Avishraa Reloaded

The book to Avishraa slots back into its rightful place in the shelf, exact to the millimetre. Then Tanith's attention veers upwards for a moment, glancing at no point in particular at the wall, sorting his thoughts. He was still tired, but there was one thing he needed to take care of.

Ashernath's urge to slip from the room and hide from the attention of his father was great, of course, but both sons are too well-behaved to even try such antics. That they were staying in this room until dismissed was implicitly clear and if they were so foolish to attempt to abscond, it was certainly only a trivial matter of time before their father caught them and spoke to them regardless, then with increased ire. Logically, it was better to stay put.

The elder dragon turning until he can comfortable glance at his sons, Tanith's gaze finds first Ashernath, then Demarath, only to settle on the Srian, disappointment evident in his expression. “I'd like you to list everything that went wrong today,” he instructs, voice calm. “One after the other, alternating, until you run out.”

Between the mental and physical exhaustion that he's been through today, the prospect of slinking off to his room and sleeping forever is nearly overwhelming. But Ashernath's still here, and of course if he runs away now it's only going to be worse later. But worse later he could handle, because it would be later. Right now he just wants to forget this day ever happened.

No such luck, of course. He shrinks away from his father's gaze, not quite able to bring himself to meet it. Then he hears the request, and his submissive expression quickly turns to an indignant glare. 'Is this really necessary?' he thinks, barely holding the thought back from his verbal filters, though it manages to leak past his telepathic ones. But no, there's no point in arguing with Father. Not when he's like this. Both he and Ashernath have gotten in trouble enough times to know. Letting out an exasperated sigh, Demarath sinks into a sit - they're going to be here for a while. Just do the exercise, it'll be over soon enough. Where had it all started to go wrong? “We shouldn't have come into your study,” he states, tone akin to one a student might use reciting memorized facts.

That was an arguable point, really, and Tanith was in half a mind to point out there was very little wrong about that in itself, but he had graver points in mind and he was going to hound his sons until they realised what they've done and said as much, themselves. That it'd be delayed with trivialities, given their apparent lack of understanding, is to be expected. He let it count on a technicality. “Ashernath?” he asks, eyes narrowed slightly.

Either Ashernath understands the game a little better than his brother - perhaps he's had ample time to practise, what with how his boastful strength had gotten him into trouble several times before - or the more accurate answer is mere coincidence: “…we… - we travelled somewhere we had to, ah, make the assumption we'd have a slim chance of surviving in the long-term, without having any guarantee there would be a way back?”

Tanith's muzzle dips in a singular nod, then drifts back across to the other sibling. “Demarath?”

Demarath lowers his head, staring at a particularly interesting point on the floor. How does he follow something like that? How many foolish mistakes had they made today, how many errors in judgement? Of course he understands what went wrong, but it's on such a visceral level that trying to identify individual components and verbalize them is a difficult mental task, even without emotions like guilt and fear getting in the way.

There's a long pause before the younger sibling manages to tease a single error out of the writhing mass of everything that went wrong today. “We… - we assumed that the Citadel was going to be safe. That there wouldn't be any dangers inherent to going there, and that if there were, the Citadel… wouldn't let us get harmed.” Okay, maybe that counts as two things, but they're so tangled together that saying one without the other felt like half an answer. Of course, maybe that's the point of this whole hellish exercise, to get them to identify those individual errors.

Tanith tilts his muzzle for a moment, then nods once, slowly, and drifts his attention back to Ashernath, evidently still fishing for something. “Ashernath?” he prompts, clearly sticking to the orderly progression of things, not bothering to let his gaze speak for itself when he's established the ritual.

And then… there's it. The obvious parts are starting to be less tangible. It takes Ashernath a moment to think of what they've not said, but then remembers that some things are just implicit so far. “We got ourselves trapped… and… because we hadn't told anyone we'd gone we could have died?” That's… - he's not happy with that statement. He feels like 'what's wrong' is a lot deeper than that, but he can't put a finger on it. Death isn't the problem, isn't it? It's a trap. It wasn't meant to kill them.

“Do you think that's likely?” Tanith asks, breaking the flow. For a moment, his gaze is lingering on a confused Ashernath - then it swerves to Demarath, delegating the question to him, granting him an anchor for his next entry into this morbid contest with the usual prompt: “Demarath?”

