RP:How Fate Meanders

Part of the Venturil's Bane Arc

Cenril Beach

The evening was filled with a cool, brine breeze. Gulls wheeled back to shore after glutting themselves on leftover chum thrown into the distant waves by those same fisherman now unfurling nets from boats a little way down the beach. The catch had been good, the men were tired and the breeze carried salty songs on it, words lost to the wind but the notes were wistful and spoke of abiding wishes for hearthsides and cheerful wives. The ruin seemed lonelier for these shanties, an empty echo of what it once must have been. Across the ocean, in the middling depths where the sand dropped off to stone and then abyssal dark, the water glimmered with a strange phosphorescence . If anyone had good enough vision, they might discern a shadowy shape amid this colourful glow, sliding through the sea toward shore.

Shishi , the twins, and the same trio of pets that had left Vailkrin a day or two after their encounter with Maladroit now walk the pier and the shore towards the ocean castle. The arrow frog that the gaunt left with the family is imprisoned atop The Blue Demon's head, nestled in the vampire's dark hair, to afraid to leap off from such a height. The assassin has been charged with holding onto the amphibian as the only family member relatively immune to the poison it secretes.

As the Colors approach the sea and the coral castle Yellow snickers to himself at whatever the gulls were 'cawing' about and shares a glance with Sunny like 'can you believe they said that?'

Orange deliberately ignores her brother's pool - given ability and has learned not to bother asking what he was cackling about. "Gwah ~ How come we've never come here before? " The girl asks of her father.

Shishi simply shrugs to his daughter in response while his currently blue eyes curiously follow whatever the shadow moving towards the shore is.

Maladroit approached the beach, unhurriedly - which is to say, quite quickly compared to how quickly anyone else might've done so, with the possible exception of things that had actually evolved in the sea. It was not obvious in its identity, primarily due to the several bio-luminescent squid still suckered about its rubber-skinned frame, lending it an odd resemblance to a sea-going, unfortunately de-branched yuletide tree. The tiny squid plopped off, one by one, as it swam for the beach where it snapped its wings open, a shower of brine and seaweed sprayed for yards. Faceless and stoic, the star-walker stood, its knuckly feet in a rock pool full of angry crabs, its attention turned to the familial trio farther up, on the dry sand. And a moment - no, half of a blink of a moment - later, the aberration was right there beside them all, its face filled with spines and its body draped with local kelp.

Shishi 's son squints out at the thing emerging in the tidal pool. The squid and bioluminescence make Maladroit unrecognizeable enough for Yellow to start to ask, "What the-" a seagull 'caws' possibly finishing the nine-year old's thought, only Arius would know for sure. In reality the child's question is halted by the apparent teleportation of the gaunt. Both Blue and Yellow react in the same instinctively way to the sudden proximity of the creature, cursed eyes immediately shifting from Blue to Crimson, the double emergence of the family's dark ability sending an ominous pulse through every shadow cast in the proximity of the castle.

Orange under-reacts compared to the other two, "Woah..." She squints her still-blue eyes at Tenebrae creation, "Why's your face like that?" When would these three get it through their skulls that this thing couldn't talk?

Maladroit dropped like a hound to its haunches, reeking of seaweed and brine, and lifted one rubbery finger to 'twang' upon on of the poisonous darts embedded in its featureless face, by way of reply to Orange. It didn't feel pain, as such, but the darts were disruptive to whatever peculiar mana seeped throughout its spongy flesh, and Maladroit vaguely recalled that this is what itching felt like. It had forgotten the cause of the itching, however, on passing this stretch of sea.. Out in the deeps, the squid were returning to their hunt for shrimp and other plankton, shimmering the water as would the lights of a most wondrous city reflected thereon. The creature gave this motion a brief turn of head, then offered the same to each of the family, starting with Arius and ending with Leralynn. It shrugged, and twanged another deeply-embedded spine.

Shishi and Yellow exchange crimson glances, Blue using two fingers to point at his own eyes and then at Arius as if to inform the boy that his irises have changed as well. This leaves the blonde child furrowing his brow and clutching at the light blue scarf draped around his neck as he tries to return his eyes to their normal calm blue shade. In his concentration Yellow misses the gesture Maladroit sends his way before Blue nods to the gaunt and Leralynn frowns and extends a small hand towards one of the spines stuck in the thing's faceless face, "Here... Then let me get them out at least."

Maladroit would tolerate the child's kindly attention to the dryad-darts with an air of profound patience, though its attention was upon those pulsing shadows that abated from their poised menace into simple darknesses, even as Arius and his father drove the family curse into abeyance. The spines were hard to shift, and audibly twanged one or twice when proving difficult. Nothing at all seeped from the holes left behind, and the displaced flesh closed up neatly. Once it was free of their itch, the gaunt rested its head against Leralynn's shoulder for a moment - less an act of affection than it seemed - and then peered eyelessly at Shishi and Arius. What it saw in them was anyone's guess. but there was a sense of purpose, an odd sort of shrugging-off of apathy in the way it rose to all four feet, its head tilted to the darkening sky. There, into the first spangle of starlight it pointed, and the ache of the void of its Tenebrae-less existence here was palpable. Then it pointed to Leralynn and sat down again - its tail snaking around the girl's ankles in a peculiar, almost protective gesture.

