to the guards, but I couldn't tell until he'd already done it..."
+She didn't know how to convey that feeling to them; the sickening lurch of the future being replaced with sharp suddenness.
+"...I don't know how he did that, or what it means. Or if it means anything. But that's when everything started going wrong. I had hoped Shyriath would be able to get through the ground in time, but..." she glanced at Shyriath, who shrugged and said, "The rock was very hard there. It didn't want to cooperate."}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|//I don't know how he did that.// Something prickled along An-uxhwi's spine - the deceptively simple sentence was deeply troubling.
+But it could also not be helped. As much as Evrith's very existence was a miracle, it was not a //boundless// miracle. She too was flawed, even if her flaws were different in nature than anyone he has previously laid eyes on.
+"If we come across one such a person again," An-uxhwi said, softly, in a tone of 'thinking aloud'. "It may then be best to leave as quickly as possible."}}
+{{wst>shyriath|"If I happen to notice them in time," Evrith replied gloomily. "It was only through sheer luck that we spotted them with our eyes this time; if it we weren't to be so lucky next time, there'd be no warning. I don't recall coming across anyone like that before, so we can hope it's a rare thing, but..."
+She trailed off, but the implication hung in the air: suppose she'd just never come close enough to one before to notice the difference?
+There was a brief silence. Somewhere in the spherical chamber, water dripped. Unitti and Tikke were looking at each other in the manner of those seeking mutual assurance, as if they weren't sure they understood or believed everything they were hearing. It was, perhaps, hard to blame them.
+Then Unitti cleared his throat. "Excuse," he offered diffidently, "but we and cart underground and we not have chance to buy food before-" He waved vaguely in the direction of the light hole. "At some point we need out. If guards still searching, at some point sooner we need food."
+Shyriath turned to look at the small hole, where light was still pouring in. "We have //some// with us," he murmured, "but not very much. And I'll need to get my strength up a bit if I'm going to try to widen that enough to get a whole cart out of here."}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|An-uxhwi, of course, had a background in mining. It wasn't a particularly //voluntary// background in mining, but nonetheless, it seemed suddenly relevant. "Perhaps I can be of some assistance," he offered. "We do not have good mining tools, of course, but sometimes it is enough to find a piece of harder rock, or the right angle."}}
+{{wst>shyriath|Tikke cocked his head, then rummages around in the xtauhs' stash again; he produced a shovel and wordlessly offered it to An-uxhwi. It wasn't a large one, meant more for digging waterholes or latrines than for mining, but at least it was a metal edge.
+"Well," Shyriath murmured, "Maybe if we both go at it we can at least widen it enough for people and go hunting or something."}}