RP:Stormbringer

Rocky Outcropping, Venturil

Raidh is on foot this morning, scrambling up a scree of rock which flakes away now and then underfoot, threatening to send her on a painful tumble back down the steep crag to the stony ground below, where Nidrun is nosing through poorly-nourished, yellowed grasses for a decent mouthful of breakfast and remaining disappointed so far. On high, her rider finally reaches a short plateau which affords her a less-than-imposing view of the plains to the west, though the mountains to the north are slightly more impressive from here than from the flatlands. She pauses to catch her wind and set her gaze to taller crags yet, which are much higher than she thought they would be before she’d ventured to climb them. The Rider has never been so far from the ground before, and even this slight altitude makes her somewhat light-headed. But she has, after all, made a promise to the Jarl. And now that a visit home is imminent, she will do her best to fulfil it. Her armours too remain below, too heavy for such arduous climbing, so she is bare-headed and wears only a short tunic and breeches though as ever she bears her axe and with it her good bow and its quiver of arrows.

Xersom enjoyed the high altitude, but it wasn't in the form of the wraithen general with faux features of all too handsome humanity. Rather it was in the enormous and tremendous form of a green dragon that stretched wide wings in shimmering emeralds like a trillion tiny gemstones. It soared along the morning sky upon those massive wings and completed its presence with a ear-splitting and deafening roar that thunderous cracked in defiance of the heavens. Such a magnificent and terrifying beast, the creature circled the air and the rider, apparently, from such heights only to crash in a landing that lifted dirt and clod in a torrential rain of dust; saurian blocking the path of the woman. It twisted its head in order to peer upon her with a serpentine eye before a thunderous and booming voice echoed from its jaw, "I continue to stumble upon you, Raidh," it resonated for what might be a mile, as his gaze drank in the form of bare-headed and unarmored woman.

Raidh almost has cause to regret not bringing a change of breeches when Sacrilus shrieks, let alone after that colossal landing in her near vicinity, on this unstable rock.. Rubbing the grit of chert-dust from her eyes with one hand, her other is swiftly upon the handle of her axe, as if an axe alone could possibly defend her from such a leviathan beast. But once more, the dragon chooses to make her a partner in conversation rather than a light morning snack, so far, and so she keeps the words of power trapped behind her clenched teeth, and the amulet strung around her neck stays there. “Sacrilus,” she coughs, for the dust has coated her throat as well. Her blue gaze is veined in red from the irritant motes when she peers at the dragon, craning her neck to look him in the eye. “A girl could get to thinking you’re following her, so often it is that we meet.”

Xersom twisted his enormous and mighty head by the wretching of his neck back and forth before his form visibly shuddered and changed. Scales melded into flesh that bled as his massive form shrunk and receded. Finally, athletic form crouched before it ascended to stand in human disguise before the mounted woman. Though perhaps a bit more than what she wanted to see; he stood with muscles that rippled beneath taut flesh and nude before her, but aside from that charming and flawless face that was faux and a mask, intricate carvings covered his body as if by a dagger's point in symbols that could only be described as evil. Intense green eyes lifted to the woman, "Never, lest your kind seek to destroy their oldest foe. I can think of many worse faces to follow."

Raidh’s people, unlike most of those hailing from the White City, see no cause for shame nor titillation in nudity; on the vast and treeless plains there’s nowhere to hide, and this fact has translated into the perceptions and customs of its natives to this degree. So the girl looks upon Xersom’s human frame with the same critical eye she might give a good horse, for horses too go naked without blushing. Except, good horses don’t turn into barn-sized reptiles, or bear upon their hides such marking as to make one’s teeth ache. “My people don’t know you exist, or surely they would seek that very thing,” the girl sits on a flat plane of chert, gesturing for Sacrilus to do the same, “You must know how deep our hatred runs for dragon-kind. And that this hatred is not without cause.” It is hard to speak of the old wounds, with the one whose kind is at the root of the harm, hard not to allow fear to overwhelm her. Yet, Raidh has the folly of youth on her side, and an amulet from her Amma, and all the bravado these things, erroneously or otherwise, have to offer. “You, yourself, are in the oldest songs, which tell of the evil you wrought upon the lands, and here you are branded all over by that same evil,” again, her blue gaze scans the markings, “Yet here I am, alive before you for the third time.” A hand-sized skin of water appends her belt, and this is now unhooked and unstoppered, and offered first to the dragon, though Raidh’s tongue feels like a shred of rawhide in her mouth. “And you might still be the greatest evil to rise in this world, since Arrecation himself.” Those blue eyes are fierce upon Sacrilus, now. “So. Are you?”

