RP:Into the Teeth
Part of the The Most Dangerous Game Arc
Frostmaw Forest
(Continued from Brother's Keeper)
Satoshi grip tightens over the amulet before the magus steps forward and begins walking, her stride unrelenting and unwavering in its determination. To the west they shall go, where the forests of Frostmaw begin to give way to the territory of the Ruins. This border where thriving, fierce life, and cruel, cold death meet is home to a leyline, an invisible current of the land's magic, and a perfect place to dock when you're a band of poachers needing a powerful anti-barrier to hide. Satoshi had failed to find it in her hunts due to the ingenious method of construction: the den's barriers were fueled by the leyline's power, using and twisting it to create a pocket of misplacement, while at the same time being such a tiny, inconsequential pocket that the leyline's natural presence covered it. To find it would be to find a drop of oil in a raging river.
But that drop has been found, and the trio of hunters were swooping in to smother it from existence.
Svilfon doesn't respond to Satoshi's rather apt analogy. He simply falls into step beside her, letting the queen lead the way while he continues to contemplate her earlier words about what Emiur said before he died, and also what they may face in this, the final battle. He knows he is prepared for almost every eventuality, or at least, as prepared as he can be. But he still cannot quite shake the feeling they are truly entering into the mouth of an altogether dangerous beast... not that this worries him overly much. He has danced for a long time in that small space between life and death, challenging his age-old rival to finally claim him. He's not fallen yet. And with a nod to no one in particular, he decides today will not be the day. Vengeance will be served to those most deserving and the wizard hopes at last he can finally lay to rest the anger which has permeated his existence since the fall of Emiur, and he can return to the life he misses so much.
As the trees are passed and the furthermost reaches of Frostmaw entered, Svilfon lets a small smile form upon his lips...The fodder has been dispatched... it was time to see how mighty these hunters were in the presence of real predators. “For Emiur...” He whispers, more to himself than anyone. “For justice.”
Hildegarde followed them dutifully, occasionally looking over at Buster to try and sate her innate curiosity. Perhaps she'd ask Satoshi about him, if they lived to see another day. Whim pressed down into the snow and touched the earth to ease her steps, the knight doing her utmost to ignore the burn in her chest and the rest of her wounds. At Svilfon's mention of justice, she smiled and nodded along, even though she was certain he wasn't really talking to anyone but himself.
The golem seems oblivious to Hildegarde's frequent stares, devoted entirely to trudging along behind wizard, knight, and his magus master. And as they all progress forward, the golem is the only one that will be immune to the growing pressure in the air. It's minor at first, no more than a vague irritation in the back of the mind, yet it grows with every step taken that brings them all nearer to the poachers' den. The irritation starts as a grain of sand in one's boot, gaining size and strength of presence, becoming harder to ignore as it becomes a pebble, a stone, and finally a boulder's weight. It is instinct, wild and pure, and so determined to stop each of them from going any farther. If it were alive, it'd be a body hurling itself against theirs in frantic hope of stopping them from walking off a cliff.
Being a creature of instinct makes this especially difficult on the magus, but she's also at an advantage of sorts, as she's tread this path before and has been able to brace herself for the screaming pleas of her intuition.
She can almost hear the reflex begging, 'Go back, go back, oh please go back! We don't need to do this! We can't, we just can't go there!' That same begging is felt in the form of Aeron pressing his ermine body against Satoshi's chest where he's hidden beneath her coat. Despite his size, he's frantic to try and stop her now, and begins to give physical voice to those pleas in panicked whispers--too soft to be heard by any but Satoshi, yet she feels each word like a blade to the heart. "Please, please, go back. Go away from here. It's wrong. We can't. We mustn't."
Another step forward serves as the eidolon's answer: We must.