Demarath visibly cringes as his father turns his attention on him. He's only just gotten away from the thing that was inside him, and getting out itself was the most terrifying thing that had happened today - which is saying a lot. And with the coil from the trap still lazily wrapped around his spine, buried under his skin… - it still feels like it's a part of him. Like it's still holding him in place and ready to squeeze the life out of him. Thinking about it from a neutral, scientific perspective is nearly impossible.

“M- maybe eventually?” offers Demarath with a small shudder of terror. “We didn't have any food, or water, but…” But it could have killed them outright. It was trying to keep them there, and it was trying to keep them alive. “It was a symbiont,” he muses, trying his best to separate himself from what happend to him, from the terrible experiences. “So… it needed us to be alive in order to survive?” Suddenly something clicks into place. That's what Father was doing. Killing the symbiont by… - by killing the host. And then reviving him. “That's… - that's how you got us out, isn't it?” And there's the tiny spark of curiosity Demarath had always possessed. Morbid curiosity in this case, certainly, but curiosity nonetheless.

It's hard to say what about the question goes unappreciated - maybe it's the change of tone from the humble or faux-humble guise to one of fascination; maybe it's just that Tanith doesn't want to outright say that he's had to murder his own son to save him; maybe it's that he doesn't want to indulge in the particular train of thought as to what the creature might have done to keep its captive alive. Either way, it goes unanswered, though the silence in itself is confirmation enough. “Maybe eventually,” he echoes. “Now what do you think is more likely?”

Demarath frowns, trying to put the pieces together in some way that doesn't paint a horrendously unsettling picture. “It…” A soft whimper escapes the young Srian, head lowering to the ground again. “It was going to try and keep us alive and trapped there for as long as possible.” How it would keep them alive, of course, is another matter entirely - one he's actively avoiding trying to think about, because the answer would by necessity be horrifying no matter what.

He lets his gaze drift across to Ashernath again. “Ashernath?” he prompts, purposefully leaving it open to the young dragon whether he'd like to respond to the current train of thought being bounced between the three of them, or continue the enumeration.

“I-” Ashernath opens his muzzle - and closes it again. Think. Come up with something. What else had gone wrong? Wasn't that all of it? They'd endangered themselves by going to Avishraa, they'd ended up in that trap, they'd assumed safety where none was. What else was there?

A chill grips his spine as he grasps the context of Tanith's urging and stumbles across its consequence.

“…we left a trail,” he says, quietly, mortified, visibly shrinking in on himself.

Demarath turns his head to his brother, eyeing him with a confused expression. Left a trail? What does he-?

Suddenly the young dragon's eyes go wide in terror. They left a trail. The linking book to Belewe would be wide open, wouldn't it? Unless Father had managed to hide it somewhere before coming back, but given the timing that didn't seem likely. So whoever set the trap - and someone must have set it, it couldn't have been naturally-occurring, could it? - they'd know where they had gone.

Demarath shrinks down, adopting a posture not unlike the one Tanith had found him in, uttering a soft whimper. But who could have set the trap? Who would have? It doesn't matter; if they found them… what would that mean? What would happen?

Tanith is breathing deeply and evenly, but tensely, much like someone struggling to curtail a particular emotional reaction that's been building up for the extent of their interrogation. His expression is bitter, full of a scornful disappointment. Apparently they've struck the jackpot, judging by his air.

Then the expression falters. “I don't know for whom,” he admits with a bit of a huff. “But yes. That's the core of this issue. No amount of care we could have taken would have concealed our destination and it's plain as day that the trap was sprung and that the dragon it caught escaped here.” His tongue runs along his jagged teeth for a moment of outward unease, before he continues with a thin but powerful thread of anger in his tone: “You've not just endangered yourselves, you've endangered your entire family. If the Hzataalar Kaea have managed to circumvent the Citadel's identification…?” He trails off, letting that hang in the air between them. “We're moving,” he says, flatly, bitterly - and with a pang of fear. “And, just so it's unmistakably clear: I fully expect you two to do most of the work.” Really, what's done is done. If they've directed attention to Belewe for the Hzataalara, his sons may be to blame for the focus, but they're plainly not the source of the problem - that was the delusional creatures themselves and their hateful agenda. He was livid, born in part of raw fear at not knowing the trap's purpose, not knowing its author, but as much as they should have known better, they were young and naive and foolishness naturally came with it. He'd fault them for it, but only to a certain, finite degree.