Xersom lifted his hand in order to briefly deny the offered water, "You go ahead first," he replied as his nude body moved to shamelessly sit on the flat plane of chert beside the unarmored woman. His form was certainly impressive and altogether something stunning, though it was covered with those runes and markings that were of the Dark Immortals' own language rather than that of common, and certainly pervasive against the sight of any that witnessed, yet freely and shamelessly betrayed to the gaze of the woman. "Perhaps I am. Perhaps I am the greatest evil to walk among this land since my lord Arrecation. Perhaps I should be struck down where I sit. There is certainly nothing inheritly 'good' about me. But not everything is so easily defined, is it. After all, I haven't gobbled you up, and this is the third time we've spoken. Nor have I plagued your countrymen and their lands in eras. Just as there is a reason I am in the oldest song, there is a reason that it is not well-known that I am existing. So do you plan to cut me down where I sit, Raidh?"

Raidh swallows a gulp of sweet-water gratefully, after swishing it around in her mouth. The skin is then handed to the man-dragon, almost casually. She shakes her head, “My Amma always said, there’s two types of evil in the world, and only one of them is truly evil. The mad wharg which raids a yurt in the night to snatch up the flesh of children is deemed a great evil by those who suffer its ravages, yet it is no more malevolent in intent than the man who kills a bison for its meat.” She is finding it hard to look at her erstwhile companion, not for his raw and manly nudity’s sake, but because of the markings which scar otherwise beautiful skin. “Then there’s the other kind, which Amma said is caused by a terrible deficit of soul, a hole that nothing can fill, where the finer aspects of creation cannot gain solid footing,” as if to illustrate this, a sliver of flaky rock displaced by her own climb picks that moment to fall away into the flat ground below, further panicking Raidh’s mare, who was frothing and pacing and whinnying in concern but now shies from the shattering shards of stone. “Amma said such creatures as these are the true evil. And I am not as yet sure which you are. However, you have shown me no ill-will, and one cannot dwell in the tales of old alone, for everything changes, even the mountains. Even the gods. And their servants.” There’s no fear in her eyes now, those eyes which have witnessed the realm of ghosts and returned to the world of the living, and now may witness things other mortals cannot. “Perhaps your heart has wearied of eternal emptiness, Sacrilus. Perhaps you are merely biding your time before you murder us all. I cannot know, and so I must reserve judgement, even it’s the last thing which ever passes through my mind.” Raidh summons a brief smile, despite everything, “Anyway, you survived my cooking. So you must be hard to kill.”

Xersom chuckled wryly as he took hold of the skin of sweet water and after her tale and analogy of the two types of evil in the world. "Perhaps it is not so difficult, and I merely wish to continue to exist," he returned after a swig and subsequent gulp of the water into that flawless and faux face, "even when I have only ever died at the hands of a Light Immortal." The skin was offered back, but were Raidh to grasp it his own hand would quickly grasp her's by the wrist and powerfully yank her close to him; it was not a gesture of hostility or impending doom, or even some helpless romantic's misguided gesture of affection, but mostly platonic and only to bring her face mere inches from his own while to lay her palm flat against his breast above his heart. A heart that she would be able to feel beating. "This is what I had gained after my reincarnation, and perhaps it may rest your troubled mind," he murmured to her, his volume not needing to be high if only by her forced proximity. His hand lessened its grip so she may pull away as he would expect after those words.

