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--- sessions:worldbuilding:2022-11-04 [2023/05/20 21:15] – shyriath
+++ sessions:worldbuilding:2022-11-04 [2023/09/18 15:05] (current) – external edit 127.0.0.1
@@ Line 318: / Line 318: @@
 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."}}