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--- sessions:worldbuilding:2022-11-04 [2023/04/01 19:17] – shyriath
+++ sessions:worldbuilding:2022-11-04 [2023/09/18 15:05] (current) – external edit 127.0.0.1
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 The young man ran back into the trees, and the figure continued as if nothing had happened. "I imagine the threat to the world must be rather dire, and your companion seeks to prevent it." He seemed to be making a point of continuing to use the word 'companion'.}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|Given An-uxhwi had already assumed they would not take to his commentary about Evrith owing him nothing, the insistance was unsurprising. Vexing, troubling for the implication of what it would cost him as their captive, but unsurprising.
+"I am not the seer," An-uxhwi said, blandly. "I'm hardly in much of a position to tell you what it is she sees." It was the truth; while she had shared some things with her entourage, for all they knew it could be something else entirely, and the things that she said a fine fiction. It seemed unlikely that it was, for a number of reasons, but regardless, strictly speaking, he only had insight into his own mind.}}
+{{wst>shyriath|"Mmmm," the dark figure replied, and then was silent for a time, looking off in the direction the young man had gone. Out of the edge of his vision, An-uxhwi could see that the body language of the woman aiming the spear at his throat suggested a certain impatience.
+After a few moments, she began, "Ynudh-" only to be stopped by the return of his gaze. "I beg your pardon," he replied. "There was some movement. It's now stopped. But we may want a few more threatening the xtauh, just for extra... deterrence." The woman nodded curtly, and started snapping orders to others around the makeshift camp.
+"You know-" Ynudh turned back to An-uxhwi, speaking conversationally. "-some very interesting things happened, when we forced the target out of the sky. She almost managed to leave our people behind, but when she dropped the book, she went back for it. I'm told that she made mincemeat out of several people using some kind of line of light.
+"She has been circling our forces ever since, apparently looking for a way to get the book back - until we brought you here. Her movements changed when you were tied up. They ceased entirely when Kezadh here pointed that spear of hers at you. Rather interesting, given what you said about your ties to her. Or lack thereof. I suspect that she would find it upsetting if something were to befall you. I suspect, too, that she is watching us, in her own way."
+In his mind's eye, the dark aura that represented Evrith began moving again, with a kind of agitation, even before Ynudh had finished speaking. Solemnly, Ynudh extended a clawed finger and, very gently, set the tip against An-uxhwi's forearm.
+At first, there was nothing except the slight prickle of the claw-tip. But with shocking suddenness, the prickle turned chilly and began to build, becoming something like the stabbing of hundreds of ice-cold needles all in the same spot. A faint wisp of black mist began to rise.}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|It took only a fraction of a second for An-uxhwi's cognition to go from an exasperated and tense intellectual 'here we go' to a visceral rejection that extinguished his thought process. His arm jerked against his bindings, and as they optimised more for keeping him tied to the tree than immobility, managed to displace by quite a few centimetres. He had not cried out, but it seemed like an accident, not a skill, instead replaced with a sharp breath.}}
+{{wst>shyriath|As An-uxhwi's arm moved underneath Ynudh's claw, a line of pain was drawn across it; but the dark figure calmly withdrew his digit. The feeling began to fade, although - somewhere at the back of An-uxhwi's mind - there was a faint feeling, as of unseen eyes being turned on him, before that too dispersed.
+In the flesh of his arm, there was a tiny divot where the claw had been held, and a line like a burn where it had merely passed over; blood began to well from it.
+Ynudh stood up. "Causing pain," he commented mildly, "is not the best use of the power, useful though it often is. I do apologize." He looked off in the same direction as before, from which there was the faint sound of talking. "I think your companion may have had a change of heart about trying to retrieve you by stealth."}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|As An-uxhwi's intellect recovered, it found itself immediately wondering whether that had been the most insincere apology he had ever heard in his life. It was certainly a top contender, made more bizarre for that he wasn't sure whether this deranged person was even //aware// how insincere it been.