Raidh unclenches her eyelids one at a time, once it’s clear that the ancient is not going to bite her head off, and is left to stare at the back of her own hand where it lies over the powerful thudding of the heart below the creature’s skin and muscle. A cold wind ruffles over her tightly-braided hair, a gust that could seem perfectly natural for their present surrounds, but in which Raidh hears the whisper of ancient voices. She can’t make out what they’re saying, though, for it seems to her the thunder of life in the dragon-man’s chest drowns out everything else for a time, even the deep resonance of his voice as he speaks to her. She does not pull away when his vise-like grip relaxes, only raises her own face to his. “The troubles of my mind are worth nothing, just a fart in a tornado, as my brother likes to say. So now I know you have a heart, Sacrilus. My worthless concern is for its contents. And…” she’s almost whispering now, “I don’t yet fancy cutting it open for a look. So you are safe from that fate, at least.” Raidh retracts her wrist now, slowly drawing herself to her former position. “What I do know is, your wish to simply exist might be made a lot more challenging, should you take to flying about over the plains. It would also mean we wouldn’t run into each other by sheer coincidence any more.” She holds her hand out, eyeing the water-skin momentarily. “And I think maybe that would be a shame.”

Xersom twisted that faux face of flawlessness into a charming if a bit cunning grin as her face is raised to his, her voice lowered to a whisper, and her hand remained pressed palm against his chest as the shieldmaiden felt the thundering of his heart's beat. It wasn't a grin that mocked or reigned victorious over the woman, but one that was simply suited to his mask and those intense green eyes in the watching of the female's realization of his revelation to her. "It is a shame I cannot openly take flight over the plains I used to, but your words hold wisdom. It has not been my home since your ancestors took foothold there and defended themselves from my brothers and sisters. Nor can I reside in the forests of the east, where the very trees loath my name as my lord burned their ancestors to the ground in droves along with the elves that hid among them. But it is as you have said, no? The exiled wander; home is wherever my head can rest." The skin was placed in the hand held out to him, casually, and his intense gaze twists with his head to look over the horizon and away from the mountains, "Had I place no worth in your concern or troubles, Raidh, you'd already have been eaten. But there's something about you that I desire to see; to defend; to watch thrive," he continued as he gazed away, "Do you want to know what it is?"

Raidh shakes her head again, and her slender nose wrinkles slightly, “Not really.” She gives him that sort of askew glance though, that humans give each other when wry jests are made. “Of course I want to know.” It bothers her, this issue of his having to wander, displaced, but doesn’t know why – and surely now isn’t the time to puzzle it out. She cannot help her gaze wandering to the Black Spires, inhospitable as they are, and as empty of the object of her morning’s quest.. It is all put aside, for the sake of the dragon’s answer.

Xersom grinned and abruptly stood up, "Me too," he answered in a tease as his nude figure moved a few paces now to face and look toward the Black Spires, and even lifted a hand as muscles rippled visibly beneath taut, etch-covered flesh in order to shield his sight from the sun to more keenly focus on them. "You should get a move on," the ancient advised, "Storm's brewing. There's a cave a ways further along the path that even your horse can fit in, should be able to get there by the time it hits. If you get caught in the open, use the horn, and I'll let you rest under my wing. Provided you don't go for a heart shot while you stay there." Another teasing grin and a look toward her, over his shoulder, "But I think you could probably make it just fine. Where are you headed, anyway?"

Raidh frowns at the dragon in much the same way as she does at Avaldi when he teases her, not with any true chagrin, “Into the storm,” she replies, “There are stories among the people who dwell in these foothills, which are relevant to a promise I made to my father before I left home.” Her turn to be cryptic, now. “They say the thing I seek will be found, if it is ever to be found again, in the heart of a storm passing over a mountain.” She kicks a loose rock, which skitters madly over the edge of the precipice she’s recently scaled, “What they didn’t tell me was how high one must climb, to reach a mountain-top. I am not sure I fancy being even this high in a gale. Perhaps I will, then, seek this cave and wait it out.” And abandon the quest, though it was a wild and unlikely fancy, to begin with. She sighs, letting it go for now.

