RP:Nothing Holy
Part of the What You Leave Behind Arc
Summary: During a twilight traipse upon Cenril's shoreline, Alvina is attacked in yet another instance of sudden mayhem. She finds herself fighting alongside an older fishwife with a penchant for woeful reminiscence.
The Cenrili Shores
Alvina finds herself standing along the Cenril shoreline in her usual garb, minus her cloak. The navy of her high neck dress is visible from a distance. A silhouetted phantom on the beach at twilight. The chill of the wind displaces her curls off her shoulders, to spill along her back in restless ripples. Autumn has made the beach less crowded. Boats still move out of the nearby port but they don’t drift close enough to be distinguishable (at least not to her). The wakes they create add weight to the waves that crash against the sand, washing up seaweed and other bits of sea life. Crabs scuttle along, pinchers in the air, like grumpy old men to rush back to the water. She smiles privately, bending down at the knee to dust wet sand off a half buried sea shell and examine it’s cracks and grooves. Time was a strange thing.
In the Shadow Plane, the world’s appearance is primarily dictated not by time but by location. The brightest lands with the most profound halos can sometimes cast a beaming blue hue upon everything. Cenril is a seedy place, but still filled with old holy magics placed by long-gone priests in ages long past; the blue hue blankets the realm. Old temples of older gods, deconstructed for stone or repurposed for new lords, still stretch to the overcast sky near Alvina’s shoreline traipse. With the powers of Kahran’s ancient artifact, cross-dimensional awareness can be achieved so that the actions of a person on the opposite end of the spectrum can be faintly discerned. Thus, an echo of the woman’s movements ripples through the Plane like a see-through silhouette. She makes waves wherever she goes, not unlike the water she observes. Yet here in the Shadow Plane, that water is an ugly slate grey, its surface bubbling tempestuously. The skin kites float overhead, perceiving Alvina on the other side of reality as they drift through the Plane’s dreary, dank breeze. Each of them appears differently from the other, for each of their bodies are composed to large degree by the skin types of their most recent prey. One seems half an eagle, another is almost a drake, and the third is dripping and oozing with the sweet meat of an elf. Their limbs are all thin tendrils, and they have no eyes or mouths. They’re almost elegant in their soar, and Alvina will have no idea that they could materialize above her at any given moment.
Alvina is very oblivious to this blur between worlds. While she knew enough about the shadow plane to make the masks Khitti requested, she did not know that they overlapped. In her mind, it was just a separate portion of land. Another place instead of another time. Or dimension. Or whatever it is. Who is she to question things she doesn't even know? Grains of sand stubbornly cling to the seashell she's picked up and is currently turning over in her hand before looking back out at the waves that roll in. White foam bubbles on the surface of the sand where they meet. Alvina pulls back her arm and tosses the shell into the water, creating little change in the next wave's objective. It must be a dull life, she thinks, because who doesn't think strange thoughts when left alone with bodies of water. The life of a wave by Alvina Landon. With a sigh, she starts to walk again, her pace quicker because of the chilling air that whips through her cloak. Her arms wrap around her shoulders, a shiver runs up the length of her spine and she looks towards the city in the distance as enchanted lights begin to flicker to life with the promise of safety.
Safety will be a hard catch now. The skin kites pop into Alvina’s perception, pop, pop, pop, one and all in a veritable instant. They leave behind an eerie green trace like smoke which evaporates into the chilled, humid air. They’re shaped like bats, but larger than any bat a Lithrydelian native will have ever seen, and they whip up a wind with their frenzied aerial pace. They encircle Alvina, much like a vulture sensing carrion, and in encircling her their whipped wind grows into a furious gust. The gust should serve to knock her over if their efforts prove successful, and then what will they do? They screech a terrible screech, ear-piercing and impossible to tune out. In the distance, a few shore-wandering Cenrili citizenry react: most flee, but one, a vaguely feminine shape from this range with what looks to be a fishing rod in its arms, is running -toward- the attack. The shape takes form as it draws nearer; soon enough, it will be visible to Alvina -- should she somehow even have the chance to look -- that it is indeed a woman, of middling years with silver-streaked black hair and exotic symbolic tattoos upon her light arms and face. And she is indeed charging with naught but a fishing pole. The skin kites pay her no heed, if they’ve noticed her at all; they have small holes on opposite sides of their bat-like little heads -- ears? -- but without eyes they cannot see, and whatever compels them, they’re absorbed in toppling Alvina.