+A different instinct gave him a moment's distress - Evrith should not be putting herself in danger for him. But that passed quickly, letting him focus on the burning ache of his open wound, aggravated by impurities in the air. He grimaced. If Evrith was willing to put herself in danger for him, she knew how to make it work. No doubt he would have to help, much as he had during the uprising. It would be harder without communication, but if she thought it was possible, then it had to be likely that he would anticipate what was needed.
+It was harder to understand why she would //bother//, but maybe he would be useful to her in future in some fashion no one person would, making retrieving him valuable. He didn't like the taste of the thought - it had the bitterness of hubris - but it was the only he could think of that made sense.
+Unless...
+Unless this was the best opportunity for her to rid herself of this alien threat entirely and the purpose was not to rescue him, but to sacrifice him in a //strategic// fashion. That, too, was conceivable.
+But if Ynudh didn't realise any of it, An-uxhwi had no interest in bringing it to his attention. He seemed to be rather confident and his willingness to share information on Evrith's whereabouts could prove useful. Maybe he could goad Ynudh into revealing more of it. "Is that so? I wonder how you could possibly tell the difference between the approaches, if all you have is a location." It was easy to channel his pain into a tone of contempt. His hand had balled together, the tension an attempt to distract himself from the sting.}}
+{{wst>shyriath|"This close," Ynudh replied distantly, "I can can see the shape of her. The posture. She is moving cautiously toward the perimeter but without any evident attempt at concealment." He seemed to have chosen to ignore his prisoner's tone. "Keep your spears at his throat," he added, speaking to the guards that Kezadh had gathered. "If she makes any sudden moves, kill him." His gaze remained locked in the presumed direction of Evrith.
+After a while, Evrith was guided into the clearing by a pair of guards, who both very much looked as if they'd been tasked with handling a live cobra. When she came into An-uxhwi's field of view, she looked - the first thought was 'subdued', but a longer look suggested that this was woefully inadequate. She was wearing an expression that was not familiar to him, but which conveyed the impression that she was trying desperately not to panic. Her eyes darted around, in and out of focus, as if desperately sifting through futures.
+She looked straight at Ynudh with a mixture of fear and revulsion, and stated, simply, "Let him go. He doesn't need to be part of this." Her voice was hoarse and, despite what sounded like a supreme effort to keep it still, quavered ever so slightly.}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|As his understanding of Evrith's emotive expressions broke down, it came with a fundamental, immediate question: Had he ever understood them? Maybe he'd only deluded himself into thinking he could read them empathically. Maybe his purported experience was worth nothing at all.
+But even absent a facial expression, her words were confused. Maybe the futures were all too tangled right now for her to see them clearly. And so An-uxhwi did what he thought was best and, in the tone of a matter-of-fact reminder, said: "I'm not part of it." Not panicking, not yet. She could still somewhate easily fix this mistake, if it was one, and not some very strange ruse.}}
+{{wst>shyriath|"Are you not?" Ynudh replied mildly. "Yet here you are - both of you." He approached Evrith, coming to a halt just outside of arm's reach. "I am told that you can see the future. You must be able to see that I will not release him - not yet."
+Evrith did indeed not seem surprised, but she tried nonetheless. "If you let him, I can cooperate-"
+"If I let him go," Ynudh interrupted quietly, "I have no guarantee of your behavior. You may be able to see what I will do, but I have no such comfort. On the other hand: if you cooperate, I might be persuaded to release him //after// you are safely committed to the Devourer's care."
+Evrith glanced at An-uxhwi, but said nothing. Ynudh stared at her. Then he added, in a much smoother, more persuasive voice, "And would that be so repellent? Life burdens you, more than most; I can smell it on you. Just a brief conversation, and then you will have no more worries-"
+"I have things to do," Evrith whispered hollowly. She looked stricken. "It's not time yet."
+"And yet I have your associate," Ynudh replied. Evrith stared into the futures she saw, and shuddered, suppressing the urge to scream. Or vomit. She murmured, "//After// I am dead, let him go. I'll cooperate."