Xersom tilted his head, "Interesting. Well, you're in luck that this season is a particularly stormy one, that means many chances, no?" But curiosity began to reign within the mind of the former general of Arrecation, as his gaze returned toward the mountain, and in particular it's top. What might be found there? "I'd offer to climb with you, but I'm not really... equipped to do so. But I wish you luck on the completion of your promise. Just remember, stories change like men and mountains. May not be an actual storm or mountain it means. But then again, it might." And the dragon would surely move to find out during the midst of the storm, if Raidh didn't make it there or gave up. If only for the curiosity to be sated. "You look good without so much armor on," he said sidelong as he turned from her and began to walk away, buck naked, in a different direction than the one she was headed or the one she had arrived from. "But far less intimidating."

Raidh watches him go without replying to anything he’d said, as it all made her mind spin in eight different directions at once, except the last of it, to which she states as she rises to her own feet in preparation to climb down to the path below and fetch Nidrun for a dash to the promised cave, “I’m sorry to have intimidated you, O Ancient One.” Then she was sliding down the sharp and unstable rocks, much more quickly than she’d ascended, leaving the dragon to his own devices, and her many thoughts for the shelter she’d yet to find.

A Bit Later

Xersom had left the woman in the cave, or more specifically, he didn't follow her or Nidrun into the safety that it harbored as the cold rain of the coming storm started pouring and striking to rush rivulets of water down his toned, forsaken-etched, and nude body. Even his faux face of charming but perversely seductive grin and intense green eyes was subject to the onslaught of the crisp, refreshing downpour as it twisted in order to look upward toward the peak of the mountain. That was his new agenda, offered to him by the slip of Raidh's tongue, but he wouldn't risk flight in this weather and wrath of Sven, Hind, or Lore watching from the heavens. He would have to trek by foot. Not that it mattered much; age and power offered him benefits from his long, dark life. The male's gaze went forward as he pressed toward that mountain as if unmoved by the cold rain; his body bore no effect from it aside from the sheen of wet skin that glistened as each muscled rippled beneath the taut flesh. No goosebumps, nothing. Hands reached to the side of the rocky base, and with a gaze back toward the peak the dragon began to ascend. A long-lost artifact. Curiosity overpowered his desire to see Raidh succeed.

Raidh by now is in the cave, and drenched. Her horse is drenched and incredibly unhappy. The mare shivers water off her hide with a violent shake of neck that ripples through her whole frame, and gives Raidh a secondary shower of rainwater mingled with horse-sweat. Raidh is also trying to light a small fire and it doesn’t help. “Thanks,” she mutters at Nidrun, who droops her long head and eyeballs the girl darkly. Raidh sighs. “Come now, Amma. All good things are but by courage gained. You told me that yourself, while you walked as a woman.” The mare snorts at her, as if to dismiss the notion. Outside, the storm is building steadily, and a crack of thunder has Raidh glance to the cave’s exit, from where she can see nothing but gray skies and a dim flash of lightning from higher up the mountain. The rain pelts in gusts, buffeted across the peaks like water-daggers by the wind, and the thunder cracks like the whips of gods. At the tallest part of this mountain’s summit, something of a whirlwind grows, sucking dust and plant-debris up into its swirling mouth. In the cave, Raidh manages to set some dry cave-moss smoldering, and is unaware of Sacrilus’ trek, the whirlwind and anything else going on outside. The smoke is thick and stinks. Nidrun snorts again.

Xersom is certainly unaware of Raidh's plight thereafter, as he grinned defiantly toward the heavens as that charming face took on a more distinctively cruel and twisted manner in the light of the flashing lightning and authoritive thunderclaps. He was rebellious against them, these gods, and it was a nostalgic thrill to defy them again even in this smallest of conquering such as braving their earth and stormy winds. Naked, no less. He continued to ascend mostly unhindered by the wetness of the rock, slipping perhaps only once and catching himself rather than falling to a treacherous plummet to his death. That is, before green eyes that burned intensely narrowed to make out more keenly the growing whirlwind at the tallest part of this mountain's summit. It became his destination; his path just subtly changing toward it and the swirling mouth it had.