Satoshi, ears flat, whiskers stiff, and fangs gritted, finally finds the will to speak at this point, although she doesn't look back to Svilfon or Hildegarde--for fear looking back will make it impossible to go forward again. "Necklaces on. Won't block this, but it should help shield you some." Directions given, Satoshi puts on Victorio's necklace and looks down to eye the dragon's head amulet with disgust. Still, the pressure has eased up some in its earnesty. Enough that she can push forward, where before it was like trekking through waist-high snow alone, now it is the same deep snows but with a path already cleaved through by another person. Work, but less so. "I think," the magus says, more to keep her mind occupied than anything, "this isn't their doing. I think this is the land itself, and its own magic, trying to keep us away from something so unnatural." And Satoshi thinks this silent urging of nature is part of what had kept her from finding the place initially, feeling herself repelled and oblivious to it in the same way the wildlife had been. Frostmaw's need to protect its inhabitants has proven an additional, and unintentional, guardgate around their premises.
The wizard can feel the insidious force woven into the very landscape of Frostmaw urging him to stop; a demand he walks no further, a plea to halt – instinct crying out that this path is wrong and he should turn back, that no prize is worth walking further towards Frostmaw's forgotten outskirts.
But he ignores it, perhaps easier than most would.
Where Satoshi is a creature of pure instinct, the wizard is one born of a stubbornness that has depths he's never quite reached the bottom of. This is where he knows he must be, and nothing on the face of Hollow could stop him from taking the next step, and the next... driving against this natural defence like he was walking into the heart of a blizzard, bent a shade forward as if blowing winds were pushing against his robed body. When the silence of his internal conflict is shattered by the words Satoshi speaks, he nods in silent agreement before placing on the necklace, letting it rest beside the Lamen of Arcane Mastery he wears... another testament to his stubbornness.
“Something... natural...” he can feel the touch within his mind lessoned a shade by the necklace, though the want to flee this place is still there, it exists now as a whispering desire to leave, rather than the shouting voice which once it was. “for something... unnatural...” He begins to ponder the apparent contradiction, more as an exercise in keeping his mind occupied rather than any desire to find the truth before they walk into its heart. “Something worth studying, I think... later, of course.” He flashes Satoshi's back a strained smile at that, in an attempt to counter the will of the land with a shade of something which existed before the encompassing struggle within to keep marching forward, into the belly of the beast.
Hildegarde was more beast than she appeared, her human face a careful and polite guise for her more scaly and toothy form that lurked beneath the surface. Her legs felt heavier with each step forward, trying to compel her not to continue on in her path with her companions. She felt a low and guttural noise in her throat, so brief it may be missed by her companions, but it was most definitely her inner self trying to warn her to turn back and leave this place. "Honour," she said quietly, through gritted teeth, as if to chide and remind herself that there would be no turning back. There was never going to be any turning back.
The necklace was slipped over her head, hanging over her chestplate so she would know it was still there. With the item on, her inner self seemed to still some, but it still chewed at the back of her mind to leave. The knight fell silent, quietly preparing her mind for what may come.
As each of the little hunting band focus on what keeps them pushing forward, the poachers' den grows ever closer. Slowly the trees begin to thin, giving way to wider and wider patches of rugged stone and snow until finally they emerge onto an expansive plain, boots crunching over the ice crust. The tundra that rolls out before Satoshi's feet is utterly bare, without even the flutter of bird wings or scrabble of vermusni claws to break the monotony of snow. It's here that the air changes. Frostmaw's earnest pressure relents, battered aside by a different invisible force. This one is not a weight like the last but instead a peculiar, soft siphoning sensation. It's as if the surface emotions of the mind are being brushed off and carried away elsewhere, like a straw sucking up the foamy surface of a drink. An Empath would likely feel the theft more acutely, but for Satoshi at least, she only registers it as an unpleasant sort of oddity that gnaws at her concentration.
"We're here," Satoshi whispers to the empty air, the words and the lacing of anger and determination within them being swept away in an instant. What exactly 'here' consists of, not even the magus can say. All she knows is that they stand just outside the unseen barrier surrounding the den--her whiskers standing on end and Aeron quivering against her breast are testament enough, even if the necklace wasn't humming softly in resonance to its kindred magics.