+Ynudh made a motion with his hand, and several of his minions cautiously approached with rope. Possibly, An-uxhwi thought, she might explode into motion at the last second, cutting them down - but no; she stood there, allowing them to bind her.}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|The situation made no sense to An-uxhwi. Indeed, Evrith still had things to do - she clearly knew it. He wouldn't judge her for changing her mind, but it hardly seemed like she'd done anything of the sort. More misreading of bodily cues? She couldn't possibly think //his// life was worth more than the fate of Avishraa as a whole. Even if it were somehow an emotional truth, she had made hard decisions before, ones contrary to her feelings.
+Asking 'What are you doing?' was the least productive thing that could have left his mouth, though, and so he didn't, instead staring toward her with stern encouragement, the extension of his reminder from before: //I don't need to be part of this story. Don't let them manipulate you.//
+The sting of the wound on his arm was interfering with the expression, but not by much.}}
+{{wst>shyriath|There was not another log handy besides the one An-uxhwi was occupying, so Evrith was very thoroughly trussed and hogtied before being laid on the ground - well out of range of being able to easily reach him were she to get free, he noticed. She made no struggle.
+He knew from experience that, though Evrith found it far more natural to use her... her cutting ability, however it worked, by directing it with her hands, she was quite capable of doing so without. She //could// free herself, if she wanted to, though maybe not instantly. Why, then, should she bother to submit to it? To lull them into a false sense of security? Or was she truly that concerned that he would be harmed if she didn't at least appear to submit to their security measures?
+Ynudh leaned over her. "What disaster, then, are you trying to prevent?"
+"There will be a person," Evrith croaked. "A witch. A figure in white. They will be able to unite the other witches and lead them against the rest of takmakind. There will be a war. And the figure in white will not be inclined to accept defeat, should they be unsuccessful. They will somehow - I can't yet see how - be able to unleash horrors on the world in order to avoid defeat."
+"Who are they?"
+"I don't know. I'm not close enough. All I can see is a flash of white."
+Ynudh appeared to consider this. "And you want to - what? Find and kill this person?"
+"Too far in the future. Everyone here will be dead or old by then. I wanted to try to leave a message or sign, something they could find early in life, to divert their path. Or find some way of //barring// the path before it could be taken."
+"So," he replied smoothly, "at this particular moment, there is no better way to make those events more likely than by stopping you here, is there? Unless, perhaps, you could be convinced to use your abilities to make them //more// likely, instead of less." Evrith squeezed her eyes shut, and did not reply.
+Ynudh stared at her for a moment, then strolled out of An-uxhwi's field of vision; but after a moment, somewhere near the tip of his tail, there was again the feeling of a storm of icy needles stabbing at his flesh.}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|It came too sudden as that he could have braced for it, and so his expression contorted and the beginnings of a hiss surfaced from him, tension whipping through his body for an instant, before he clamped down on his teeth and tempered his reaction. There was an urge to squeeze his eyes shut and he resisted, narrowing them instead. His tail had done its own thing, following a reflex as though burnt - and in some way, burning was exactly what was happening. He pressed his tongue aggressively up against the roof of his mouth, hoping the pressure would help him resist the urge to whimper or wail.}}
+{{wst>shyriath|"Don't!" Evrith shouted, but it was as if from a long way away. It had no effect on Ynudh, anyway; the sensation continued to build, from a trickle to a flow, and it was clear that it would continue to a torrent.
+And as it continued, there was again, far stronger this time, the sense that there was something watching, some dark place all around him with hidden eyes, like a predator smelling blood in the water.}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|The pain was more disease or poison than it was a fire or a grating of flesh off bone, but it was all these things, regardless. The pressure in An-uxhwi's mouth helped, but it could only do so much for his tension and instinct. An exhale snapped out of his chest as something shifted, his eyes widening for an instant, then squeezing shut, and he cast his head back against the trunk, first straightening his spine, then arching it against the bindings. He imprisoned sounds within his chest, each like a fist's pressure against his throat from within. He lost track of his breath's cadence, too focussed on corraling his vocalisations, herding them together, trying to prevent their escape and - for now - succeeding.}}
+{{wst>shyriath|And then, entwined and entangled with the unwholesome feeling of flesh being torn away, particle by particle, was a... scream. A song. A wail. It was not heard in the antennae but in the bones, the opposite of a sound, a terrible void on the other side of silence, a thing of malice and longing, loathing and hunger.