Raidh shrugs out of her wet tunic, though the air in the cave is chilly; better to dry off in her thin undershirt than suffer wet wool. She drapes the soaked garment over a jut of rock and goes about searching for anything else suitable to feed the little fire with. It seems she is not the first to shelter here, by any means. Brandishing a rock-shard with a little burning moss on its end for a smelly, makeshift candle, the girl steps deeper into the cavern’s murky confines, earning herself a nervous whicker from Nidrun. “It’s fine, Amma. Just looking for..” Something she isn’t finding, but what she has now found makes her forget fire-fuel. Daubed on the cave’s rocky slab walls, strange ochre paintings seem almost to move in the light of Raidh’s feeble flame.

On the mountain-top, the wind is beyond wild, approaching vicious, and pelts the ground and any mad or brave enough to dare these heights, hail and grit and splinters of detritus from the highland forests. Almost masked by a mighty clap of thunder loud enough to vibrate loose rocks, a high-pitched shrieking keens and roars from the whirlwind’s midst, and shapes flutter within like the wings of mythical birds. The closer the dragon comes to the summit, the louder are these sounds and the more solid the shapes and shadows fluttering in the storm’s peculiar eye. A feather blows past his face, far larger than could belong to any bird he’s seen.

Xersom certainly would be disappointed, as a male, to miss the hardened woman in a wet and thin undershirt if he knew that was happening in the cave far below. But as it were he had determination and defiance against the elements painted upon his features that flashed with a darkened sense of sinister presence each time the lightning cast illumination to his ascending and nude frame. The shrieking keens and roars from the midst did not go unnoticed as hail, grit and splinters of detritus fought against his self-mutilated form with every inch he gained up the mountain's precarious peak. The feather flew past his face in a whip, and it caused the dragon to pause and twist his head in order to watch it twirl and whip around in the air as it moved in the opposite direction of his destination. It was only to attempt to scrutinize it closer, but to no avail, so the madman pressed onward until he hoisted himself with every muscle in his body tensing in order to struggle against the hellish wind, and yanked himself up upon the summit. One hand yanked out his blade; the abysmally black weapon seemingly sucking in any light around it and momentarily throwing the wind askew as he pushed himself forcibly into the whirlwind.

Had Raidh known the dragon in a man’s shape was planning to hike to the very place she’d intended and failed to go, might have offered him warning as to what it was, exactly, she’d been seeking up there. Not that it would have done him any good, seeing as the thing Raidh sought was not the same thing that now manifested in the shocking bluster and crackle of the maelstrom. That feather, wet now and wind-bedraggled, blows into the cave’s mouth to slap Nidrun’s face. The mare lets out a squealish grunt of surprise, shaking her head to dislodge the offending pinion. Raidh assumes her horse is worried by the storm, though Nidrun has weathered many of its like out on the open plains, where horse and rider are often the tallest things standing; the Riddarnir have learned since ancient times to lie their horses down when the weather-gods go to war, or risk being stricken to char by their brilliant, jagged swords. “Hush, Amma,’ she croons, too busy studying those strange markings on the cavern wall to pay her mare much mind. Thunder wracks Raidh’s ears and echoes all around the cave.

The storm beats on Xersom cruelly, and even more so, once he draws that dark weapon. As if in response to it, crooked blue fingers of lightning fork toward him from the core of the tempest as though meaning to push him off the mountain with the force of their electrical touch. Something which might feel like great iron hooks rake at his back, and winged shapes flurry all about him now, tipped with the cruelly-curved beaks of raptors. The scent of ozone is high, enough to itch his nostrils and intensifying all the while. Whatever dwells in the heart of the storm, it isn’t exactly rolling out the welcome mat. A great angry bolt of blue-white fury, is atop that lofty height above aimed squarely at the figure once called ‘wraith’.

