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--- sessions:worldbuilding:2021-03-07 [2022/07/23 21:34] – Removed stray space pinkgothic
+++ sessions:worldbuilding:2021-03-07 [2023/09/18 15:05] (current) – external edit 127.0.0.1
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 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."}}