+It demanded and begged him to heed it in a way that no such thing should, but there was no doubt that it was a hunting-cry.
+The pain abruptly lessened. It was not gone - the substance of him was still being taken from him, somewhere toward the end of his tail - but the rate of it had been reduced. As the input from his other senses began to break through the pain once more, he became aware of Evrith shouting incoherently; but he could not see her, because Ynudh's face was taking up his field of vision.
+"I must congratulate you," he commented mildly, "on your fortitude."}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|Another thing that rapidly bloomed back past the decreasing pain was a flash of hot anger. Lips drew back from teeth in a split-second motion of threat display. It was hardly a conscious decision, but it was hard for his intellect to guide him when his body prioritised everything else more highly.
+If his intellect had been allowed to speak at all, it would have taken note of Evrith's scream and noticed with great dismay that it was confused and that, perhaps, the world would end in a rain of fire after all. Instead, the thought occurred somewhere in his mind, fully disconnected from his consciousness.
+Because it was his intellect, divorced from the emotions that insisted he snarl, it felt no sadness.}}
+{{wst>shyriath|"And your stubbornness," Ynudh added without flinching, "misplaced though it is. But it won't help you in the long run, you know. You felt His presence, but He is always there. He waits for you.. Resilient or not, stubborn or not, He will have you in the end, one way or another, as He will all of us.
+Evrith's cries had gone quiet, but as Ynudh pulled his face back, An-uxhwi could see her gaze, full of horror and tears, flicking back and forth between himself and Ynudh.}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|The rage was still there, rippling through An-uxhwi, seeking an outlet in vain - an animal, backed into a corner. Teeth opened and clacked shut again, a smouldering glare lingering on Ynudh. Had Ynudh made any demands of An-uxhwi, it would have been moot - the last minutes were all but wiped from existence and he would have forgotten it all.}}
+{{wst>shyriath|Ynudh turned back to Evrith. "Somewhere in your howling I though I heard a promise to aid us," he said, "but after some consideration I think that it would be best not to take you at your word. A wasted opportunity, perhaps; but there would be too many opportunities for you to do something foolish, particularly since we would have to keep an eye on both you and your angry friend here."
+Evrith's head drooped slowly, and she closed her eyes. She tensed, but said nothing.
+Ynudh approached her. The darkness around him seemed to take on a life of its own, writhing and curling. He murmured, "There is no way to make it painless. But I can make it brief, so that you-"
+Off in the distance, there was a sudden shriek, brief and cut off. Ynudh's head turned. So did those of the guards keeping their spears pointed at An-uxhwi.
+A thin silver line materialized through each of the guards' heads, one immediately after the other; then another slashed through most of the cords binding An-uxhwi's limbs to the log. "Go!" screamed Evrith, as yet another line cut through her own bonds (she must not have had time to aim; blood coursed down her arms). "Get out of here!"
+Ynudh had turned back to her, and one or two of the other cultists around the clearing took their cue from him and began scampering toward Evrith; others, hearing the sounds of battle coming from their perimeter, rushed off toward it, or launched themselves into the air, where other shapes could be dimly seen flying against the darkening sky. For the moment, no one seemed to be paying attention to him, though it was hard to say how long that would last.}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|The animal was fading now that nothing was actively savaging his tail any more, but it was still alive enough to tear free of the remaining bindings. Wings snapped open, the ache from the bruised wing so pale in comparison to the past minutes's horrors that his body chose not to remark on it at all, and he leapt forward, toward Ynudh, as though to tear out his throat.
+But that wasn't what he did. Instead, landing near the monster with a xtauh's agility, he leapt into the air above it and flew, coming just close enough to be a maximum distraction to the beast at almost no threat of damage to himself.