Every aspect of the barrier is otherwise almost flawlessly invisible, be it physical or arcane sight, natural sense or magical sensitivity. Not even a distortion in the air gives away its presence. Oh, what Satoshi would give to spend a week examining the elaborate weave that have created this barrier. But she cannot. Not today. And something in her gut tells her that following through with their plan will result in the destruction of the barrier. Its impossible existence will have to remain unexplained, the magus fears.
For a moment, Satoshi hesitates at the threshold. "Emiur, you had told me not to enter with anger," she says. Her eyes are distant before they close and she shakes her head, "I'm sorry, my dear, but I cannot do that. Wrath and I are one and the same. I can't leave a piece of myself out here, not after we've come this far." With this, Satoshi steps forward, and disappears from sight.
The Den
On the other side of the barrier, the magus drops to a knee and clutches at her chest, face drawn in pain. Crossing the weave of magics had felt like a physical blow to the gut, staggering the kit and.. ...No. Not a punch. It had felt like a chunk of herself had been torn out, leaving behind a ragged void. A void that seems to only widen and worsen as she tries to fill it--with pain at first, then bewilderment, anger, and even fear. Every emotion born within Satoshi is ripped away by cruel talons. Every dark spark of feeling serves to widen the void as it's stolen away. Senses are left reeling without an emotion to wrap themselves around, leaving Satoshi hunched over and gasping on the floor. Distantly, she's aware that she's somehow indoors. Some sort of immense cavern, if the sensation of open space and scent of unmoving air is any indication.
Numbly the magus' eyes register the rust brown patches of dried blood her hands rest upon. Absently her nose and whiskers inform her of the lingering stench of decay, sweat, flesh, and death. Vulpine ears vainly try to tell her of the groans, whimpers, snarls, and death rattles that bounce through the cavern from every direction in a sickly cacophony. Her mind struggles to form a thought despite the lack of emotional anchor, but eventually it manages, and Satoshi murmurs, "The den." She's in the slaughterhouse. Stiffly, Satoshi climbs to her feet and surveys her surroundings, letting her mind digest it all: it is not a cavern, or if it is, it is not a natural one. The den is an enormous spire of earth, hollow inside with roughly hewn stairs cut into the rock that spirals high above and out of sight in the distant ceiling's gloom. At regular intervals up the walls and aligned with the stairs are landings of stone, encased on three sides by rough walls bearing heavy, runed chains. It is an earthern mockery of the Eyrie's Outpost, the cozy nests of the mounts transformed into the cruel prisons of the captured.
From the scattered stalls come the sounds of various beasts in equally various states of misery--in one place, a stump of a Red dragon's severed tail hangs limp over the landing's side, in another a gryphon's plucked and swollen wing quivers against a flayed, bloody back. One landing is cramped with a swarming nest of hatchling wyrms, each one blind where their eyes have been plucked out, and slavering where their venomous fangs have been removed, their descaled bodies crammed too close for more than weak wriggling. A fourth landing houses what once must have been a proud simurgh, its glorious plumage long harvested, beak and claws amputated to serve as ingredients in a mage's spellwork elsewhere. Despite their pain, the beasts have no rage, or sorrow, or even fear--every scrap of it snatched away by those unseen, emotion-hunting talons. Satoshi's eyes take it all in with a helpless numbness, for every time she feels wrath boiling to the surface, it too is torn away.
But for a brief, shining moment, the anger lives, rearing up as a hissing, spitting viper when Satoshi's gaze finds an empty holding stall, its three walls caked in freshly dried blood, its floor still littered with the broken scales of its former occupant: scales of a vibrant emerald despite their poor health. Emiur's scales. Satoshi's fur stands on end with the rage brought into blazing life at the sight... until, like a backhand from a dragon, she's knocked flat and the anger is gone with no more than that same void wound left in its wake. Emotion cannot live here, no matter how strong... but where is it being taken?
Svilfon pauses for a moment when Satoshi does, more than just his pale eyes taking in the surroundings... but he finds nothing upon the air, no whisper of arcane power, no scent of magic being born, lingering or dying. Had the frost queen herself not stopped, he would surely have kept walking, ignorant of this place's very existence. It is an anomaly, a mystery; and unless they are the wizard's own, he generally dislikes anything to do with mysteries. Nevertheless, like Satoshi does, he too feels that this will become part of a lost history when this day's work is done; as he said earlier when they were alone... such things are best left unknown.