A small part of him, the continuously skeptical part, wants to scoff at the notion of Hzataalar Kaea getting into the Citadel - before today, after all, he'd only thought of them as vague bogeymen, not an actual threat. But this trap had put a very firm fear of them into his mind. He's never seen one before, certainly, but now he hopes that he'll never have that chance.

Moving. It feels like the final nail in the cold, dark coffin of the day. They're leaving Belewe? It's a terrifying thought, though nothing compared to what he's been through today. “Wh- where will we go?” They'd have to leave, and they couldn't ever come back. What about their friends here? Certainly, Demarath only had one or two, but they'd grown fairly close over the years. Would he even get the chance to say goodbye to them? Or would that only endanger more people? He already feels terrible for endangering everyone with his foolish desires to see his homeworld. At this point, any course of action aside from 'do exactly as Father says' seems like it has the potential for disaster.

“Leave our destination up to me,” Tanith comments, dryly, grimacing. “It needs to be carefully chosen.”

How long did they have? He was tempted to measure the time in hours, not days, but escape was going to take some time, unless they dropped everything. Not even Tanith was willing to rush things like that, when it's still a marginal possibility the trap is simply meant as a badly engineered safeguard preventing anyone from trying to follow the Srians out of Avishraa. Of course, he doesn't know of the book, though he'd refuse to take it as unwavering proof. It'd halve the chance he's assigning to it in his head, though, and given its already slim assignment, it might easily tip it into 'too improbable to hope for'.

Demarath lowers his head to the floor, closing his eyes. “Yes, Father,” he replies, exhaustion and guilt equally prevalent in his tone. It's been such a long, exhausting day, full of terrible things; it's hard to imagine how it could possibly get worse at this point. Unless perhaps it just kept dragging on interminably. He just wants to go to his room, curl up and sleep the pain away. “…may we leave now?” he asks, tiny shred of hopefulness in his tone.

A part of Tanith wanted to order both of them to stay, but the gravest point has been made, and there really isn't a way he can punish them much more than by terrifying them to the bone with something that's wholly, tangibly real. Another part of him wanted Demarath to stay so he could extract the rest of the symbiont in his body, but it was harmless and would even eventually be absorbed by his body if left unattended. They could do that whenever they'd reached their destination. “Go, then. Once you've rested, you are to follow Shiara's instructions,” he informs. “And once we've reached safety, you're grounded for as long as I assess.” He'd nearly tied the time to Belewe's celestial bodies out of reflex, but if he said 'a moon cycle' he'd probably regret the phrasing once he'd landed them on a planet with a rapid cycle, or no moon at all. Honestly, it was hardly much of a punishment - there would be much to do to make their destination hospitable specifically to themselves and the boys probably wouldn't even think of doing anything else but sleep, eat and be helping hands for the timespan he had in mind, but he couldn't leave it unstated.

Demarath nods once, slowly pushing himself off the floor, then wordlessly turning - with a mild grimace at the awkward sensation along his spine - and walking out the door to the study, wingtips dragging along the ground.

Once he and his brother are both out of the study and out of earshot, Demarath pauses, foreclaws tensing and face turning to a grimace. “I'm such an idiot, Ashernath,” he mutters. “I shouldn't have ever linked to Avishraa. I shouldn't have stumbled into that trap. And now we're going to have to leave our home all because I was naive and foolish.”

Ashernath seems almost unresponsive, numbly staring at the ground as he walks, no doubt just automatically following his brother for lack of a drive to go anywhere on his own. Who's idea had it even been? It didn't matter. There was no measuring what they've done. What's to say the Hzataalar Kaea won't burn Belewe to the ground if they don't find the Tenneth family? His mind is refusing to shut up about worst case scenarios and he feels more than a little ill. “We both are,” he says, hollowly, stopping a sliver short of expressing some inner passing urge to die. They'd get out of this. They'd get out of this, this time, and they'd learnt their lesson, but he wasn't yet sure what price they'd have to pay.