RP:Cursed to Walk the Lands
Part of the Two If By Sea Arc
Synopsis: During an exchange between Emilia, Xersom, and Zirael, Emilia witnesses her husband siding with the pretty mermaid. She decides to make her husband punish Zirael by blaming the mermaid for the punch to her face that in truth was delivered by Sargaso. Xersom curses Zirael to be bound to a two-legged form for a few days, but encourages her to use it to her advantage as he enjoys the game she plays with humanity. Zirael, like a big girl, gets up and out there to seduce a hunk.
Cove
Zirael was perched upon her usual rock in the middle of the cove, her white gold tail wrapped around a portion of the sharp rock to keep her secured to her spot. The mermaid’s long digits ran through her own hair, smoothing it out and keeping it neat and well groomed. Mermaids were, after all, rather vain creatures. Zirael sat atop her rock, brushing her luscious locks and humming serenely.
Emilia after having been mistaken for a mermaid and punched in the face for that mistake had fallen curious to the idea that the sea folk were still lurking around Cenril. The little ghostly woman had not seen one since the night when she had been drug out to sea with Crisien in order to raise a sunken ship from the depths. With the rumor one was hiding out in the cove the ice-woman traveled with careful steps into the cove to search for the creature. “Hello? Mer-lady?” She would call out on a wind of ice cold air.
Zirael heard a voice resonating against the walls of the cove, something asking about a ‘mer-lady’. A walker, no doubt. They were curious little creatures, never sure of the danger they were walking into. But Zirael so loved to be gazed upon, to have her beauty acknowledged and her presence awed at. So, turning slightly on the rock, she let her emerald eyes sweep across the shore of the cove; looking for the owner of the voice. “Come closer,” she sang.
Emilia walked with bare feet across the cove toward the responding sing-song voice that beckoned her closer. The Genasi was nearly a ghost as she move from the entrance into sight of Zireal. Ever-chilled white flesh with a dusting of ice-blue freckles, bright ice-blue eyes, and wild untamed white curls that danced freely around her black bikini clad frame of skin and bones, “Oh, what a lovely face.” The woman replied only hen she’d moved close enough to see Zireal.
Zirael looked at the Genasi with subdued interest, as if she weren’t that interested really. The way that cats look at people, curious but not willing to come over or inspect at the moment. They’ll just happen to be in the room with you and just happen to spend time with you. The mermaid could hardly hide her feline grin as Emilia said her face was quite so lovely. “Thank you…” she tries to be humble, but it’s clear that she thinks it’s more a statement of fact than any compliment.
Emilia would stop at a point where she was within conversing with the merfolk, but far enough back she was out of immediate reach. Mind you, if Zirael looked close enough the frozen one wore a necklace with six charms nearly hanging off the chain, preserved well in the stone was mermaid scales of different colors. To that the oddity of the white woman was that beneath her feet a layer of ice started to form. “If rumor has it you are the one causing panic within the Cenril city?”
Xersom 's movements were distinct with a predatory sense of gait, in which resonated the apex nature that the former general of Arrecation had; his manifestation was from behind Emilia and with a visage obscurred to the vision of the mer by mere fact of his tiny genasi wife before his weathered-robed form moved perpendicular to the presence of the former human. It was a pathway that brought him in a slow quarter-circle around the particularly feline-traited seawoman, upon slow steps that resonated a certain dangerous lack of haste. "Panic? I wouldn't call it that, yet." A taunt, just to see if he could provoke any response in the mermaid from the content of that particularly dark, yet sinister and soothing voice.
Zirael smiled again at the mention of a rumour of panic. She hasn’t quite heard anything of the sort, but then that wasn’t what she spent her time doing. The mermaid was more interested in actually carrying out her plan, rather than bothering with the opinion of the people. “I can’t say I pay attention to the idle gossip of walkers…” she said ever so casually, emerald eyes focusing upon Xersom as she delivered her words.