He draws in breath for a moment, before speaking quietly as Satoshi vanishes, “In all things you were wise, my mighty friend Emiur... but in this, I cannot adhere to your wishes. This anger, though no longer in control, is part of me... it will die when they do. I am sorry.” For a brief second his head lowers, before he too walks through the invisible barrier and vanishes from sight.
Pain... no, not pain... something... what is it... he is on his knees, face twisted into a grimace of... nothingness. Like when he destroyed the lich's body in Xalious, submitting himself to the wings of his magic... he feels it here again. It is as if what makes him who he is has been devoured by... what? Not the tumultuous conflagration which lives within this wizard... but something... wrong. He doesn't know. He doesn't care. Yet, he knows he should. It's not until he hears the snow queen's quiet murmuring of the word, 'den', that he can tear himself away from this internal contemplation and cast his gaze around the room... seeing the carnage, the devastation. The death and decay which fills the room with a pernicious, insidious stench which would usually fuel such anger in the wizard that any who were wise would walk warily in his company... yet there is nothing. Oh, it is there – it is born within the man's very soul as he sees the remains of so many proud creatures slain for profit... but even as it is given life, it's torn away from him; devoured again in a moment, leaving him feeling weirdly drained... almost like he were watching an actor portraying his life, rather than living it himself; seeing it as an observer, without the true essence of self within it.
He shakes his head, feeling his magic surging within and only just taking control of it before he destroys more than just himself. He is strong, of that there is little doubt; his magic is varied and strange, yet most of it is kept in a cage within himself, held tight by his will, his duties and the fear that if ever he sets it truly free, what is destroyed would be well beyond his control... yet here... now... he struggles to care. He fights in vain to find a handhold on the walls within himself, to latch onto it and keep control against this insidious devouring of his emotions... “Lady queen... lady knight...” His gaze shifts the room again, with the same lack of focus a drunkard would show when staggering through dark alleyways... “We cannot linger here long...” There is no panic in the words, there is no fear... there should be.
Hildegarde had been moving onwards without really thinking about it, lost in her own thoughts and internal mantra to keep herself from turning tail. She only stopped in her tracks when Satoshi announced they had arrived, gloved fingers flexing around Whim almost nervously. She listened quietly as Satoshi spoke of her fallen friend and proceeded forward, not noticing that she had held her breath once the Queen went out of sight. She listened to Svilfon with equal patience, watching him go too before she stared after them almost longingly; not entirely willing to go ahead or admit that she was scared. “For honour,” she said quietly, thinking of Kenway and her mental promises to bring justice in his – and that of his siblings – name.
The knight followed her companions into the den, before dropping to a knee with wide and pained eyes. Her chest felt tighter than ever, as all her love; anger; sorrow; everything akin to it was just ripped right out of her. The veins bulged in her neck as she made a snarling expression as her eyes scoured around the den, spying blood and maimed kindred. All her rage and sorrow bubbled within her before being pulled away again so viciously. She wanted to tell them she couldn’t breathe, that she could barely stand as those thieving talons forced her to bend the knee. “Seconded,” she said, as her silvery scales rippled across her face before she stifled a noise of… pain, irritation, it didn’t matter, it was all stolen away just as quickly as it arrived. If Whim were made of a lesser material, it might well have broken under her grasp.
Satoshi hears the words of wizard and knight alike but makes no reaction. Her mind is focused entirely on adapting to this situation. Typically, it is used to having to answer to the whirlwind of emotions that consists of Satoshi's essence, and now, it is free of such chains. As such, logic reigns supreme. There is no time or sense in trying to sort out where their emotions have gone, and worrying about it will result in said worrying only being whisked away as well. Thus, Satoshi's mind, like a wolf's jaws, latches onto what it can control: the next move. Dead ahead lies the answer. How does she know? It's certainly not instinct or a gut feeling. It's the obvious. Without feeling to obscure her vision and already a creature with a keen eye, Satoshi has little trouble noticing the patch of floor before the wall is devoid of grime. It's as if the surface has been scraped clean by the opening and closing of a great door--which is precisely what Satoshi believes the wall to be.