Xersom was certainly not suspecting to become assaulted by a multitude of these creatures as he pushed his way into the tempest as the warring weather-gods raged in their divine fury. He wasn't even sure what they were except by their silhouettes in flurried motion by wing and the feeling of what might be great iron hooks that suddenly began to rip his body apart. It easily pierced the soft flesh of disguised dragon and former general, drawing blood as he began to whip around and slash blindly only to be struck at from the opposite side again. Yet, unlike their shrieks, his own were muted by gritted teeth. That is, until the jagged sword of the heavens struck brilliantly the powerful creature. He was cast a few feet along the near-flat ledge of the peak, and that faux mask was thrown from his face to fall plummeting to the ground far beneath; little did he know that it would land at the mouth of the cave in which Raidh found refuge. What immediately happened was the snapping of the unholy and ungodly abomination's true face to look upon those silhouettes; those eyes were not the intense green. They were pits of shadow; infinitely dark and impenetrable as they were depthless, swirling at the edges as if torn holes and not actually eyes themselves. All over his face, like his body, were carvings masochistically carved into the flesh, and constantly bleeding as if they were freshly made. Teeth? Serrated points that were revealed when the wraith's mouth opened to contrast his former muteness and cast into the air a hideous and unnatural shriek like that of a banshee. But the former general did not desire to remain in such a form; his naked body began to change, and the glint of deep green scales began to flow fluidly along his forsaken flesh as he began to change -violently. His body wrecked in convulsions as it grew and contorted, until the massive saurian clutched at the peak and lifted it's head to release a roar that rivaled that of the deafening thunder. Then two foreclaws were whipped forward as wings spread, aiming at whatever silhouette his serpentine eyes could decipher in attempt to not only bat the birdlike creatures down, but pulverise the avian bones within them.

Raidh’s little moss-candle sputters and dies, leaving her in the abject gloom of the nethermost portions of the cave. Her mouth hangs open in the darkness, for right before the light went out, she understood what all those prehistoric paintings were about. In the dark, she stumbles toward Nidrun and the guttering fire that’s now almost burned itself out, and through its rancorous smoke she reaches for her armour and weapons. Mail is cold on her skin and pinches without her tunic below it. Nidrun has her tail clamped down hard over her butt, the mare trembling and stamping, so that Raidh wonders if she, too, has figured out what it is which haunts the top of this storm-wracked tor. “Be right back,” she tells the horse, and in the only decent light available, the white strobe of lightning flashes across the storm-darkened sky, finds the lip of the cavernous shelter and plunges into the wind beyond. She slips, lands hard on her backside, rattling her tail-bone, and as she scrambles to her feet again, sees what she slipped on. A face!? Even torn off and trodden-on, she knows who it belonged to, and a sliver of terror pierces her heart; she assumes the creature who dwells in the maelstrom has killed her strange companion, and if it can do this him – what’s it going to do to her? Still, she pulls reluctant courage from somewhere down in her boots and struggles up the first leg of that violently buffeted incline.

Meanwhile, the battle above is raging; two great forces clashing from ground and air, lightning and the absolute brutality of fang and claw. Neither force is winning, both are losing this onslaught, wounding each other in equal measure. Sacrilus will be well aware by now that the things in the storm are bird-like, but somehow much more than that, perhaps things which only borrow the forms of birds much as he borrows the flesh of a man. Feathers the length of man’s arm explode in the wind, and great gouts of blood sluice down to drench the dragon, while talons and beaks like scythes wreak terrible payback on his now-saurian frame.

Raidh is below, barely able to see through rain (is rain meant to be red?) battering her face, and she’s shouting something though the wind steals her voice and the thunder drowns it out. On she climbs, and never thought she’d be so glad as she is now, to hear the roar of a dragon. Sacrilus lives! But there’s a chance he may not for very much longer, if she doesn’t hurry.

Xersom was fighting, and while he was a being of ancient and almost unfathomable power compared to most, these things in the storm were something that he'd never encountered before; they had the advantage with the storm raging against him. No, they must be the source of the storm itself -these mystical and strange creatures. Were he of his first incarnation, the general himself, he'd be able to rip these creatures to crimson mists with nothing more than the sound of his voice or the sight of his face, but he was not of Arrecation anymore. He was not the wraith that he once was. He had a heartbeat, and this was swiftly becoming a lesson in humility. But ever the defiant one against power that held authority where his own simply spread darkness, the dragon raged on and roared again as he made for another swipe at one of the massive bird-like silhouettes in the storm. He hadn't been aware that Raidh was below, or shouting something against the tempestuous wind as she struggled up the incline. His saurian head pulled back and a deafening sound filled the area; fire. It lit up the mountaintop as the massive and ancient beast breathed a violent and furious inferno with an attempt to engulf the fluttering and hostile beasts and their whirlwind entirely with merciless flame. Xersom did not even notice his scales both deflecting and being shred by great talons to bleed down the mountaintop.