Emilia might have been spooked by the lurking arrival of her husband were she still human and until to sense him, however she was slightly shocked on the inside that he was there. Running fingers through her locks the Genasi shook her head slowly, “I don’t much like that answer. I would prefer it if you kept your idiots in check. I don’t fancy being punched in the face out of this mer-folk panic in the people. I am nothing near as hideous as you to be mistaken for a half-fish.”
Xersom lofted his eyebrows at the wordy taunt of his wife, and the surprising revelation of being punched in the face regardless of what or whom had caused it. His intense and vivid green gaze twisted toward the ice genasi, "Punched in the face?" The ancient asked, in apparent confusion and interest. "By whom?"
Zirael laughed that high and girlish laugh as her long digits splayed upon her bare chest in a sign of obvious amusement. “You’ve changed your tune,” she purred delightedly. Perhaps Emilia felt confident due to the presence of her darkly powered husband. “But I cannot help whether or not you like my answer. Nor do I have idiots to keep in check… if someone wants to punch you in the face, then so be it. It’s not my business nor is it my concern if someone wants to punch a walker such as you.” Her white-gold tail slapped briefly against the rock before unfurling from it altogether, letting the very tip of her tail touch the water. While she is tempted to shoot back an insult about appearance, she doesn’t bother with it. Why bother when she already knows she is beautiful? “Let your man here deal with whomsoever punched you in the face. It’s no concern of mine.”
Emilia turned those bright blue eyes to land on her husband, “I shall inform you of such details later on.” Then turning her attention back to the mer-lady, “I think you will want to make sure whatever your plan in makes it clear the difference between your half-fish folk and those not half-fish folk. Unless you want your plans to come to an quick end with your fishy half being offered to the locals as a fish fry.”
Xersom 's faux features fell upon a contemplative expression as Emilia turned to threaten the mermaid, to whom was amusing to the ancient general; this could mean his entertainment could be cut short. The ancient wyrm did not particularly desire that, neither with the premature death of Zirael nor the lack of Cenril's seige. So, the former demon general turned upon his heel, in order to move toward his frosty spouse and slide one arm around her waist. "I do not think she had anything to do with any confusion; rather, I think I have a better idea concerning her and her... fish folk."
Zirael raised her white gold brows at the words Emilia offered her. They were laughable at best, the insult of a child and that was precisely how Zirael perceived them. She had heard Cenrili children sling better insults at grown men. “Yes, yes, very well,” she said in a clearly bored way. “We’re ever so sorry, do forgive us. I’ll be sure to stick up posters clearly identifying the difference between a walker and a ‘fish half’,” her slender hand moved in such a way as if to dismiss the meeting. Evidently, Zirael was bored.
Emilia turned those baby blues up at her Husband to look up at the man that was near triple her tiny size. “You straighten out her and her fish folk within the next setting of the sun or don’t bother coming home until you have it fixed.” There hidden in those blues was a sparkle of mischief and love for the man, even a she used otherwise harsh words against him. Perhaps she was in part upset he was defending the sea-woman over her or something else entirely different. “I’ll see you when you figure out your fish friends.” And with that the frozen woman had placed a peck to his cheek and departed the cove using a gust of ice-wind to carry her faster out.
Xersom 's eyes narrowed in distinct distaste and lack of amusement, now; there was neither mirth nor entertainment in those eyes. "A shame. The only appropriate reprimand I can think of is to take away your beauty," the words were harsh and sinister, no longer soothing but a distinct damnation of deathly dialect. He was irritated, by the mannerisms, words, and entwined events from this 'bored' mermaid, and that was not acceptable. Slowly, the man's head turned toward Zirael.
Zirael shrugged her slender shoulder, “If you wish,” she told him calmly, as still as water. “I am not sure why your lady was quite so upset, to be true… As you might know, my kind cannot dwell on land for long, so it certainly cannot be one of mine. Perhaps another walker, who panicked and told a little lie to save face. If it were me, I’d find the scoundrel who had done so and shove a moray eel down his throat and up his ar-well… I need not say where I’d stuff it,” she grinned coquettishly.