Alvina’s attention swings towards the looming kites of prey the moment before she’s knocked off her feet and into the sand below. Her hips hit hard, the sirocco-like winds both blinding and suffocating. Her possible savior is not seen just yet. The grains of sand whip across her face and mat her hair but cause no damage to her skin. The well-rounded grains of Cenril too dull and weathered to cause more than discomfort to her humanoid exterior. Her fleshed digits search blindly through her satchel for an enchanted lyre, the chime of its strings muted by the violent winds. If she couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t sing. This was her next best shot. Just as she smuggles the small instrument against her frame, the woman becomes visible with her fishing pole and Alvina’s stinging eyes go wide. “Get away!” She shouts, wasting precious oxygen to warn the woman away while her fingers busy with the aggressive strum of bardic magic. The song will aim to weave it’s hook-like invisible tendrils around the skin kites to still their advance and possibly dispel their gusts to allow Alvina’s boots purchase in the shifting sands.
The woman can’t hear Alvina’s warning what with the skin kites’ screech; so loud and forceful is it that it mutes much of the ruckus. Even the skin kites’ own gusts sound less like a cyclone and more like a cool breeze. If the fishwife believes Alvina has shouted anything of note, it’s probably a plea for help, so that is precisely what she tries to do: with the seasoned pitch that only decades of experience can bring, she casts her line and it smacks into one of the foul creatures. A hook, fastened to the end of the line while she was en route to the area, digs into the thing’s body and tugs it out of the way. Its screech intensifies, and the other skin kites take notice, lowering their volume and flapping frantically just seconds before they would have swooped in and made Alvina’s skin their own. This is when Alvina’s bardic magic strikes. Its tendrils successfully lodge their way around them, delaying what ground they’ve earned and dampening the wind. They’re panicking now, swaying wildly as they flap their leathery wings, and the one that looks like an elf seems to stare at the would-be victim with pure malice; an accomplishment to be sure, without eyes. “This is no ordinary fishwife, girl! You’re in the presence of Aartha, Queen of Rods!” She pulls back hard on her captured beast, swinging it down to the ground, and then stomps on it with her boots before it can react. In the meantime, however, the other two beasts rip portions of their own bodies off to break free from their cages, and they both dive in toward Aartha with lightning speed. She’s struck, once in the shoulder and again in the hip, and screams, collapsing to the sand.
Alvina's success is fleeing. Her feet find purchase in the sands as the winds die down, odd body parts are blown past in a way that's sure to haunt her for the rest of her days. Aartha announces her presence, and shortly after decimating one of the attackers finds herself at the mercy of the two that remain. The bard digs her heels into the shifting beach terrain and adds her own bardic screech to the cacophony choir, to blast the foul beasts away from her would-be savior. This fine and valent fishmarm. Frankly, she's not sure she's made it in time but Alvina can't stand by while some marvelous woman of the fly comes to harm. Her hands fumble around her lyre, digging hard into the strings to encourage a binding spell, that might snag and hold one of both beasts in slowly shrinking barbed bassinet. Her voice adds to the power of the enchantment. Gods, she's wishing she'd caught up with Aria sooner to learn how to do that bow and arrow thing. Bardic magic wasn't normally offensive, at least in her employ. Where would she be without this kind woman?! She focuses all that uncertainty and passion into her song. To give the tendrils weight, to give the barbs perfectly sharp edges with which to rend flying flesh flaps.
The skin kites cease their assault and slam into dead air between their claws and Aartha’s bloody face. They slam their whole bodies ahead to no avail, again and again, but they’re buffeted by Alvina’s well-timed bind. As Aartha, battered but not brought down, struggles to her feet, the kites react as if struck by swords. Magical barbs pierce them, ripping apart skin particles as the gravity within the bind pushes them about like marionettes. “Sure as rain in dark clouds, I do believe you’re no ordinary fishwife, neither,” Aartha says with a grin that lights her face up despite its cuts. “Now for some payback!” She reels in her line with startling speed and then casts out again, hooking not just one but both of the monsters. With a deep breath, Aartha yanks the line straight off the rod, slicing through the skin kites, ripping them in twain. Her breath is let out raggedly when, in quick succession, it is revealed that there is nothing within the corpses but lumps of skin, and then before a word can be said all three of those corpses flicker out of existence entirely. “Girl,” Aartha mutters, “I don’t know what sort of trouble you’re in, but I’ve not seen things so foul since going on ten years ago.” A motherly concern fills her eyes. Despite her wounds, she rushes over to Alvina with purpose in her trot. “Are you alright?”