Raidh bows her head to hide her face against the cold mesh of her chainmailed arm, as if this in any way might protect her ears and soul from the horror of the dragon’s furious bellowing, or the thinner but spirit-piercing shrieks of the things he battled. Now comes the sharp stink of burning feathers and charred blood on the wind, which howls like a wounded creature itself. Raidh is left to grope her way blindly up the stony tor, now and then missing a finger- or toe-hold and tumbling down a ways, two steps forward and three back as it were, but still she’s making progress.

Fire above finds its mark. Fleshly things shrivel and fall, agonised heaps with cooked eyes and useless limbs which wear only ash for feathers. Yet, they are only the lesser kin of the being which engendered them, the one at the very heart of the lightning and thunder’s din, the thing which now seeks immediate and brutal revenge for the loss of its children. The wind almost stills, as if something has inhaled it all suddenly, and in that brief respite Sacrilus may gather a glimpse of the storm-bringer. Vast and ethereal-seeming, shimmering with power and might, a bird-headed thing (no! a bird, entirely now? it shifts, with every crack of lightning) it gathers its strength for one almighty bolt of electric carnage, as uncaring as the wind itself as to whether it blows the whole top of the mountain to smithereens, as long as the dragon goes with it!

Raidh isn’t nearly at the peak, but she is far enough up by now to witness some of the battle, and in that awful lull of wind reminiscent of a hurricane’s dead eye, she draws her own breath hard and bellows: “Thuruz!” It’s like a new-hatched chick peeping into the roar of a cannon, that tiny sound. Yet, the storm-being recoils, the blast it is formulating fizzling somewhat. Raidh is heartened by the fact they’re not all dead yet. “Thuruz!” she cries again, and this is followed by a string of words she hopes are correct translations of the marks found inside the cave. One last lightning-strike whips out across the mount, lashing in the dragon’s direction, but the storm is retreating now, blustering in a welter of furious sparks and dripping, red rain. Raidh is exhausted, and slumps against a boulder to get her breath back; the rancid stink of the dying and dead storm-birds inhaled along with cold mountain air.

Xersom 's massive and saurian head focused upon the ethereal-seeming and mythical bird of a creature as the storm lulled as if a calm of the inhalation of a breath, only for it to whip around in order to view the tiny form of Raidh as she cried out and bellowed as loud as she could. It was a sufficient distraction for that last bolt of lightning that whipped out in his direction to strike him square in the scaled chest. Sparks flew with a deafening crash, and there was a distinctly pained cry from the ancient being as the creature slowly leaned backward. And continued to lean until he tumbled from his perch at the mountaintop and plummeted to the earth bellow. His sheer size allowed the dark green beast to survive the fall with a broken wing and likely a few bones beneath as he bled lightly from the myriad of scratches all over his scaled body, but it was hard to move. So he lied there, chest heaving with heavy breath through massive nostrils, and the great Sacrilus refused to shift back without his mask; he refused to risk his abysmal face to haunt what seems like the only person he's trusted.

Raidh creeps like a scared bug over the few remaining rocks between herself and the fallen dragon, her eyes wide with the shock of what she’s witnessed turning to the skies, which are still unnaturally dark now but for the glowering of ever-more distant lightning. She’s afraid to approach the dragon, even knowing who it is, and that he’s aforetimes offered her no harm. He’s massive, and alien, and all the ancient blood whose fruit she is sings in her veins a song of aeons-old hatred and fearful enmity. Her axe is at her back, and it crossed her mind that if she wanted to kill the beast, now was likely the only clear opportunity she’d get. The amulet at her throat feels hot and heavy. One shot. Just one, while he’s grounded. All the while that honor and history are warring within her, Raidh is still closing the distance between her and the former wraith. As she reaches him, honor wins and the axe remains undrawn from its strap at her back. Clouds of acrid smoke roll down from higher ground, wind-borne ash rains bits of burned feathers. Raidh says, to the great crumpled form, “It’s gone. The Thunderbird is gone.”