+For the moment, it was hard to gauge if he was planning to do it again, or if it had been a one-time affair to keep Ynudh from harming Evrith in the moment of chaos.
+It was quite possible An-uxhwi didn't know, either.}}
+{{wst>shyriath|An-uxhwi's low path took him immediately over the heads of Ynudh and those who'd rushed to join him, and his passage startled them enough that they failed to prevent Evrith from freeing her legs. She snarled, scrambling to her feet and neatly spearing one of the two cultists before slashing madly at Ynudh himself.
+As An-uxhwi came around to face the scene again, he saw that Evrith's movements were frantic, even frenzied, as if attempting to overwhelm the dark creature with sheer energy. But beyond the fact that Evrith did not have the stamina to keep such a pace up for long, the silver lines she wielded as blades failed to connect with Ynudh; where they passed through the aura of darkness, they dimmed and disappeared, like a beam of light through thick smoke.
+Whatever she was trying to do, it wasn't going to stop him.
+Perhaps she was well aware of it, because she screamed, "I said //go//, Anuwi, damn you!"}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|Then An-uxhwi was upon the branches of a tree, rending a branch about the thickness of two fingers from it with his arms. A fresh pain shot up from his tail, higher up than before, and his body jerked in response, nearly sending him into a tumble. Instead, he converted the motion into one mostly to his benefit, landing back on the ground near Ynudh and his henchmen, swinging the branch. It didn't make for a good weapon - the leaves were still on it, as well as thinner, smaller branches, all of which would soften the impact - but it would still tap into takmar instincts and hopefully give Evrith more time to escape.
+Any minute now, he might actually listen to her command.
+But as it were, his self-chosen mandate was to protect her to best of his ability (even if she was arguably in a better position to defend) - not to listen to all of her instructions.}}
+{{wst>shyriath|Whatever else could be said about Ynudh, he was fast to adapt. He caught the branch in one hand, where black mist began pouring off it; he swiped at Evrith with the other, though holding on to the branch limited his reach.
+Evrith dodged back, turned, and sliced off a spearhead that was thrust at her, then impaled its wielder through the chest. She slashed at the dark figure again, as ineffectually as before; he opened his mouth as if to snarl something-
+A blur hurtled through the air and slammed into Ynudh, sending them both skidding. It was a xtauh - an unfamiliar one - who was making an impressive effort to get his teeth around the cultist's throat.
+In fact, now that, for the moment, neither of them were being attacked, they were in a position to notice that the clearing was now full of xtauh, and that a full-scale battle had erupted around them - here mobbing takmar with claws and knives, there forcing others out of the sky. Evrith stared at them blearily before turning to An-uxhwi and, somewhat ineffectively, trying to pull him away from the melee.
+"You //idiot//," she told him, though her tone was more heartbroken than angry. "Why didn't you //listen// to me?"
+Behind them, there was a horrible, gurgling scream as Ynudh's attacker found his face being dissolved away.}}
+{{wst>pinkgothic|His head swam. A kind of nebulously defined headache was blossoming in his skull, neither stabbing nor dull, conforming to no particular geometric shape that he could have identified. A haze. He felt himself stagger forward increasingly uneasily, unsure if it was because of another stab of pain at his tail or from something else his adrenaline had him neglect...
+Dimly, he was aware Evrith asked a question of him - an admonishment of some sort - and he was even sure he had understood the meaning, at least in some past life from several seconds ago. He nodded acknowledgement, even though he was sure it hadn't been a yes/no question. If he'd been more with it, he might have done it proudly: //Yes, I am an idiot, but you're alive.//}}
+{{wst>shyriath|An-uxhwi felt Evrith steer him behind a tree at the edge of the clearing and lower him to the ground; whether from emotion, exhaustion, or both, she trembled as she did so. As his surroundings started spinning, her muzzle filled his vision and her tongue started to swipe across his face.
+Darkness began to close in, but as the world fled from him, he heard her say, over the sound of approaching snarling and shouting, "I'm sorry."}}