Alvina holds the spell until Aartha completes her vengeance. Once the legendary fishing marm has dealt with their unorthodox ‘pest’ problem, the bard’s knees tremble as if they might buckle but she holds her ground. “I’d gladly be an ordinary fishwife, to get out of messes such as this.” She laughs mirthlessly. Just another instance where she’d wished for offensive song structure or skill with a dagger. They both watch with soundless surprise as the beasts flicker into mere memory. It only adds more unease to the tense and strange rendezvous. If not for her savior’s reaction, Alvina might have questioned the legitimacy of this event all together. “Ten years ago?” the bard’s brow furrows. “What happened ten years ago?” Did Alvina herself recall? She’d been in these lands for nearly that amount of time now, give or take. It’s possible the events Aartha referenced had grazed her ears back then. “Whoa, whoa – don’t move.” Alvina tries to insist but her companion is already upon her, casting her motherly light in her direction. The bard offers a small smile. “I’m all right, please; let me treat your wounds.”
Aartha flinches but does as requested, taking a deep breath while Alvina begins tending to her wounds. "Nothing holy." She perches down upon the sand and folds her arms. "Ten years ago? Or was it eleven? Could have been eleven. What's the difference? You don't live through that hell and forget the details. Only the chronology, maybe. Only with age." Aartha chuckles dryly and then groans when a slight motion causes the pain of her cuts to vibrate through her body. "It was the tail end of the Second Immortal War. It was everything you read about in stories. Everything outlandish, everything absurdist. Everything nightmarish. Everything like..." She gestures to wherever the skin kites have gone. "...like this, I suppose. One cannot be expected to go about her day in a relative calm when one has fear of a set of abominations striking them from out of the ether, as it were. Oh, aye, there were heroes. Gallant, pompous, impractical oafs. Savior of Xalious -- that paladin, Donovan Keane -- they say he was the spitting image of Alexander. Wouldn't know. Wasn't around for Alexander. But I'll tell you that Donovan Keane and his wife Cailyn Keane wore shimmering armor the sorts you'd need a fabled blacksmith to forge." The final rays of light fade from the horizon. A light, misty rain drizzles down from dark grey clouds. Aartha doesn't seem to notice. "Well, and there were some less lawful sorts, too. That Hero of Hellfire -- hear he made Steward of Frostmaw now, can you believe it? -- that one did what it took to get jobs done. Although I can't say I'd want to have a beer with the man, if you take my drift, girl. Oh, but I haven't thought of any of these things in... I don't know how many years. It's as well that I rant at you about the men and women who fought the monsters, not the monsters themselves. That's no story fit for retelling. Nor, I suspect, is this one. Aye, I've always quietly feared a return to those sleepless nights." She peers up at Alvina, standing upright if her medical treatment has concluded. "Be safe, girl. I'll pray to the gods I'm mistaken. I'll pray to the gods this was a fluke."
Alvina chuckled mirthlessly. "Nothing holy about me," she promised, sorting through her satchel for bardic balms and enchanted bandages. While she worked, she listened. Focused with her attention as if that's all there was. The crash of the nearby waves are lost to the woman's story. She remembers a memorial, under a lush tree and a canoe. She focuses harder on the healing, trying to imagine Donovan Keane and his wife Cailyn. She wonders if they looked like Jacklin and Pars had. A battle-ready couple if ever one should exist. The bard hadn't stumbled across their names in ages...nearly a decade or so now. Right up there with other ghosts that had come and gone while she remained. Then the mention of this Hero of Hellfire. She knew him. Or used to. His exaggerated reactions, lopsided smile and rapid gait. His expressive heart. There's one particularly nasty bite on the woman's right arm, so she'll focus on that instead. The crimson haired woman sighs, pressing her hand against the wound and muttering softly until the wound vanishes seemingly into thin air. The cloak over her right arm darkens with moisture. Alvina clears her throat and nods. "Aye," She offers, not sure what else to say on the matter. "I bet he has quite a few stories still to tell..." The Immortal War. A valid thing to fear, by living through it or hearing tales alone. "Time is funny that way." She frowns, drawing back to resort her healing herbs and balms into her satchel. The weight doesn't show on the exterior. The Fishing Wife stands and Alvina follows suit with a thin, polite smile of gratitude. "Thank you for your assistance." A short bow at the waste. "Let us both pray, for the sake of those who've gone before and those still to come." Emerald optics are cast out over the dismal horizon. What else did Lithrydel possibly have to lose?