"This way." Her remark is matter-of-fact, voice numb and a hint hoarse from the pain. Whether the other two follow, Satoshi doesn't stop to find out, striding toward the inlaid door with all the regal poise of a proper queen. There's no placehold for anxiety, caution, doubt, or curiosity. Just purpose.
As the magus approaches, the section of wall sinks back from the rest and slow begins to swing open, its stony edge grating against the floor with a deeply pitched groan. Typically, this would be enough to make Satoshi's steps falter as alarm bells go off in her head. But no bells sound today, smothered by those heart-stealing talons, and so she continues forward, alert yet unafraid. The entrance gaps open like a mouth before her, and willingly she steps into it.
The room beyond the door is vastly different from the den's tower: inky darkness poorly illuminated by two distant, enormous orbs of violet, air cold, dank, and close, the stench of fresh misery replaced by the cloying odor of ancient decay. To Satoshi, the smell is comparable to Vailkrin's dragon graveyard, where death is ever present but never new. The comparison stops there, however, as thoughts of Vailkrin kindle feelings of longing and warmth for its revenant king within Satoshi, all of which are vacuumed away as swiftly as they're born.
It'd be indescribly frustrating to the foxkin, if frustration wasn't stolen as well.
In answer to Satoshi's thought, a rumbling, baritone chuckle comes from deep within the room, near where the glowing purple spheres rest. "I would say you will grow used to this un-feeling, however you and your companions won't be around long enough to do so." The violet spheres shift then, in perfect sync with one another as they rise a number of feet into the air. It's then that Satoshi realizes--without the appropriate shock of surprise--that the spheres aren't light sources. They're eyes.
The wizard follows silently in Satoshi's wake, his head partially bowed as he contemplates what is happening inside him, though any real gains in this direction are taken away. Without real curiosity, he cannot bother finding solutions. Without fear, there is no motivation to seek answers; a change to restore that which he now is back to himself. So he merely walks, pausing as the door opens so noisily, yet not feeling the usual worry such a defensive call would make to whatever, or whomever, calls this grotesque den home.
As he enters the next room, the scent of stagnant death rich in the air, he simply looks around, not really taking in what is in within. The twin orbs which fight against the darkness are stared at for a moment, then passed by; the wizard uncaring what they are, or why this room drowns seemingly in the essence of death, yet devoid of pain, hate and anger, the usual companions when life is stolen. As the voice cuts through the cloying air, pale eyes once again fall to the violet orbs, watching as they move together, before the vampire listens to the words spoken.
At such times, a response would be quick on the wizard's tongue; a challenge, be it flippant or not, or some sign of defiance against the dark promise made within the words. But now, there is nothing. In truth, he simply doesn't care right now whether he will die... but even that feeling is taken from him. So what looks back into the two eyes is... empty. Just a man... a man uncaring for the first time in a very long time what fate will bring, even as the power within him continues to swirl and fight against the wizard's internal shackles, its freedom held back only by the years of fierce dedication to his craft.
It was not until being without emotion, that one realises how crucial emotion is to battle and a fight. She felt no fear, no worry, no concern, no anger or hate. Without these emotions, there is no fuel for the battle-lust. Every emotion was reduced to a brief and ghostly flutter in her heart before being whisked off by pernicious and unseen talons, spirited away into the unknown.
The knight fell silent, shuddering every so often as her feelings were spirited away and left her with this alien sensation of nothingness. Only for her feelings and thoughts on that to be whisked off, too. Her eyes fell upon the violet orbs and watched them with a nothingness about her, shuddering again when it became clear they were eyes and not some magic. Her inherit nature to be curious was gone; there was nothing in her. Not even a sense of uncaring, for that too was a feeling, just an emptiness. An emptiness this dragon would rather never feel again.