Shishi 's daughter grimaces after taking out the first few spines and getting a glance into the holes at what was behind the no-face. As the holes close upon themselves the girl's scrunched up face softens to a faint, content smile. Orange seems to have no qualms with the amount of turning or tugging it takes to dislodge some of the darts, tossing the things over he shoulder with each removal. The second to last spine is tossed at her brother, hitting the boy in the chest and getting his attention before she flicks the final one his way.

Sunny and Arius both bounce out of the way of the barb while Yellow complains, "Hey~!" This was enough to distract him from his purpose of dismissing his accursed eyes and as such, Blue's have faded back to their usual oceanic shade before Arius's.

"There. All do-..." The Little Mimic started to speak after her task was complete only to be cutoff by the gaunt initiating contact. She goes silent and pats Maladroit on the shoulder once or twice... or rather she wipes whatever seawater, or gunk, or something that was on the spines off her hand onto the gaunt's shoulder.

Blue and Orange allow their gazes to follow the creature's gestures looking up at the sky and then falling to rest on the monster's former goblin's tail. Blue just kind of shakes his head a bit, he still doesn't really know what to make of the beast. Neither did Yellow but the boy was busy trying to ward off shadows that had slowly begin to congregate at his feet, circling him in a less protective nature than Maladroit's tail did his sister.

The reason for the once-goblin's protective stance was not yet manifest upon the beach, and the clotting shadows were pointed at thoughtfully, wibbling and many-jointed fingers weaving knots and baskets of time in an effort to predict all possible outcomes of this congregation. Finally, the gaunt scratched its bald, blank head and returned its attention to Shishi, who had apparently not quite understood the purpose of its former mime. It pointed then to Leralynn, and then to itself, several times. Then to the frog that was nestled in the vampire's dark hair, then to Arius - rinse, repeat, cycling back to insistent pointing between itself and the little blonde girl who smelled vaguely of seaweed now.

Leifong was skulking around in the near proximity, drawing ever closer to this little gathering and the thing which had drawn him here. Even though he knew it was pointless, the necromancer kept glancing over his shoulder from time to time, secretly hoping that no one he knew would find out what he was doing here. It wasn't as if he was proud of it, taking time away from his noble pursuits to investigate the slightest hint of anything that felt like her. But even after the hundredth time he'd found his way to nothing, the urge to check was more powerful than his shame of looking. The raggedy corpse man sniffs at the air as the edges of his projected shadow trail softly over the sand, and as the small group comes into view, he seems to melt away, flitting closer and sticking to the darkness so as to get a better look.

Shishi tilts his head slightly in confusion at the numerous points the gaunt is throwing out. The action sends the vibrant red frog sliding from the top of Blue's head, the assassin just barely reacting in time to catch the poisonous amphibian in his left hand before it hits the ground. It would have landed in sand so it wouldn't have been so bad, but it's kind of neat that Shishi was able to catch it all the same. "What?" is all The Blue Demon can muster to Maladroit, still clueless as to what the thing wants. 'Someone is here.' The voice is only heard by the boy Arius, who quickly turns his head this way and that scanning the nearby shadows with his crimson eyes for whoever he's been warned about. Leralynn starts to look a bit uncomfortable while watching the flurry of gestures form the gaunt, almost as if she feels guilty for not knowing exactly what Maladroit is trying to get across.

Maladroit had, of course, seen Leifong's coming in the agitation of Arius' shadows and the weave of time's threads, and so had forsaken its attempts to communicate a rather complex idea by pointing its forefinger moments prior to the vampire announcing his less complete perception of the same. Being what it was, moral dilemmas were hardly of importance to the familiar, but it knew a certain loyalty that was imbued within the matrix of its borrowed flesh, as well as the arcane cords that bound its spirit to the missing Queen of Shadows, and that is why Maladroit has made at least a passing attempt to gain the father's permission for what it was about to do to Shishi’s daughter.. Spindly, rubber-cased fingers abruptly splayed and were then clamped onto Leralynn's golden head like two unpleasantly damp spiders attempting to block her ears. No-one would see it happen, but from the creature’s palms sprang a welter of little filaments that swiftly detached and went writhing into those same orifices, upon which Leralynn might feel for a moment as though she'd gone profoundly deaf. But then her ears would 'pop', and a sibilant sound would gibber through her mind, insane serpents of sound that were broken into pieces resembling words with far too many consonants and no vowels at all. Finally, these would amend themselves into less speech than a very clear -feeling- of understanding what the gaunt wanted to communicate--- ~Little Mistress, One Comes Who Seeks the Queen of Shadow, and Whom I Shall Eat If You Prefer, Though His Taste Is Wretched~

Shishi is left holding that arrow frog and watching what Maladroit does to his daughter. The Blue Demon takes a single aggressive step towards The Mimic and The Gaunt but does nothing more when he sees the girl's reaction. She blinks, tilts her head within the former goblin's hands, and seems to look around for the source of the noises only she can hear. The feeling that came before the question was strange, but it is the inquiry itself that has her attention. Blue eyes narrow curiously at the gaunt. Intrigue at the word 'eat' fills her features. How could something with no mouth do that? She wanted to know. She wanted to -see- it Perhaps her unique form of the family's curse could imitate it... "I..." she stutters. Why was it asking her permission, maybe some of those gestures towards the sky and towards herself have clearer meaning now... Finally Leralynn places a hand over one of Maladroit's at her ear, "No... If he's looking for her we should meet him. We both want the same thing." She fights off that profound sense of desire to see the gaunt 'eat' to say these words.