Xersom 's body turned now, to correlate with the turn of his faux face toward the mermaid all simultaneous to the calm attempt by the latter to diffuse the situation; it wasn't that the ancient being wasn't listening to the mermaid, as he was, but simply that there could not be a lack of response to the affront to the man and his wife. However, it was, as professed, not X's wish to destroy this amusement -this game- that he had forced the seawoman into, and quite readily his dark mind was twisting and turning in logistic notion of what, tactfully, he can do that would not compromise the entertainment while sustaining an appropriate reprimand. "Do not worry of the other walker; I will deal with them once I discern their identity. No, it is more time to worry about yourself. I am in a rather precarious position, can you not see? So, our game has to get a little... erratic." His hand lifted, and fingers snapped to splay open, palm exposed and displayed toward Zirael. Tendrils of mercurial darkness weaved outward, shifting and entwining with one another as they sought to encapture that tail with brutal swiftness; if successful, the mermaid's aquatic tail would shift violently. It would split and form two walker legs -temporarily, of course, to condemn her to a life on land for a handful of days.
Zirael shrugged her slender shoulder again, “You fear the wrath of a mortal woman?” she asked in a bewildered tone of voice. Evidently, she did not expect Xersom to be tethered to anything but this would certainly explain why he had been so determined to come between her and her attempt to destroy Cenril. The mermaid was obviously waiting for an answer and thus was taken aback when the tendril of darkness captured her tail with brutal speed. The tail shifted against her volition, splitting into those legs she so condemned and only used when she felt the need to do so. Stranded upon her rock with those quivering legs, the mermaid’s head snapped up and stared at Xersom: her jaw distended and her teeth only rows of long, serrated fangs, giving her an almost angler fish appearance. “This is no game!” she shrieked like a banshee, her voice likely to burst the eardrums of any mortal man. The waters rolled back before crashing against the shore violently, as if sharing in her anger.
Xersom , even as ancient as he was, had to flinch and wince beneath the onslaught of the shriek; a testament to the strength of it was that a scarred hand lifted in order to rub one of his ears in both surprise at the unexpected sound as well as recovery from the afflicted pain. It took him a moment or two to recollect himself following the exclamation and violent anger of the leg-trapped siren, before he, as calmly as the woman was before, strode toward the dangerous and deadly countenance of serrated fangs and distended jaw. "On the contrary," his words came out in contrast to her shriek in a darkly melodic and soothing manner like some madman's lullaby, a croon of sympathy either feigned or real from some parental monster to a younger in tantrum. A scarred hand even outstretched, despite that it might be bitten and held the danger of losing digits, in attempt to smooth locks away from the distended jawline of the siren, "This is the most entertaining game. I've only given you ammunition -a show of what evils the walkers continue to do to you. What you do with this show -whom you use it to rally to your cause- that is up to you." His hand, if not bitten off (even if it were, he'd not even flinch or pause in his words) would lower again. "You have to move past your pride if you wish to pose a threat, use the cunning I know you have."
Zirael did not, surprisingly, snap at his fingers nor try to bite them off. Her eyes followed his fingers and she let out a rattling kind of hiss; a cross between purposeful hissing and just breathing, the dorsal fins of her back rising up like hackles on a cat’s back and trembling with evident rage. “I will see that you are entertained,” she promised in that screechy and scathing banshee like voice of hers. “All of Cenril will be entertained by me!”
Xersom 's faux lips raised in a smile that was triumphant, "That is what I hope to witness. You've a few days before you have your tail back; I'd suggest using that time wisely." It was said as he turned from Zirael, to begin a slow gait away from the walker-trapped-mermaid.
Zirael stared at Xersom’s back as he walked away, focusing on how she would exact her revenge upon him. It was his wife that had commanded he punish her for the actions of a stupid walker. Perhaps she ought to stuff her with the moray eels.