Satoshi regards the glowing eyes with a blank expression, her mind aware it should feel something upon realizing she's facing a huge, intelligent entity, yet uncaring in the fact. The eye's owner chortles again in the same avalanchian way. "So much emotion lives in you three. The knight," the violet glow is turned toward Hildegarde then. A shadowy outline of the speaker is visible in the gloom, whispering hints of an immense, heavily built form extending out behind the twin points of light. It laughs again, "You, with all your honor, duty, and love. With those hints of arrogance creeping through the pride, you fear it and try to smother it. But I can taste it. It is mine now." A sharp clack sounds with the words, a noise like a toothy jaw snapping shut. "The wizard." Once more the eyes shift to fixate on Svilfon. "With your fire, pure joy one moment burning anger the next, held in a delicate balance by an admirable loyalty. I've fed well since you stepped through my doors." A wet slapping is heard with this, not unlike the smacking of giant lips sampling a memory's flavor. "And the queen," Satoshi's ears twist forward not out of curiosity or interest, but simply drawn by the voice directed her way, "for a creature so small, you carry more murderous rage than a dragon's body should hold. So many threads live within you: rage, curiosity, happiness, passion, lust, enthusiasm, sorrow, even compassion bred with selfishness. Quite the tapestry you've woven beneath that icy mask. A feast, for me." As the being speaks, the gloom begins to fade away beneath a soft illumination. The light source originates from behind the speaker, in the form of a thick nest of tubes once dim and now aglow with a bioluminescence.
In moments, the creature is exposed: a Wyrm of godly proportions, length incalculable as layers upon layers of scaled coils pile atop each other in a labyrinthine arrangement. Like his size, his age is considerable. Scales that once must have been a vibrant and glorious amethyst have long ago faded to a sickly gray-purple. The natural armor thickness of the scales' quality has dimmed to a fragile state, pitted, ragged, or broken in some places, altogether missing in others. Foreclaws shrunken and frail from disuse rest folded atop one section of coil, claws overgrown, brittle and yellow with age. The wyrm's wings are altogether useless where they rest furled tight against his back, far too small to carry his incredible size now, even if they were in the slightest state of good health--the membranes have gone translucent and paperthin over time, making the fat blood vessels within clearly visible. Yet his--for male he must be with such a deep and dominating voice--head is still majestic: an elegantly wedge-shaped serpent's skull, elongated muzzle bristling with yellowed fangs, eyes dim with age but still keen and intelligent, all set before a great crest of bone that juts out from the jawbone and arches up and behind the head, spiked, horned, and a regal violet.
And yet, despite the breath-taking size and appearance of the Wyrm, what is most eye-catching is what lurks -behind- the crest. For this is where the series of glowing tubes reside. Each is as thick around as a man's arm, and each appears to be made of an opaque fleshy substance, slick with a mucus membrane and pulsing with the Wyrm's heartbeat. These tubes originate somewhere at the base of the Wyrm's skull where the crest protects it, and they extend up toward the roof... where there hangs a tiny human body. The tubes have narrowed at this point and embedded themselves into the person's back and limbs so that she hangs like a puppet by her strings.
"Meet my dear Elenor," the Wyrm rumbles as the tubes' glow shrouds her in a pallid halo of light. In response, the girl--a child by appearance, no more than seven or eight--opens her eyes and lifts them slowly to stare at Svilfon, Hildegarde, and Satoshi each in turn. Her eyes are the same eerie purple as the Wyrm and her skin is a similar shade to his scales, as if neither has seen the light of day in decades. Lanks of dark blonde hair frame her doll face and hang past her feet. But unlike the Wyrm, whose eyes are a silent mocking laughter, Elenor's are pits of endless sorrow. A sorrow that's deepened when the Wyrm speaks again, "She told me of your coming. She saw the paths you'd tread and together we ensured you followed the correct ones to bring you here now. Did you not think it odd, lady knight, that the Silver you hunted found you the moment you began your search? Or you, ice-caller, that you happened upon your precious Emiur at such a perfect moment? Elenor saw the threads of what-was-to-be, and what-could-be, and tugged on them to bring you each here. My little seer. You are her puppets, and I her master."