Xersom 's massive and scaled chest rose and fell with labored breath as one of those saurian eyes opened in order to look toward Raidh after she spoke, and there was distinct pain in it. There were few creatures in existence that could damage the ancient being, let alone bring him to such a vulnerable state where perhaps the simple stroke of an axe might cut him down. He couldn't move, and his eyes shut as he breathed loudly through large nostrils more akin to an animal than a man. Instead he lay there, at the mercy of the shieldmaiden, every breath a struggle. He needed to change back, but he wouldn't; unwilling to show her that face of terror and horror. He sought an artifact; for whatever reason, he didn't know. Perhaps to hoard it, perhaps out of curiosity, or perhaps to impress this mere human woman. There was only a creature of a magnitude of power that even he would avoid in the future.

Raidh wears a mask of her own, albeit only a fleeting expression of dismay. “My fault,” she gasps, realizing that the dragon had probably ascended the tor because of what she’d said about her quest, and because she knows precisely nothing about fixing the wounds of dragons (the notion has never once entered a single head among any of her tribe this past several thousands of years). But she cannot very well leave him here to bleed alone, seeing she’s most likely the cause of his coming into peril’s way. So she offers his scaly hide a quick pat of sympathy, for want of anything else more useful, and because she is not sure if he’s dying does her best to make things right at least on the level of knowledge. “I didn’t know. I understood it all backward, I thought they meant griffins were here, not a stormbringer.” She spies a broken wing-strut poking through a wing’s thinner skin, scans the dragon’s frame and finds burns, bleeding patches where scales are missing. When she speaks, her voice is tight with the effort of holding back tears of guilt, “I’m sorry. I don’t know how to help you.”

Xersom snorted half in amusement for her words, and half from the pain of the physical exertion; griffins! Much easier to fight, and likely a lot tastier as a meal, but nonetheless he fought a Thunderbird and survived. That was quite a feat, in his mind; a mind where there wasn't much left for life anymore but simply wandering and existing. If he died here and now, the madman had already made peace with it, but something kept him from simply letting go at this moment. He wouldn't bleed to death, and eventually bones would mend themselves, so for now all he could do was lie there. That massive saurian head twisted gently as she apologized in order to gently nudge his massive maw against her lithe frame. A sort of 'it's okay' gesture. In truth, he was somewhat surprised at her guilt being shown when she could bury an axe into his chest. One eye opened just slightly as he laboriously breathed in order to take in the visage of her rain-soaked frame, stained with crimson.

Raidh is nudged in the belly so oofs gently instead of saying anything more for the moment, while her mind grapples the problem of how she might set a broken wing of this magnitude. Fenceposts. Lots of string? Her rain-soaked frame is almost as pathetic a sight as the dragon himself; her wheat-colored hair is plastered down where her helm ends, with water and clots and flecks of crispy feather, though her ‘wounds’ amount to scrapes caused by sliding down sharp rocks and the majority of the blood on her is not her own. They rain’s almost passed entirely now, just the odd splot of it speckling the two, and the wind merely an occasional, disgruntled bluster blowing the dark away. “At the least, I can try to fix your wing,” she nods her belief that she can do this, yes she can, “I’ll just need to go fetch a few things.” She’s staring into that huge, open eye as she speaks, “It won’t take..” From below, Nidrun is heard screaming, a frightful whinny of pain and fear. “Amma!” She glances between the dragon and the cavern, torn but not too badly in her loyalties. She owes the dragon for his grave injuries; the mare is family. “I have to go,” she cries and starts sliding down the steepest portion of rock on the seat of her pants, her last audible words carrying up to Sacrilus, “I’ll try to come back, as quickly as I can.”