Maladroit nodded its ponderous cranium, though it knew full well that the being skulking in the lengthening darknesses of that long-dead castle was not going to show itself so easily. Too, the familiar knew what the girl was asking in the back of her mind, which was a seething sparkle of circuitous curiosity that amused the gaunt no end, to its odd perceptions, anyway. Long fingers peeled away from her skull and wibbled a bit, so that the creature could see what would be woven from fulfilling her desire. And, on seeing what a mimic might do with such a 'skill', and seeing several likely outcomes of potential childish errors, it chose to ignore the unspoken command and focus on the matter directly at hand. Matters, plural, really.. No longer needing that physical contact as its mind-wyrms burrowed into Leralynn's synapses, enhancing and re-routing things efficiently there, the gaunt once more sent a flood of feeling/perception/mind-sounds at her, the essence of which was: ~Diminutive Thing Whose Potentiality is But a Seed in the Garden of This Present Temporal Configuration, But Whose Power Will Come To Rival The Queen Herself and Thus is Fit for My Service, Which I Must Have in Order to Survive, Whose Paternal Life-giver Is Extremely Concerned and Needs Comfort to Her Lack of Harm: Do Not Seek The Maker of Atrocity But Allow Him the Skulk, For He Is Nought But Corruption~

Shishi 's Little Girl remains in place when Maladroit moves away. Small hands adjust blonde hair that had been moved out of place or matted down by the gaunt's hands. A deep breath is taken in and exhaled by the human girl while Maladroit's speechlike thing fills her skull. The Gaunt directs her towards her concerned father, but the young lady has become used to watching over the rest of the family in a sense. So it is her brother that gains her attention first after Maladroit receives an "Aye." from Orange. "Yellow..." The shadows were swirling violently around his form now, begging him to let them do what Leralynn had refused the night gaunt. Orange's eyes went through their own form of an accursed change, shifting from oceanic blue to forest green. The sight seems to calm the shadows around the boy and will eventually serve the purpose of returning his irises to a nonthreatening blue shade. When the girl looks his way Blue refuses her eye contact but nods after she tells him, "It's alright, Blue. I'm okay... and I can understand him now. I think."

Maladroit observed all of this, with a new level of comprehension afforded it by the connection it had forged with Leralynn. It hunkered down again on the sand, and wibbled its fingers at a passing hermit crab, discerning its immediate future as a meal for one of the hungry gulls that had been late for the chum-party and was soon to quest for a snack before roosting on the dunes for the night. ~Thou Tiny One~ This was the merest whisper, as it was not directed at the girl herself, ~ Of the Borrowed Carapace, Whose Wanderings Etch Small Histories In the Sand, Thy Fate Meanders~ Maladroit plucked the little crab up and turned it about, so that its trajectory would take it toward a tasty bit of fish-tail flung up from the spume in the opposite direction to which that gull would find not a meal, now, but a blank patch of ground, and go to bed hungry, cranky, and get a swift peck from its fellows for all its loud complaints. As the hermit crab scuttled off, Maladroit rose to four legs and walked back to the sea, a steady pace that soon had it submerging again until only its horns were visible over the water. There, it paused. ~Little Mistress, I Hunt~ ... but for what, it did not say.

Shishi waits to look to his daughter until after she's finished copying the eyes of a vampiric empath. The Blue Demon watches Maladroit crawl away with a blank expression, whatever the thing had done or 'said' to his daughter Shishi was unsure of whether it was a good or bad thing. The gaunt has yet to and may never earn the trust the assassin has for Tenebrae.

Yellow, free from the swirling shadows that have returned to their natural positions in the world and from his own accursed eyes, meanders alongside the hermit crab redirected by Maladroit, "Hey. Did he say anything to you...?”

“Eh? Yea. I dunno. Maybe..." Orange, with eyes to match the rest of the family's, finally smiles towards Blue after Maladroit has disappeared to hunt, "Right... Well that was..." She trails off, not ready to let the other two in on what she 'heard' from the gaunt... Her Gaunt rather.

"Aye." Blue speaks and points back in the direction of the pier that the family had originally come from. "We still have to find that wingless guy for Sunny." Yellow's blonde hair is ruffled as Shishi passes the boy, "You must have took us on a wrong turn."

Arius punches the vampire's hip playfully once he's caught back up with his father, "But I wasn't leading!"

"Let's try this way." Tene's favorite Color suggests as the family fades off into the distance...