Svilfon does not seem impressed as the altogether impressive, if rather disgusting, creature reveals himself in all his horrific splendour to the three weary companions. Though, the emotion was born, it is slayed and devoured within a moment by this colossal perversion of nature.. of life.. of everything natural in a world filled to the brim with unnatural things.
As its words are spoken, the wizard listens without really caring what they are. To him now, they are just noises, whispering through a dank pit filled with a disgusting beast laying within it – he'd be just as interested in hearing the howl of the wind, or the spitting of rain.
When the huge wyrm shows them Elanor, Svilfon tips his hat in an unconscious gesture to the woman-made-marionette, before his voice echoes through the room. “Hello.” It sounds incredulous in such a situation, a mundane greeting uttered casually, for without the emotions of fear or anger to give them life, his instincts are easily ignored. He merely acts as much like a puppet as the forsaken Elanor does, acting through the gestures of normality despite not really understanding why he cares enough to bother.
Somewhere within a voice demands he destroys this creature... this den... this entire corrupted place. But it is more quiet than the sound a single snowflake makes when touching the ground in a storm. It is effortlessly ignored, without Svilfon ever knowing he's ignoring it. He does have a vague idea of what he should, or normally would do... though the thought slips through his fingers like water flowing down a river... there was a key, he thinks, to finding something which is not of this place yet is of all this place... but he just can't care enough to find it.
Hildegarde's eyes had drifted to the floor at some point, but she couldn't tell when. Without feelings or emotions, it felt impossible to tell what time had passed, or at least that's how it felt to the dragon. But as the great wyrm addressed her, she found her gaze meeting his and listening in silence. Words didn't come to her; she did not wish to speak nor had the care to. All these emotion sparked desires were gone. She had noticed - remarking internally upon it without any significant feeling - that when she felt a strong emotion, it felt more painful to see it go, as if it took more effort to pull it from her.
Stormy eyes lifted higher and took in the sight of the marionette girl, fingers flexing around Whim as a ghost of an instinct. Her throat gave a low sort of grumble as her body hunched, the feeling of anger and injustice torn from her just as quickly as it had been born. Leaving her again with that emptiness and alien feeling about her. "Why?" she said with no tone or feeling, nothing in it or about it. Just a word, a word detached from feeling and meaning. It felt easier to stick to one worded statements or questions, less emotion pinned to them.
"Why?" the wyrm echoes, incredulous. "Why, for life eternal, of course, little Hildegarde. Wyrm-kind are not blessed with millenia of life like your kin. We age, we die. I refuse to adhere to these rules." The wyrm's tone is one of such arrogant dignity that it'd be enough to put Satoshi to shame, were she capable of feeling shame at this moment. With an agonizing slowness the wyrm begins to draw his immense coils closer, all the better to make himself seem even taller than he already appears. "I am the last of my kind. We were once plentiful, magnificent, and worshiped for our gift. We were once called Empath Wyrms. With the slightest thought from one of our minds, we could remove misery, hatred, sorrow, and rage from the mind of any sufferer. We could replace it with joy, pleasure, inspiration, and contentment. We could halt entire armies by instilling them with crippling fear, saving countless lives with nary a thought. Our followers fed us their emotions so that we would grow strong and large, and thus able to grant them bliss throughout their short lives. We were guardians. We were kings and queens. We were GODS." The wyrm snaps his teeth shut in a reflex of anger, the brittle surfaces of the fangs made obvious by the crackling sound they make from the grinding. One crack sounds above the rest, causing the wyrm to stop, great horned brow furrowed, and spit out the broken tooth. "And what have we been reduced to? A last decaying specimen, not even his teeth strong enough to feed him. But no matter. I have not needed to feed on flesh in many a year."
Satoshi finds her voice at this moment and, blinking, looks up at the ancient beast. "How?" The question is long delayed, she had meant to speak it when Hildegarde had asked 'why'.
The wyrm seems to understand this however, and takes great amusement in it. "A spark of curiosity still lives? Ahaha. No. Your question is nothing more than a memory reflex. You ask it because old habits compel you. I shall indulge you, however. It is the least I can do as you've been so very compliant in coming here to be destroyed."
Somewhere deep in Satoshi's mind, a thought and ember of amusement briefly rise, but just as quickly they retreat before they can be smothered by the Empath Wyrm's presence. His words have reminded her of something...
Unaware, the wyrm continues on in his storytelling, "I have not fed on flesh in years, not after discovering my dear little Elenor. This child, at a mere decade of age, had more gift at foretelling than any divine prophet I've encountered in my centuries. She can see every thread of every decision that every soul makes every day. She can trace each thread and discover where it crosses, breaks, or strengthens. I made her stronger." Hanging above the wyrm, Elenor makes no response other than to blink. Her eyes, violet and depthless, speak of unfathomable sorrows as she's watched the world's every turn, present and future alike, and seen the lives and deaths of every being upon it a thousand-fold. Through each of them she has lived, loved, hated, cried, laughed, and died--or obtained undeath. Every existence, she has felt it, and it has reduced her to this tiny, wordless puppet, unable--or unwilling--to do more than she is told. An almost affectionate gaze is turned on the ageless child as the wyrm carries on, "She has been with me a long time now--literally, for we are one being, she fused to me and vice versa. When I learned that I could empower her gift through my feeding on emotions, I knew I could make ourselves a proper god. She can See everything. It was she who devised this organization with the poachers. It's a simple relationship although just as symbiotic as mine and Elenor's: they bring their captures, they do their foul deeds of skinning, descaling, dismembering, and I feed upon all that misery, pain, and disgust. In return, our power creates the impossible barriers that hide each of their dens. Every time I feed, my body grows closer to its youthful state. I have already removed centuries from myself through these operations. And this day, I shall be reborn, as Elenor Saw. For she Saw you each, she told me of three with emotional cores so deep, pure, and vibrant that I had never seen their equivalent. And together we have worked to bring your paths to us."
Elenor lifts her head then, movements as rigged as a doll's when she raises her arms outstretched toward Svilfon. Wordlessly her mouth works, voicing no more than the softest whimpers, yet the wyrm seems to hear and feel her. Curiously he looks up toward the child with his great head cocked, and for a moment he simply stares at her before his glowing gaze finds the wizard. "She wishes to speak with you. I suppose you shall be the first to go." With a wet slithering sound, the tubes suspending Elenor slowly lower her toward the ground to hang in front of Svilfon. The child's arms are still held out as if she is awaiting a hug, or to hold his hands, and her eyes are filled with a crystalline pleading. Not a single drop of malice seems to exist within her, only this silent begging that he take her hands...
The wizard stops paying attention to the hideous creature after he speaks the name of what he is... the Empath Wyrms... within the depths of Svilfon's mind, a brief flickering of memory is given life. He read within an old tome in the Mage's Guild library about these creatures... the Tualk Lial... the Soul Drinkers... a name that is rather apt, for the vampire feels as if his soul is no more; the life within which exists of pure emotion and self, drained so easily by the insidious creature. They were mighty, and damn near conquered the world. In their wake was a river of desolation and agony, for their soldiers were filled with stolen joy, finding grotesque pleasure in the most heinous acts imaginable. The victims fed their conquerors with pain and suffering, until they would be stripped of emotion then forced to commit horrific acts... to roast their children alive until they were freed once more from the spell in the middle of feasting on the flesh of the families... to realize the horror of what they are doing... their new anguish and suffering like the finest of wines to these malevolent beasts.
The sound of the scream echoed across almost an entire continent, until they were stopped at the last. The writer whom spoke of them wasn't sure what exactly bested them at the last, though he did speak of a legendary sect of monk-priests who were immune to the dark promises, their will-power so great they could lock away their emotions, the key to opening them beyond even these powerful creatures... it is said they at the last defeated the wyrms, though the writer of the history had no idea if this was any more than a folk tale. When the wyrms died, so too did most their followers as the truth of what they had become became known to them. Thousands of anguished men falling onto their own swords, making a forest in their magnitude, red rivers flowing through, forged first of their tears, then at last their very blood...
(Continued in As Threads That Bind Us)